Antelopian Advice for We ‘Down Below’

Willard Olney of Hesperia writes:

. . . Read your column about the Scrabble censorship, and I got to thinking--a bad sign.

Good and bad words, I thought, are a sometimes thing. They change places over time, for one thing . . . so that we use “penis” rather freely today (as in mutilation of), while Queen Victoria refused to use “leg.” We can use “dreck” from the Yiddish with hardly a qualm, and you can use “F-word” instead of (expletive deleted) , although you could not unless your readers knew what you meant. Context-and-status is all powerful. An endless puzzlement. We all use several languages and censor them as we go, quite naturally, speaking one to a child, another to an old war buddy and still another to one’s wife--probably a series of grunts.

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Mr. Olney’s letter was something of a surprise--and something of a relief.

For the past few days, you see, I’ve opened the mail with trepidation. I’ve been waiting for an irate reader to upbraid me for the factual errors in a column last week concerning the Antelope Valley Union High School District.

It was a colleague who both covers and lives in the Antelope Valley that first informed me of my incompetence. Phil Sneiderman politely pointed out that I mistakenly identified California 14 as Interstate 14 and managed to move Highland High School from Palmdale to Lancaster.

“Brace yourself for the calls and letters,” he warned.

Well, this is embarrassing. These may be common journalistic misdemeanors--and I’ve done worse--but I could still imagine people in the Antelope Valley thinking, “What a dork.” I planned to be profuse in my apologies.

But so far, except for Phil, not a single Palmdalian or Lancasterite or whatever they call themselves out there has made a fuss, at least not to me. Instead, I’ve received letters such as Mr. Olney’s, concerning the efforts to make the Official Scrabble Player’s Dictionary more polite and politically correct, as well as an intriguing bit of intelligence in reaction to my plans to build “Ei$nerland” up in Gorman.

Frankly, this lack of reaction, this indifference, is more disturbing than a proper scolding. If anybody would care about the chronic confusion between Palmdale and Lancaster, I figured, it would be their respective chambers of commerce.

So I called. But it was obvious that neither David Aaker, executive vice president of the Palmdale chamber, or Ramon Ortega, special events coordinator of the Lancaster chamber, had read or even heard of the offending column.

Ortega said the confusion is typical among people “down below.”

“We just accept it,” he said. “It’s like, ‘Yeah, that’s those people down there. They don’t know what they’re talking about.’ ”

Ortega offered this advice for city folks. Palmdale, he explained, is the more famous town--the home of the space shuttle. And as for Lancaster?

“We have the second-largest flea market in California,” Ortega boasted. “Every May and October.”

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But back to Scrabble. Mr. Olney’s puzzlement over the efforts to censor America’s favorite word game is shared by many. But something good can be said for such crusades.

For example, I bet you don’t know what a buckra is. I didn’t--until I received my copy of the Scrabble hit list.

A buckra, according to the OSPD, is “an offensive term” for a white man. My Webster’s New World Dictionary offers more detail: “a white man or boss: term used chiefly in the SE U.S. by blacks.” Webster’s, however, gives no indication that it is offensive.

My inner juvenile delinquent wants to list every word. The good news is that each and every word will still be legal in August, when the Universal Hilton is scheduled to host the National Scrabble Tournament--which will heretofore be known as the Last Lewd, Crude and Politically Incorrect Scrabble Championship. (Alas, there will be no bonus points for allegedly naughty words.)

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Finally, a sense of fairness forces me to quote one last letter.

A Burbank man who makes a “fervent request” for anonymity writes:

I was very amused by your proposal for “Ei$nerland” . . . The name “Eisnerland” has been used, however. Back in 1986, soon after the change in Disney management, some serious Disney fans cobbled together the “Eisnerland” logo enclosed and sold it on buttons. It was packaged as a kind of protest against what they perceived as a change from the old park into the super - powered money machine that it had become. And still is . . .

A protest? I’m shocked. The logo features Mickey Mouse banging a drum and the slogan, “Looks like I started something!” This “Eisnerland,” it seems, was but a satirical cheap shot meant to portray Michael Eisner as some sort of buckra. My concept for “Ei$nerland,” on the other hand, is a multimillion-dollar theme park that would honor and celebrate capitalist spirit as embodied in America’s highest-paid executive, a man who earned every last penny of the $203.1 million he took to the bank in 1993. Talk about a super-powered money machine!

Sadly, Mr. Eisner still hasn’t responded to my proposal that we merge our financial resources to buy Gorman and put that town on the map.

But I’m flexible. Perhaps we could get a better deal out in Palmcaster.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to Harris at The Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, Calif. 91311.