Dire "Straits"

     
        I first noted "strait" and saw that it wasn't "straight."  Why?  "Strait" derives from Latin strictus, "strict," and thence from stringere, "to draw tight."

       "Straightjacket" is a variant, but "straight" derives from Middle English strecchen, "to stretch."

       Dennis's eyebrows and folded arms and Mom's look and little flush lines on her cheeks show their reactions.

Creative Misreading

       I just came upon the transcript of a microcassette recording I made while driving the U.S. West Coast and into Canada in 1999--


       This is what I read in a guidebook about Washington's Olympic Peninsula tonight:

             “The lower portion of the subalpine zone is covered by tourists.”

Wait a minute:

            “The lower portion of the subalpine zone is covered by forests.”

But then again, I’ve seen a lot of tourists lately covering a lot of everything.

       Creative misreading can also tell something of the truth.

Comic Relief?

       We're not out of hard economic times.   But I do recall a year or two ago when distress was deeper yet and employment maybe even more huge a worry on people's minds.  The news twice weekly seemed to say something like

                We need 100,000 new jobs a month 
              just to keep up with population growth.

And I always pictured squadrons of little infants going off to work.

Rappers Have an Ear for Rhyme

       Driving home tonight I heard a rap artist on the radio doing his thing, a thing I'm not used to hearing often.  I caught a rhyme that I doubt I would hear anywhere else.  "Righteous" was rhymed with "I might just."

       A lot of different letters and separate words in there that don't seem to add up to a "rhyme that chimes."  But it does.

        If we only take note visually of words and letters, we can be led astray from their actual sound in connected speech.  The rap artist wasn't.  Give it a try a couple times, more if necessary.  (Yes, the "t" at the end of "just" doesn't quite match, but in conversational English, that final "t" jus(t) gets lost.)


      

Footnotes

       It's so good as I go through throwing away most old academic journals which I simply have no use for any more, to realize as I do read an occasional piece that catches my eye,  unlike the many years as a student and academic, I no longer feel the compunction to read the

footnotes.

Homemade Cartoon WordPlay

                     Bomb-smelling dog.                            Bomb, smelling dog.

"One Hundred Names for Love"

       Diane Ackerman wrote One Hundred Names for Love about her husband Paul West, both of them writers, both in love with language and each other.

       When Paul fell victim to a stroke that took his abilities both to understand and use language, Diane nursed him back to health by reminding him of the enormous list of pet names he called her by, such as "swan" or "pilot-poet."  He remembered them and gradually regained those words, then others, with love and language. 

       Diane lists the hundred names in the back of the book.  She says, "Paul had so many pet names for me I was a  one-woman zoo."

The Name Befitting the Profession

       We saw a movie tonight, Ginger & Rosa, a good one.  But as credits rolled by, I spied a name, Gary Hoptrough.  He's a stuntman.  It struck me again how names (perhaps made up) can reflect or be appropriate for the professions their owners are in.  Maybe a big trough requiring a huge effort and skill to get across?

       I've thought from time to time that Hawk Spittle would be a good name for a professional baseball player.  Perhaps it's due to memories of chewing tobacco used by ballplayers to get their nicotine lifts.

       Then there's a name that's not made-up, belonging to my friend Toby's proctologist.  The man performs Sigmoidoscopies, inserting a long tube to examine the lower intestinal track, starting from you-know-where.   The doc's last name...Nestlerod.

Honoring a Rabbi

       A few words from a rabbi we honored last night for his 13 years of service to our congregation before he moves on to become a senior rabbi in Vancouver, Canada.  We truly felt the value of Dan Moscovitz's words and deeds during his years with us.  He says these three points distill the messages he has given us:

       1.  Life is precious.  It is sacred.  And it is final.  We are all going to die.  We cannot control or change that.  The only thing we can influence is how we live.  So live a life of meaning and purpose.  This is the only life you get.  Fill it with holiness, fill it with meaning, fill it with love, with service to others, with intention and attention.  Don't waste it because no one gets two funerals.

       2.  Empathy.  Because we as Jews have suffered,  ancient Egypt, the Holocaust, we of all peoples should understand the pain and the suffering of others.  Be more observant of the lives and the needs of others.  Notice people and their challenges in life.  Understand them before you judge them.  Put yourself in their shoes, see the world through their eyes.  And be an empathetic expression and extension of God in the world and in their lives.

