So I was at a hospital in Jacksonville, Florida, on Friday with my mom as she had another heart procedure...As we waited for the doctor to do the customary drive-by visit before she got the happy juice, a nurse stopped by to check on things...During our conversation, she asked where we were from...Yes, I'm southern enough to end sentences with prepositions...I told her my mom lives in Blackshear, and I live in Savannah...She explained she had visited a relative in Savannah once...She said she liked it and that Savannah was quaint...Then, she walked away...
My synapses were not firing after two and a half hours of sleep after work Thursday night followed by a 4:30 a.m. drive to Blackshear and then on to Jacksonville...It took about ten seconds for me to process what she said...Quaint? Savannah?? Did she just describe Savannah as quaint???
You can use all kinds of words to paint a picture of Savannah....Charming, beautiful, historic, engaging, lovely and even seductive but quaint? I realize Jacksonville is much larger than Savannah, but come on, quaint?? Really??? When I hear the word quaint describe a place, I imagine it is small, quiet, slow paced even bordering on boring without much to do...That's not the Savannah I know...
When I returned to work Sunday, I reached for my Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary that sits on my desk...I am amused to see that I am the only one in the newsroom with an actual hard copy dictionary...Most of the others either rely on spellcheck or go to dictionary.com...Back now to my rambling...According to the fine folks at Merriam Webster, quaint is defined as marked by skillful design, marked by beauty or elegance, unusual or different in character or appearance, odd, pleasingly or strikingly old-fashioned or unfamiliar synonym: see strange.
By the black and white letters in the definition, I guess the nurse was right on some points, but to me, it just doesn't sound right...
In my book, my hometown of Blackshear with its five traffic lights is quaint...Not that quaint is a bad thing...To my ear, it's not the best word to describe our city...Quaint always makes me think of small, strange or odd...There are so many other words to paint a picture of the hostess city of the South...Now if I could only find my thesaurus....
