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.)