Not Such a Bumpy Road After All
Some people say that it’s a bumpy road to get from Omaha, Nebraska to New Omaha, Alaska. I don’t understand these people. Sure, it may be a bumpy road, but haven’t they ever seen any other roads? As far as bumpy roads go, the Omaha-New Omaha road is one of the least bumpy.
Sure, it’s no New York City, New York to York City, Florida road. That road could almost be described as “well maintained” and “perfectly smooth” and “without any bumps whatsoever.” But isn’t it expecting too much to hope that all other city-to-city roads in the country would be able to compete with such a perfect road as that one?
I think that we ought to be able to judge any road against a hypothetical average road. Let us all such an average road Ra. For any specific road Ri, that road is said to be a “good road” or “not a very bumpy road” if its bumpiness quotient is less than the bumpiness quotient of our average road. In other words, BQ(Ri) < BQ(Ra).
Conversely, for roads where BQ(Ri) > BQ(Ra), it is safe to describe such roads as “a bumpy road” or “bumpier than average” or “not a very smooth road at all, wouldn’t you say?”
If the bumpiness quotient is roughly equal to BQ(Ra) it is fair to describe the road as “averagely bumpy” or “not bad, but not great” or “back in my day, this would have been the best road that any human had ever taken from one city to another, so stop yer yammering!”
I don’t know if anyone is interested in adopting a standard set of bumpiness measurements, that would allow us to come up with a whole range of plain language descriptions that could be used to describe any road in the country. I know that even the least road-savvy residents of Somalia are laughing at us for our woefully underdeveloped and primitive road bumpiness vocabulary. And, to be honest, I’ve had enough of being laughed at by Somalians. Can’t we stand up, improve our bumpy vocabulary, and then sit back down again?
I say that it’s time. We need to get enough other people on board to make this work, and when I say “we” I mean “me.” Except in that sentence, when I mean “I”, because otherwise my grammar would be in a shambles, and that’s not something that a bumpy vocabularist can experience and still be able to go through the day without a guilty conscience. Yes, I know that sentence wasn’t much better, but at least it was a little better, so get off my back already. My specialty will be road grammar, not this general sentence grammar that people make such a big deal out of.
And why is it such a big deal in our schools and universities, while almost no time at all is spent trying to describe roads? What does that say about the kind of priorities our society has, and what lessons is it teaching our impressionable young students? These students are likely to grow up to be completely uncaring about bumpy words. This is our chance to make a difference in the world and completely change peoples’ lives for the better (and for the bumpier.) Can we really afford to not address these problems now, before it’s too late?
I say no. The cost of not addressing these issues is estimated at 200 billion dollars over the next five years (math available upon request to qualified and pre-approved requestors.) Meanwhile, the cost of developing a comprehensive road bumpiness lexicon and teaching it to everyone is estimated at only $6.98 (again, math available upon request.) It seems like a no-brainer to me to make that decision, but are our politicians listening? No. They’re sitting there in Washington on their relatively unbumpy streets and not caring at all about the kinds of roads that average Americans have to deal with on a daily—or at least bi-annual—basis.
Why do our current politicians hate bumpy freedom so much? Why are we ranked 187th in the world as far as nations with a comprehensive road bumpiness policy? When will people wake up and force the politicians to finally deal with these issues that they’ve been carelessly avoiding for so long?
I hope it’s soon, because if one more person describes the Omaha-New Omaha road as “a bumpy road†I can’t be held accountable for my actions. I’m not going to punch them or anything, but I might glare at them with a level of ferocity that would be a crime in a more civilized society.
If you’re with me, let me know. Express your intent to help out in the comments below, and let’s change this country for the better, at least as far as our bumpy road vocabulary goes. If nobody pitches in and helps out, my glaring may reach previously unprecedented levels of glaritude (as measured on the International Standards Organization Glaritude Scale). Do you really want that on your shoulders, all because you didn’t want to help me out? Not only will there be many new victims of my glaring eyes, but it may actually require modifications to the standard glaritude scale, which will undoubtedly be an expensive seven-year process of debate and experimentation.
Let’s not let things go that far.