"Wise Saws and Modern Instances"*

       I came up with a bon mot or "wise saw" last week when I heard grandson Micah responding to his mother's question whether or not he was going to choose to do something.  The restaurant we were in was so noisy I couldn't make out exactly what it was.

       Micah thought a second or two before responding.  I was expecting to hear a yes or no; what I heard was, "I don't know."

       Thinking he might not be comfortable giving an indefinite answer, and remembering I was once his age, I said, in defense of a 15 year old's rights, "To not know is also to know your mind."

       Michael, the other grandpa at the table, smiled and assented to my gnomic wisdom.

       Our grandson, I think, felt supported.  We grandpas had done our job.

       *Jaques in As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7 ("All the World's a Stage")

Micah, Meet Micah

       Grandson Micah was in town before the first night of Chanukah.  We lit the first candle, of course, Micah saying the prayer over the light along with Connie and our daughter Elizabeth.

       Since Micah's 15 now, I thought I would tell him my favorite quote in the Bible from Micah the prophet, I reminded him, for whom he's named.  I made a kind of greeting card out of it with the quote clearly typed and which he could take with him--

       What the Lord requires of you:
       Only to do justice
       And to love goodness,
       And to walk modestly with your God.

       It appeared Micah was touched after reading it, and gave me a very big hug, which was returned.  He has been becoming an adult in several encouraging ways in the last two years, and somehow this felt to me like a seal upon it. 

Apple Incorporated's Advanced Knowledge

       For some reason, my iPhone, with its new System 10, has felt compelled to tell me that on Tuesday, December 27th, this day, there are

       "No Upcoming Events, Reminders, or Alarms."

       You cannot realize how warm and wonderful I felt to see those words.

Who's the Animal NOW?

       Where would we and our language be without animals to compare our behavior to?

       Somebody's playing "possum" because a possum can appear dead and then all of a sudden become very active instantly!  Sloths hang upside down by their claws and remain inert for a long time--hence certain people are "slothful."

       Ferrets are great little hunters, as of rabbits; so humans "ferret out" things.  Someone who likes to repeat whatever he's just heard is "parroting."

       Why do we say a woman has cuckolded her husband when she has an affair outside the marriage?  Because the female cuckoo frequently lays her eggs in other birds' nests.

       So don't be too "cocky" about our animal friends; we humble ourselves when we choose their behavior to name our own. 

       

"Sortation"

       "Sortation Center"?  Why not "Sorting"?  I'm reluctant to use this recently new word because it might help normalize an abomination.

       Have you heard of it?  I hadn't.  But now I learn Amazon started such in Seattle in 2014.  No grabbing and packaging of products at these centers, just sorting the already packaged and addressed boxes in enormous buildings with thousands of workers (at Christmas time) to get the product one step more quickly to a recipient.

       OK.  But "sortation"?  Trying to glorify or inflate the task? 

       Well, I suppose.  If you're already grabbing and packaging at a place they call a "Fulfillment Center" with overtones of life's dreams attained, why not up the ante on "sorting"?


       

"Solstice(s)"

       Shortest day of the year.  But that means they'll be getting longer day by day, which will please my wife especially:  "Can't we speed it up, say, two days' worth each day, at least!"

       From Latin, "solstice"  means "sunstand."  The sun stops on a dime and turns around to head north.  The day is so short, I hurried up my afternoon shopping at Ralphs to get home before dark. 

       I guess I figured with Rudyard Kipling's "If,"

       If you can fill the unforgiving minute
       With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
       Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

until Earth turns another 6 months or so and Connie and I can laze forever on a "Summer Afternoon."   

      

Crazed by the Winds

       The Santa Anas have got us.  Those dry mostly hot but can-be-cold winds off the desert.  Blow loud, blow long, blow things over.  And boy, they can also drive you a little nuts.

       There are the Mistrals in France, the Siroccos in Libya, the Khamsins in Egypt, the Chinooks in the Rocky Mountains.  We in Southern California have Santa Anas, or, as I say, they have got us.

       I am about to enter my local weather prediction in the Local Conditions website.  It's probably safe to say what I'm predicting will happen.  But they may think my forecast frivolous, pedestrian, or just not a real weather prediction.  This has only stopped them once from accepting my contributions:

       "Forecast:

       "Santa Ana winds followed by wakefulness, agitation, and slightly crazed behavior."

"Ambience"

       Eating at a place near the movie theater we'd just attended, Connie, David, and I listened to the chatter amplified by hard surfaces everywhere and squinted at the bright nondescriptness about us while downing our ordinary hamburgers, and after my mentioning that this is a non-five star restaurant, I added "except for the ambience."  It got laughs.

        The word is of French root but goes back to Latin.  I wondered if the root is as I suspected.  It is.

       "Ambi" from the Latin means "on all sides" (think of "ambidextrous," both left- and right- handed).  And "ire" means "to go."  "Ambience" is what's "going all around" you, in your surroundings.  It's the mood or feeling of a place.

       Add some nasality to that "m" and "n," and you've heightened your Continental snootiness: [ahn-byahns].
     

"Free Knowledge"

       I made a contribution to Wikipedia for the many times it has served me and read the Wikipedia aspiration and so far successfully obtained goal:  "free knowledge" to anybody anywhere in the world.

       As my eyes hit "free knowledge," I kept reading it at first as "tree of knowledge."  Of course, Wikipedia does "branch out," way out!

       "Tree knowledge" used to be true in the sense that trees were cut down to supply the books that held our knowledge:  I grew up reading the encyclopedia called Book of Knowledge--reading it alphabetically every day at noon during lunch time.

        But "free knowledge" is some kind of aspiration; it almost seems like a contradiction in terms, yet it's happening online.  May Wikipedia hold fast to spreading its "branches" in ever widening circles of service. 

44 Years and Counting . . .

       Something I read in last Wednesday's paper struck me as ironic on the face of it:

Jerry Brown will depart his governorship in 2018 due to term limits.

       If you consider he was elected governor for a first term in November 1974 and will have to depart at the end of his fourth term in 2018 . . . I think you'd say, "Yes, maybe his terms should be limited."

Who Says Cartoonists . . .

       . . .don't like to fool around with words?

Scott Hilburn fools around on this website.

That Word "Ark"

       We come upon the Hebrew word that English translates as "ark" a couple times in the Bible.  First is what Noah builds for his family and for the multitudinous animals to be saved two by two, a vessel and protector for all of them.

       And again we meet it as the transporting, sort of, and protecting basket of bullrushes (papyrus) for the baby Moses.

       Later, although a different Hebrew word, "ark" is borrowed for "Ark of the Covenant," which carries protectively the Ten Commandments through the desert in a chest.

       And later yet, the "Ark" in synagogues holds and keeps:  the Torah Scrolls!

       Ironically, the Oxford Living Dictionary online says the meaning "a ship or boat" for "ark" is "archaic," which only shows we can't have archaic and eat it too.      

"Nice Talking with Me"*

        I am a great talker to myself.  Probably because I miss so many opportunities in real life to say something worthwhile--I think of it LATER.  So I say it to myself.

       Or, I imagine what I will say to someone and REHEARSE it, but still may not say it when I'm with them!

       Garry Moore had a wonderful bit in radio days.  He would come up with the greatest lines "I Shoulda Said" (but didn't) in an embarrassing or confrontational situation.  He lived, a hero in his own ego...after the fact.

