Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Speed

The lights flash! Three yellow, and then a green, all lights separated by five tenths of a second. That felling that pushes a racer into their seat and makes it hard to lift their head. Next they are on their way down the drag strip and feeling the best thing in the world. Later they let their car slow down from the effects of what just happened, and pull to the little building after you turn off the strip and pick up a slip that shows their accomplishments. In the end the racer looks down at the pale slip of paper and sees what all the hard work has been for, speed. The word speed evokes many feelings and thoughts. There is no other thing like it in the world.
Speed. Saying the word is even fast and simple. One syllable, five letters, and all speed. When the word is said it usually comes out quickly and there is no pause or lag. Every time that someone says speed they are quick and then usually start to talk about things that are fast. The word speed comes to mind very easily when someone starts to talk about objects that go quick. Also there is always the possibility that there is something that is slow and one wants to make them fast. One word like that can be used to describe many objects. Cars, people, technology, and actions all look to have speed in their history or future.
Dictionary .com defines speed as move fast: rush. Speed implies moving fast or doing something quickly. Dictionary.com also defines efficient as performing or functioning in the best possible manner with the least waste of time, the way that it is defined is just what the word speed also means. There is no way you can have efficiency with out speed. Getting things done and with out waste is important to society and is one of the core values. To go, move, or proceed quickly, is how thefreedictionary.com defines speed as a verb. Advancing, moving on, and going forth are tasks that we are looking for in a new society. The more hastily that things are done or the rapid way that new technology is discovered is a never ending search. Everything is getting faster and there will never be a stop because in this new age time equals money, and no one wants to lose money. There for technology is getting swifter every few months, if there is someone that doesn’t have the new speed they are lacking something that is valued in the community.
A good way to feel the word speed is to visit a mail distribution center. As soon as you walk in you can tell that speed is a big emphasis on how things are done. Everything is going fast and flying past you in a blur. You can clearly see speed as the white streaks that are letters zoom by like fighter jets doing an air show. The people that work there are rapid with there hands and sort the mail with such sharp and swift precision. An even better way is by being in or driving a high speed car. By driving a speedy vehicle you can experience speed in a way like no other. Just by looking at a car it is easy to tell its fast by the way it looks, the lines that the engineers have put into the body of the car, or it could be the sound of a car as it flies by you on the street. What comes to mind when a loud, flashy, and sleek car flies by on the interstate? Speed. Hence, when you get in the car and start to feel it accelerate, and the torque push you into the seat you get the felling that makes someone tingle. Everything just mentioned adds up to the felling of speed. The best way to see speed is the way that it has changed the place that we live in. Take a look back in time and see how slow everything used to be. Initially you had a fast horse, a fast mind, or could run quickly, but now everything is fast and getting quicker. Back in the older days things were way slower and now everything has to be fast. For example look at all our technology; it just keeps getting faster and faster. All the old, slow, technology is not getting used and will be discarded because of the fact that it is sluggish compared to the new fixation that has just been released. Another example of how speed has changed the world is by people living in a fast pace or sped up lifestyle.
How about when you’re driving and there is one guy that is not doing the speed limit, what happens? You get mad or people start to complain that he is going slow and not speeding up. Because of that there is a source for conflict. Just because someone is a bit slower, they get ridiculed and looked down upon. Take for example one of my good friends, Jeff H., when he got his first car we joked and poked fun at him because his car was not as fast as the ones that we had. He wanted his car to be quicker; he wanted that felling of speed. Then he got a new car that was really fast and he was beating all of the cars that we had. It was now his turn to scoff at us because of our lack of speed.
The old fable the tortoise and the hare shows that the race is not always won by the speediest, but in etymology speed is directly connected to success. Dictionary.com tells us that The Old English word spēd, from which our word speed is descended, originally meant "prosperity, successful outcome, ability, or quickness." A corresponding verb, spēdan, in Modern English the verb speed, meant "to succeed, prosper, or achieve a goal"; and an adjective, spēdig, the ancestor of our word speedy, meant "wealthy, powerful." Except for archaic uses the words today relate only to the general sense of "velocity."
Speed is always going to be ingrained into my life. Initially it was about riding a bike as fast as I could around the block and trying to beat all my friends. Then as I got older and had the opportunity to buy a vehicle I was thinking about speed. It was in my mind as I looked for a car, I was looking for something that I knew that would go fast, so I ended up getting my Mustang. After a little while it was not fast enough for my taste so I was looking for more speed, so I started to add parts that would make it go quicker. Now every time that I drive my car I have the chance to feel that grate felling that is speed. So now that this has been read, go hop in a race car, find a big hill and ride a bike down it, or ride a fast rollercoaster so that you too can feel the intenseness of the word speed.

1 comment:

  1. I am feeling like I am having a tug-of-war with your writing. You got the point of the paper, your posted it on time, you researched the topic, and you took most of my advice; however, your paper is choppy, your sentences are short, you need to learn how combine sentences and vary them, your word choice is lacking strength, and you didn't cite 3 times!! I think that your writing is improving, and that is the main goal of this class, so we should work together to help the areas you're having problems with! I think that the best way for you to help yourself, is to read your writing aloud. I think that it also needs to be said that you didn't hit the page requirement! Watch out for those simple errors in judgement. Do the paper the instructor is looking for!

    Score overall: 225/300 75%

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