"Saxophonist"

       As a kind of addendum on yesterday's "microscopist" entry, I have to say that the Brit's attempt especially to get us to say [sack-SAHPH-n-IST] for this word is a very similar case in point.  You've entirely lost the word "saxophone."

       At least Merriam-Webster tells us as Americans that the pronunciation for this word is [SACK-suh-PHONE-ist].  Brava! Bravo! from me for that one.  And if we can come off our high horses (never the British, of course) for this one, why not for the other and make the word [MY-kruh-SKOHP-ist]!!!

       We tend to want to emulate the "high-class" Brits for whom at times, the more esoteric the word sounds, the more right it must be.  (A little jazz saxophone ought to loosen 'em up.)

"Microscopist"

       Reading biologist E. O. Wilson's latest book called Creation,  a beautifullly detailed and eloquent siren call to save the life of the planet,  I come across the kind of word that drives me a little nuts.

       Now you and I know how to say the word "microscope."  But in discussing how to get a young person turned on to science by giving the kid a microscope, Wilson speaks of it having worked for himself, turning him into a microscopist like Anton Leeuwenhoek.  There it is.

       Neither the word "micro" nor the word "scope" appear in the word "microscopist," anyway in the saying of it.  It comes out [my-KRAHS-kuh-PIST].   This pronunciation  loses entire touch with the original root parts that give us to understand,  provide our bearing on what the word means!

          (Please see tomorrow's post.)

Lindstrom Got its Dots Back, Yeah!

       Here's a language story that reminds me of my native Minnesota and sounds just right to me!

       FM's "The World" keeps track of the "The World in Words" as part of its coverage and discovered that the little town of Lindstrom, Minnesota, had lost its "umlaut" over its "o" when the road signs leading into town were repainted.  People began to complain because the vast majority of the 4,442 citizens of Lindstrom are of Swedish inheritance, and that diacritical mark meant the town was pronounced LIND-strohm, not LIND-strm, and that's the way the townsfolk want it to be!

       Governor Mark Dayton finally sent out a fiat ordering the restoration of the two dots.  And his will was carried out.

       Umlauts are really of German origin and used in the German language, but Swedish too apparently.

(You can take a link to the story in print, audio and podcast by clicking here.)

"Trippingly on the Tongue"

       Please read this paragraph ALOUD from this morning's Los Angeles Times front page:


          After years of government investigations, Corinthian Colleges Inc. will shut down more than two dozen of its remaining schools, displacing more than 10,000 California students.  The move ends the turmoil at what was once one of the nation's largest for-profit college chains but presents fresh challenges to students, who now must seek transfers or federal loan forgiveness.


       At the Los Angeles Radio Reading Service, we often read articles over the air which we've not read completely, sometimes at all, in advance of going on air.  I stumbled when I came to four words in this paragraph--"what was once one"--.

       The writer might not realize this is a tough chain of words to put together and get right aloud; the broadcaster knows very well.  The sound that begins all four words is [w]; the vowel sound that follows it is [uh] as in "sun" in all four words; the closing consonant sounds all differ.  It's hard to get your mouth around all these successive single similar syllables successfully.

       HAVE FUN!  READ ALOUD.


      

"Inadvertently"

       What does it mean?  “Not turning to,” by root meaning anyway.

       Let’s see.  “Ad” means “to” from Latin and “vert” means “turn” as in “reverse” “turn back.”   Then “in” as a prefix  means “not” and so “not turning to.”

       Doing something “inadvertently” is to do it without intention, doing it without the mind turning [sufficiently] toward it.

When is sub-par English just fine?

   
       Yesterday, Dodgers manager Mattingly was talking generally in the direction of whether a hot-hitting, homer hitting rookie substitute infielder should replace a seasoned and popular third baseman in the lineup:

       "We know we have a long season, a long way to go.  You put things together during the winter knowing who your personnel [are] and how you think you see it working.  Sometimes, you stay with that course.  Other times, you have to get off that course.  We've played, how many games?  I just don't think we're willing to just go run in a whole 'nother thing."

       I don't mind at all that last sentence.  That 'nother is fine.  Maybe you'd rather see, "I just don't think we're willing to just go run in another whole thing."  More literate, but conversationally less spontaneous and "right on."   

