"Blog"

       A person of my generation looks at spell-check on a computer and marvels at such a thing being available to marginal spellers...or slightly careless ones... as we all get to be BECAUSE spell-check is there to back us up.

       Yes, you detect a little old-fogyism there.  Us old-timers had to know how to spell.

       So I guess my feelings are a little mixed when I find out the computer program for my email doesn't know the word "blog."  It always underlines it in red.  How can that be?  How can something so contemporary and with the digital age be behind on the word "blog"?   Part of me is glad it's out of date in that respect.  The other part of me sniffs and puts up my nose when I see it:  "So old-fashioned." 

He/Him, Who/Whom, Who Cares?

       The other day I stood for not being too high-hat and literal by saying "i.e." when the English translation "that is" will do the job easily and plainly.  I have another on myself.

       Last May 26th and 27th I posed the question how best to say "It's (he or him) (who or whom) you can't understand" and told why the choice should be "he" in the first instance and"whom" in the second; you need a subject after an "is" verb, hence "he," and "whom" would be the object of the verb understand.  So "It's he whom you can't understand."

       Following the guidance of several sources that take a common sense approach on such conundrums--look for a way to AVOID  such conundrums...like..."He's the one you can't understand."  Bravo!

"I Have a Dream"

       Fifty years ago today, Connie and I sat in our living room in Minneapolis and watched Martin Luther King deliver his most famous speech at the March on Washington.  We knew by the time it finished it was one of the great speeches of American history.

       Listening to it in its entirety again yesterday, I think I understood more fully why.  It certainly laid claim to the rights of a people denied for so long in so many ways, and it spoke for that audience.  But just as importantly, it appealed to the whole nation on the basis of the rights promised in our founding documents:  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."  It made us see and feel how far short of America's own expressed ideals and values the country had come. 

Latin Abbreviations: "I.E."

       "I.e." comes from two Latin words id est, which simply mean "that is."  Why do people, when reading aloud (and I guess to themselves silently too) almost universally read this expression as it appears . . . "i.e."? 

       Most people know what the term "means," at least approximately.  And I don't expect you to say "id est" (though you could since you now know what "i.e." stands for, and you probably say "et cetera" all the time), but why wouldn't you now say "that is," a direct and easy translation into English, which gives the exact meaning of the term?! 

       In fact, why don't people write "that is" instead of "i.e."?

       We get caught up sometimes in unspoken hierarchies of written language over oral, of classical over modern.  I say "Know it, tame it, turn it into English."

       

"Essay"

       "Count no [one] a music lover who has not essayed an instrument"--said the brilliant and acerbic 20th century American writer H. L. Mencken.

       I periodically reactivate my classical guitar playing and "essay" it again, not nimbly or musically but laboriously, and yet essay it, which means "try" it. 

       An essay is a trial, whether trying an idea or subject in words, or practicing play of a musical composition.  My "essaying" is a "trial" in another sense, it occurs to me, the trial I'm putting a listener through.

"Portal"/"Door"

       Daughter Elizabeth today put me on to the poetry of Jim Harrison.  In a poem called "Doors," Jim takes the doors in our lives to task because you're either inside or outside a door.  "Nature has portals rather than doors," he says.

       "Portal" suggests a way in, an entrance, and is inviting; a "door" can be either open or closed.  The Indo-European root of "portal" checks with this.  It is "per," meaning "forward" or "through" and with further verbal implications of "leading" and "passing over," "passage" through a "gate."

       Jim Harrison's poem seals the distinction with imagery:

              The sky is a door never closed to us.
              The sun and moon aren't doorknobs.

                            (from "Doors" by Jim Harrison, Songs of Unreason                                                           Copper Canyon Press, 2012) 

 
  

"Wizened"/"Wise"?

       On Monday, December 13, 2010 the L.A. Times "Capitol Journal" writer began a column praising then Governor-elect Brown:

               So far, Jerry Brown has been exhibiting the traits of a
       wizened old pol that led Californians to elect him governor.
               He's showing early signs of matching the expectations
       of millions who concluded he just might be the seasoned sage who
       can straighten out Sacramento's budget shambles.

       I wrote to the columnist cautioning him about giving a positive cast to "wizened" (pronounced with a short "i") as though it contained the root or association with "wise."

       Its root is from "Old English wisnian; akin to Old High German wesanen to wither"--Merriam Webster--and means "to become dry, shrunken, and wrinkled often as a result of aging or failing vitality."

"Sorry," 2

"Sorry," 1

       A famous book...an especially famous movie... caused an expression to catch on:  "Love means not having to say you're sorry."

