Be NICE

To my Linguists Growing Weary and Colleagues
Across the Curriculum: always for the Sake of
Argument, coursing with out borders yet
unknonw.           

             Language Lust
 
LUST  initially meant mere pleasure,
and carried no sexy  stigma.  Holiday
was originally a holy day, not any day
officially free from  work.  Silly meant
happy during Shakespeare’s time; 
and my favorite:
  
                        NICE
 
      initially and originally meant
IGNORANT  (ne + scire: = “not knowing,”
"no science”), very nicely indeed and maybe
the nicest thing we take away from our studies
and scholar ship: how “nice” we are, how un-
knowing, how aware  of our ignorance.  Right
there: stunned  stupid,  the etymological root
image for STUDY & STUDENT:  our collective
nice-ness—pre-requisite for  Liberal Art, yes?
 
I would rather be NICE than nasty and
alwaysschool makes me realize how NICE
I am---a fool with  words, sentences,
etymologies: loving the play of language
especially among players: language users
& abusers, addicts: criminal discriminators
& rip-off artists, sampling & specimen-izing,
always diminishing the WHOLE with our
natural selections: reductionists, injustice-
doers—overstating & understating, carrying
ongoing & appropriate  guilt for our nice
distinctions and discrete indiscretions.
 
Confession of NICE is redemptive— let it be
known how ignorant I am  as my hero Socrates
said (after advising his buddies to  KNOW THY
SELF)
 
        I know that I do not know
 
but it doesn’t eliminate the NICE-ness.
The Guilt is ongoing and makes sense
how could I not be NICE?
 
My linguistic TEXTBOOK illustrates what
there is to be  known about language & it’s
like trying to suck the ocean  dry with a  straw.
It doesn’t  come close to what goes on when we
sit in silence or break into converse-action. It
merely  describes (systematically, I admit)
parts of the  parts of the parts  of TALK.

 Nor does it do justice to Helen Keller.

xxxooo, Sam