"Stool Softeners"

       "Stool Softeners"?  I thought stools were supposed to be rigid so you didn't fall off  'em.

       But now that I look at "softener," I see that though the word has that "rigid" "t," there's no hard sound in the word "softener."

       Now that's appropriate.

"Working out, eh?"

       I got a peculiar, shy look from the bag boy at the grocery store. 

       I had started by asking him to put in as few items in each bag as posssible, not wanting too much weight per bag due to my upcoming hernia surgery.

      After paying the clerk, etc., I noticed three lightweight things going into my last bag, and that's when I said,  "Working out, eh?"  He was a well-built young man, no doubt in his late teens or early twenties, and I realized after he responded to me sort of shyly and scatteredly that he probably did "work out" and thought I was commenting on THAT rather than what I was.

       Words perform wonders.  They answer to several calls.   Any one you want to hear, you can take.

Earth Day (not to mention the other 364)

Reprise of Earth Day 2012 (2013, 2014) and why not?

(Click on 2013 above, and hear and see me recite the poem embedded in the previous four days' posts.)

Earthday, Birthday, Breathday: Part 4

”Inspire” me, God, please, "breathe into" me, until I breathe my last...”expire.”

      BreathDay, Birthday, thank you for this EarthDay.  It is through our very animal senses here on earth that we become aware of the spiritual that lies beyond them...as the poet closes his sonnet:

      (now the ears of my ears awake and
      now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Our senses are the portal to the spiritual, to the Divine.   Not only a poem, Cummings has given us a Prayer of Gratitude for Creation.

Earthday. Birthday, Breathday: Part 3

       This “ultimate embarrassment” following on Creation will, for me, come to an end.  And I was reminded how soon that might be by a recent attack of asthma.  The strength of the attack and the care and medicines I received for it have me saying

       I thank you God for this breath, and
       I thank you God for this breath

Breath and spirit are the same:  both invisible, both palpable, both vital; one earthly, one Heavenly.  And “spirit” indeed means "breath."  Cummings recognizes the connection and the breathing:

       how should tasting touching seeing hearing
       breathing any--lifted from the no
       of all nothing--human merely being
       doubt unimaginable You?

             (Concluded tomorrow)

Earthday, Birthday, Breathday: Part 2

       Cummings’ own poem notes the birthdays that continue consequent to Creation:

       (i who have died am alive again today,
       and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
       day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
       great happening illimitably earth)

Look, everything goes on being born, giving birth.  We, the earth itself carry on the work of Creation.

       Of course, what we humans should do with each living birthday to further the Creation, is the question.  As Abraham Joshua Heschel has phrased it, “Infinite responsibility without infinite wisdom and infinite power; is our ultimate embarrassment.”  (God in Search of Man, p. 285.)  But that’s our challenge.   (Continued tomorrow)

Earthday, Birthday, Breathday: Part 1

       “I thank you, God” begins many a meditation and prayer.  It also begins a poem by E. E. Cummings:

       i thank You God for most this amazing
       day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
       and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
       which is natural which is infinite which is yes

Cummings looks at the earthly and finds a witness to the Heavenly.    

       Something in a Saturday Minyan service at our temple made me think such thoughts a handful of years ago, the relationship between the earthly and Heavenly:  Shabbat is a celebration in gratitude for Creation, the Birthday of All, including the earthly.  And therefore Shabbat is also a celebration for ourselves.  Without Creation we would not be here.  The Sabbath is a celebration of our birthday.

       The next morning, upon awakening, I heard myself saying, “I thank God for this next Creation day” because Creation continues, and as God created me, I create each of 6 days as well.  And I’d better do as good a job of it as I can!    (To Be Continued)

Cartooning Our Wayward Keyboarding

Click on strip to enlarge

How many of us have lapsed off to drreamland with a finger on a key?

Poetry is being celebrated this Poetry Month

       One place poetry is being celebrated this Poetry Month is in Tucson's online arts magazine called 3 Story Magazine.  This digital publication can be discovered right here.

       My daughter Elizabeth is one of those people and places in Tucson helping enrich the poetry scene according to the magazine.  Even her dad and his blog (this one) have garnered mentions in the piece.

