Cartooning Language Again

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Kids and Communication Technology

       This cartoon hit home on a day I had to plea for help to my son in getting several computer conundrums figured out:

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Block that Pun

       Some puns are so bad you just have to moan or groan (which may mean they're good).  Some puns are bad because they're bad puns.

       Yesterday's L.A. Times sports page headlined an article:

                    Lisicki brings heat, 
                    Serena the timidity.

       Yes, a lesser known Sabine Lisicki ousted Serena Williams from the Wimbledon tennis tournament in one of the middle rounds when Serena was expected to win it all.  Lisicki apparently hit and fought hard; Serena was unaggressive at times.

       But the PUN?  Playing "timidity" off "humidity"?  If you have to think, "What IS the pun?" and when you find it it wasn't worth it, it doesn't even rise to the level of a groan!

Some "K" Words: "Kibosh" 2

       Does "kibosh" go back to Yiddish “kye” as “18,” “bosh” as “pence”? 
      
       “It’s said that bidders at small auctions, put the kibosh on other bidders, forced them out, by jumping their bids to eighteen pence.”  Leo Rosten puts the word in his book The Joys of Yiddish, only indicating, after exhaustive consideration, that he’s not very happy with any etymology, including Yiddish.
 
       I want to believe that it came over to America as “death cape” with Irish immigrants as my friend Marvin said, but I’m afraid I have to put the kibosh on that one too.  I reluctantly resign myself to the  exasperating, universally agreed upon source in all my principal references:  “origin unknown.”                  

Some "K" Words: "Kibosh" 1

       We move from Middle English to Greek to Chinese in our previous three "K" words.  As the origins get more exotic, you might well wonder about “kibosh.”  “Put the kibosh on, put an end to: dispose of finally.”

       I could easily accept what my friend first put me on to, Gaelic, cie bas, pronounced “kibosh,” which means "death cape."  To me that sounds perfect.  Writing of word and phrase origins, author Robert Hendrickson is inclined to see this as “the most logical explanation.”

       But then Hendrickson offers up the long held belief that the etymology is Yiddish, going back to “kye” as “18” and “bosh” as “pence.”  What is this about?  More (and "K" concluded) tomorrow.

Some "K" Words: "Kowtow"

       The kudos continue(s) for my line-up of “k” words as I  kowtow to the word “kowtow”:  “the action or practice, formerly customary in China, of touching the ground with the forehead as a sign of extreme respect, submission, or worship," the OED says, "figuratively an act of obsequious respect.”  The AHD tells us  Kou in Chinese Mandarin means “knock” or “strike,” and tou means “head.”  If your forehead strikes the pavement, you have definitely “kowtowed” to someone. 

       And don’t try doing it arms akimbo; you might not make it back up.

Some "K" Words: "Kudos"

       Everyone’s glad to receive “kudos,” which is “praise for achievement,” but where does it come from?  It’s Greek.  Kydos in Greek.  It means “magical glory.”  What more marvelous accolade to have bestowed upon one than “magical glory”? 

       The American Heritage Dictionary says the word is singular by derivation, but I’ll not get into that, believing that if one “kudo” is good (a “back-formation” from the original), then several “kudos” must be better . . .even if it's singular!?

Some "K" words: "Akimbo"

       Some words that find themselves together because they're "k" words and because they're strange and for no other reason.

       “Akimbo” is the only word that doesn’t begin with “k,” and we’ll begin with it.   I love this word but hadn’t the faintest idea what its root might be.  Those two hands planted on the hips, elbows jutting outwards, no other word to describe that, is there?  Just arms “akimbo.”

       What does it mean?  Literally, “in keen bow” from Middle English in kenebowe, in a “sharp” (kene) “bent curve” (bowe).  Exactly the picture of those elbows.  Taking the “keen” (kene) back to Old English cene, the meaning suggests “bold, brave,” to go along with the attitude that might be associated with that posture:  “King of the hill!”  I love that.                                                           

       Arms in keen bow!                                           

A Loss for Words

       I'm remembering our last "shoot" for my photography class in summer 2011.   It was at the Getty Villa in Malibu with art works and architecture from the Greeks, Romans, and Etruscans.
  
       Shooting these pieces and classic Roman architecture and landscaping, I was attentive to the visual, and my usual museum behavior with lots of reading went out the window.  We had visual art to be recorded, and I skipped a whole lot of verbal learning and acquired instead greater sense appreciation aided by focusing through the camera’s lens.

       Loss is sometimes gain; words can encumber the eye.

"I Do..."

       A certain choice of words can have meaning a similar wording doesn’t.  Not long ago in bed, side by side, holding hands, Connie said, “I do love you,” and I instantly responded, “I do love you too.”

       We had our emotional reasons for speaking this way, both experiencing recent help and support as well as the long-term relationship we have between us.

       The “do” adds something.   I recalled later “do” in the traditional marriage vows:  “Do you take this man/woman...” “I do.”  It asks for and asserts the firmness of intention.  In these latter days of marriage, “I do” confirms fruition of that early resolve. 

Thinking Outside the Camera

       It's summer, and I recall with pleasure the wonderful photography class I had two summers ago.  Early in the course, I noted two ironies of photography, each with linguistic implications:

1.  Still photographers need to be very much in motion:  they have to keep shifting their position in order to find the best shot; also they need to physically pose their subjects into more natural and relaxed postures, not let them remain stiff and "salami"-armed.

2.  Photographers need to think outside the box so that what goes in the box will be worthwhile.  Some word play here of course, partly because “camera” literally means “room,” “chamber,” and a room is a “box.”  (Interestingly, the old “box camera” is a redundancy.)