       I've had to revise the phrase for another purpose recently because several young people I've played doubles tennis with as my partners have apologized whenever they do something they conceive to be their fault after we lose a point.  "I'm sorry, Don."  I always say, "Please don't apologize; otherwise I'll have to apologize every time I make a mistake, and it'll go on all morning.  Tennis means not having to say you're sorry."  They always smile.

       It's true.  It applies.  I have to remind my partners several more times, but usually they finally catch themselves and hold up with "Sor--"...oh yeah, (smiling) ok."

       "Tennis means not having to say you're sorry."  Heck, maybe life means not having to say you're sorry.
     
       (The above recollection is the occasion for my post tomorrow!)

Singular, Meet Plural

       Carrows Restaurant is the location of my blog post today.  A huge handsome menu titled Classic American Kitchen and with the headline "THEY'RE BACK":

       "You've spoken, and we've listened.  Carrows is proud to bring back all the classic dishes that's made us famous for more than 40 years."

       There are lots of Carrows in California.  How many hundreds of these menus have been printed and are being read this very day?

       How could Carrows have missed an obvious mistake on the front cover of their menu?  "All the classic dishes that's made us famous"?  Plural noun, singular verb?  And even headed "THEY'RE BACK"?

       It's not common to see "that've," but it would be fine.  If squeamish about the contraction, they could just make it "that have."  

"In the Bleachers" Cartoon

"Pro" 4: "Procrastinate," "Promise"

       I am writing "prose," though sometimes I cite verse.  Each has its use in my ongoing "project," this blog.  I have "cast ahead," planned and intended, as my description above says, "a daily entry of something interesting regarding language."  But what it requires is a regular application of the seat of the pants to a chair and the wiggling of fingers on a keyboard.

       In other words, I cannot "procrastinate"--"put forward to tomorrow" (cras meaning "tomorrow") what needs doing today.  If I miss the midnight deadline, I must make up the next day with two posts, or, I have failed what I've "projected."  And probably worst of all, I've failed myself.

       "So, Don, don't procrastinate, or your project won't fulfill its promise, i.e., what has been 'sent forth.'"

"Pro" 3: "Projector"

       "Projector" sounds modern, as in "film projector," but the excitement in this very word may have been at its pinnacle in the late 17th, early 18th, century.

       "Projectors” caught my ear in college lectures on Daniel Dafoe.  One of Dafoe's earliest writings, was An Essay Upon Projects (1697).  Dafoe called his time the “Projecting Age.”  And he envisioned what was necessary for the public good of England.

       Dafoe was looking for “projectors” who could take on these projects:  organizing the banking system; setting up an insurance and pension system; founding institutions for the mentally ill; establishing national academies; undertaking the education of women.

       Dafoe was a tradesman and “projector” himself, a practical man as well as novelist and writer, and he sought others who could "lay" plans and “throw" themselves "forward” into the betterment of their country!

"Pro" 2: "Project"

       That little “pro” is always moving forward, as in "project" (noun and verb). 

       Consider "film project.”  It seems to be the universal term for this Hollywood creative effort.  Sort of like “construction project.”  And I guess it really is:  a multi-headed effort involving bankrollers, script writers, producers, actors, director, cinematographer, scenic artists, editors, etc.  It needs to be “projected,” “-ject” deriving from Latin iacere, to “throw” or “lay.”  Lots of projects that are “thrown forward”... that are “fore-cast”... are “thrown out” before they materialize.

       But if such a hydra-headed monster survives and flourishes, it's mysteriously gratifying and wondrous.  It’s a “project” which had to be negotiated and carried forward through innumerable byways.  A work had been projected and achieved!  Now nothing needed but a projector...and the audience.

"Pro" 1: "Prose"

       In distinguishing “prose” from “verse” for students, I always went back to the Latin roots.  Why?  Because it always helped me.  “Prose” means “straightforward.”  So it’s the form of writing that appears in paragraphs.  The words go straight ahead until the sentence is completed and then straight ahead until the thought is completed. 

      “Verse” means “turn” as in “reverse” “turn back,” and it is the form of writing that appears in lines; you come to the end of the line, and you “turn” and begin again, come to the end of the next line and “turn” to begin anew.  Lines are units of the “turning” verse as sentences and paragraphs are the units of the “forwarding” prose.

"Human," "Humble," "Humility," 2

       "To err is human," said Alexander Pope.