       Elizabeth's enthusiasm for poetry (and some of her own poems are marvelous) is given credit for prompting the idea for the colorfully illustrated and tautly written text.

       Enjoy a look.

      

"Thank You so Much for Having Me"

       I must listen to a lot of radio talk interview shows.  And it's probably true that it's an odd, horny bent of mine.  But when a female guest is introduced and welcomed by a male radio interviewer, her response is almost always something like,"Thank you for having me."  And I tend to hear that exchange mainly with its sexual implications.

       If it's a male guest, those same words fly right by without my notice.

Thank you, Wind, and Gary Snyder

       as the crickets' soft autumn hum
       is to us
       so are we to the trees
       as are they
       to the rocks and the hills

       It must have been the sound of the wind burgeoning up strong at night here that brought me back these few lines of Gary Snyder.  And I'm thankful.

Apostrophes / Contractions / Cartoons

Please click on cartoon to enlarge

Brooke McEldowney captivates with language, drawing, and story on the web at this location.

"Be yourself; everything else is taken."

       All right, so I was captivated and tickled by this line seemingly "thrown in" to the dialog in the movie Connie and I saw tonight:  While We're Young.

       Such a worthwhile movie about love, and marriage, and having kids (or not), ambition, getting older; about making documentaries:  what's more creative and honest, attending and recording or throwing yourself and what you know into the mix and helping make it happen?

       Ben Stiller has serious Oscar aspirations, or at least I do for him.

       And Noah Baumbach has a movie-and-a-half in While We're Young, I believe.

       And that line again:  "Be yourself; everything else is taken."

       So there was humor and seriousness, and the former sneaks up on you while the latter is taking the foreground.  

 

Horoscoope with a Lift for Every Sign!

"Perfect"

 
        There's a Starbucks barista, whenever I order WHATEVER I order, he perkily bursts out, "Perfect!"   He's the first I heard do this.  I thought it was unique, surprising for sure, and lo and behold, I felt complimented I'd made that choice!!  (And it happens every time.)

        The other day, another restaurant,  my son and I ordering something at a counter,  I again received the ultimate praise.   How discerning can I BE?    How dumb can THIS be?   (Yet I felt, "I ordered the right thing!")

        Just today, called our tax accountant.   Secretary said he was with another client, could he call me back?  "Sure," I said.  "Perfect," she said.  Now, what state of perfection was it that I was able to receive a return call?   (Beginning to think this "perfect" thing is noisome.)    

"liquidambar" ("sweet gum")

        This day's high pollen levels where I live are contributed to by the liquidambar tree, also known as sweet gum.  We have one right down the street from us. 

       It's the resin from the tree that gives us amber after it goes into the earth, capturing plant or insect life into fossils as the resin hardens.  Some amber in sand around the Baltic Sea is 40 to 60 million years old.

       The sweet gum name designates the resin while it is still soft and chewy, but it is mildly bitter rather than sweet, only sweet in comparison with another resin that is extremely bitter!

       The leaves of the tree are multicolored in autumn and handsome, and the dried fruit pods that have given forth resins and sweet gum and finally seeds I have used as an element of  mobiles I've made.

CT; no, Scat Cat; no, CAT Scan

       I saw a CAT Scan today, also known as a CT Scan.  A cross sectional image of a part of the body taken by radiologists. 

       It started out with that intriguing way of saying it in 1975 when it was introduced and known as Computerized Axial Tomography; hence CAT Scan.  The later term meaning Computed Tomography may be the more common one now . . .

       But I'm glad the original still clings on because it's much more fun and memorable!  (I'm glad especially because there really was a reason for that "A" in the middle, not just a fill-in letter to make "CAT" as I had supposed.)

She Heard it Right & Rightly Reveled in that FULL SOUND!

You can find Bil & Jeff Keane's website here.

"Naida" is Way More than Nada

       A part-time care giver arrived at our house this afternoon.  Her first name is Naida (NIGH-duh). We asked her where that name came from.   She wasn't sure.

       Looking up online, it was from Greek, meaning "water-nymph."  Of course, on the Internet you always find other things.

       Connie, Naida, and I were amused to learn  another meaning of NAIDA: . . ."North Alabama Industrial Development Association"!