"Dressage"

       I learned something.  In the wonderful movie “Buck,” a first class documentary about the real “horse whisperer,” Buck Brannaman, someone pointed out the marvels of “dressage.”
 
       Horses are rehearsed in doing the most refined movements of which they are capable, almost ballet.  But the horse is actually being asked to do what is very useful in all sorts of work situations, herding cattle, roping steers, etc.  And once it gets the idea, “OK then, this is PRACTICE,” the horse goes right along with dressage (French dresser, "train," "drill").

       I guess I never realized all that side-stepping and backing and prancing were not just hoidy toidy stuff for upper class watchers to revel in, but useful maneuvers, and which provide the horse an added sense of self-worth. 

"a" and "an"

       At a dermatologist's office, I read a brochure on sunscreens that spoke of “a SPF of 15.”  To my speechy mind, that was wrong.  It should have been "an SPF of 15."

       The common thought is that if a word begins with a consonant, the article before it is properly "a".   It's true "s" is a consonant, but that "s" is an initial and is pronounced "ess."

       Before a vowel, the article "a" becomes "an".    I like things in print that recognize the way we’d  say something when reading it aloud (or even when "silent"-reading it for our own inner ear).

Aren't Words Wonderful?

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Junk Peddlar Redux

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        Seeing this sight in front of my own house this morning (they were picking up some stuff from us), it immediately took my mind back to the early days of Jewish immigrants in the U.S.  Collecting discarded or used stuff from others for resale was a major way to start making a living in this country for those without much of anything to begin with.

       This time it's gasoline and truck instead of horse and cart.   And the language I heard was Spanish mixed with a little English, instead of a bissel English mixed in with the Yiddish. 

56 Years and Counting!

       Our 56th wedding anniverary, and I looked it up online, asking what was special about the 56th; you know, paper, copper, whatever.  I found that there's nothing special about the 56th. 

       But I did like one of the comments made by an online reader after that answer was given to someone else's same question two years ago:

       "It's a bloody miracle!  You both should be wearing gold stars all day long."

Connie and I are assuming that attitude for ourselves.

"Behooves"

       I was curious about the word "behooves" because of its sound, and it took me on this journey:

       Behooves means to "be morally required of (a person), be incumbent upon; befit."  It behooves one to do this, we say.

       It is derived from Middle English behoven, from Old English behof "use, profit, need," thence from Germanic bi-hof:  "bi" is a reduced form of ambhi from Indo-European "on all sides" and is an intensifying prefix; so what is at root here is "to have a need all around"; "that which binds."

       If it "behooves" you to do something,  everything is pointing towards its necessity!

"Kvelling about Henry Cavill"

       A piece in the L.A. Times Tuesday morning about why the new Superman movie is doing so well.  The little internal headline on one section reads "Kvelling about Henry Cavill."  Henry was cast as Superman and apparently is successful in the role.

       Writing the article is Steven Zeitchik who I'm guessing is Jewish and may or may not have written that internal headline.  I don't think "kvelling" has quite reached the status of "chutzpah" as a Yiddish word adopted by English but may be on its way.  Kvelling means "bragging with pride," usually about a loved one.

       You might say it's a near opposite for "cavil," which is English for picking at or taking issue with a minor aspect of something.  I'm glad people are kvelling and not cavilling about Henry Cavill!

Father's Day, Plus 1

       Two years ago this day, I wrote the following:

       June 17, 2011--In honor of Father’s Day, daughter Elizabeth’s weekly poem to her mailing list was from “Song of the Open Road” in Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, a book I’d given her. Elizabeth cited the note I’d written, about my having performed Whitman’s poem:  “I loved doing it. He so energizes you.”

       Whitman did so again, but one line stuck out for me this time:

                        "[Wisdom] applies to all stages and objects and                     qualities, and is content..."

reminding me of the saying of an 18th century Chasid, Rabbi Michal:

                         "My life was blessed because I never needed anything until I had it. "

Elizabeth’s blog for today [June 17, 2011] reprints the Whitman excerpt.  You can find it here.



 

Connie's Refrigerator Dad's Day Greeting

"Pre"-Father's Day Card

       These are the words, some barely readable now, scattered about the poster-size Father's Day card hand-made by my son in 1992 when I was 62 and he was 26:

                                                            DONOS
               PA                                                                                          PADRE
               PAPA                             "DADDY"CATION                               POP
                                                                                                                     POPS
                                       MALE PARENTAL UNIT          ABA                         POPPY
       pere                              FATHER          "pop"ulation
                                                                DADA            Hope Springs Paternal
                               DAD                                                   IN
                                                                                                                   A
                                                                                   LOVE,                WORD....
                                                                                        DAvid
               ALPA PATER                                                                           YOU!

"Our Wantings"

       These words struck me in a poem by Rumi:  "our wantings."  A nice double meaning, things that we desire and qualities that we lack.

       They can take us in contrasting directions, worth considering.

       What we want may not be what we lack; what we are deficient in may not be what we desire.

       (The words are from "When We Pray Alone," translation by Coleman Barks, from The Essential Rumi.)    

"Jejune"

       Someone made the movie "Sleepless in Seattle" into a stage musical, and its world premiere in Pasadena last week was met with L.A. Times theater critic Charles McNulty's characterization of the vehicle's song lyrics as "jejune."

       Had I seen the word before?  Yes.  Did I remember what it meant?  No.  Of course it's an attractive word because of the little stutter syllable at the outset, making one wonder.   And no, it has nothing to do with the Roman Goddess Juno, quite the opposite of beauty in its meanings drawn from a part of the intestine--the jejunum--usually found empty upon dissection after death.