       I identify.  But talking to oneself is better than none.  And your repartee, and great put-down, and wonderful toast, and words of wisdom and clearheadedness and intellect and snide dismissal will be forever engraved in the annals of unspoken eloquence.

*Title of an op-ed piece by Charles Fernyhough in the L.A. Times of Dec. 5, 2016.  It inspired this post.

All Right, "ITS," Be Careful What You Refer To

       A problem has been showing up more often in the L.A. Times:  the word "its" appearing without a clear and definite referent.  In an article with the headline "Putin's goal:  R-E-S-P-E-C-T," this sub-headline follows:

"Russia's leader wants new U.S. administration to recognize its might"

       What is the referent for "its"?  The grammatical expectation is that the immediately preceding noun be what "its" refers to.   Now that doesn't work with "administration" nor "U.S." nor "leader," which leaves "Russia's."

       But the writer of the sub-headline didn't want the whole word, just "Russia" to be the understood referent for "its."  You can't have a word with an apostrophe "s" be the antecedent noun for the possessive "its."

       This is at best awkward, at least confusing, and plain grammatically wrong.

        

       

"May You Live in Interesting Times."

       I've heard several reporters recently ending a discussion of their reporting with the remark, "It's going to be interesting."  The statement comes from not knowing what's likely to happen, and president-elect Trump is often the unpredictable ingredient in attempting to know what IS likely to happen; hence "It's going to be interesting."

       It brought to mind the supposedly Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."  For many people, at this moment, life is uncertain, tense, worrisome.  Interesting?  Maybe.  But moreso--scary.     

Flossie Lewis to the Rescue

       If you're starting to feel too old even for the Holidays (or especially for the Holidays!), these words of wisdom could pick you up for another go'round or two.
 

"Slit," "Slip," "Slim," "Slight"; "Brusque," "Brisk"--Wha?

       "Slit," "slip," "slim," "slight."  We know the words have similarities.  But is it accidental that they are words about thin things?  It's not onomatopoeia in the sense of words imitating sounds.  It's words imitating thinness.  Even the lips uttering them are a very thin space apart from one another saying them.

       "Brusque," "brisk."  Oh, yes, they come from words in French and Italian, both going back to Latin bruscus butcher's-broom, a plant with bristly twigs, and isn't that exactly what you'd expect would apply to short, abrupt, blunt manner or speech ("brisk" deriving from "brusque" but less negative in connotation)?  And don't those words  befit the meaning they go with in all four languages!  Yet it's not onomatopoeia; it's imitative not of sound but of behavior.

       OK.  Let's give this language credit!!

Scale the Mountain, Drain the Depths: Music, Musician, Writer!

       The headline writer for the review might have been inspired himself:

       "Pianist Perahia scales the mighty 'Hammerklavier'"

       Critic Mark Swed's first words are "Beethoven's massive, daunting, imposing, terrifying, exhilarating, breathtaking 'Hammerklavier Sonata' is not Everest.  It just seems that way as one compiles a list of roaring adjectives. . ."

       Of musician Perahia, Swed says, "[H]e produces an unflappable beauty that seeks the reverberant essence of each note, just as a Japanese priest officiating at a tea ceremony finds in every sip the all-consuming spirit of tea."

       Perahia is so challenged, "He left the stage looking completely drained, this pianist who always puts the music first having not just played a sonata but lived through a momentous human experience, a pianist who had, himself, drained the bottomless 'Hammerklavier.'"

       Mighty heights, bottomless depths:  Beethoven, Perahia, Swed.

(from Los Angeles Times, Calendar Section, April 29, 2016)
 

Arising after "Arrival"

       We saw the science-fiction movie Arrival yesterday, how to communicate with "arrivals" from elsewhere, very different creatures.  But the theories behind it all didn't make much sense onscreen to Connie and me.

       This morning, Connie nudged me to get up, it was time.  I reached for her hand to indicate I was awake, and to do some hand-teasing, she chuckling a little sleepily, returning the gesture, I curled our fingers together; then I tickled her palm uttering "Meezala, Mazzala, Kitchi-kitchi-kitchi-coo," fingers racing up her palm and wrist (my grandma's way of teasing us kids).

       Connie relented, "We have five more minutes to sleep."  I think instead, realizing my blog post today, thankful for touch, and spoken language with its visible signs, whether alien creatures could ever decipher them or not!

"Echoic Writing" Lives Again

       Yesterday's blog entry might very well not be only an unusual coincidence of sound taking both writer and reader down strange pathways.

       It might be another fine (?) example of what I call "echoic writing" where the writer is simply influenced by his own writing preceding the "echo" word(s).  A word just said has sort of "imprinted" itself on the brain and is summoned for reuse, probably unintentionally.  It can be lazy or tired writing.

       Some previous posts of mine that have dealt with this odd, but not too surprising occurrence in verbal composition are discoverable here.

Being Circumspect with Circumcision

       In the very same Torah portion that prompted our young rabbi's hilarious comment on circumcision in my last post is the following sentence, the Lord speaking to Abraham:
 

        "And if any male who is uncircumcised fails to circumcise the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his kin; he has broken My Covenant."


       Read it aloud, and listen closely.  You will hear something strange.  If the translator had done so, I'm sure he or she would have found different words.

       Did you hear "cut off from his skin" as I did.  It's definitely there and seems to be some kind of contradiction of what has just been said!

       Language can play games with us, as we with it, and take us down peculiar, surprising pathways.

       

A Joke Too Good Not to Tell

       At Torah study Wednesday, we were discussing how Abraham at age 99 had himself circumcised.  As at least the males of us were wincing, thinking how bad that would feel at any of our respective ages, let alone his, our young Rabbi Sam, who was just visiting the class that day and not teaching it, blurted out something that had all of us in the room rocking with laughter for several minutes before class could resume:

       "My circumcision was so painful, I couldn't walk for a year."
      

"u too, u two"

       I messaged David at bedtime, concerned a little how he was, having helped Connie and me with a couple things the last two days while carrying on a full time job.  The brief exchange ended this way:

       Don:  I'll say good night.
David: Thx pops.
       Don:  Talk tomorrow.
David: Night u too, u two
       Don:  He's in London.  Good night.

       This earned me a smiley face.  I liked David's word play and figured my response was passable for an octogenarian who remembers pencils.

Misfired "Weather" Prediction

       I occasionally contribute my own "local" forecast to the "Local Conditions" weather website.  They actually request such.  They have generously printed my jocular attempts which wouldn't have helped anyone at all navigate the day's weather in my neck of the woods.

       I guess the one I sent in yesterday made them a touch more tetchy:

       "Snow today, followed by little boys and girls on sleds."

       They didn't print it.

"Breadcrumbs" Will Lead You Back Home

       My weather website sometimes uses the arcane language of computer-speak, but it's sweetened with user-friendliness:


       "If you are not finding the information you want, please . . . note the navigation tabs just above the breadcrumbs, which are links to other data relating to this city."


       Now I'll be sure to look for those navigation tabs just above the breadcrumbs if I only knew what breadcrumbs were and where to find THEM.  (Because then I might learn what navigation tabs are.)

       Fortunately I find a Webopedia Definition for "breadcrumbs":  "Breadcrumbs is a website navigation technique.  Links appear horizontally near the top of a page, providing links back to each previous page in the site hierarchy."

