Given the title, you might think that I was planning to back up that statement. However, I take it as a given and obvious to even the most casual observer. I am writing, rather, to announce that I’ve learned a new word: “meretricious.” 
The word came to me in a quote from columnist Caitlin Flanagan (with The Atlantic) who says that parents “have a moral responsibility to shield their children from the many aspects of our common culture that are over-sexualized and generally meretricious.”
Right on! And what does meretricious mean? “1. alluring by a show of flashy or vulgar attractions; tawdry. 2. based on pretense, deception, or insincerity. 3. pertaining to or characteristic of a prostitute.” Well, I think our society is 3 for 3, there!
Perhaps you will think me unlearned to not have known what meretricious was before today. Oh, well. I can do trigonometric substitutions for integration in calculus? Does that count for anything? (And I know the scientific names of beings animalculous …)
Ah, but can you summarize for us the chemical and thermodynamic properties of unobtanium?
I just received an ad book today for “The Great Courses”. One course offered sounds like an excellent course in the two kinds of calculus. And had I finished the Biblical Hebrew course I’d started already (quite a few moons ago), I’d think of starting that. I never got past first-semester calculus in college and would like to have a solid foundation in the subject. I really loved analytical geometry in high school and (if my total pleasure and my perfect grades were any indication) was a wizard at it, especially in transformations on a Cartesian graph.
Posted by rakkav | February 11, 2010, 6:22 pmAnd now I’ve learned a new word! Thank you, Mr. Smith.
Wow! That most definitely describes our society. Unfortunately, many parents expose their own children to (rather than protect them from) our “over-sexualized and generally meretricious” society, even by the television shows they choose to watch while their children are in the room.
Posted by mamaterri | February 13, 2010, 5:50 pmSo you’re saying I should not matriculate into meretriciousness…. ?! :-O
Posted by Richard | February 14, 2010, 10:55 pm