Washington – Rocky Mountain National Park is the state’s crown jewel. Just ask lawmakers Marilyn Musgrave and Ken Salazar, each of whom dubbed it so.
But wait.
Reps. Mark Udall and Ed Perlmutter declared the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden as the crown jewel.
Hold on.
The Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge is the crown jewel, according to Sens. Wayne Allard and Salazar (yes, Salazar’s already had his pick, but we’re not ready for that yet).
For those elected to represent Colorado, crown jewels – rare treasures only a monarch can possess – are everywhere. It is, ahem, the crown jewel of metaphors.
“The new medical center on the old Fitzsimons Army campus can be the crown jewel of the veterans’ health-care system,” Salazar said in June.
“Once completed, the Fitzsimons Campus will be the crown jewel of Colorado’s medical community,” Allard said in July.
In a job filled with subjects that are shades of gray, you do what you can to evoke a sparkly image.
An effective symbol
“Crown jewel” is more than just convenient prose. It’s an effective symbol, said George Lakoff, professor of cognitive science and linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. Crown jewels, he said, evoke power, wealth, beauty and morality.
“If you live in a place where the crown jewels are, you live in an important place,” Lakoff said. And when you’re competing for money and attention, “the crown jewel is at the top of every ratings system.”
The crown-jewel metaphor in politics dates back at least to 1980, when President Carter used it to describe parts of Alaska, according to The New York Times. A Reagan administration official applied the term to Yellowstone, Yosemite and Grand Canyon national parks.
The latest iteration of lawmakers has expanded the size of the crown. And not just in Colorado.
California lawmaker Adam Schiff, a Democrat, called the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena “one of the crown jewels of American science.”
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., called a particular warhead “the crown jewel of our nuclear program.”
Salazar is Colorado’s crown-jewel king.
He has used the term to describe everything from the arsenal wildlife refuge to the state’s role in national defense and homeland security, and ascribed it to places from the San Luis Valley to Rocky Mountain National Park to Fountain Creek.
Phrase overused
Seems Salazar’s been saying it since the early 1990s, when, as the first chairman of the Great Outdoors Colorado Board, he held hearings on how to protect Colorado’s open spaces, which he called “crown jewels.”
“I don’t know where I got the term, but I remember using it a lot,” Salazar said of his rhetorical gems.
A crown jewel, he said, is “very unique and very special.”
A unique honor, indeed. One that’s bestowed many times.
“If you look at a crown of a king or a queen, you’re going to find multiple jewels on that crown,” Salazar said.
Which raises the question, how many jewels can a crown have before it crushes your head?
Like many descriptive words and phrases, “crown jewel” has suffered from “inflation,” said Deborah Tannen, a linguistics professor at Georgetown University and author of several books on communication. Colorful words and phrases at first are used sparsely, then become overused. Think “firestorm.”
A little tarnish on the value of the verbal jewel.
Researcher Barb Hudson contributed to this report.
Staff writer Anne C. Mulkern can be reached at 202-662-8907 or amulkern@denverpost.com.
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COLORADO’S RICHES – BUT ARE THEY ALL “JEWELS”?
Rocky Mountain National Park
Dubbed one by Rep. Marilyn Musgrave and Sen. Ken Salazar.
Fitzsimons Campus
Salazar reveres this project as well, as does Sen. Wayne Allard.
National Renewable Energy Lab
A gem in the eyes of Reps. Mark Udall and Ed Perlmutter.
Fountain Creek
Salazar also is in awe of the watershed along the state’s central Front Range.