       OK!  (Maybe.)  And I do love breadcrumbs.

"Big Sky Country" and "Certain Women"

       It was after we came home from the movie "Certain Women" today, in which the background was consistently Montana's ever-present outdoors, that the term "Big Sky Country" came back to me.

       Yes, it is an appellation often given to Montana, and it felt right, having never been through the state and seeing it here for about the first time.  Flat, flat plains, mutiply-mountainous terrain, open, open skies.  ("Montana" is from the Spanish for "mountainous.")

       If you know people from Montana or of them on TV or film, there's a certain sturdiness, stoniness, as though they'd been steeped in that country and felt the imposition of that land and those skies.

       Perhaps the four different women in this movie, each living lives quietly, steadily, but somewhat impassively, yearning yet lonely, are echoing these very surroundings.

      

Hoping Hillary Voters Will Find a Chuckle

 Published on June 17, 2016

Dan Piraro's "Bizarro" can be found here.

  

Is "Characters" a Good Word for What Twitter Limits?

       I think it is a good word.   It's not only letters that are limited; it's punctuation, numerals, I guess anything that's a visible mark.

       And what does the word that means traits of a person's nature, actions, and morality, that "character," have to do with Twitter's useage?

       “Character” comes from Latin character, from Greek kharakter, from kharax, “pointed stick," something that was used "to inscribe" or "scratch" or "engrave," to make a mark.

       Shakespeare's Polonius gives advice to his son using "character" in an earlier English verb form:

       And these few precepts in thy memory
       See thou character.  Give thy thoughts no tongue....
                                             Hamlet, Act I, Scene 3

       We sometimes say that a person's character is revealed in the face; we can see the qualities and values of a lifetime etched there: character.          

"The Dump Song"

       While driving, I listen to what's called the "Unforgettable" radio station that wonderfully but shamelessly plays the "Great American Songbook" 24-7 on its 1260 a.m. airwaves in Los Angeles.

       Most of the songs I recall and love from my childhood and youth and sing right along with the artists who are, yes, shamelessly (shamefully!) never introduced, never back-announced, never named, AND no titles, no composers, no conductors are ever given.

       Speaking voices come in periodically, announcing only their own first names and mentioning "Unforgettable."

       Last Friday, I hummed listening to one song I could barely remember, gradually picking out the prominent background beat--"DUMP da-de-dee DUMP da-de-dee DUMP da-de-dee DUMP DUMP."

       As I "sang" that this morning, Connie appropriately titled it for me:  "The Dump Song."
  

"He Put Us on His Back Again"

       Dave Roberts of the L.A. Dodgers was voted 2016 Sporting News Manager of the Year in the National League.

       There was lots of talk about the record breaking number of injuries on the team that Roberts had to foist with and come up with winning solutions for.  That was the most serious problem he faced as manager, but that isn't why he won.

       Dave Roberts earned the award because of the way he spoke of team members' play.  A quote like the one above when Justin Turner had a 3-run homer and 3 hits in a game indicates Roberts sees that good play is a function of will and determination and team spirit, not just talent and skill.  The nature of this praise is the way to build a team. 

       It's in the language.
      

"Pleasure awaits your company."

       Not often does a Chinese cookie give me pause for thought.  I liked it at once, not quite knowing why.  At first, I thought how nice it was, thinking of it as someone saying it to me.  Pleasure won't arrive until I'm there to be with that person.  Wow!  What a compliment.

       Then I thought, is it just I who brings the pleasure?  Or, is it just our being together that's the pleasure?  But perhaps, we have to foray out into the world as companions for the pleasure then to materialize, a joint adventure.

       Or, look, it has nothing to do with me, us, NOR things we do together!  It's just pleasure tapping its toe impatiently until I get off my duff:  it doesn't like to wait!

       Or, I make pleasure happen.

Words "fall almost unbidden to my tongue . . ."

       . . . as anyone reading this blog must know.  And so I'm very happy to find once again this unmatchable poem of images and sounds by Galway Kinnell:


Blackberry Eating

I love to go out in late September
among the fat, overripe, icy black blackberries
to eat blackberries for breakfast,
the stalks very prickly, a penalty
they earn for knowing the black art
of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them
lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries
fall almost unbidden to my tongue,
as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words
like strengths or squinched,
many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps,
which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well
in the silent, startled, icy, black language
of blackberry-eating in late September.

Cartoonists Are Closet Punsters

 

 Punsters are also closet cartoonists; so I've included one of my own.

Hank Ketcham's Dennis the Menace can be found here.

"Emoji"

       I learned today the name "emoji" was given by Shigetaka Kurita to the pictographs he was designing almost two decades ago.  The images were meant to replace Japanese words for cell-phone users increasingly communicating with text messages.

       The Museum of Modern Art in New York yesterday announced Kurita's original 176 emojis will be added to its collection.

       David Pierson's L.A. Times article notes:


       "Just last year, the Oxford English Dictionary declared a yellow face crying tears of joy as its word of the year. . . .

       "Today, a group called the Unicode Consortium vets new emojis and standardizes them so they can be used across different operating systems. . . .

       "In 2013, a group of 800 volunteers translated Moby Dick into emojis."


       "Emoji" is singular and plural; "emojis" is also correct.  The word's from Japanese denoting "picture character." 

 

"Edison, Schmedison"

       The Sunday L.A. Times was noting TV shows it thought would be worth watching this week.  One program blurb read this way:


       "Edison, schmedison.  The genius of inventor Nikola Tesla is celebrated on 'American Experience'.  Tuesday, 9p.m., KOCE"


       Another Yiddishism makes its way into American parlance.  Disparaging, belittling, pooh-poohing something or someone by adding a "sch" or "schm" to the front of the word.

       "Euphony" sometimes dictates (permits?) removing the front of the original word as well.  So you might say "Trump, schmump" or, alternatively, "Hillary, schmillary."

       No one seems to know exactly where demeaning things or persons by "schmooning" them came from.  One thinks Trump might enjoy making use of the idiom, but then it often has a jocular, light hearted tone to it.  So it might not be within his range.  


 

"Menstruation." There I've Said It

       The HopKins Black Box Theatre of Louisiana State University sent me a brochure of their 2016-17 season.  A goodly number of interesting shows, but I suppose the one that caught my eye most astonishingly was one titled You Menstrual Me.
 
       The description of the show rewarded the surprise and curiosity aroused by the title:

     
       "Is menstruation outgrowing its taboo?  As the subject moves into the mainstream, what unspoken rules persist that shape our talk about it?  If you can't bring yourself to tell 'em you are menstruating, you can at least tell 'em you saw a menstrual show!"

     
       They've got my interest.  That description is written with self-awareness of the possible tension and eyebrow raising, which is then answered perfectly by the witty punning at the end.  

"Use your words." And Kids DO!!

Click or touch on comic strip to enlarge

B.C., B.C.E. . . . Which One is More P.C.?

        Yesterday, at Torah study, Rabbi Sam was talking about an event that happened before the birth of Christ and said "B. C."  I was sitting next to him and sotto voce said, "B.C.E."

        Rabbi Sam said, "B.C., B.C.E., one of them's just more P.C."

       I chuckled at the wit.  B.C.E. Jews have adopted as their version to signify "Before the Common Era"; that's the one that's more P.C.

