Friday, March 22, 2013

Awes, the Great and Powerful

You're Awesome!
Awesome \Awe"some\, adj.
  1. Causing awe; appalling; awful; as, an awesome sight.
  2. Expressive of awe or terror.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
As far as off-year elections go, they don't come more off than this year's -- perhaps with the exception of those years when no elections are held. Haha, Lake County candidates are taking desperate measures to get their voters to the polls on April 9, who are all expected to stay at home in record numbers.

One sign of desperation are those questionnaires that newspapers will ask candidates to complete, in lieu of actual reportage. As readers of this blog are awestruckedly aware ...
Awes, the Great and Powerful
A candidate for Lake County College Trustee, Barbara Oilschlager, dropped the A-Bomb in a questionnaire submitted to the Patch (another sign of desperation):
College of Lake County is an awesome place and I want to keep it that way.
Barbara D. Oilschlager: College of Lake County Board Candidate
If the goal here is to drive the youth vote to the polls, your LakeCountyEye suspects her statement may have the opposite effect of popping the gearshift into reverse. On the other hand, no one under 50 votes in off-year elections, so no harm no foul.

Most of these candidate's questionnaires posted online look like the answers were copied off a Dog N Suds menu. This particular Trustee candidate's questionnaire is an exception and deserves an "A" for effort. Your LakeCountyEye suspects that her questionnaire was penned by a campaign consultant. Either that or Oilschlager is a retiree of Medicare age with an excess of free time.

In either event, your LakeCountyEye cautions operatives to choose words carefully when submitting newspaper questionnaires -- or risk coming across way more geriatrical than you actually happen to be. If that is too much to expect on your salary then here at least are 10 words -- along with awesome -- to avoid:
Ten Adjectives Never to Use
When Writing a Candidate Bio
  1. geriatrical
  2. far-out
  3. unindicted
  4. Fahrvergnügen
  5. l33t
  6. bedridden
  7. bedbug ridden
  8. chaetophorous
  9. Machiavellian
  10. oleaginous
Look for your LakeCountyEye at a thesaurus near you.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Barb sounds good on paper and says all the right things, but she is NOT awesome and in fact is mean-spirited and self-centered in her actions. The CLC Board is not working well because of her. After 24 years on the Board it is time for her to go. The Board needs new energy, new ideas, and people who are interested in working together to make CLC a better place for its students.

Anonymous said...

Barb sounds good on paper and says all the right things, but she is NOT awesome and in fact is mean-spirited and self-centered in her actions. The CLC Board is not working well because of her. After 24 years on the Board it is time for her to go. The Board needs new energy, new ideas, and people who are interested in working together to make CLC a better place for its students.