       It may have been our errant ways that led biologist-essayist Lewis Thomas to ponder the impermanence of our species, so unprogrammed for success compared to a school of fish or members of the insect realm.  But Thomas posited one universal human behavior that he said just might save us:  "the urge to be useful."

       Lest it be said by the species that replaces us--said posthumously, "after burial in the earth"--that we were not sufficiently of use to the planet and one another, we should heed Lewis Thomas, and poet Marge Piercy too:   "I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,/...who do what has to be done, again and again."

      May we humbly seek our ways to serve.

"Human," "Humble," "Humility," 1

       Most words have "roots," which implies they have grown from fertile soil, but certain words have grown out of "earth" itself.  You've seen the word "humus" for soil or earth; it is directly from the Latin humus:  "earth."  "Human" and "humble" and "humility" come out of the same "soil."

       We are this planet's creatures, fully attuned to sentient life here where we were given life.  To be "human" is to be of the earth...and also therefore "humble."  We designate some of our best people as "down to earth," and that quality of character as one of the most enviable.  They are "human," we say.

       "Humility" becomes a human being:  to be human is to have feet of clay, quite literally.   Born of earth, finally, we are borne to the earth.  Our language says so.

"Antithesis"

       Shakespeare studied rhetoric growing up, and this way of thinking by contrasts and opposites is persistent in his work:  antithesis.

       Many poets and writers use it.   John F. Kennedy's inaugural:  "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." 

       I just received Barry Edelstein's book Thinking Shakespeare and found it saying, in part, if you want to get into Shakespeare as a reader or performer, you've got to get with the antithetical mode of thought.  I close with the couplet at the end of  Sonnet #43.    Each day a lover misses seeing his absent love and is only able to see her at nights by imagining her:

               All days are nights to see till I see thee,
               And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

Front Page Puns

       Sports pages and comics aren't the only places where puns thrive in the L.A. Times.  Today's front page has a story headlined "Helping kelp now an urchin matter."  The subheadline reads "Divers cull the spiny purple creatures that are ravaging the giant algae off Palos Verdes [Peninsula]."

       Sorry to hear the sea urchins need to be culled because they are beautiful, even if a bit scary:
 

And I have a couple other reasons to be attracted to the story.  I possess a sea urchin shell found on a local Pacific beach (sans spines):
 

Topside

Mouth on Underside

 It's only













 2 1/2 inches in diameter.








And then Connie's favorite cooking show recently had the aspiring cooks competing to make the best dish from the live creatures.

       My shell's perfectly symmetrical shape is lovely, but please don't accuse me of being spineless for not wishing to personally meet an urchin in spiny condition.  From the cooking show's very careful handling, I gathered I would find that an "urgent matter."

"Patent Ailments" & their Patent Medicine Cures

Click on Comic Strip to Enlarge

My son put me onto this old OPUS strip by Berkeley Breathed.

Even Marcel Marceau May Be Smiling

Click on Cartoon to Enlarge

"Fug"

       OK, I didn't know this word, and Connie did.  It kind of shocked me, not that Connie knew it and I didn't, but that it was a printable word at all.  "Fug."  My association would have been a word pervasively used and allowed in Norman Mailer's post World War II novel Naked and the Dead, a slight euphemism for battlefield talk:   "fuggin.'"

       Mary McNamara's L.A. Times review of a TV show some time back spoke of "the fug of male cluelessness that hangs over so many comedies these days."  Merriam-Webster defines "fug" as "the stuffy atmosphere of a poorly ventilated space; also :  a stuffy or malodorous emanation."  The word dates from 1888, perhaps an alteration of "fog."

       My vocabulary has gone up.  (If I can forget my other association.)

Foibles of the Mother Tongue

       Yesterday's L.A. Times spoke of Major League Baseball players desiring stiffer penalties for use of Performance Enhancing Drugs.  One sentence ended with this peculiarity:  "exactly the kind of hypocrisy rank-and-final union members want to end."

       "Rank-and-final?"  How did this happen?   First, no spell-check would catch it.  Second, doubtful any other human being (like an editor?) read the article before it was published.  Third then, how did the journalist come to using it?

       Perhaps he misheard "rank-and-file" before he ever saw it in print, figured it's the ordinary folks who in a democracy have the "final" say. 

       I had seen a similar expression go astray.  A close election race was described as "neck in neck."  I feel sure the journalist heard it that way first, and it stuck!    

