Main Street?

My Dear Reader,

So, I've done something pretty new recently: I've started watching the news. I know. It used to be that the closest I got to the news was the small amount of space in my college newspaper that wasn't devoted to engagement ring ads (I didn't mind that much, since I was just there for the crossword). But something strange happened, in the form of me coming across the video podcast of NBC's Nightly News. I thought I would give it a whirl, if only to stop people from shoving their readership of The New York Times down my throat (you know who you are!). I was surprised to find that I enjoyed it; the host, Brian Williams, is pretty cool, and it lets me know what's going on (they're changing the design of the penny, don't you know!). The nice thing is that I can get it over the internet, since I haven't had any television in my home since 2004. In fact, if it wasn't for the Nightly News podcast, I probably wouldn't have heard about recent events in politics, especially the newest catch-phrases in politics.

Okay, so I'm a word-nerd. I'll wear the banner proudly, because I feel that I've earned it. It lets me take a giddy pleasure in things that other people see as tragic, like the recent events in the New York Stock Exchange.

Now, I'll admit that things are pretty bad over there in New York right now. The U.S. government has been forced to bail out certain failing companies in order to avert a second Great Depression, causing the national debt to rise to . Things are getting pretty crazy, and I don't want to pretend that the situation isn't dire, and I certainly don't want to criticize the decisions of those in charge, because frankly, at least they're not Hoover. But I will bring to attention a linguistic oddity, and that is all of this talk about "Main Street."

Now, it's quite possible that this has been around for a while, but this is the first time I've paid attention to use of "Main Street" as a metaphor for the average, everyday American. I first heard it in the recent addresses of President Bush, where he said that he was more concerned about how the recent crisis would affect Main Street than the effect on Wall Street. And since he said it, I noticed the same Main Street/Wall Street comparison being made by both presidential candidates as well as news reporters. It seems to me that everyone is jumping right on this Main Street band wagon, and I can see why: it sounds really good. One or even two rhetorical devices that I once learned but can't presently recall are being used in the phrase, and I'm sure that those who speak the words feel that it effectively explains that what happens on Wall Street affects people who aren't stock brokers, investors, or rich. And it does. But here's the thing: I think that Main Street is a bad metaphor for the American people or American small businesses.

In order to explain what I mean, please allow me to take you back over fifteen years to my first encounter with a place called Main Street--Disneyland. I spent my earliest years in suburbia, so my family trips to The Happiest Place on Earth were when I was first exposed to the name, and I have since then always associated Main Street to Disneyland in my brain. In fact, it's so strong of a connection that I almost substitute one name for the other in my mind. So this is what my brain's been hearing lately:*

"You know, you hear them talking about Wall Street and [Disneyland] -- well, this is Wall Street plus [Disneyland], and I'm worried about [Disneyland]." (President Bush, as quoted in The Washington Post)

"[Senator] Barack Obama urged the Bush administration and Congress to follow basic economic principles to return prosperity to not just Wall Street, but also [Disneyland]." (AP)

"This is Wall Street in big trouble and sucking in [Disneyland], now, and dumping all the bills on [Disneyland]." (Senator Ron Paul on CNN's Late Edition)


So, as you can see it's just not working. Of course, I won't make the mistake of assuming that I'm just like everybody else (because, as we know, Oprah is the one who's like everybody else), but my guess is that a lot of people also grew up in the suburbs, where there are no Main Streets. If not, they may have grown up in big city, where Main Street is filled with anything but Mom and Pop stores. In fact, those kind of Main Streets only exist in small towns where the population is less than 25,000, and that's not that big of a number.

Now, I know that I'm not the Usage Police, and that I can't tell people what to say. I'm just humbly suggesting that perhaps the imagery that those who use the Main Street/Wall Street metaphor might not be what they think it is. It might just be imagery of a cartoon mouse with ridiculously big ears.

Regards, best wishes, and wordplay,

-Cecily Jane

P.S. Sorry about the missed post on Friday. Sufficed to say, I'm no longer the boss of my internet use. I'll make it up somehow though, no worries.

* And yes, I do edit sentences with square brackets in my brain as I process them. I'm just that awesome.