       Yes, the lyrics are empty, dry, devoid of life and sustenance, and with associations of intellectually vapid and arid and (maybe because of associations with "juvenile") sophomoric.

       Reading the "Sleepless" review on June 4th, my own association with the word?

                                      "JeJune is bustin' out all over,"

from a far better musical of my youth by Rodgers and Hammerstein, "Carousel." 

It's Not Exactly "June/Moon"

       Driving to broadcast in early morning today, sunless skies call to mind the ”June Gloom” we’re all aware of in Southern California before the sun breaks through around noon to warm us.

       I realize the weather’s less of a downer because we all have those words, June Gloom, to identify the condition.  As long as we have a name for it, it has less of a hold on us--rather, we’ve got a hold on it!

       And if it rhymes to boot--near rhyme anyway--we can almost make a song about it:

                 June Gloom, don’t try to rain on my day
                 You know the sun’s on its way
                 We’ve got your number, Hooray! 

"Echoic" Writing

       One of my pet peeves is "echoic" writing, re-using one of one's own previous words  absentmindedly or lazily.

       Today, an unusual example.   Under the headline "League can't close the deal" Bill Shaikin of the L.A. Times tells us closing pitcher Brandon League couldn't pull off a save and lost the game.  Then:

       "On what might be the most discouraging night in a season full of them, the Dodgers' beleaguered closer blew a two-run lead with two outs to go..."   "be-league-red"

       It might have been deliberate; if so, my congratulations.  Even if it wasn't, I can hardly complain.  But my hunch is it was unconscious as "echoes" usually are.  So this one gets a pass from me and maybe my smiling admiration.  It's a good pun.

A Cartoon Built on an Awful Pun

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       Here is the English nursery rhyme:
                              
                           Three blind mice. Three blind mice.
                           See how they run. See how they run.
                           They all ran after the farmer's wife,
                           Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
                           Did you ever see such a sight in your life,
                           As three blind mice?

Proud and Insightful Quote from the Tony Awards

       For all actors, who put their voices and bodies to "telling it like it is" but who may have doubted their calling or themselves in that calling, Tracy Letts, who tonight won the Tony Award for best actor in the revival of the Broadway play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, put things in the right perspective:

       "We are the ones who say it to their faces.  And we have a unique responsibility."

"Curation," "Curator," "Curate"

       Last Thursday's L.A. Times noted that the Ojai Music Festival was put together by choreographer and music director Mark Morris, "and his curation includes danceable and moving tunes by Terry Riley, Lou Harrison..." etc.

       I hadn't seen the word "curation" before, only "curator" and the verb "curate."  One keeps learning.  It's a word.  Then I discovered something odd:  81% of the American Heritage Dictionary "Usage Panel" disapproves of  "to curate"; it is a back-formation of the noun "curator" (i.e., formed after "curator" and developed from it).

       Personally, I think if people need a verb to declare what someone DOES who is a curator, and come up with the word for it, it's a WORD.   You'll only consign yourselves to the dust-bin of history, "Usage Panel,"  huffing at a word widely present and useful.

"GUMPTION"; "PAWKY"; "SMIDGEN"; "FLUKE"; "FLUMMOX"

       It's interesting that when you've gotten to the root meanings of this elusive set of wild sounding words, the trail has led ... NOWHERE.

       I'd say "Huzzah," but we'd have to look it up and find that they're not too sure about that one either.

       So we're left simply with this rootless but wonderful array of words:  Gumption, Pawky, Smidgen, Fluke, and Flummox.

"GUMPTION"; "PAWKY"; "SMIDGEN"; "Fluke"; "Flummox"

       Now it could be that three of these words have taken what I call the "low" road back to Scotland.  I begin to wonder if the English who make the OED don't inherit a little of their great predecessor Samuel Johnson's attitude towards the "outside."   Johnson's definition of "oats"?  "A grain which is generally given to horses but in Scotland supports the people."

       When the OED writers came to a word they couldn't find the root of, did they tend to dismiss it to Scotland:  "gumption"; or to Scotland and "northern":  "pawky"; or even beyond, to Scotland and North America:  "smitch"; or worst and consigned to total oblivion:  "smidge"--"originating and chiefly North America"?

       Just kidding, OED, where would we be without you?

       (Concluded tomorrow)

"Gumption"; "PAWKY"; "SMIDGEN"; "Fluke"; "Flummox"

       Last week I came upon the word "squandering" and said to myself, "That's an interesting sounding word.  I'll bet it has a fascinating background."  ORIGIN UNKNOWN.  Always disappointing.

       I remembered an essay I wrote about some attractive words with no identifiable "primeval" ancestor, and I'm drawing on that this week.

       "Pawky" does come from "pawk," which is obsolete but meant "trick," and pawky is "crafty, artful, cunning," but no one knows where pawk came from.  Similarly "smidgen" probably comes from "smitch," "a particle, a bit," but no one knows where that came from.

       (Continued tomorrow)

"GUMPTION"; "Pawky"; "Smidgen"; "Fluke"; "FLUMMOX"

       In continuing our look at a group of words that have etymological dead-ends, only a quick glance at "gumption" about which apparently the less said the better.  But you gotta revel in its definition:  "Boldness of enterprise; initiative or aggressiveness.  Guts, spunk.  Common sense."  Gumption!   A great word that I'm glad to have in the language.