       I don't think Rabbi Sam gave a fig for making the distinction.

      

"If You Have an Erection . . ."

       I never thought I would hear a sentence on television like the following:  "If you have an erection lasting more than four hours, see your doctor."

       Yes, I know it's part of a necessary warning about an advertised medication.  But still . . .

       And willy-nilly, it leads me to start thinking of other clauses that MIGHT have followed "If you have an e. lasting more than etc.":

       "If you have an erection lasting more than four hours, congratulations!"

       "If you have an erection lasting more than four hours, here's my phone number!"

       "If you have an erection lasting more than four hours, put yourself out to stud!"

   

Words Bespeak Meanings AND Our Bodies

       No one can convince me that the sounds of words and the way we produce those sounds are only accidentally related to meanings.  I speak not of the clearly onomatopoetic words  like "crash," "bang," "thunder," "murmur."  The case is obvious for such words.

        I speak of words like "flame," flicker," "flash," "flare,"  which all have to do with moving light, and maybe something to do with the moving air that makes those lights move.  For palpable proof,
go ahead, try to make a candle flame flicker producing the sound [gl]; but you CAN do it making the sound [fl]!

       And consider these words:  "fly," "flight," "flute," "flutter."  Even when moving light is not involved, moving air is in the meaning AND utterance of all these words.

        Derived from our bodies, words can mimic meanings.
        

"Pro-crastinator"

       Being one myself, I really appreciated this declaration seen on a T-shirt:


       "He puts the Pro in Pro-crastinator."

     
       The first "pro" plays on the word "professional" and doubles down on the degree of procrastination.

       Cras from Latin means "tomorrow," and the "pro" part of it means "forward [till]".  I know that feeling well.

       I like the way the T-shirt nails down the joke and the accusation with that little hyphen.

"Dormant" and "Moribund"

       Contrasts, similarities, oppositeness of words pique my interest.

       A "dormant" state (the root meaning is "to sleep") is a state of suspended animation, capable of being animated or enlivened, but not yet alive.

       A "moribund" state (root meaning is "to die") is a state of near death, of being about to die, but not yet dead.

       "Dormant" and "moribund" are, perhaps not coincidentally, near, but not yet, anagrams.

"Things Are in the Saddle and Ride Mankind"

       This statement by Emerson is my reaction to changing to the new 10 operating system on my iPhone.  I've skipped two systems so am even more inundated with new stuff.

       Do I really need to have bubbles around my text messages to others?  I can put my message in "invisible ink"--scrape the clouded screen, and there it is.  I can send voice instead of text message; ( David said, "It's almost like telephoning.")  I can send a hand written message.

       iPhone informed me yesterday I was "sharing locations" with my son, then later informed me I had discontinued it--I didn't know I'd done it, didn't know I'd stopped it, and didn't know what it was.

       Emerson was talking about machines in the 19th century.  Our "things" are digital, but they're in the "driver's seat."

      

"How Do You Like Your Sushi Chef?" "Well Spoken."

       Another tongue twister on my mind.  "Speak the speech . . .  trippingly on the tongue" is Hamlet's advice to the players. Do not "mouth it, as many of your players do."

       But then, Hamlet, not too many people have to say "Sushi Chef" repeatedly, which I submit is more likely to "trip one on the tongue" than be easily said "trippingly."

       Have a go . . . try about 5 times fast?!

       "Sushi Chef."

The Spelling Communicates, But . . .

click or touch picture to enlarge

        This may well establish the driver's profession, but the more I look at it, the more it seems to be destroying my memory of how the word is really spelled.

        The crumpled state of the plate doesn't help.

"Dasn't"

       The return of a word I hadn't thought of or used in a long time.  My dad's word, at least on occasion, but I remembered it.

       Last night I was contemplating what snack to have at bedtime with my gin and tonic.  Told myself:  "I dasn't have them," i.e., too many cashews for the salt on them.

       I heard the words in my dad's voice.  I wasn't even sure it was a word.

       Merriam-Webster calls it dialectical and meaning "dare not," and it is partly a contraction of Middle English "darst not" and partly a contraction of "dares not."

       That was my surmise if I were to find it at all.  Don't know where or how Dad picked it up (his education ended with 8th grade), but I'm glad he was speaking good English!

        

Another Day of Gratitude?

       Being Rosh Hashanah this week, the Jewish New Year, it is a time for thankfulness.  That is why we say the "shehecheyanu" prayer.

       The blessing starts with the usual "Praised be Thou, O Lord our God" and then gives the reason for the blessing:

       "Who has granted us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this season."

We've made it to another year, we're happy, and we're letting God know we appreciate it.  We'd better express our appreciation now because by the end of a week or so, we'll be praying that we've done a good enough job with the past year that we've earned an extension of the contract.
      

"Gratitude Is . . . the Parent of All Other Virtues."

    
       "Gratitude is not only the greatest virtue, but it is the parent of all other virtues."  This was said by Roman philosopher Cicero and quoted at the funeral of Stephen B. Sample, former President of USC.

       It was President Sample who appointed the first Jew to be head of the Office of Religious Life on the USC campus, Suzan Laemmle, whom I greatly appreciated for her teaching of a course connecting contemporary Israeli poetry with its sources and connections in Biblical literature.

       When Suzan retired, President Sample hired a Hindu to head the Office of Religious Life; I imagine no Hindu had previously held such a position either.

       My gratitude to President Sample for the breadth of his appointments, to Suzan Laemmle for her imaginative and scholarly teaching, and to Cicero for his wisdom.  

"Fulfillment"

       I learn from a mail order we've received that we can gain "fulfillment" in Reno, Nevada.

       I'd say that's a gamble.

"Hurt People Hurt People"

       At one of the too many violent events around our country in the past year (it was a killing that took place in Chicago, I believe, but could have been most everywhere), these words were uttered by someone, and they have stuck with me:  hurt people hurt people.

       It has the ring of truth, not as a solution, but as a pointer toward the cause.  Moving from adjective to verb with "hurt" in a pared down sentence is a masterful compression of both insight and language. 

"DEMIGOD"

       There is a license plate, California license plate.  It is a personal license plate without question, and I don't think you'll see it anywhere else; so I'm glad I just saw it to tell you.

       It's DEMIGOD, all in caps, in beautiful yellow. on black.  Oh.  Wow.

       Mythologically speaking, a demigod was often the offspring of a god and a mortal.  Nowadays?  A person so outstanding as to seem to approach the divine.

       Tough one to live up to, maybe especially if you're self-designated.  Or did someone who thinks you are one, gift you the plates?!

The Sound of 1,100

       The movie "Wild" was listed in a broadcast schedule and described thus:  "A lone woman undertakes an 1,100 mile hike."

        Why use “an” when there are numerals afterwards?  If you say it as I did, "one thousand one hundred." then the sound [wuh] for "one" is there,  a consonant sound; so "an" wouldn't apply. The article is "a." 

       Perhaps they figured it would be said,  “an eleven hundred mile hike. ”  But there's that comma.

       It depends on the sound that follows.  Maybe they thought, "It begins with the numeral 1--treat it like language spelled 'o,' 'n,' 'e,'  and since 'o' is a vowel, we'll use 'an' to make it sound right."

       Except the letter "o" isn't what's operative!  It's the sound of the word "one," which begins [wuh], exactly as in the word "won."

