Hello,
Friends. My name is Alan Reese. You may
know me from the Be Good or Be Good At It! blog published every Monday and
Thursday. I’m normally pretty
light-hearted about things, but I’ve recently discovered something that has
horrified me, and I think it’s time that you and I band together and defeat the
evil known as…Prepositional Discrimination!
We know
how hard words have it these days. They grow up in homes that tend to separate
consonants and vowels, with only the backstabbing Y able to hang around both
groups. And then, as they get older, the letters combine to form words. But not
all words are treated equally, unfortunately. I, of course, speak of
Prepositions.
Oh sure,
we love to use them, but Prepositions are never allowed to gain the glory and
acceptance for which they have been horribly overlooked…the ability to finish a
sentence. When they are young,
Prepositions dream of being “The Closer” to bring a sentence to its glorious
conclusion. But do we let them? NO!
Since the word bigot Jon Dryden decreed that no preposition should ever end a
systems, generations of prepositions have been discriminated against and it’s
time we band together to raise Prepositional Awareness.
What I am
about to bring to your attention are real stories about prepositions that,
thanks to our Prepositional Discrimination, have not been able to live their
dreams of completing sentences, and have fallen by the wayside. These stories are real, but are you really
human enough to hear them?
Here are
some tragic examples. You remember In? In’s has been in and out of halfway
houses for years given his not being allowed to finish sentences. Out has been down and out and On has been on
government aid for the past fifteen years.
And Around? Around’s been addicted to food due to Prepositional
Discrimination and has been getting fatter and fatter by the day. Down has been
clinically depressed and is currently seeking treatment. Won’t someone help?
And who
could forget Toward? Toward’s been forced to do some untoward things in back
alleys because he was consistently overlooked for sentence closing duty. And who could turn a blind eye to the word
sex shops that have taken advantage of innocent prepositions like Behind,
Underneath and everyone’s favorite Between? All victims of Prepositional
Discrimination.
Across
has been taken small jobs in religious organizations, but its not enough to pay
the bills. Past and After are in perpetual
states of melancholy, and Through is on suicide watch as he is threatening to
end it all if he can’t finish a sentence. To and At have given up hope and are
just wandering the streets. How can we
possibly change the social climate to allow for these words to get their rights
respected and their authority to finish sentences restored?
I spoke
with Jane Reyaht, a former Montana school teacher and current word activist
about the current state of prepositions and how we resolve these issues. “The first thing to do is to achieve
awareness socially of the situation. Then
we have to convince the Prepositions themselves that they are worth the equal
of the other words and that they should have more self-respect.”
Sadly,
not all of the Prepositions agree.
Against has been downright obstinate in his stance that Prepositions
should just accept their fate and not create more attention to themselves.
Along and Among have been on a short list of those who share this idea of
simple acceptance of their fate, and that no amount of social activism is going
to improve their lot in life.
Regardless
of your stance on this issue, it is time that we at least sit down and discuss
the plight of the Prepositions. Are they
to suffer and never be able to complete a sentence? How many Under and Over’s
need to die before we realize there is a problem? So please join me and the
Prepositional Awareness Group, or PAG, and support our efforts to help the
Prepositions. Remember, a Preposition is
a terrible thing to waste. So join us
and continue to…
Be Good or Be Good At It!
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