“… You are a scholar and a gentleman, and there are damn few of us left.”
I often hear this saying from a friend who uses it to say thank you in a kitschy way. I believe that he is trying to let me know that he truly means thank you, but to me it seems like overkill and drastically demeans the value of these words. Let me explain.
Normally, when people say things, I ignore the fact that they are just using a phrase because they “heard it once” and think its cool to say. This happens every day, and in a commercial advertising driven society, things get brought into common parlance where all meaning and value is completely drained out of them.
For example, the song “Sweet Home Alabama” was a charged reaction song written by Lynyrd Skynyrd to make a point about politics and the racism and slavery Alabama. When KFC decided to make it their theme song, it completely ruined the value of the song, and made me think “I’m hungry for chicken” every time I hear the intro of the song. I honestly believe that the guys of Skynyrd did not originally intend to sell chicken for a franchised food factory when they wrote and performed this song.
The first time I heard “scholar and a gentleman”, I had spent the entire day with a very close friend’s father hiking Long’s Peak. As we walked, we talked about many things and learned quite a bit about each other. During the day, we had other friends with us, but they had decided to go on ahead as we were moving a little slower down through the trees. At the end o the day, and what felt like a marathon, we headed back to the cabin for dinner. At dinner, he looked me in the eyes and shook my hand. As he held my hand he gave me the speech, and it touched me because no one had ever said something so kind to me, and all for doing something as simple as hiking down a mountain and holding a conversation.
So, when I hear this quote on a daily or weekly basis, it kind of perturbs me because it takes away the value of what the words mean and the situations in which someone would or should use these words. I will not let it drain the value out of what happened that day after Long’s Peak.
It all makes me think that we should think about the words that are coming out of our mouths, so that we use the correct words in the correct circumstances. Especially, when a simple “Thank You” would hold much more value and meaning.
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