       3.  Live on Jewish time.  By that I mean the Jewish calendar, its seasons, holidays, observances.  They are an ingenious pattern for living a life of meaning.  Shabbat tells us to stop, to stop the rushing of our lives and each week to thank God for the blessings that surround us, the blessings of those in our lives.  Yom Kippur reminds us to make amends.  Chanukah of the power of the few in the face of the many to speak truth to power.  Regular Torah study in the weekly Torah portion gives insight and context to the present...as it honors our past.  To sit shiva removes us from the world to focus on what our world has lost, for we have lost one who is dear and profound to us; it is about the soul.  Tradition becomes a tradition because it had something of value to offer; if it didn't, we would have dropped it.  Follow it, observe it, honor it.

       The song sung by our cantor immediately after Dan's words, carried the theme that was heartfelt for this congregation:  "Because I knew you, I have changed...for good."  

      

"Palaver"

       "Enough of my palavering," said I to my son on the phone before we said goodnight.  Hadn't used that word in ages.  It means "to talk profusely or idly," which is what I had been doing.

       Palaver is from Portuguese palavra, meaning "word" or "speech," from Late Latin parabola, parable.  The two halves of the word derive from Greek para ("beside") and ballein ("throw"), and thus can translate "comparison," which certainly is a meaning of "parable."

       Perhaps too many comparisons or analogies or illustrations or examples can grow profuse and idle and become "palaver."

Which Eye Profession do You "Opt" for?

       I went to see the doctor for new eye-glasses.  Or did I?  Is the optometrist a doctor?  An optometrist is not an M.D., Medical Doctor, but an O.D., Doctor of Optometry.

       Only the ophthalmologist is an M.D., specializing in the structure and diseases of the eye and who may perform surgery.  The optician sees to the proper making of the eye glasses, reading and transferring the optometrist's measurements into the actual glasses.

       All three professions opt for the "op" beginning, which goes back to Greek for "eye."

"Howl," 2

        The poem Howl is a howl of anguish and ecstasy.  It is about institutional psychiatric care (Allen Ginsberg's mother and his friend Carl Solomon were both sufferers), about people prostituted to money and industry, about hypocricy and corruption in government, about young people struggling to make sense of their lives, discovering and rapturing with sex and drugs and love including homosexual sex.

       The rhythms of the poem Howl are powerful and incantatory; the language is uninhibited, words that friends use to be honest and forthright with each other.  The judge rightly vindicated Howl, and Howl stands as a great testament of "telling it like it is" with force and accuracy and high emotion.

       "Howl!"      The word is imitative of the sound we and animals utter.  The poem is that cry at length.  The movie is a majestic work of art and love.

"Howl," 1

       "Howl" is an imitative and expressive word.  It's also the name of a famous poem by Allen Ginsberg, which I heard Ginsberg deliver in New York City in 1957 or 58.  Howl is the title too of a wonderful 2010 documentary film on the poem, starring James Franco as Ginsberg.

       The film shows the trial of Lawrence Ferlinghetti for selling the book Howl in Ferlinghetti's City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, on the charge that he was selling obscene literature.  All the words in the film are those of the people being portrayed on the screen:  Ginsberg, judges, lawyers, witnesses.

       Ginsberg reading Howl, Ginsberg speaking to an interviewer, plus the images of a marvelous visual animation of Howl.  Franco is superb both reading and enacting Ginsberg.
                                     (Part 2 tomorrow)

"Boxing"

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)

        Actually the OED says box as a generalized "blow" is now obsolete except as a slap to the ear or side of the head and the origin of the hitting or fighting meaning of "box" is unknown.   It likely had nothing to do with the kind of box depicted here, alas.

"Tennies," Anyone?

       My wife wears her "tennies" and gets new ones when she needs them (when the tennies, that is, don't look good any longer, referring to the uppers that are visible to the world).

       But I'm the only one who plays tennis.  And I need new ones basically only when the soles have no new purchase on the court and the tread is smooth, which is invisible to all but me.

       We kid each other about who buys the most "tennies" with entirely different justifications.  (She says I do, but I also jog and think it's unfair to count those.)

       "Tennis" comes from Anglo-French tenetz (imperative form), from French tenir, "to hold."   In the early form of the game in France, the server would apparently call out to the receiver, "Hold,"  meaning "Receive."

"Anemone"

       Connie has an anemone flower growing in the front yard.  (Rhymes with Gethsemane, hegemony.)  Called the "wind flower," perhaps because its petals are lost easily to the wind; the root is from Greek anemos, wind.