       "Flummox" (FLUHM-ihks) has thankfully flummoxed ("perplexed" and "confused," AHD) all lexicographers as to its roots.  But the OED says "probably imitative."  Now that sounds right to me, a word expressive of its meaning in its sheer utterance:  flummoxed.

       (Continued tomorrow)

"Gumption"; "Pawky"; "Smidgen"; "FLUKE"; "Flummox"

 
       Fluke as "an unlikely chance occurrence" was at first "an accidentally successful stroke at billiards or pool," but no one knows why, or what the root is.

       This fluke is unrelated to two other flukes, one of them flatfish or flatworms from German flach "flat," and the other being either of the lobes of a whale's tale, perhaps because they're flat.  Uncertainty is rampant.  "Just check it in the dictionary" will not net you certitude.

       To me it seemed a fluke that "fluke" and "flummox" appeared within a couple inches of one another on the same page in my dictionaries.  I was glad to see it!  (Continued tomorrow)

"Gumption"; "Pawky"; "Smidgen"; "Fluke"; "Flummox"

       "Gumption," pawky," "smidgen," "fluke," and "flummox."  Now there's a handful of words.  They're together because they sound funny and make you wonder where they came from.  I like this:  no one knows where they came from!

       These words happen to be "dialectical," a form of speech peculiar to a person, class or district, and no one knows or remembers just how the words began.  Like folk tales that have no real author but "the people," these words were simply adopted and passed on.  FINE.  Speech in  my lexicon should have some secrets from nosy literate researchers!

       But because they're from the people, these words are interesting.  Continued tomorrow.                                                                                                              

A Rabbi Retires

       Twice in a year we've "lost" a rabbi.   One advanced to senior rabbi at another congregation, and now our own senior rabbi, is retiring to live in Israel.   Don Goor, rabbi for 26 years with us, left some text-based thoughts on Friday night to ponder for our lives.    The first is from the Torah in Deuteronomy:

       "Do not say, 'My strengths and my might have allowed me to achieve greatness.'  No one individual, not even Moses, can say, 'Look what I did.'"

The second text is from Pirke Avot (The Sayings of the Fathers):

       "Who is rich?  He who is content with his portion."

I treasure these, and they very much marked the man himself, including that he never taught a class without a text in hand to read and ponder with us together. 

"Macbeth" Yields More

        Two more lines from Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 7, strummed on my memory as I looked up yesterday's passages.  Lady Macbeth, in bolstering Macbeth's will power, says,

                    Screw your courage to the sticking place,/And we'll not fail.

Since it is the killing of Duncan they are contemplating, Macbeth ends the scene with this rhymed couplet to his wife:

                   Away, and mock the time with fairest show;
                   False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

       And only "a page or so later" in Act 2, Scene 1, Macbeth,  soliloquizing about the imagined bloodiness ahead, says,

                                                         Whiles I threat, he lives:
                  Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

       Shakespeare captures by vivid language psychological truths.

"Spot Passages"

       Spot Passages.  We learned them for Miss Anderson, our high school English teacher.  Each of us had to come up, sit by her desk, and recite the passage for the week to her. 

                    “Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care.”

I’ve thought of it many, many times since, and I had and still have it in my mind when needed.  (See Sunday, March 10, 2013, e.g.)  Macbeth, Act II, Scene 2.  We did read the play, of course.
 
       Another spot passage, Act I, Scene 7:

                 “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but                          only vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself and falls                      on th’other.”

I’ve accused myself of that not a few times.  But Shakespeare had Macbeth say it first! 

Typewriter Laureate

        I suppose I shouldn’t marvel that my computer keyboard alphabet with its three rows of letters hasn’t changed one whit since I first learned to type on our old Royal typewriter 57 years ago.

       Then as now I was interested in the sounds of language and couldn’t escape learning the names of the three rows of letters, at least as I pronounced them:

                 kware ty you ee ahp
                  ass dihf guh djihkl
                   zihx sihv bihnm

       How could I help saying them?  I saw them every time I looked down at the keyboard.  So do you.

       If the above reads strangely to you, here it is “in the life”:

                 qwertyuiop   
                  asdfghjkl
                   zxcvbnm

How do you recite it?  

Shop On: You'll Find No Better Name than This

       I can't let another day pass without recalling what Connie dubbed yesterday's Holiday:        meMALLial day.

Another "who/whom" Conundrum, 2 (see yesterday first)

       "It's (he/him) (who/whom) you can't understand."

       This is a difficult one, but “he” and “whom” are correct. 

       Any form of the verb “to be” does not take an object following it, only a subject.  For example,  one should say, “It is I” not “It is me.”   “He” is a subject, “him” is an object; hence “It’s he” is correct.

       “(Who/whom) you can’t understand” is a separate  clause in which the word in question is the object of the verb “understand.”  To check which  sounds right, change the word order around and substitute “he” and “him” for “who” and “whom":  “You can’t understand he” doesn't sound right; “him” does.  “Whom” is an object like "him"; so the correct choice is “whom you can’t understand.”

       "It's he whom you can't understand."

Another "who/whom" Conundrum, 1

"It's (he/him) (who/whom) you can't understand."

       Which of the two words in each of the above parentheses is correct?

                 (Answer will be posted tomorrow.) 

"I've got catholic tastes. Catholic with a small 'c,' of course."

       How did "Catholic" become a secular word as well as religious?  The answer surprises me.  Anthony Burgess's small "c" "catholic tastes" (or your or my such usage, signifying "broad" or "general") preceded the religious use.

       It was a secular word before it became a religious one with a large "C."  The word dates to pre-Christian Greece and Rome, deriving from Greek katholikos, "universal."

       The first  upper case use is in a letter from Ignatius of Antioch in about 107:  "Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church."

