Lauren Caitlin Upton

Lauren Caitlin Upton: South Carolina honor student

• Q "Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the United States on a world map. Why do you think this is?"
• A “I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uhmmm, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and uh, I believe that our, I, education like such as, uh, South Africa, and uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uhhh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for us.”

I saw the repeating excerpt on television news. Immediately upon hearing the question, I thought, "what don't they watch the weather?" Then I saw young Miss Upton. Oh, she is cute! Then I began listening to her stilted non sequitars. She has to be thinking, why do they ask these questions? can't they just look and see I"m beautiful? isn't that enough? isn't that the reason I'm here?

Then I noticed her strange use of phrases: like such as, and the Iraq. "Like such as" may be being used as a verbal tick or a filler construction, often "like" alone is, but the "such as" seems an apparent attempt to sound academic. "The Iraq", geographical grammatical confusion, before one would say the Ukraine, the Gambia and perhaps the Lebanon. I think that form has gone out of favor, and she was probably born after that point in time and, I doubt that, she would be familiar with it.

From this limited exposure she speaks as well as most republican candidates, certainly Bush junior has had more verbal garble than that. But, then again, she is cute! It fascinates--a blonde moment meltdown. The audience and the presenter do not seem to react astonished or bemused. Part of her answer is formulaic prattle, the rest is certainly non-linear, but trying to be agreeably patriotic. The more I look at her,...who did win?... my, she is cute.