#314 - The Word Perfect

Have you ever heard the phrase for lack of a better word? It means that you’re searching your vocabulary to find the most applicable language that best represents what you’re trying to convey. Sometimes you don’t have the exact word, but by using this phrase, you make it known that your intention is to communicate your thoughts effectively. And it’s totally cool. Because it is understood by the person with whom you’re interacting that although you don’t currently have the best articulation, you are also not trying too hard to impress.

And that is what’s wrong with how the word perfect is wielded today. People overuse it believing they are demonstrating wisdom by applying it where a less fabulous word would normally go—thinking that it boosts their ability to elocute perfect words. Which makes sense. Because the current me society that displays their filtered flawlessness on the internet as a quantified representation of who they are, is hiding from the word imperfect.

That’s one you won’t hear them use.

It’s absurd. A trigger. How dare you!

The overplay of the word perfect is an encapsulation of this artificially intelligent future we are doing “the robot” into. Perception is largely reality, and the word accentuates the image people pretend to possess. There’s this idea that if you say something perfect, then perfection will materialize, which realistically doesn’t happen. Just because you use the word to describe something as perfect, it doesn’t make it perfect.

So, when the woman who answers the phone in customer service gleefully uses the word more than twice for the figurative cherry on the sundae, she is in essence informing herself that not only did she resolve the issue, but it couldn’t have been handled any more perfectly.

But no, I’m sorry, the last 4 digits of my social security number are not perfect. They are just ok.

You know what’s perfect? Cannabis.

And Agnes, my pet Gerbil.