Why "BUTTERfly"?

       Apparently, according to my sources, you have your choice.  And when you hear one of these etymological possibilities, you may be glad you can choose.

       Possibly from Old English, referring to the creamy yellow color of a number of butterfly species.

       Germanic naming makes the insect into a "milk-thief" and a "butter licker" based on belief or observation.

       The next may be the reason to pick any other derivation:   the Dutch noted the creatures' excrement is a butter-like substance and worked it into their name for it, literally "butter shitter."
 
       But the one that warms my heart most is that the "BUTTER" in "BUTTERfly" comes from Old English butor--"beater," a mutation of beatan--"to beat."

Cartooning the Cosmic against the Trivial

What Passes for Mail

Connie:  (Bringing in what's in the box with its usual disappointing                           contents of ads and solicitations)

                      "The mail isn't much to write home about."

"Synergy"

       Yahoo joining up with Tumblr to the tune of 1.1 billion dollars has Wall Street types uttering "synergy" when they contemplate the deal. 

       Syn, "together with"; erg, "work" (traced back to Indo-European werg, "to do").   In physics, "erg" is the unit of work in the metric system, and there it is right in the middle of "energy."

       Peculiarly, the name "George" comes from this.  Ge is "earth" from the Greek, and orge another form of "erg," an occupation-derived name:   "earth worker,"  farmer.

       "Orgy" has the same root, and no telling what a "to-do" and how many "ergs" of energy are embedded in that!

       Only question with Yahoo and Tumblr:  How well do their respective elements really "work together with" each other?

Misleading Participles

       Online, Mayo Clinic writes wonderful, clear, user-friendly  descriptions and accounts of different medical conditions.  But everyone needs to be watchful of unintentional confusion.  English’ll do that to you.

       Speaking of dermatitis, these sentences appear:

Avoid products that seem to trigger your rash.  Wearing nonlatex gloves while washing dishes, shampooing your hair or handling other products that irritate your skin may help.

       Sounds a little like nonlatex gloves could be one of those bad triggers, and also shampooing your hair could be, plus handling irritating products “may help”?!  It’s all those “ing” participles in a row that get entangled.
 
       A little thought and revision would make for better communication, with less potential for reader befuddlement. 

A Literate Comic Strip

 He (who is gay) is Her roommate.  They are dance partners in a ballet company.  He has also danced lately with Fernanda.
                                                                                                                                                                           

Click on strip to enlarge.

When's the last time you saw the word Brobdingnagian in the comics?

Few but Telling Words

       Sometimes a handful of words can right the course for you.  Manolo spoke little but helped me improve my tennis game immensely.

       Watching me hit, he said, “You should see the ball over one shoulder on the backswing and over the other on the follow-through.”  What a simple instruction, but I started to hit with authority:  my swing had more scope and power.

       Manolo watched me serve, said two things: “Take it easy” and “Now use your wrist.”  I immediately started getting my first serve in regularly, and when I use my wrist, there’s speed enough to tie up my opponents, often for a missed return.

       Manolo’s few words reshaped my game! 

Starting a Conversation, How Hard Is It?

       Not sure the source of this dream.  Maybe my friend Toby Lurie who always reminds me we are friends and who himself speaks with people readily and easily.  Or maybe my friend Marvin Holloway, who died this past year.   He was open and loquacious to all around him.

       Extraverts attract me, I guess, partly because I’m pretty introverted myself.

       The dream seemed to be saying to me (was I on an airplane, a stranger sitting next to me?), “Start a conversation.  Let the world in.  You’ll be pleased, surprised!”

       “Even when I have nothing to say?” I seemed to be thinking, “nothing, only dullness?”

       “Yes!” came back the dream.

       I turned to my seat-mate and asked, “Is this a dull moment?”   He smiled, and we began to converse. 

Therapist Has Words, Will Travel

       Connie's home after more than a week in a skilled nursing facility for her painful back, and Kaiser's home health corps has followed.  Today an occupational therapist came in with practical help on things like getting on sox and jeans without twisting your back in doing so.

       I noted  a couple linguistic "twists" during the visit.   Connie was asked if she'd ever tried a "stockade."  "A what?" I thought, "Kaiser wants to put Connie in prison?"

       "Sock Aid" was the actual word.  This item helps you get your sox on without bending over or bending your knees, both of which are hard on the back.  You can see a picture of one here.

       Our therapist came in pulling a pack that rolled on wheels.   The carrying device looked strong and efficient, and as she departed, I saw it had a name:  "MAGNA CART."

Birds, Poems, and Reality

       How do birds sleep?  It’s a question I put online to answer a doubt I have every time I say a certain poem, which is often.

       The poem called “Today Is Forever” by Malka Heifetz Tussman speaks of a bird scratching a small trough for itself in the earth, lying in it like a crib, and resting.
 
       Do birds rest and sleep this way?

       My online informants testify to a good number of ways birds sleep, not only claw(s) grappled to a twig or branch; for example, huddled up on the floor of a bird cage, and I suppose the poet’s description to be a possible one also.

       I wish I knew all that David Attenborough knows, but I guess I am satisfied this poem does not transgress the bounds of reality.

Two Poems by Grandson Micah

Oh Wind

Oh wind I see you how you sway
to the left and the right.
You always make me sleep.

Oh wind you always make me dance.   
Your music is so beautiful
you sometimes make me laugh.
Your sways make me sway.