      

Last Candidate STAnding?

       "Stamina" became an "issue" in the first presidential debate this week.   Hillary won out over Trump in that exchange after he said he didn't believe she had enough stamina to be president.

        Physical and/or mental strength, staying power:  stamina.

       This interested me particularly because it's a word I hadn't thought of when I was trying to name the admirable qualities that characterized each of two similar men I knew.  What I realized was they all began the same way:

              "stable," "stalwart," "steady," "staunch"

When I looked up the Indo-European root for such words, it was sta.  The basic meaning?  "STAND."

       The "STAYing" qualities at the core of these words works perfectly.  "Stamina" fits right in with them and would also characterize either of the two men I had been thinking of.


       (You can find my original blog entry on the "sta" words here)
       (For the Hillary-Trump exchange and more on the origins of the word "stamina" from Merriam-Webster, please touch or click here.)
    

Twist Me a Tongue

       The Vin Scully anecdote last Thursday indicates how one sound can influence another in spoken language.  Tongue-twisters are another example.

       This appeared in the L.A. Times last Thursday, one of the hardest I've ever come across to say and repeat correctly if you speak it fast.  These two words are about a Dodger player surprising a Giant pitcher with a three run home run.  The player's name is Puig, pronounced [pweeg]. 

       The tongue-twister is simply "Puig sideswiped"; I'm betting you can't say it five times fast (or even at normal rate) without tripping over your own tongue.  Try it.

"Now Don't Go Wanderin' Off": You Used to Say it to Fans, Now We Say it to You

       There's lots of well-deserved excitement and sadness at the same time that the Dodger's announcer for 67 years is bringing his career to a close at age 88.

       All kinds of stories by and about Vin Scully are coming forth in happy abundance.

       Here's an example . . . because I can't resist.

       A young baseball announcer, just breaking in, came to Vin and asked him if he had any advice on what he should know or look out for in his budding career.  Vin told him,  "Just remember to go v-e-r-y  s-l-o-w if you're about to say 'Hot shot hit foul'."

The Activists Not Only Interrupted the Game!

        I'm sure Mike Digiovanna of the L.A. Times is a fine sports journalist, but like any journalist pressed with deadlines, once in awhile something that just a little more time would have resolved gets into the paper:


       "Joe Blanton struck out the side in the eighth inning, and Kenley Jansen struck out three of four batters in the ninth, withstanding a brief delay caused by a group of animal rights activists who ran onto the field with banners protesting Farmer John, supplier of the team's Dodger Dogs, for his 24th save."


       I just know Mike didn't want such a gaping distance between Jansen's striking out three batters and "for his 24th save"!

       And now that I look at it again, didn't Mike probably want "notwithstanding" in place of "withstanding"?

       Copy editor anyone?

      

"I think it's different enough, don't you?"

       Instructed to look for "light" cereals that might go right through you as the best kind of eating before a colonoscopy--I came across what seemed like a good candidate on my grocer's shelves.

       I bought it, and in the several days I had the large Kroger house brand package sitting out and was wondering if I'd be able to consume it all after my procedure, it occurred to me that Kroger didn't have to exert itself much to apparently legally steal the real brand name.

        The cereal product bore a perfect resemblance to what it was copying, and so did the name:

                   "Crispy Rice" meet "Rice Crispies." 

 

I Like Your Ilk

       Running into, and noticing, words like "ilk," one can only wonder, whence cometh? 

       Merriam-Webster in discussing its source used the term "prehistoric compound" and made me begin thinking of alchemy, Medieval potions, and other things of that ilk--but there we are, with the word in question, "ilk."

       It turns out, using the Indo-European roots in the Appendix of the American Heritage Dictionary. we can see that ilk is from Old English ilca, "same," which is with high probability from Germanic is-lik-, "same." 

       And there you have it, if is-lik- is altered through usage, as will happen with language, it could become the abbreviated and compounded (put together) word "ilk."

       (Apologies to alchemical compounds--which are of a different ilk.)

"Tenants, anyone?"

       Mara Liasson said, "Donald Trump disagrees with most of the tenants of Modern Republicanism." 

       So, you know, she's with National Public Radio, and she's not alone in pronouncing "tenets" "tenants" with an extra "n" in there.

       And there are the tenants of Modern Republicanism, those who live there, they're the tenants, they live in Modern Republicanism, but she's saying Trump doesn't live with those tenants, doesn't live on that property, he doesn't live in Modern Republicanism, he lives somewhere else.

       Unless he is, of course, the forbear of Modern Republicanism.

      

"Farmers Market"

       The look of those two words has changed since my childhood.  What was "Farmers' Market" has become "Farmers Market."  Rare to see an apostrophe in such an instance now.

       The gradual change from the possessive with an apostrophe to NO apostrophe, is a change from answering the question, in effect, "Whose market is this?" to answering the question, "What kind of market is this?"   Noun used as adjective, sometimes called an attributive noun, telling what particular attributes these markets have.  "Farmers sell their produce here.  It's that kind of market."

        Nothing to get too excited about either way, I think.  Maybe we've just gotten lazy and naturally drop things like apostrophes.  Maybe we resent people who own things--"Why isn't it my market too? I shop there."  Don't see how either side wins a decisive victory here.

        

"B'shert 7"

       I found my note which said this and couldn't recall what it meant.

       It finally came back to me:  I'd seen it on a license plate; it must have been the 7th request for that personalized plate.

       Good, popular.  "B'shert" [buh-SHAIRT] is Yiddish:  a soulmate, a predestined life partner.  Still, a surprising license plate.

       I surprised myself once by using the word in a public setting, at the one-year date following a good friend's funeral.  I spoke of Abe to other friends and relatives gathered, and mentioned that we had in common our age; that we both liked performing, he acting, I reading aloud; and that we'd both met our b'shert outside native ground, so to speak (they were non-Jewish).

        But clearly, "b'shert" had applied, with all our hearts in all four cases.  
              

Coincidental Dialogue

       Looking anxiously in the refrigerator for something to snack on, I found corn tortillas and noticed on the package "Gluten Free."  I didn't want those in any case.

       I swiveled to the microwave on top of which there was sitting some kind of chips.  The first words that popped off the bag were "Gluten and Corn Free."

       For me it was talking to the tortillas in the fridge:

            "I can do you one better--I'm even free of corn!"

Just Wondering

       If "brothers" become "brethren," do "sisters" become "cistern"?

Sportswriters Have Got Words

       Dodger Yasiel Puig had done something recently which made son David and me turn to each other with looks of disbelief.   It's the kind of thing that caused the Dodgers to send Puig to the minors, from which he recently returned to the big league team a chastened player and man instead of a spoiled brat millionaire.

       Here is how sportswriter Andy McCullough wrote it up in the L.A. Times: 

       "Ryu hummed an 89-mph fastball at the waist, and Dickerson ripped the ball into right.
       "Yasiel Puig read its flight like a middle-school student trying to decipher James Joyce.  He stepped forward, and the ball went over his head."

       Second-best to celebrating true athletic and human prowess, sportswriters must cherish giving a dumbass, sandlot performance by a major leaguer its due.

Wanna Live in "Tarzana"?

       This post may be too "in" for those from outside the San Fernando Valley in California.  All summer, the L.A.Times "Hot Property" Section on Saturdays has been including a two-page spread on different neighborhoods in Los Angeles, their history, information about diversity, median income, age, rent vs. owned, education and so on, plus attractions and possible negatives of living there.

