HARMON: No courage in anonymity
I received an anonymous letter the other day with regard to my improper use of the verbs lie and lay in a story about dogs and cats or something or other. I laid it in the waste basket soon after reading and it laid there for a long time until I took out the trash. I suppose it lays in anonymity in some dump as I write this.
Anonymity is a wonderful thing but whoever wrote that letter should let me in on who they are so I can thank them for weeks of sleepless nights and hours of research into two words that are still driving me crazy.
I lied around for days wondering where I had gone wrong, what the consequences would be and if my future offerings to The Telegraph would end up laying on the cutting room floor. I'm not lying when I say; it has been a stressful few weeks. When I researched lay and lie I found that they are the two most confused verbs used today. One can see why. You lie down on something and you lay something down. Lay has to have some sort of object, I suppose, before it can be used. Suffice to say, I must have messed up very badly or someone would not have taken the time to let me know it.
Do I wish I had studied harder, laid some things down and picked up a book or two when growing up? I can't lie, because that is the truth. I guess interests took me other places. We all pay for our mistakes sooner or later and I would be lying if I said I haven't. I'm going to lay this thing to rest, however, and get back to the issue of anonymity, hoping that whoever wrote the letter will lie back, take a chill pill, and forgive and forget.
As I said, anonymity is seen as a wonderful thing in certain circumstances. It allows an individual the chance to give an opinion without allowing the person to whom the opinion was given to reply. It renders the person whose been given the opinion, helpless in a way, without giving him/her a chance to, in some way, save face; give an excuse for his/her shortcoming or the error of their ways.
You see anonymity a lot these days on the Internet as people with opinions choose to "go after" the person commenting with no chance for rebuttal. This is probably why the "hate speech" you read is so prevalent and vicious on some sites. It can be done without fear of retaliation or personal critique. I'm absolutely appalled at times when reading about the president or first lady on various news sites, then looking at the comments. Ignorance abounds as those who would be the first to throw a stone forget the ones they are stoning represent all of us, our country. When what is said is read the world over it reflects on our country more than individuals because, many times, it will be anonymous.
Yes, this is a democracy, with freedom of speech, but with that freedom comes responsibility. If our opinion of policy is different from those who would lead us, we have the anonymity of the ballot box, not the anonymity of the chat rooms to put forth our beliefs. It takes courage to put oneself "out there" to "represent," to be known for who we are as much as what we believe.
If what we believe is important enough to be heard, we should have the courage to attach a name, not simply an "identity" to our opinion. My cat brought some stress the other day when he knocked over a pretty good cup of coffee, and I knew who did it the moment it happened. His name is Milo and that's his real name. Not "Snappinturtle, "Gypsyking," or "Anonymous." It helped a lot, knowing I was dealing with a Milo and not a "Bonehead."
Sonny Harmon is a professor emeritus at Georgia Military College. Visit his blog at http://sharmon09.blogspot.com.
This story was originally published November 10, 2015 at 10:27 PM with the headline "HARMON: No courage in anonymity ."