Micah Bernard (Age 8)

                                                               

Spring

Oh the Spring
A good time

We can enjoy the summer…
Solstice
Oh mighty rain
Give/our/plants/water
Says the desert man

Oh Spring finally you,
No more Winter

Micah Joseph Bernard
Age 11

                                                                                                                                                            

"Oh What a Tangled Web..."

       Another adage such as the one I brought up the other day, arose in conversation with friends.  We’d been talking about marital infidelity and how one lie can lead to another to cover for the first, etc., until the truth is suffocated.

       The saying we finally pieced together from our memories was the following:

            Oh what a tangled web we weave
            When first we practice to deceive.

This rhyming aphorism is a moral one rather than a practical one like “a pint’s a pound the world around” but very useful to remember!  It was said by Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott over 200 years ago.

Don's Sonnet to Connie for Mother's day

       Thou were you at first and only that to me,
       Your person, self, and life were one and all.
       Then wed we were and double joined to see
       If two could make one life, without a fall.

       That life has grown and mingled our true love
       And fashioned for us labor, joy, and smile,
       And made a marriage of earth and heav’n above:
       Husband, wife, and lovers all the while.

       Till double yoked we double child produced
       Of either sex in perpetuity;
       This two, now one, not halved, nor yet reduced
       But blissed and arched a rainbow progeny.

       Though children, husband, make thee Wife and Mother,
       No less, no more to me than wast, nor other.

       At the time I wrote this decades ago, I was asking my college students to memorize and perform a Shakespeare sonnet "by heart."  With this I think I was challenging my own understanding of the form by composing one.

"A Pint's a Pound the World Around"

       This is something Connie taught me that I’d never heard before but was a part of her "folk" knowledge.  These pithy, often rhyming catch phrases are useful and memorable.
 
       I know it now too and have used it.  Weighing myself this morning, as I do every day, I forgot to delay the two cups of water I also have every day to ward off kidney stones until after weighing; but I knew I could subtract one pound from my weight, and it would be accurate!  “A pint’s a pound the world around.”

A Friend Closed with "Sent from my smarter than I Phone"

       I trust there are others who resent "sent from my iPad" or "sent from my iPhone" as the closing line on an email.  (I understand the phrase cannot be eliminated from the message by customers;  triple the blame on Apple then.) 

       WHO CARES WHERE YOU SENT IT FROM?!

               sent from my toilet,
                       Don

Blog? What's that?

       Connie's home for first full day from skilled nursing facility. 

       I'm too tired and happy for words.

Creative Listening? (Or Hard of Hearing)

       When your hearing’s getting a little frayed around the edges, it can lead to some creative listening.   At dinner one night at in-laws and friends Jean and Michael’s house, it was noted that Michael’s father, now passed on, had not eaten meat.  Jean said, “But that was because of sexual issues.”

       I thought, then paused, finally asked, “Did you say ‘sexual’ issues?”  There was broad laughter at the table.
  
       Jean had said “textural.”  (Meat hard to digest?  I didn’t pursue the question.)  Michael was especially amused, realizing if I’d thought I heard “sexual,” why I just had to ask!

       We seem unable to live with a blurred, indefinite meaning; we’re gonna fill it in with the best we can make of it.

"Sonnetto for Furious Nursing Baby"

       I can't resist putting this poem in my blog.  It is scrupulously observed, and the language is perfectly attuned to its subject.


Frothy and pink as a rabid pig, you-
a mauler - a lunatic, stricken with

a madness induced by flesh - squeeze my skin
until blotched, nicked. Your fingernails

are jagged and mouth-slick. Pinprick scabs jewel
my breasts. Your tongue, your wisest muscle,

is the wet engine of discontent.
It self-fastens by a purse-bead of spit

while your elegant hands flail, conducting
orchestral milk, and sometimes prime the pump.

Nipple in mouth, nipple in hand, you have
your cake and eat it too. Then when wrenched

loose, you’ll eat sorrow, loss - one flexed hand twists,
as you open your mouth to eat your fist.
           
           by Julianna Baggott
             appeared in Alhambra Poetry Calendar 2010  
                Selected by Shafiq Naz

Comic Strip: Teenager Communicating with Parents

Click on Strip to Enlarge

"Cairo," Illinois; "New Madrid," Missouri

       On my way recently to the Los Angeles Radio Reading Service to read the day’s newspapers over the air for the blind and print-impaired, I heard an announcer on my car radio slightly uncomfortably pronouncing the name of a nearby town.  I wondered if he was new to the area.

       Then on our own broadcast, as my reading partner Mike read an article on the floods in the Midwest, I realized I had an advantage because I grew up in the Midwest while Mike grew up in Burbank.

       If you hadn’t heard it occasionally, how would you know the Illinois town “Cairo” is pronounced KAY-roe or that “New Madrid” in Missouri is pronounced nu-MAD-rid, not nu-muh-DRID?  We’ve all got some “inside” linguistic knowledge simply because of where we were raised.

Mark Swed's Joyous Writing about Music

       When a great music critic gets turned on, he or she can be as artistic a writer as any wielder of prose around.  I submit this paragraph from Mark Swed last week, written of young violinist Jennifer Koh, Chicago born of Asian background:

        "Her tone is big, bold and drop-dead gorgeous, just the thing for Romantic-era repertory.... Less than three years ago, she appeared at the Cerritos Center with the Moscow State Symphony as soloist in the soupy Bruch Violin Concerto.  A blindfolded listener could have been fooled into thinking that an American woman of Korean heritage in her early 30s was, in fact, a burly old-school Russian virtuoso in rumpled suit specked with dandruff reaching into the throbbing depths of a passionate, vodka-besotted soul."

