| My Belgian friend, Greet, speaks perfect English. In fact, sometimes the way she says things is better than perfect. She always tells it like it is, so there is usually a little shock value in her super-direct talk. Then she makes things even more entertaining with some slightly unusual word choices. The combo always makes me laugh. And who doesn't love that? |  |
| I especially love it when Greet uses the word "asocial." Hearing a word I don't hear very often just makes me pay a little extra attention. I doubt I've ever used the word asocial in conversation before, but I'm gonna start. Greet has a particular hatred for people who leave their car engine running while they are parked. I've seen her really fired up about this -- more than once. She'll sometimes come up to me, very annoyed, with something like: "You should have seen that woman at pick-up. She had her engine running the whole time she was waiting for the kids to come out. So asocial. I was really angry." "I know," I'll say. And thats the end of it. Greet couldn't be more matter-of-fact. But, just think for a second about how much Greet communicated in that one word. Let's drill down on the definition, direct from my Webster's Dictionary: asocial: NOT social, NOT 1: of or relating to human society, the interaction of the individual and the group, or the welfare of human beings as members of society 2: a tendency to form cooperative and interdependent relationships with one's fellows There's really not much more to say. Greet nailed it. Collectively we share one carbon footprint. Probably not the best idea to put individual preferences for fossil fuel use above the needs the group on this one. |