       One week's issue spotlighted the community of Tarzana.  I wonder how its residents reacted when they read this under the heading "Neighborhood challenges"--


       "May be too relaxed for some:  Tarzana is great for people who find Encino too exciting."


P.S.  If you were a novelist as rich as Edgar Rice Burroughs, you too could name the land you bought  for your most famous "liiterary" creation.  (Personally I'm glad I don't live there.)

"Thank You for Being a Part of My Program"

       Fareed Zakaria is an extremely bright oral communicator with a Sunday morning CNN world affairs program "Global Public Square."     

       Fareed is exceptional in his own commentary and in the pertinence yet tact of his interview questions.  Each segment is well-gauged for brevity to hold pictorial and verbal interest, inform, and conclude promptly with attention and appreciation still high.

       I mainly bring up Fareed's show because of how it ends.  Fareed says,  "Thank you for being a part of my program this week."   Not thank you for "listening" or "watching," which would leave the audience outside looking or listening in.  The phrasing perfectly sums up the tenor of the whole broadcast, an engaging with guests as with audience, who are conceived from the outset as included, and therefore thanked for participating afterwards!  

"Two Years Before the Mast"

       For approximately eight years now, each day, morning and night, I have pulled on the long loop of cord that raises and lowers our 7-foot-wide bedroom window curtain.  It's about ten big pulls if I get my hand high enough and pull to the bottom.

       That's at least 58,400 pulls, I figure.  And though I've never been a sailor nor even read this book, every time I run 'em up or down, I think of that book's title, Two Years Before the Mast.

       It's by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.   Published in 1840.  Memoir of a voyage from Boston to California, around Cape Horn and back on a trading vessel.

       I'm lifting and lowering, tightening and loosening those sails with every tug, onerous task no longer, excitement and adventure everywhere!

       

         

"Hantileh"

       We never escape our babyhood, our childhood, our youth and the influence of our parents, and grandparents, and beyond, I suppose...yes.

        A platitude but personal for me today.  Driving to the beach, I had sun-protective clothing for my arm, but my hand and especially fingers were uncovered, and we'd removed some protective, tinted plastic sheeting from the driver's side window.  It had  bubbled and made seeing difficult.  I had put sunscreen on the hand and fingers for the drive.

        I thought of it as we neared the beach:  "hantileh," an affectionate diminutive for "hand" in Yiddish.  From my mother, and her mother, and how far back.  It might have been said too when Mom put mittens on me for Minnesota winters. 

       Sunscreen wasn't my hand's only protection today.  It came swathed in language.

"If Thumbs Could Talk"

       Maybe the first long exchange I had texting was one evening with David a while back.  Much to say, varying but related topics, questions, answers short and longer, comments on each others' information and views.  I think I referred to it at the time as "silent conversation."

       The very next morning, this wonderful Zits appeared in the comics:

Click on comic strip to enlarge.

             Zits by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman can be found here.

Would God Approve of My Wordplay?

       Our young rabbi Sam today told us in Torah study the actual first commandment God gave was "Be fruitful and multiply."

       We had some discussion, but I couldn't for the life of me get out of my head the cartoon I'd made  in an earlier printed calendar I did:
 

Pronouncing You Ready to Watch the U.S. Open

       Tennis is starting, and saying players' names becomes a challenge.

       Novak Djokovic is familiar, and we know that "c" is a [tsh] sound as in the word "itch."  So we can guess what to do with the "ic" in the last name of Milos Raonic.  But what about the "r-a-o-n"?  I want to say "rayon."  But no.  It's like "round" without the "d."

       The Croatian Marin Cilic is "serving doubles."  It's kind of like "itch" backwards, then forwards!
    
       I used [tsh] to show the pronunciation, but it's true.   Get the mouth ready to say the sound [t] (not the letter "t" but the sound [t] without the vowel sound "ee"after it).  Then make a half [t] and half [sh] ground together into the single sound [tsh].

       Now, you're ready for tennis!

      

      

Oh Well, Does Reality Ever Quite Match Fantasies?

       Wouldn't you know, when they finally come through with a Dick Tracy watch, the one thing it can't do all by itself is work as a phone!

       I was not a big fan of the Tracy comic strip growing up, but I think everybody was aware of the  fantastic watch.  Worn on the wrist, Dick could lift it toward his face and talk to anyone anywhere.

       Son David and I were reading and looking into videos about the Apple Watch; we are pretty certain that to make that wrist watch into a telephone you always have to have the iPhone in your pocket or nearby, and then you may want to switch to the iPhone to improve the sound!

      

Phone System, I've Got a Message for YOU

       It's nice to hear a human being speak.  That's why I don't mind a recorded voice on our phone system telling me, "You have three new MESSages."

       What gets me, though, is when that same voice then adds, "and four old MESSages."  The two halves of the information sound totally unrelated.  Why?   Because the emphasis in the second half reflects no connection.  Normal vocal utterance would acknowledge that "messages" had already been spoken of and call attention to the contrasting word.

        That word is "old" with "messages" less important as already having been said:  "and four OLD messages."  That does not happen on our machine.

       This is jarring every time I hear it because the recorded "human" voice announcing the presence of messages is frozen into unnatural expression! 

Clergy / Sermon in a Stone :: Blogger / Post in a Missed Word

       I was telling some retired colleagues by newsletter of this blog, which I've posted for a few years "on and off," but in my draft of the note, I wrote it as "onan/off."

       I suddenly realized that perhaps contained a confession, that I could be accused of onanism, the blog as an act of ego to satisfy myself rather than to share an insight with those who may wish to visit it.  After all, the Biblical Onan cast his seed onto the ground.

       Well, naturally, I almost instantly knew this had to go in the blog!

Reading at the Movies

       Connie, David, and I were watching a movie in our local theater, when I was suddenly aware there was a glowing light in my line of sight to the screen.

       I thought I was seeing some words, in white on black.  There were no subtitles. Wait, it was in the row just ahead of me.

       Oh, it was a smartphone, but why's the person read...?  Then I caught a word or two or three.  And a couple more.  They were the words of the dialogue taking place on screen!

        A device held at eye level to see the movie and glance at the words as they are spoken!  How great for those with hearing loss! 

        The Sunday afternoon audience...canes, walkers, and mobile scooters nearby...have another brilliant "work-around" for their bodily limitations.

R.I.P. Rio

       I suppose it will live on, leaving a bad taste in the minds of Brazilians about us Americans after the Rio Olympics--swimmer Ryan Lochte's drunkenness, gas station incident, and lying about it all.

       One could hope, however, that its grave marker will bear actor Joshua Molina's limerick from Twitter:

          There once was a swimmer named Lochte,
          One night after getting quite crocked, he
             Reported a crime,
             With detail sublime,
          But it turned out his tale was concoct-y
     

    

You Hurd Me Right

       A sub-headline in the L.A.Times Olympics section of August 18 had me puzzled:

       "U.S. women's hurders sweep"

Wait a moment, I know there are some odd or marginal sports in the Olympics, but do they really have competition in herding cattle?  I suppose it's equestrian then?  And I'm sure women are up to it as they are every other sport.

       Oh, "hurders," a misprint; it's "hurdlers."  Matching the misprint with a willing proofreader's error, I was quite ready to see "herders."

