Tom Johnson, an attorney friend of mine tells me a client of his from New Jersey asked the

definition of “tacky” and “sorry.” The tacky part of the question referred to all uses of the word.
The sorry portion was limited to its use as a description of an object’s character, as in, “He shore
is a sorry sombitch.”

Tom, a very articulate raconteur, pronounced himself uneasy in his mind. He felt, he said,
vaguely inadequate for the task of explaining something that every Southerner understands,
almost as a birthright. Tom compared his feelings about these terms as similar to the way a
Supreme Court Justice thinks about obscenity, he or she can not define it but knows it when he or
she encounters it. In the same way, Tom, indeed, every Southerner, knows tacky when it presents
itself and sure as hell knows sorry on sight.

That said, it simply isn’t good enough to tell a foreigner like Tom’s New Jersey clients to “live
down here for a generation or two and you’ll get it.” That approach presupposes you want them
to move down here and live amongst us, more or less permanently. While that may be the case, I
urge you to first consider the full implications of that.

Moreover, it seems unfair to require a permanent resident to live here, always confronting
untranslatable words. I imagine that could be frustrating. I have made it a policy to not frustrate
visiting Yankees any more than absolutely necessary. Most of them are crazy to begin with and
any added frustration could push them right over the edge.

The only alternative to attempting to explain the definitions is to avoid the use of the two terms
altogether. That, of course, is, at best, impractical since so much of what one encounters in day to
day living involves one or the other or both. In reality, avoiding the use of the two terms is damn
near an impossibility. They have such economy and utility. They mean exactly what they mean
and no other synonyms of such precision exist to take their place.

Where to begin?

In the first place, both terms can be used as descriptive modifiers to any animate or inanimate
object. It is equally possible for a flower pot to be either tacky or sorry or both as it is for a dog
or a human to display these qualities.

In the second place, when used to describe a human, there is a slight gender distinction. It is
much easier for a woman to be tacky than a man. Likewise, it is far more likely for a man to be
sorry than a woman.

Now, it may be that this distinction, like the proclivity of Muslims to explode in public places, is
more cultural than fundamental/biological. It is entirely possible for a man to be every bit as
tacky as woman. It is also true that a given woman may be the equal in sorriness to any man.
Perhaps, it is only that, for reasons lost in time, in our culture, men are more easily forgiven their
tackiness and women their sorriness. And, of course, there are exceptions that prove the rule.
While unquestionably tacky, the former Governor of Alaska, Sarah Pallin, is also sorry to a
pronounced degree. Never the less, the generalized gender distinction exists and a foreign
observer should be aware of it.
In the third place, tackiness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. On the other hand,
sorriness is a universal aspect. If one is truly sorry to anyone, he or she is generally sorry to all.
This second distinction between the terms makes it possible for tackiness, like grotesquery and
horror and any number of other unpleasantries, to be raised to an art form while sorriness simply
is.

Possibly the greatest example of tackiness as art was embodied and personified in the life of the
late, great Strom Thurmond. Senator Thurmond was, unquestionably, the tackiest human being,
perhaps the all time tackiest anything, ever to occupy space on Earth. Generally speaking, while
he lived, no one denied this status. Indeed, the Senator was widely celebrated for it. He had no
peers, not in history, not among his contemporaries, nor has he been challenged since. His
extreme and artistic tackiness was something even his worst enemies loved about him.

While Mrs. Pallin is indeed a sorry specimen, she pales in comparison to South Carolina’s own
Mark Sanford. Mark’s recent exposure as a complete fraud is an excellent example of the law,
“sorry to one, sorry to all.” The good Governor, Sanford, not Pallin, built his public persona
around being a man of simple tastes.  As the public persona would have it, Sanford, though
intelligent to great degree, virtually a Jeffersonian intellectual, remained humble and frugal, a
devotee of hard, physical labor and ruled by principle, to the point of nausea, in all facets of his
life. His public persona would have one believe that he grew up believing he was from a family
of limited means. It would have you accept that he believed, even in his youth, the family’s well
being depended upon his contributions of labor and his sacrifice.

