Don’t Gift Me That

Reification marches on. More on that word may be found on this blog (link), but in that note I failed to mention one meaning of the word. It also means to drain the life out of something, thus to make it seem like a corpse. Today the Wall Street Journal features an article on its Personal page titled “The Science Behind Gifting.” It uses two words that both do this—and then it concentrates on that mo-mo-modern linguistic delight, regifting. The science consists of asking people questions in surveys, which, like “gifting,” comes about as close to rendering Nothingness tangible, audible, and tactile as I am able to imagine. Below that article WSJ gifts me with news of mad-cow disease, to the right with news about heart attacks (actually how to avoid them by dieting). I’d rather catch the one or be felled by the other than learn to manage my gifting. Bah! Humbug!