      

From "Stem" to "Stern"

       I'm a speech person because I consider speech the source of language but I'll grant that visual symbols helped regularize speech and make it more widely accessible.  Those who favor words on a page or a screen, though, will have to grant that sometimes these visual entities get us screwed up.

       One of my favorites is how, especially in some fonts, the "m" and "n" and "r" can cohabit with one another in less than communicative ways:  the actress Laura Dern can change before your eyes into Laura Dem.  And the front and back end of a boat can both be the same, in the phrase "from stem to stern."

      Yes, the spoken word can mumble and jumble and hem and haw, but the printed word has its  special vulnerabilities.  And I shall never be happy with a front page story making me turn multiple pages to get to the rest of a single word that has been broken off in its middle while the thought that is an intelligible sentence evaporates!

My Only Joke

Wordplay

       Playing with words gets to be a habit.

       I recall the captured Boston Marathon bomber being forthcoming about his crime.  Then I wonder if he'd confess even more in a fifthcoming.

       But there was or is or will be a Second Coming.

       The first coming I remember---I must have been 15.
    
       If you're sonically-minded or speech-minded (and pun minded), no telling where words will take you.  (And some will wish there were no telling.)

       "Forecasting" anyone?

"Uptalk," "Vocal Fry," etc.

       There's worry about teenagers adopting certain speech traits which are au courant amongst their friends but offensive or annoying to their elders, including potential employers.

       One of these traits is an upward inflection at the end of declarative sentences, changing a statement into a question and doing it habitually.  The other is taking on a kind of gravelly voice into which meaningful utterances tend to disappear.

       This reminded me of when I was teaching speech to New York City college kids.  We tried to get rid of ng clicks ("Long  Gisland" ), intrusive r's ("Genar and Bob went to a movie"), saying "toime" for "time,"etc.

        A doctoral study found that those same kids who habitually spoke this way among peers would, without instruction, virtually eliminate these "faults" during job interviews.

"Parterre"

       I knew I wanted seats in either the orchestra or parterre for the Mark Morris dance concert the other night.  I was able to get good central seats in the parterre for son David and myself.

       David posed the question what does it mean, "on the earth"?  French in origin, exactly these two words par and terre, "on the ground" is probably best translation.  It's "the part of the ground-floor of the auditorium of a theatre behind the orchestra" (OED).

       In France in early 18th century, the parterre was the ground level where people stood and stood ready to "critique" the performance.  Some say seats were added after a time with the aim of discouraging demonstrative behavior and utterance.

"Popliteal Fossa"

       These couple words I remember from my teens, and they came back to me on the tennis court today.   The back of the leg behind the knee is what the two words refer to.  PAHP lih TEE-uhl  FAHSS uh   is a correct pronunciation, both words from Latin.

       The popliteal fossa can be a surprisingly sexy part of the female anatomy.

Compulsive? Or Something More

       Connie was characterizing what she heard from a nurse who had arrived from Chicago six weeks earlier.  The nurse, competent seeming and likable, was impressed with Kaiser and complained of ill-organized conditions in the Windy City, of too many patients per health worker, of it being impossible to attend a patient's needs in an orderly and exacting way; nurses would shortcut.

       "You're compulsive," said Connie.

       I waited for the nurse's response with interest.

       "Thorough," she said.

       Thankful I was, and for more than just the care of my wife.  There was dignity and pride in that word.

        


        

Cartoonist Punster

                                        Low depths puntooning.

I Recommend This Ecumenicism

       Ann Gartlan McArthur, childhood friend of our daughter Elizabeth and adult friend of Connie, Elizabeth, and mine, broke me up this morning on the phone by her declaration of sympathy with Connie for her back pain suffering:

       "Tell Connie a Holy Roller Catholic out in the Rocky Mountains wishes her all the Juju in the world."

"Ambrosia"

       Son David:  (To Wife Connie starting lunch at the skilled nursing facility which is giving her help for her severely pained back)  How is that?

       Wife Connie:  (Speaking of the almost but not quite mashed potatoey looking orangish substance in front of her)  Ambrosia!

       David:  What's that?

       Connie:  (PAUSE)

       Me:  Heavenly repast.

       Connie:  Look it up on your iPhone.

       David:  (Doing so) "Food of the gods."  Hmm.  I didn't know the word and actually thought it might apply to some smoothly mixed together vegetable concoction.

       Connie and I:  (Wry silence.)

       Yup, "ambrosia," from ambrotos Greek for "immortal."

Shakespeare's Birthday.

EARTH DAY: "i thank You God..."

                                

                                 Originally recorded April 22, 2012.

Cartoonist Punster on the Loose Again

                         

    

 

click on comic to enlarge

 

        Connie's back pain has been terrible the last couple days, and stronger pain pills are not touching it, and she's pretty much immobilized between our sun room in the morning in her Relax-the-Back chair and on the living room couch in the afternoon to read and watch some video.

         I normally guess wrong two or three times before I find Connie in the computer room or the sun room or the living room or the kitchen or the back yard.  I said to her late today, "I like better not knowing where you are in the house." 

"The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere"

Sandy Hook Says, "Shame!"

       Tonight Jon Stewart showed up some Republican Senators' contradictory arguments yesterday against having background checks for gun purchasers.


       Senator Grassley:  People who steal guns do not submit to background checks.

       Stewart:  But people who steal guns do not submit to our rules about stealing!  But we still have them.  The people in our country who spend millions of dollars to get elected to a legislative body known as the Senate are making the argument there's really no point in making laws because criminals are just going to end up breaking them....
                     

