Lottery???

Words are without a doubt the most important part of language. Communication without words would be nearly impossible. These words normally evoke certain feelings and thoughts in people. For example, in America football brings up thoughts of grown men crashing into each other. However, these thoughts are not always the only way to look at a word. Football in the rest of the world brings people thoughts of what Americans know as soccer. The interpretation and perception of words are explored in "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson.





In the realm created by Jackson, there is an annual lottery. When most people think of the lottery, certain thoughts. Images of people buying weekly tickets hoping to win exuberant sums of money. However from the beginning of the there are some oddities. The children start gathering stones and stuffing them in their pockets and pushing them into piles. Then Mr Summers, the lottery director, "soberly" announces the start of the lottery. These oddities are fairly minor and hard to notice during the first reading, however the story turns truly strange when a family is announced a winner. The wife Tessie Hucthison begins yelling that the lottery "wasn't fair." All these oddities eventually cause a horrifying realization that the lottery in this world is completely different from the lottery in our world.



This twist on the word "lottery" is refreshing. Jackson managed to take a word with a commonly perceived meaning and shown another way to percieve the word. "The Lottery" showed me how awesome stories can become if the perceptions of words are changed even thought the new perceptions still fall under the definition of the word. I encourage people to read the "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson and become refreshed with a different perception of a common word.

Soccer in the States?

Soccer as a professional sport in the United States is, well let us just say, obscure. People everyday are surprised to learn that in America we have a professional soccer league. However, with the start of the World Cup, Americans everywhere have turned their attention to soccer, the most popular sport in the world. This attention has kept editorial writers everywhere busy, writing about how soccer is dull and over-hyped. One such article caught my attention. "Soccer Too Dull for America" by Daniel Kline, observed that soccer will never take hold in the United States television market and despite my love for the sport, I am inclined to agree with Kline.


"High level soccer involves almost no scoring and very few shots on goal." These words spoken by Kline are essentially true. Unfortunately, this lack of scoring and shots is boring to most American viewers. These viewers are accustomed to the high-scoring sports of football, basketball, and even baseball.


Common misconceptions about soccer also seem to prevent average viewers from watching. Most Americans seem to believe that soccer has "limited physical contact" and the games are very slow paced. These are absolutely false, but do keep viewers away from soccer games.


"The United States will never be Brazil or Italy where the fortunes of the national soccer team set the tone for the nation." I believe this thought by Kline is completely true. People will continue to not watch soccer, or even soccer's biggest event, the World Cup. The United States Soccer Federation will have to continue living in a country where soccer will never be as popular as football, baseball, basketball, or even hockey.