I’m sorry, I use the word stuff a lot. If my sophomore year High School English Teacher ever reads this blog, he’s probably screaming at the monitor. He hated that word when I was in school and I’m sure he still abhors it today. To him, the word stuff was a cop-out. A catchall word that wasn’t sufficiently specific to connote any meaning to any individual person, place, or thing. It is the trash bin of words, a stinking rotting amalgamation of all that is evil with language. How’s that for a visual image?

Yet, if you did a search on my blog you would find of the 327 posts that I’ve written, fully 88 of them contain the word stuff. That’s a whopping 27% of my posts have that slimy, good-for-nothing word included. Is that because I was a bad student? Is it an act of rebellion against my teacher? Is it because I’m a lazy writer who is incapable of finding the right word so I troll my limited vocabulary for the first generic word that comes to mind and send it to the page in my prose?

Not on your life, baby!

I use language as a scalpel, not as a club. There are no blunt instruments here. When I use a word, I mean that word. For instance, if I tell my kids to take a coat to school, I mean a heavier piece of outerwear that will keep them warm. Something that will repel the chill and cover their bodies, not just a lighter covering that will diminish the impact of the wind and possibly keep the rain at bay. If I wanted them to take a jacket (the latter) I would have said jacket. While that’s one solitary example, it’s how I speak and write. Words are sharp implements that are meant to evoke emotion, paint a picture, and woo women. Well, the last one is according to Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society. That one has escaped me in my life…but I understand the idea.

So why do I use stuff with reckless abandon?

Because I want to evoke exactly that image of the disorganized, stinking, rotting amalgamation that Mr. McCullough painted back in 1978. Stuff is a word that serves to bring together all sorts of different things under one label. Why use a string of partially descriptive terms that will leave out a large portion of the image when stuff covers it all? It’s the word that does exactly what I want it to do, even if my readers have no idea of how precise I’m being.

As you read this blog, know that I make dozens of decisions about every word. Sometimes the decisions turn out be the wrong one…but more often than not I’m able to dredge up exactly the word that I’m looking for. And my scalpel cuts away the detritus that would cling to other words and lays bare the idea that I’m trying to convey.

So on the one hand, this is an apology to Mr. McCullough. On the other hand, I’m extending my thanks for all the stuff he taught me…I certainly haven’t forgotten!