The most beautiful words in the English Language are...

Before we leap into the main topic of this column, there was a little snippet that caught my eye in this week's issue of Time magazine. Apparently they are in the process of updating their ALL-TIME 100 Movies List of the very best films made since the beginning of TIME in 1923. It seems that they have 20 new entries, which – of course – means that 20 of the older classics have been relegated to the second division. I don’t know about you, but I cannot wait to see this list to ponder which ones I agree with, which ones I think they got totally wrong, and which ones I think they mistakenly missed out...

If you are not a follower of The Big Bang Theory television sitcom, then you can skip this bit and jump ahead to the next topic, because you really have to know the characters involved. Sheldon is a PhD with a size-16 brain (with go-faster stripes) but no common sense. Howard has a Masters degree from MIT (which is pretty darn good let me tell you), but since he doesn't have a PhD, Sheldon and the other characters tend to make fun of him. All of which leads us to the following piece of dialog in the episode I was watching:

Howard (cross about something Sheldon said): "I have a Master's degree from MIT!"

Sheldon: "But you have a 'can do' attitude, and that's what counts."

This subtle "put-down" had me laughing out loud.

But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about. I've had something praying on my mind for several months now. I kept on meaning to mention it, but then forgetting whenever a suitable opportunity arose.

Years and years and years in the past (perhaps as many as 30 years ago), when I was a young man in England, I remember seeing a film on television. As I recall, this was essentially an extended sequence of film shots flying across America with breathtaking views of the country and cities, all with a background music track that worked very well with the visual content.

You know how it is... I had forgotten all about this film until something caused it to "pop into my head." Now I can’t get it back out of my head (grin). I would really like to see it again, but I can’t remember the name of it or anything else about it. Can you shed any light on this?

Last but not least (for the moment), there was a little something in the June 2012 issue of the Reader's Digest that caught my eye. The topic was "The most beautiful words in the English language are..."

Three suggestions offered by the article were as follows:

"...check enclosed." – Dorothy Parker

"...play ball!" – President George H. W. Bush

"...I told you so!" – Gore Vidal

This is the sort of thing that, once you see it, you can’t fail to have your own thoughts and suggestions. For example, I have a couple of offerings as shown in the comments below ... what about you?

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