It has been said that life really is a matter of choice, that is to say, we all are faced with having to choose between options being offered or available to us about what to do multiple times in our lifetime. For instance, while it may be true that the indices of criminal behavior may be higher in poor and underserved communities, by no means are all poor people criminals or criminally inclined. The vast majority of them have chosen to live honest, law abiding lives. The same thing goes for many other issues we face in our daily lives; all manners of prejudices, racial, ethnic, religion- oriented and the like. We face choices in our behavior and decide which to take.
Those of us who are privileged to write and have our thoughts published or otherwise disseminated face a peculiar problem where choices are concerned. Writing, of course, involves stringing words together that, hopefully, make sense or do a proper job of getting a thought across. The problem that some of us face, in particular those who have to write in English, is the lack of precision in many languages. What we mean is that all too often we are faced with the fact that there are two or more words that mean exactly the same thing. Here are a couple of examples: red and carmine; pink and rosy. Which do you use in what you are writing?
The problem is worse when it comes to choosing among similes, those phrases that strengthen the statement of a simple fact. The classical way of showing what a simile is, is offering two sentences: John is strong. (simple) John is strong as an ox. (simile).
In writing these stories for our blog we find ourselves at sixes and sevens at times trying to make a choice among similes to express the speed of the broadband Internet service that GigNet offers. Here are some choices we are faced with: Fast as a bullet; fast as a speeding train; fast as a Derby winner; fast as an Olympic sprinter; Fast as a lightning bolt. And speaking of bolts, sometimes the simile involves a name such as: Fast as Usain Bolt (world 100 meter sprint record holder known as “the fastest human on earth”).
It really is difficult to choose among so many similes to denote speed. Suffice it to say that the GigNet broadband telecommunications service being offered in Tulum and elsewhere here in the Mexican Caribbean at a reasonable monthly cost is really, really fast.