"Complaint"/"Compliant"

       In a previous page-a-day calendar I created, I had a regular feature pairing two words, close to one another in sound and/or spelling but highly contrasting in meaning. One of that sort occurred to me again:

                                          Complaint
                                        Compliant

A couple letters reversed, and the whole meaning's almost upside down. "Plaint" is from a root word meaning "beat one's breast."  "Pliant" has the root of "pli" meaning "fold."  To be "compliant" is to fold oneself together with someone else; to utter a "complaint" is to beat one's breast with/against someone else.

      Two words so near and yet so far.

      Ah, English.

"Bougainvillea"

   Our Bougainvillea in Summer

       A fourth backyard flora graces our home, and its name has struck and charmed me: "bougainvillea."  Where does it come from?  I remember the World War II battle fought in the South Pacific on Bougainville.  What do the flowering bush or vine and the island have to do with each other, if anything?

       In 1766-69, French botanist Philibert Commerçon accompanied Louis Antoine de Bougainville, admiral and explorer, on a circumnavigation of the globe.  Commerçon discovered and named the South American climbing vine for his ship's captain.  When they reached the Solomon Islands, Captain Bougainville named one of its islands for himself.  Therefore, despite the common namesake, it's possible the bougainvillea does not grow on Bougainville.
 
        This plant (name included) has enhanced our yard and home for more than forty years.

Click on photo to enlarge

"Magnolia"

Our Magnolia

       Even the names of local plants do not come automatically to mind as did oaks and maples and pines in Minnesota.  Pyracantha, pomegranate, magnolia, bougainvillea; they have a strangeness on the tongue as identifiers of the natural environment for me.

       The magnolia tree that stands tall in our back yard presents its large white blossoms each spring, drops its big leaves into the pomegranate and bottle brush "next door," but still fights in my consciousness for "home" status, magnolia having such a Southern significance in my mind, the culture of the Southeastern United States, suggesting mint juleps, Southern drawls, and sultry Southern belles.

       I'm getting accustomed to you, magnolia...named for Pierre Magnol, 17th century French botanist...and increasingly appreciative of your constant presence and seasonal offerings.

A Blossom in Spring

 

"Pomegranate"

       The second bush or tree I face immediately outside our kitchen window is a pomegranate.

Our Pomegranate

       It is ancient and storied.  I often recall the lines from Exodus 28: 34-35, describing the fringe of the High Priest's robe:

"On its hem you shall make pomegranates of blue and purple and scarlet yarns, around its hem, with bells of gold between them, a golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, around the hem of the robe."

Now

        The word literally means "seedy apple"; Middle English from Old French:  pome "apple,"  grenate "having many seeds."  Truly many seeds, each enclosed in a juicy, mildly tart red pulp.

Pomegranate At Maturity

"Today Is Forever"

       Once again I was saying the Saturday poem I offer each week which expresses the idea that today is eternity if we experience it aright.  The everyday miracles that abound around us are packed with the scent of forever.  It's just hard to experience that continuously, so a day set aside for it can help.

        But what I wondered as I said the poem was how to experience these words I say as a fresh miracle of expression each time.  Because if I can't, the very message of the poem disintegrates.  Renewing the freshness of this poem seems to be my task, creating the immanence of eternity in every passing moment.

"Pyracantha"

Pyracantha, Pomegranate, Magnolia

       This is one of three trees/shrubs that grow in our back yard within sight of our kitchen window.  They're all interesting to me as words and because I didn't know them growing up in Minnesota.

Pyracantha

      



"Pyracantha" comes to us through Latin from Greek purakantha, meaning "fire thorn."   

The Berries Now

   



I have several "pin-pricks" from thorns while trimming the other day.

      
     

      


The bush has red-orange berries in the fall, hence the "fire" name.  (Pyromaniacs set fires).



        When our first pyracantha died from lack of watering, I had it replaced quickly:  I wanted a reprise of the "drunken squirrel" incident.  Squirrel became intoxicated from late season berries that had become fermented, and he would do 3 1/2 foot somersaults in the air from ground level.  He also kept coming back for more!  I await same from our "second edition" pyracantha.

"I've Taken on Teachers"

       I had marveled recently at the effectiveness of Rabbi Dan of our congregation in his weekly Torah study group.  He headed some sessions years back, but now he was a master teacher, taking us places we never could have imagined and always ending with unavoidable challenges to us on how we were conducting our lives in relationship with others.

       I praised Dan one-on-one after his last study session, just before he moved up to become senior rabbi in another congregation.  He thanked me, and I asked him what made the difference from those early sessions.  He said, "I've taken on teachers."  That surprised me.  "I used to think I knew best, that I could do better than anyone.  Now I have questions, go online, email friends and colleagues I know can help."