In Praise of Small Words

May I have a small word with you?

I want to tell the tale of a group of folks, some here and some there, who like
to talk in one-pulse words.  There are no more than a few folks so far - a cult,
in a way - but you will want to play their game once you hear more.  I shall 
tell this tale in words of one pulse, if I can.  So, please, bear with me -
it will, or course, be short and sweet.

  The head of the group (called the Club for One-Pulse-Words) is, as luck
would have it, named Jim Grant.  He lives in an East Coast town best known
for its stone stoops, its Colts, and its soft crabs - the name of the town
is more than one pulse, but you know of where I speak.  Two more folks who
speak in one pulse live there, too; a fourth lives in the Town of Wind, and
the fifth lives in New York.

  "It has changed my life," says Jim Grant, who writes tunes to earn his keep.
"First, I had to switch my brand of booze to Jim Beam (on the rocks).  Then
I switched beers, to Beck's or Bass Ale.  Now I eat beans, rice, and some pork
and duck.  In truth, though, the best one pulse meal is a Big Mac, french
fries, and Coke."

  The books he reads have changed, too, since the club formed in March.  "Now
I read the likes of `Jaws' and 'Lord of the Flies'", he says.

  Like all groups, this one has a set of rules that all who join must live by.
They are:

  1) No words of more than one pulse.
  2) Words that make use of a small mark (such as don't) are fine but
     should be used with care.
  3) Folks' names that have more than one pulse should be changed to code
     words, or else in court.
  4) Don't be a pest.

  "We will keep it up as long as it takes for folks to see the point of our
cause," Jim Grant says.  Their point, in brief, is that words don't have to be
long to be good.

  With the rules in hand, friends send mail, make phone calls and speak in 
one-pulse words as much as three hours a day.  "Hi there!" is what they say
when they pick up the phone.  They say "So long!" when they hang up.

  If you think that this is a game that just a fool would want to play, you
are wrong.  Hear the one-pulse words of a star scribe for The New York Times,
who once toiled for the man in the White House who quit, and who now writes
a piece for his sheet on the use of words.

  "It sounds like a hell of a lot of fun to me," says the scribe, right off
the bat.  (His first name is Bill, and his last name is a gem.)  Then he
thinks on it some more and adds, "Where will it all end?"

  Bill thinks that it would have been strange for that great man with the beard,
named Abe, to have stood by that grave while the war 'twixt the Blues and the
Grays was fought long in the past.  What would he have said, the scribe asks,
if he had to talk in one-pulse words?

  "Piece of cake," says Jim Grant.  "Four score and six-plus-one years back."

  One of the one-pulse guys has the top job at St. Paul's Church in the same
town as Jim.  Asked if he will one day speak to his flock in one-pulse words,
he says: "It's not past the realm of chance."

  Like his pals, he finds the club a good way to rest his bones; he is 
five-times-ten-plus-three years old.  "It's fun and a dare", says the man,
whose first name is Bill and whose last name is the merged form of work and
man.  And he is sure that the game helps him in his job, too; It's more than
dumb luck, he says, that God is a one-pulse word.

  To be sure, there are lots of bad things you can do in one-pulse words - like
fall off a cliff.  And most of the bad words in our tongue come in the 
one-pulse size, but I can't print them here.

  Still, the club likes to point out that some of the great truths in our
world use words of just one pulse: "Where there's a will, there's a way."
"To thine own self be true."  "A stitch in time saves nine."  "A bird in
the hand is worth two in the bush."  "I am not a crook."

  But one one-pulse phrase gets used more by the club than all else - or gets
asked, at least: "Your place or mine?"

  At times, a thought they may like comes in a two-pulse size, so they change
it to fit.

  In the long run, though, the folks in the club get tired of the game -  just
like you, right now.  No more one-pulse words, they say.  We must stop right
now. Quick.

  "When I want to stop," says Jim Grant, "I pause, and then I say 'goodness.'
I wait a bit, to see how it feels.  Then I say 'happily'.  Then I pause some
more, shake, and clear my throat.  'Chrysanthemum!' I shout, and it's over.
I'm free again."

Dave Blum,
Some Month, One Nine Eight Two