You might ask yourself, how Sanford could be both intelligent and believe, as a child of a
celebrated surgeon with houses in Florida, a farm in SC and with every one in the family going
to private school, his family was poor? The answer eludes me. Never the less, that is the story he
sold to the voters of South Carolina and we believed him.

As a by product of his recent foray into international affairs, it has been revealed that the
Governor was not, and is not, frugal, preferring first class air travel, when a private plane was not
available, to coach. He enjoys luxurious accommodations when traveling on the state’s dime. He
insists upon private air transport for himself and his wife and children whenever possible. All the
while, he demands state employees double bunk when traveling on state business and that they
always fly coach.

Previously, he, on principle, refused to release his schedule, claiming a right of privacy for his
family and himself. Yet, when the shades preventing scrutiny were removed in the AM (After
Maria), it seems another reason for his insistence upon privacy exists. It is the matter of his work
ethic. It doesn’t exist. The Governor of South Carolina, apparently, rarely attends any work
functions, regardless of whether physical or mental exertions are required.

Yes, Mark Sanford is a fraud, not in the legal sense, as I claim no qualifications to make such a
judgment, but in the political/personal sense. Indeed, he behaves fraudulently in every aspect of
his life.  He preaches “Christian” morality should govern human relations, particularly within the
family. Yet, he blissfully ignores any and all restraints upon himself that such morality might
impose. He preaches frugality in public and private life, and practices neither. He lives and
travels well as Governor and, in his private life, he lives in one of the most expensive
neighborhoods in South Carolina. He demands “principled” approaches to politics on the part of
others, all the while, and at every turn, whoring for ideological interests, against the interests of
his constituents. He preaches the gospel of making South Carolina overwhelmingly attractive to
business and other private sector capital, through tax cuts and so forth, as the means to reduce
unemployment, currently the fourth highest in the nation. At the same time, according to
publishes reports, he blithely blows off meetings with private sector companies interested in
creating jobs by locating in the state.

Make no mistake, it is not fraudulent, or any other inappropriate or illegal, behavior, or

combination of such behaviors, alone that makes a person sorry. Nor is it the mere presence, in
an object, of kitsch or the grotesque that fully defines tacky, though these may be an element of
that term. To be truly sorry or to be truly tacky or both, the object these terms describe must be,
at once, both deliberate in its intent and oblivious to its status. Mark Sanford rises above, or falls
below, depending upon your appreciation of the trick, the status of a mere fraud and achieves
pluperfect sorriness because he has no idea he is. Governor Sanford either does not believe that
the normal rules of behavior apply to him or, and I think this more likely, is so delusional he does
not recognize he is running afoul of those rules.

An object, whether animate or inanimate, must present itself to the world in a state of
unconsciousness regarding its tackiness and/or sorriness. Such an object must not only be
unaware of its status, such status must not even occur to it as a possibility. Tackiness and
sorriness is similar in this respect to noblesse oblige. To be true, the cloak and mantle of any of
these properties must fall naturally and unaffected upon its recipient.

This is the ephemeral element that is so hard to define for a non Southerner. After all, how is it
possible for a flower pot to unconsciously and deliberately present itself, in any way whatsoever,
to the world, as it has no consciousness? How can an insentient entity be aware or unaware of its
affectations, if any?

That Southerners do not concern themselves with such questions is confirmation of my suspicion
that every Southerner has, embedded somewhere in his or her DNA, a smidgeon of animism. If
so, this trace of the primeval way of understanding the world is present in our unconscious and,
without really knowing it, allows us to assume there is a “spirit” of some sort that occupies all
objects, animate and inanimate. Thus, it is both possible for a flower pot and Mark Sanford, the
personification of a flower pot, to each be unconsciously, but deliberately, tacky or sorry or both.

As you see, it is a complicated question, this meaning of things tacky and sorry. While I have
given the explanation of the matter my best effort, I am not entirely satisfied with the result.  I
fear this attempt to illuminate the matter falls short of the mark, certainly short of the Mark. So, I
invite you to offer your thoughts, comments, prayers and questions on the subject.