       Well, there are always new events in the Olympics.  Maybe we're not far away from that one.      

Also Known as "Gastro-Intelligence"

       The Betrumptive Candidate for president decided this week to switch course and "go with his gut," hiring new advisors who would support that new/old course.

       It was timely, yet coincidental, that yesterday my"Life's Little Instruction Calendar Classics, Volume I" by H. Jackson Brown, Jr., had this to say on its tear-off page for Friday, August 19, 2016:


        "There are situations when the advice to 'listen to your gut' should be ignored.  Sometimes, it's just heartburn."

  

The Calvary's Coming!

       Perhaps if I'd been brought up Christian, I would not always make the mistake of reading "Calvary" as "cavalry."

       I see proud troops ahorse, pounding to the rescue!

       Calvary is the ancient hill near Jerusalem where Christ was crucified, usually thought to have been called "Golgotha," a Greek transcription of an Aramaic word from the New Testament, and meaning something like "place of the skull."  That was translated into Latin in the Vulgate, becoming "Calvariae," and thence into English for the King James Bible: "Calvary." 

        Cavalry is from French cavallerie from Italian cavalleria and ultimately from Latin caballarius meaning "horseman."

       Now pardon me, please, as, heart thumping, I ride off into the dusty and obscure verbal sunset.    

Cellph-Own

       Using the microphone of my smart phone, I said "Cell Phone," and it came out "Self Own" as text.

       And why not?  The sounds themselves are exactly the same.  And running words together as we do when we speak, the smart phone heard it "right."

       Of course, such incidents, which happen with everybody once in awhile, can make you laugh...or even make you think a little.  Yes, the cell phone is markedly for one's self, one's own self, it's self owned, the cell phone.  The smart phone's "mistake" is making a good point.

       But this can become as egotistical as the selfie one can easily take with one's "self owned" cell phone.  The self-ie too is cellf-centered.

       It's all so cell-fish!

"Presumptive" No More

        In my mind,  he was "The Presumptuous Nominee."

        Now I guess I'd call him "the Betrumptive candidate," somehow suggesting a bellowing elephant asserting its tusks into the ring.

Fixer-Uppers May Go Well with Houses!

       The L.A. Times Sports Section on April 12th of this year seemed to me dead-on when it characterized the Dodgers management team.  It said they seem to believe in "reclamation projects." 

       All the pitchers they've hired have bad arms or bad arms in their history.  It's now four months later.  The club had been nursing along a pitcher who went on the mound for the first time this year on Sunday.  He gave up 5 runs and then fell on his hand, injured once again, to be removed from the game after one inning!

       I almost had to laugh at the Times's recounting yesterday of the Dodgers' 11-3 loss to Pittsburgh:

          "Anderson [the pitcher]...has been on the disabled list eight times in eight years and had elbow ligament-replacement surgery in 2011." 

Some Word Combinations Just Resonate

       I like my morning orange juice with pulp in it; I think my mom had said way back that it's better for you, which I learned later is endorsed by dieticians, probably because of the fiber.

       One brand I was using bothered me for some reason, and I switched to another which had three orange juice choices:  "Most Pulp," "No Pulp" and the one I picked, "Some Pulp."  

       The name always tickles me when I grab it off the shelf,  the association being with the wonderful words in Charlotte's Web by E. B. White when Charlotte the spider spins those words into her web to convince the farmer that Wilbur the pig is worth saving:  "Some Pig"!

Is iPhone Sensitive to its User's Feelings?

       I like that my iPhone, when it tells me the battery is low, gives me just one thing to click on:  "Dismiss."  It might have been "Close" or an "X" to click on.

       It's like saying, "We don't want to bother you any longer.  Just get rid of us."

       I associate the word with an officer in the military telling those under him who've completed an inspection or heard their orders:  "Dismissed."

       Or maybe a principal in grade school, having called you in for a reprimand, at the end of the interview saying, "You're dismissed.  Go back to your classroom."

       I guess I appreciate the "low battery" warning, but it does unnerve me a bit.  I am glad I can get back at the messenger with a "Scram!  Get outta here."     

        

"Quotidian": How Commonplace Can You Get?

       "Quotidian"--those big words from Latin to show off with, when it just means "every day."

       But it's fun to play with those Latin roots:  "dian" meaning day and "quot" as in "quota"--how many?  As many as day; so, as many days as you have or live, that's when these things take place, whatever you're referring to--"quotidian," they take place every day.

       Did you know your toothbrushing might be quotidian, your breakfast or lunch, your taking a walk?

       "What's your 'quota' of eating dinners?"  "I don't have a quota.  I just eat them every day."  "Ah."  

Placing a Name, Finally

       Coming back from my favorite beach on my favorite drive, I realize, maybe for the first time fully, "That's the canyon that gives the name to this road 'Malibu Canyon Road.'  That's Malibu Canyon."  (I usually just keep my eyes on the curvy road and the mountains.)

       And somewhat later I see the sign for "Malibu Creek State Park."  I've been in that park, and there is a creek in there, and that must be the one that goes through the canyon. so far below you hardly ever see it from the road.

       And that's the creek that gives "Malibu Creek State Park" its name.

       Lots of creeks, mine included...in my legs...after running at the beach in Malibu.

Conundrums Come in PAIRS

       

A Couple Chips Off the Old Block

       If words fail Connie and me, we've always  got our kids to set the wor(l)d aright.

       These sentiments and these flowers came today:

       Mom and Dad:  Just another excuse for your kids to express filial love.  For two great sweethearts to whom we owe our very existence!  Happy Valentine's Day,

                                             Elizabeth and David 

      

[IHSS-ll] Meet [ICE-ll]

       Susan Rice our National Security Advisor says [IHSS-ll]; President Obama pronounces it [ICE-ll]; neither of them says the more widely used [ICE-iss].

       If that elite duo doesn't agree on pronunciation, one wonders if they speak of it to one another much, and whether policy directions to fight it are much agreed upon either.

       Obama said in a very early speech that we would "degrade and destroy" them.  I guess that means among other things that we'd have to [ICE-ll-ate] them.  I hope these assorted pronunciations and namings don't mean that our own leaders are just too [ICE-ll-ated] from each other!

"Welcome. Please select your language."

       That phrase caught me as I went by a checkout stand in a CVS pharmacy.  A female voice, recorded, said, "Welcome. Please select your language." 

       "Wouldn't it be nice," I thought, "if, upon entering this world, we had a choice, could just select the language we preferred."  I guess my choice would have been French, knowing the sound of a lot of languages I've heard since.

       I've dealt with this once before in my blog entry Joy in the Sounds of French.  (I dedicate both of these posts to my French friend Marcel, whose birthday is February 3rd.)

Rhymes with you and me: "charcuterie"

       When our friends Heide and Sally recently prepared an entire wonderful dinner and served it for us in our own home (what a beautiful thing to do), I heard the word "charcuterie" [shahr-KOOT-uh-ree] for the first time.  The main course was varied delicious dressed meats  purchased in a specialty delicatessen and called charcuterie.

       Of course in looking it up in Merriam-Webster online, I caught what I guess they thought would be helpful to a budding poet, words that rhyme with charcuterie.  Now how many staff plumbed their bottomless vocabularies to come up with the following list!  Probably everybody was out on deck for this one.

