Not long ago we read an article, entitled "To Nintendo’s surprise, its Wii is hot with seniors," which appeared in the Nov. 27 edition of the Christian Science Monitor. For those not in the know, the Wii is some sort of a virtual reality game which allows one to partake of bowling, tennis, golf and so forth. And evidently, senior citizens have taken up the game in goodly numbers. According to the article, "The idea to reach out to seniors originated in Japan, where the population is aging more rapidly than in the US ..."

This statement rather took us aback as we had assumed, up until this point, that everyone actually aged at the same rate. We thought that with each passing hour, each and every person is exactly one hour older. Now, if we can believe what we read, it would appear that people in Japan have somehow sped up the process. We can’t quite imagine why they would want to do such a thing, but there it is, unless, of course, the way we read the sentence, is not the way the writer wrote the sentence.

Perhaps instead of suggesting that the Japanese are aging more rapidly, the author actually meant that the percentage of Japanese over the age of 60 is greater than the percentage of Americans over the age of 60. If this is indeed what the writer meant, then we must admit the concept would make more sense.

Unfortunately, since this is not the meaning we took from the sentence, we suspect we have a clear cut case of communication confusion, something which we always think should be avoided at all costs. However, we are perhaps clinging to a standard that simply does not exist any more.

Evidently, if it is true what we read in another Christian Science Monitor article, this one entitled "Reign in those vocal chords," which appeared in the Nov. 26 edition of the paper, standards related to spelling are also on the chopping block. We tend to think we are in agreement with the author, Robert Klose, who writes "... when it comes to the English language, I may very well be a fogy."

In reading the article we discovered that revisions are being made by the Oxford University Press to the American Oxford Dictionaries which would make spelling and expressions long thought to be incorrect, acceptable simply because a lot of people use them. For instance, Mr. Klose notes, "One example is �vocal cord.’ As a biology teacher, I’ve written this on the board so many times that I consider myself an expert on its spelling. However, the OUP tells us that many, many people write �chord.’ Therefore, �chord’ has now been given the status of a bona fide spelling."

Good grief! We have long thought that "chord" was a musical term, and while vocal cords may be used to produce music, however, not always to everyone’s liking, it never occurred to us that the two terms were interchangeable. Of course, we don’t think "affect" and "effect" are interchangeable either, although we know there are people who tend to use them interchangeably. And it must be that there are people who, in our opinion, misuse a lot of words. At least that is what we got out of Mr. Klose’s article. We also learned that "reign" can now be used in place of "rein," "shoe-in" in place of "shoo-in," and "baited" in place of "bated," as in "bated breath."

As a teacher, Mr. Klose feels the need to correct his students when they use what he considers to be an inappropriate word. However, as he points out, "What they don’t know _ yet _ is that Oxford University Press now tells them not to trouble themselves with traditionally correct spelling, but rather to enjoy life and, in words the Burger King Corp. would appreciate, �have it your way’." And unfortunately, spelling is not the only area in which rules are being relaxed.

We are also annoyed that anymore it is considered appropriate to address a widow as Mrs. Jane Doe, instead of, what we think is the more correct form of address, namely Mrs. John Doe. Whenever we receive mail addressed to Mrs. Catherine Ellsworth, we always want to point out that we did not marry ourselves. We married Mr. Gerald B. Ellsworth and thus should be addressed as Mrs. Gerald B. Ellsworth. If using Catherine Ellsworth, we would far prefer that no salutation be used than to use "Mrs." In fact, in this case we would even prefer "Ms." to "Mrs." However, we think we are fighting a losing battle. And we fear we will all be the worse for it.

In closing, we well remember that long time Kenyon College English Professor, Gerrit Roelofs, always said that the treasure trove of any country is its word-hoard. And we guess we have never thought anyone expressed the value of language any better. Unfortunately, it seems that language as we know it is under fire. And personally, when it comes to losing any part of language, we hate to say good-bye. Or is that good-by or possibly good-buy? Mayhap we do not wish to say farewell. Or is that fairwell?

We remain,

In these Otsego hills,

The Ellsworths

The Ellsworths may be reached by mail at 105 Pioneer Street, Cooperstown, N.Y. 13326, by telephone at 547-8124, or by e-mail at cellsworth1@stny.rr.com. They look forward to hearing from you.