Words, words, words...

As has been noted in this space, the late George Carlin used to say “I love words…there are 400,000 words in the English language and only seven you can’t say on television…”

While some resident may think those “naughty seven” may be applicable to the Village Board, the key word of interest is not even on the list. A bad word? Nah. Misused? Probably.

Independent.

Trustee Lisa Stone likes to wave her flag be pronouncing herself as an “independent voice.”

Independent of what? Yes, we know, independent of the old boys network.

Stone continues to overlook the history of the village to realize that many key decisions were made by women who dedicated their time to the development of the village. That, however, would make too much sense to Stone. Besides, what’s old? Village President Elliott Hartstein just had a birthday and he’s only a few years older than I am. Neither of us is old.

If she continues to think it’s an old boys network, she is clueless to her colleagues on the Board – Beverly Sussman, De Ann Glover and Jan Sirabian. Sussman, like Stone, is a first-termer. Glover and Sirabian have served the village for years and do so out of passion, not to be self-centered or make a name for themselves.

So now we need to move from George Carlin to the late S.I. Hayakawa, who among other things, was not only a college administrator (he was president of San Francisco State University), he was a renown semanticist who spent much of his career ‘studying the history of language patterns and habits of thought,’ according to U.S.English.org. I can only imagine what his thoughts would have been after watching Trustee Stone.

No doubt, Dr. Hayakawa would have bristled at her use, misuse, and over use of various words. Such as independent. There are, to no surprise, many definitions for independent. Merriam-Webster includes:

“… not dependent: as a (1) : not subject to control by others : (2) : not affiliated with a larger controlling unit b (1) : not requiring or relying on something else : not contingent (2) : not looking to others for one's opinions or for guidance in conduct (3) : not bound by or committed to a political party c (1) : not requiring or relying on others”

Sound like Liza? She would like you to think so. But recent rants show that she is focused only on self-interest items and does not contribute to items that affect the entire village. So who is guiding Trustee Stone? Is this true independence?

There are other words that could come into play as well. Merriam-Webster defines disrespectful as “a lack of respect” and define respect as

“… :an act of giving particular attention : consideration 3 a : high or special regard :esteem b : the quality or state of being esteemed c plural.."

The key words here are “consideration”, “esteem”, and “quality” – none of which seem to come into play with Stone. She shows little consideration for the efforts of her colleagues, holds no one in esteem, except for herself.

As for quality, well, her quality of her comments in both content and presentation is lacking. I never had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Hayakawa, but if it was possible to do so today, I wonder if he would associate one word with Trustee Stone’s incessant rants at Village Board meetings.

Annoying.

It would also be great if it was possible to hear the thoughts of the late Carlin. I don’t think he would have had one word. He might have seven.