       Sea anemones have resemblance to a flower, and the tentacles around their mouth move,  appearing to be influenced by water's flow.

       An anemometer measures the speed and force of the wind.

       "An Emone of the People" is a play by Ibsen.  No, that's just a joke.  It's "An Enemy of the People."

"2 MSFITS"

A license plate.  "2 MSFITS."  What does it mean?  My first reaction was--"Two Misfits," maybe like a husband and wife who each felt out of step with the world but found each other and were sympatico--thank God...Two Misfits.

But then I thought, what if it were two females, "Two ms. fits"  feminists?  living together?  lesbian?

Leave out a letter or two, and you increase the possibilities of meaning.

"Self"

       In the dentist's office, I picked up Self magazine.

       I found my self resenting it.  Clearly it was a woman's magazine revolving around beauty and health and personal charm and making yourself sexy for men.  What?  Don't men have a "self"?

       If I can't sleep early in the morning, I meditate--following my breathing in and out--and on the outbreath, I say, "There's a self at the center of this breathing," which has often helped bring me back into my own life.

       But some Eastern religions question whether there is a self, encouraging thoughts that we may only come to our "self" when we allow it to disappear, when we fully attend to and are present for others and the world before us as it transpires...

       OK, ladies, you can keep the "SELF."  I disown it. 

"Thou," "Thee," and "Thy"

       "Thou" may sound old-fashioned, but English is now the only Indo-European language that doesn't have a familiar form for "you."

       French has "tu" and "vous," one the familiar, the other formal.  Same with German "du" and "Sie."  We virtually struck "thou" out of the language.  German "du" and English "thou" have an especially close affinity:  "du" became "thou."

       A translation I grew up on of some wonderful Hebrew is no longer used, much to my chagrin.  Part of that older English:


"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might.  And these words, which I command thee this day shall be upon thy heart."


       "You" becomes more remote.  No longer does God speak to the people God came to live amongst in the familial terms of relationship.

"Of Time" and the Hummingbird

       Six weeks I let it sit empty, guiltily.  But today I finally filled the hummingbird feeder that draws such delight so close to the house.

       Then I came upon this poem of Mary Oliver from a book my daughter birthdayed me with a couple years ago:


       Of Time

Don't ask how rapidly the hummingbird lives his life.
You can't imagine.  A thousand flowers a day, a little sleep, then the      
       same again, then he vanishes.
I adore him.

Yet I adore also the drowse of mountains.

And in the human world, what is time?
In my mind there is Rumi, dancing.
There is Li Po drinking from the winter stream.
There is Hafiz strolling through Shariz, his feet loving the dust.

       from Swan:  Poems and Prose Poems

     
      


 

Beware the "Yours!" of Tennis

       Jeannie and I go back many years as part of the same group playing doubles tennis on Sundays, but when I'm her partner, I laugh every time she says, "Yours!" 

       Why?  Because it appears to me she could have gotten to the ball and returned it.  When the word "Yours!" pops out of her mouth, I am typically miles away, and the ball is already by her and clearly out of human reach, certainly out of mine.

       What can I do but laugh?

"Sleep that Knits Up the Ravelled Sleeve of Care"

       "Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care."

       Thank you, Miss Anderson, for having us memorize those "spot passages" from Shakespeare.

       And we had to memorize them.  Each week, we'd go one by one up to her desk, sit by it, and while other students were studying, recite to her quietly the "passage of the week."

       Today, napping after a lousy, losing game of feeble tennis, lost against the winds and better players across the net, I feel my two-hour nap healing my aching body and soul for the pains of the game, for DST's extraction of an hour, and for a hectic week to boot!

       "Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care."

"Quiescently Frozen"

       "Quiescently frozen" appeared (and still appears) on the wrapper of those delightful confections on a stick, my favorite childhood brand being "Fudgesicle," a chocolaty brown frozen bar.  I never knew, and I never wondered what "quiescently frozen" meant.

       But it must have nagged a little because I recently found myself looking at an Eskimo "Fudge Bar" wrapper...and making a phone call. 

       The "Q. and A." man at the Eskimo Pie Company in Richmond, Virginia, told me it means "less than 10% air is whipped in" so that it has the right texture.  It's denser and colder than ice cream, for example, which has more air whipped in.  Little whipping for "quiescently frozen confections"; they just sit there and "quiesce," which, from Latin, means "be still."