       The only thing more hilariously ridiculous than the list itself is the odds you'd find the need for it:
           

Rhymes with charcuterie

Adar Sheni, advanced degree, Aegean Sea, Agri Dagi, alienee, Amundsen Sea, biographee, bouquet garni, carpenter bee, Caspian Sea, casus belli, charivari, chincherinchee, chinoiserie, consent decree,
covenantee, cucumber tree, decision tree, dedicatee, delegatee, distributee, East China Sea, ESOP,
evacuee, examinee, exuviae, facetiae, fait accompli, felo-de-se, fortunately, HTLV, interrogee,
interviewee, jaborandi, Labrador Sea, millidegree, New Jersey tea, omega-3, Pasiphae, patisserie,
persecutee, poete maudit, prima facie, reliquiae, relocatee,               Sault Sainte Marie, Simon Legree,
skeleton key, South China Sea, to a degree, umbrella tree

The language of gesture

       Maybe we should have known from this--

Please click on photo to enlarge

the August 2015 debate of the Republican Presidential hopefuls.

       If the gestures alone could speak:

Trump:  I am your King.

Cruz:  MY people!  Arise with me.

Bush:  You're kind, no, YOU'RE the real leaders.

Ben Carson:  Where do I put my hands? 

   

From Tolstoy to trivia in a hair's breadth

       Connie and our caregiver Naida were clearing out the hallway closet of things that could be thrown away, and they had items they wanted to ask me about.  Connie found me giving my hair and beard a trim and said they needed my advice on some items:  "What are they," I asked.  "A lot of different things," and she mentioned something, but I took my hearing aids off in order to do the trim and wasn't sure what she had said.  "Are they books," I asked.  "No," she responded.  "I thought you said War and Peace," I said.  Amazed, she laughed, "No, warranties."      

Newspapers: Are they only "Extra! Extra!" or truly Part and Parcel?

      
       Thoughts for a Saturday morning.  I'm glad for the newspaper.  It's the world that you invite in the front door.  Yes, I know there are numerous ways to access that these days.  But how detailed is it, how selective are you being in what you read? 

       With the newspaper, you are handed the whole thing in four or five sections; you may have favorite sections but at least you're aware of what you're turning down and probably get a whiff of a dozen headlines that let you know, yes, that's all out there and happening, and I'm inviting word of that in my home and affirming my participation in life at large.

The Eight Days of Christmas/New Years (No, not THOSE 8 days)

       Language is odd sometimes, but then it's also interesting.

       I thought that recently when I realized "The Eight Days of Christmas/New Years":

       There's Christmas Eve and Christmas Day; and there's New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.  But none of these is either Christmas Eve day, or New Year's Eve day; nor, for that matter, Christmas Day eve or New Years Day eve!

It grabs you somehow: "turquoise"

       I was surprised to learn what the word "turquoise" comes from.  I guess especially surprised when realizing I should have thought of it at some time, but hadn't: "Turkey."

       It starts to get complicated when you realize the word derives from French.  The belief was that the colorful stone came from Turkey, thus the borrowed term into French; but it probably was that the stone was sold in Turkish bazaars, though originating in another Middle Eastern country.

       Yet, oddly, I learned of the word's source in an L.A. Times Sunday "Travel Section" article speaking of "Turkey's Turquoise Coast":

Click on Photo to Enlarge & Read its Caption

Incidentally, I want to swim in that ancient ruin.

       Meanwhile, as I understand it, the color "turquoise" derives from the stone, not those waters off Turkey.  And however confusing I find this, the stone, the waters, the color, the word all have me in their sway.

"Grandfathering"-in a Prescription

       I unintentionally amused my primary physician Dr. McKenzie when we were talking about my medications one day.   I told him that when I asked my urologist Dr. Abber recently an incidental question about selenium which Dr. Abber had prescribed 18 years before following a prostatectomy, he said, "You're still taking that?  That was believed back then; that's no longer true.  Stop taking it--you've got lots of other meds you need.  Stop taking it!"

       My primary Dr. McKenzie chuckled a little.   And then I told him, "I stopped selenium for one day, but having taken it for so long, I decided to follow the advice of the old Dr. Abber, I mean the young Dr. Abber, and not that of the older Dr. Abber."  And then he really laughed.

This couldn't have happened online.

       Connie asked if I knew the poet C. D. Wright; there was an obit in the New York Times she was reading.  I couldn't recall I'd read anything by her; Connie said she did interesting things with language, and she thought I'd like to see the obituary.  I would.

       She tore it out laboriously on a lazy Sunday morning and handed it to me.  In the midst of other reading, I folded it,  put it in my pocket for later.  That afternoon, I took it out, sat down, unfolded.  The article was  totally intact.  I read the headline:

Leonid Zhabotinsky, Strongman for the Ages, Dies at 77

My mind finally shifted gears, and as I glimpsed a photo of the large-bodied Russian weight lifter and turned the sheet over for the poet, I started laughing, told my son what had happened, and had one of those uproarious moments you can't contain easily, good for the soul and the system before I started reading of an artist I wanted to know, as too often happens, after her life was over.  

"Look, there are people without color."

        That is what one of the lost black boys says.  They get to a refugee camp after hundreds of miles of walking, escaping being turned into boy soldiers in Africa:  "Look," he says, "there are people without color."  And another of the boys says, "That's because they were born without skin."

         This from a wonderful documentary called Lost Boys of Sudan by Megan Mylan, which can be found at this cite.           

OK, you be the ump.

       Sounds have characteristics that can help a word into its meaning.  Consider the abruptness and curtness of these short words ending with a flat mid vowel, closed mouth nasal, and dead stop plosive.

       bump
       sump
       rump
       chump
       mump(s)
       lump
       hump
       jump
       dump
       grump
       Trump

       
       

Words sneak in their nice double meanings without charging you for overtime

       Unintentional irony, I think, appeared on a recent broadcast which included the following sentence:

       "Local air pollution in China and India is fueling solar and                  wind development."

Yes, indeed, "fuel" is not only a metaphor in this formulation.   The unbridled use of oil and coal for power is accelerating growth of the cleaner energy to replace them.  

A Pun that Makes You Say "Ooph" While Smiling

Please click on cartoon to enlarge.

Find these mad but often linguistically neat single panel cartoons at this cite.

What are YOUR two most intimate . . .?

       Is it the time?  I think it may be.  To pick up my blog again.  Just as a young girl captured on home video over 3 years ago crying that she didn't want any more "Bronco Bama" went viral and caught my fancy to refer to it in my very first blog entry, now another winning bit of language flashes across the horizon to prompt this post from my state of intermittancy.

       Patt Morrison does wonderful interviews for the L.A. Times on noteworthy but often surprising figures who have real impact on our world. Now Patt is doing those interviews in podcasts as well as for the eyes.  The headline on today's column in the Times is "I ask, you can listen," and the first words in one of her final paragraphs knocked me for a loop because it got me where I live:

"Two of the most intimate orifices in the human body are your ears."

Entirely unexpected and wonderfully true.  Now we can catch all the nuances of her interviewees' words by the tentacles of our inner ears.  I gathered-in L.A.'s police chief that way today and heard a lot more humanity in those words and easy but serious responses than I've realized before from his quotes in print.

       Patt's got it, and Patt's got me by my two "most intimate orifices."

(The podcast appears each Wednesday at this location.)