Have you ever heard of Word Cloud? Word Cloud is a site where you can upload your written documents and have them turned into a “cloud.” The Cloud shows you which words you use the most frequently by making them appear larger than the words you use sparingly. Hopefully, the only words that show up in jumbo font are words like “the” and “and;” if your word cloud is dominated by words like “exasperatedly,” “indubitably” and “sesquicentennial,” then your writing might be a little dense—not to mention that it might also have a pretty serious case of the “adverblies.”
Word Cloud is a very helpful device for writers; unfortunately, however, Word Cloud is only available for things that have been written down—it cannot be applied to the spoken word. This is too bad, because there have been lots of times in my dealings with my children when I would have liked to have been able to “word cloud” everything they said and then hand it back to them.
“Here,” I would have said when they were four. “Here’s today’s word cloud.” And then I would have handed them a gigantic “not,” an equally humungous “fair,” and finally, only slightly smaller, a “why.” “Thank” and “you” would have been small enough to fit in the front pocket of a pair of skinny jeans.
That was when they were four. These days, however, while “not” and “fair” are still pretty hefty, and even though “thank” and “you” have grown by leaps and bounds, there would be another pair of words that would dwarf them all. I am speaking, of course, of the number one favorite word in both a teenager and a preteen’s vocabulary. I am speaking, of course, of “forgot.” (Followed—or rather preceded—by it’s twin, “I.”)
Actually, the truth of the matter is that I think I would be a little bit afraid to do a word cloud on them these days, for no other reason than I think the “forgot” might be so huge it would blot out the sun and end all life on earth as we know it. (Or at least hurt a lot if I were to accidentally drop it on my foot.) What’s worse is that I don’t think the “forgot” has even gotten as big as it’s going to get; I think it is going to get bigger before it finally starts to go away—in fact, I think it has to.
Why? Because even now I can see that they have yet hit to hit rock bottom in the memory hole. Even now they are still able, albeit frantically, to pull themselves back from the edge of that hole. One day, though, the time will come when no amount of scrambling will fix things, and they will come to the same conclusion that so many of us were forced to come to ourselves. The conclusion that our lives have become unmanageable, and that the only way they can become manageable again if we give ourselves over to the power of The List.
Why do they resist the list so stridently? There have been so many times when I have begged them to write down the stuff they need to remember that I am sure that if I were to do a Word Cloud on myself, the word that would loom the largest would be “list.” (And, of course, “please” and “now.”) I don’t know. All I know is that I can’t wait for the day when their word cloud is made up of “you were” and “so very.” And who knows? Maybe those words will even be followed by a little bit of “right.”