       And now I shall do the same, quiesce, about my fondly remembered childhood dyslexia.
 

Lips, Gum Ridge, & Tongue All in a Mashup

       Police, protesters, and military fighting in Egypt today, and I take note of something I wrote on October 10, 2011:


       Confusion in Egypt today...and confusion in language.  Protests, physical fighting, gunshots, many deaths.

       Reports came on the radio: Coptic Christians protesting; there were police; there were security forces; the military.  Reporter spoke of "the cops interacting with the police"--wait, the cops are the police aren't they?    

       Later I realized Coptic is the adjective, Copts is the noun to designate those Christians.  You try to make the "p," "t," and "s" all work in "Copts" without sounding exactly like "cops."

       And maybe those security forces were the military, who after all are ruling Egypt at present.  In that case, in a sense, all of the feuding, fighting folks in Egypt today were COP(T)S.

Homemade Cartoon Punster

                                      "No, I said, 'Hold your breath!'"

"Mother Fu----"

       Pouring a weighty frying pan of food into a bowl, I said, "This is a heavy Mothah!"  Which instantly brought back basic training at Ft. Knox, Kentucky.

       A Southern Black chaplain gave us a lecture on the soldier's use of language, calmly admonishing us that we didn't need to use the term "Mother Fu----."

       There were lots of Black and White draftees in that room, and as I recall, the Blacks first of all and then the rest of us did everything we could to smother snickers, snorts, and bursts of laughter whenever the expression was mentioned.

       I doubt its use was one whit reduced by the lecture that day; and I added it to my vocabulary.  But maybe that truncated "Mothah" of mine is a tribute to the partial success of the good chaplain's efforts.

Elder Sounds

        Elder sounds. I don t know if they constitute a language per se, but they not only express a lot, they communicate a lot--mainly, being under physical stress.

        Getting up and sitting down produce a goodly number of such sounds:  "Uhh," "Enh," little grunts and groans that I 've come to realize are not necessarily seeking sympathy or help, but are involuntary accompaniments to strain.  The body creeks a little to get where it needs to go or do what it needs to do, and the vocal instrument joins it in support!

"Preposterous Pre-Posthumous"

       Poet David Ferry was on the PBS NewsHour tonight.  He had been one of five nominees for the National Book Award.  When asked what he thought his chances were, he said, "My hope is maybe they'd give it to me as a preposterous pre-posthumous award."

      "Posthumous" means "after earth" (humus=earth), so after burial, but "pre-" would then have to be before such burial and still alive--a better time to actually receive an award in person.

       If  "pre" means "before" and Latin posterus means "coming after" (OED), then the fore is coming after and the after before; the verbal house of cards collapses; and it IS preposterous.

       At eighty-eight--and being a poet--Ferry could both worry about and have fun with such things.   And maybe it's why he won the award. 
      

Silent Communication

       A few months ago, I saw the quietest touch football game I 've ever seen.  While setting my pedometer before jogging at the park, I noticed the game.   It was very quiet for about 16 young men lined up in two teams, running plays, moving to catch and defend against passes.

      Then I realized they were deaf.  A very occasional call out or yell, but no words.  However, a lot of gestures, eyes sharply tuned, and from time to time American Sign Language.

       I noticed a CSUN sweatshirt, California State University Northridge, known for its deaf program; hence this number of non-hearing young men enjoying themselves athletically and communicating--quietly--was really not that extraordinary.

Heard in a Word

       On the air, I heard of someone who was an "oxygenarian"--yes, that was the sound, which I knew must be "octogenarian," but once I heard it that way, I realized indeed both "words" apply to me.

       I am in my eighties,  83 as of this week--my prerogative to take the whole week for my birthday at this age--but with asthma and what my primary physician has referred to for the last five years as COPD,  I have breathing challenges that make me an "oxygenarian" too.

       I might as well, while claiming seven days for my birthday, make a single word serve up two meanings that both apply to me!

Homemade Prayer?

       The language of prayer can be mystifying or arcane to many.  I myself say a few words of thanks and concern each morning, thinking about family and friends, but I don't, haven't, before meals like one of my friends and one relative.  Those two give me pause when they take a moment before eating to say a few words.

       Naomi Levy moved me to imagine I could try such a thing.  I found a Blessing over Food in her "homemade" prayer book Talking to God, a book which gives you to wonder why we don't make up our own prayers more often.  These words struck me with their simplicity and justness:

                               Thank you for plants, animals, and water.