       I suddenly remembered Diana Nyad, famous swimmer, writer, broadcaster, speaker.  She's broken marathon swimming records.  She got the name Nyad when her mother re-married a Greek-Egyptian of that name and adopted Diana.  I mention this for two reasons: 1. the connection of names both referring to water-nymphs, Diana's most well-known area of achievement; and 2. that Diana's given name is an anagram of Naida.

The Age WE Live In::TEENAGERS Live In

click on cartoon strip to enlarge

See these two wonderful cartoonists' work at this site.

March 31st--a Day to Fine-Tune your Ear

       Dad would have loved Mark Swed's story in today's L.A. Times:  March 31st is "Orchestra Day" in Tokyo.   Everyone's out listening to music.

       The Suzuki method of teaching classical music to children post World War II is responsible, creating virtually a nation of music lovers and musicians.

        Almost no foreign musicians are sought for Tokyo's nine orchestras; "home-grown" fill the chairs.  Yet Japanese musicians help populate Europe's and America's orchestras.

       Dad, an 8th grade graduate who treasured education and got this kid finally to obtain a PhD, touted Suzuki's mass teaching methods, and he and Mom visited Japan to see the system at work, finally actually meeting Suzuki.
 
        Nine years ago the Japanese selected March 31 as "Orchestra Day."  Why?  The date in Japanese sounds very much like the sound for the word "ear"!

Passover: A Night of "Observing"

       First Seder.  They say Passover may be the most observed holiday in the Jewish calendar.  I think I know why.

       The Torah not only depicts the dramatic events of the Passover; it simultaneously commands the observance of the event as a Holy Day for the rest of the people's life on earth.


"It was a night of watching unto the Lord for bringing them out from the land of Egypt; this same night is a night of watching unto the Lord for all the children of Israel throughout their generations..."


        In the Hebrew word she-moo-reem, "watching," the merged ideas watching, keeping, guarding, protecting, observing, as in "observance" of Passover. . . .From the Torah itself, we simply don't know how to separate the ancient event of the Passover from the commanded celebration of it!

"OH-oh"

       Me calling our tax accountant's office:  "I'm late on getting our taxes in.  My wife usually does it, but she had an accident and surgery, and unfortunately, I'm doing it this year."

       The receptionist had a wonderful response:  "OH-oh."

       I laughed that she was agreeing with me, but maybe more than that.  It was a little like "Oh, a man's doing it.  Look out.  This incompetence was not due only to inexperience but inherent incapacity."  The thought of that made me laugh louder.   It seemed she didn't have the slightest idea that she might be insulting a client; just acknowledging the obvious and well known.

       Oh, it's a different world these days and a healthier one.  The "OH-oh" was satire at its best.  And I had opened myself up for it with the "unfortunately."

"Innumerable Friend"

       Listening to a wonderful recording I made 33 years ago of a "last" car ride, my wife, teenage children, taking a French visiting student back to the airport after spending wonderful summer months with us as a guest.  It was a happy carful that made me smile with tears throughout its half hour length.

       On the other side of the cassette tape, I placed a recording of May Sarton reading her wonderful poem, "Innumerable Friend," which ends as follows:

                 Build an invisible bridge toward one person.
                 So the slow delicate process is begun,
                 The root of all relationship and then
                 Learn that this stranger has become all men,
                 Flows through the open heart as a great host
                 Of all the human, solitary, lost.
                 His longing streams through the conventions
                 Of diplomats and their meagre intentions,
                 Hunting for home like a great hungry wind.
                 He is the one, this our innumerable friend!

                 Let us forget these principalities, these powers;
                 We are theirs perhaps, but they are not ours.
                 Turn toward each other quietly and know
                 There are still bridges nations cannot overthrow.
                 And if we fight--if we must at the end--
                 These are the bridges we fight to defend.
       
       

Hey, Pal, Try This On for a Palindrome.

        Why do I find myself saying "Sex at Noon Taxes"?

        Do you suppose it's something to do with taxes and I'm doing them for the first time in my life almost, I think?

        Oh, but then I have it all backwards, don't I?  It's really "Sex at Noon Taxes"!

             [pal="back, again"; drome="run"; in Greek, that is]