        And so with senators favoring background checks 54-46 and 86% of Americans supporting such a law, the Senate, (mis)guided by its own arcane laws and rules, rejected both a national consensus and the will of its own majority by scorning any just, reasonable, and compassionate gun control legislation.    

      

"Ferret" / "Weasel"

       A hand-printed sign left me wondering:  "Reward for Ferret (Weasel)," plus a phone number.  I didn't know such animals were being kept in California.  Was a ferret really the same as a weasel? 

       A ferret is a weasel, a weasel is a ferret, and apparently it takes one to know the difference.

       Now if a ferret has escaped, how do you "ferret out" a ferret?  This thing has "weaseled" its way out of its owner's confines.  "Weasel"'s obscure origin has implications of theft.  From the weasel's habit of sucking the contents out of an egg, Theodore Roosevelt invented the term "weasel-words," words which steal the force of a statement by purposely making it vague.

       And what if we try to ferret out the word "ferret"?  It goes back to Latin fer, "thief," from which we also get "furtive." 

       I hope this hasn't been too many weasel words.  It's tough ferreting out these things.  But do please note we owe a lot to the animals for clarifying our human behavior.

Creative Misreading? Moose Style

       Connie bought some delicious Denali Mint Moose Track ice cream with streaks and chunks of chocolate through green ice cream.  I have been enjoying it.

       But it reminded me of the All Agency Moose Advisory Committee in my home state of Minnesota.  With that name, I just can't help conjuring a roomful of moose, sitting around and giving advice.

       Unfortunately, rising temperatures are endangering the wonderfully antlered animals, who apparently are habituated and reluctant to move somewhere cooler to save their lives.

Connie's Bon Mot

       Reading through the journal of my West Coast-Southern Canada automobile trip in 1999, I was in the stretch from Vancouver to Calgary during which Connie flew up to join me.  We had had a day of walking around Lake Louise, a gondola ride above the town spotting a grizzly bear below us, a short ride to Banff with another lake visit and some surprising sitings of elk--at a street corner--and along a road, only feet away from us.

       When I asked Connie, city girl that she is, how she felt at dinner that night, she said, "I had a lot of fresh air today which screws up my entire constitution."

      

Warning: More Tongue Twisters

Say Each of These Aloud Five Times Fast.

mulchy mix that was the shtetl culture

(seen on the Queen Mary)

quadruple screw steam turbine engine



Chiropractic Readjustment of the Jaw Available upon Request.

"Interest" -- "Bizarro" by Dan Piraro

Click on Cartoon to Enlarge

        
        I love this cartoon!  But the word "interest" itself interests me.

        Inter esse --“to be between”--is the Latin root of the word.  To be interested in something is neither to dwell in the self nor be lost in the other but to revel in the connection between the two.  What interests us is what touches us, bears upon us.   

       To take the cartoon seriously for a moment, if you needed to borrow money, that would be your interest in this bank; if they loaned it to you, the percent they charge is their interest in making the loan.  If they have “interest-free checking,” then despite the insulting bank teller, their "interest" is in other income they can make from you once you decide to bank with them and do checking "free."

 

Warning: Tongue Twisters

       Say Each of These Five Times Fast

avid advocate

stuck in talk-show shtick

 Then Repeat for Your Mental and Physical Health

Cartooned "Etymology" / "Entomology"

   
Gk. etymon = "true"
                                 study of where a given word comes from, its history
       logos = "word"


Gk. entomon = "cut up"  (i.e. insect, which also means "cut into")
                                 study of insects                   
       logy  =       "study of"  (derived from logos)

"Dictionary"--the Game

       Here are five definitions of "byssus," including the true one, which I saved from a family party, thinking we were pretty bright in creating definitions of a word none of us knew.   Have a go at what you think is the real definition:


       byssus
 
       Any of the genus biffangeus, commonly referred to as mountain goats.

       Byssus is the Christian name James Joyce chose to call his granddaughter Nanette after he received acclaim for his novel Ulysses.

       An organic substance derived from the stomach lining of a salamander, reputed to have medicinal value; usually found in powdered form.
 
       A fine probably linen cloth of ancient times.

       The mythical "other side" that supposedly exists behind gaping black holes in space.


             To find the dictionary definition of "byssus," click here.

Unlikely Rhymes

       Speaking, as I was on March 29, 2013, of  rhymes that one is not likely to ever see again (the earlier one by a rapper was "righteous" with "might just"), I seem to have ferreted out in some old notes one I myself concocted:

                        You've got to have some chutzpah
                        To buy yourself a foot spa

       Canvas poetry the world over, my friend, you will not find that rhyme anywhere.

       (Well, maybe you will because the only rhyme either one in the pair can make is with the other.)

'Lingua'ge--the Word on the 'Tongue'

       I miss the days in which the word "cooperate" appeared with an umlaut ( ̈) over the second "o"; you knew it was pronounced "co-operate," and not "cooper-ate."  Even using the hyphen is fine with me.  You can tell right away how to say it.

       Today, noticing "biopic" in print, I was aware of the problem again.  Could be pronounced like "myopic," but it isn't.  This word refers to a biographical motion picture and so is a BI-o-pic not a bi-AH-pic.   In this instance,  I'd prefer to see the hyphen, "bio-pic," for clarity.

       We knew at once that "naive" had two syllables and not one when the "i" had the umlaut over it, meaning, from the German, "the sound changes around."    

"Magnanimous"--"Pusillanimous"

       One of the best traits of character is magnanimity--generosity--or, taking the derivation of the word literally--"large spiritedness."  It's a trait I admire greatly but don't often evidence.

       I'm far more likely to display the exact opposite trait, "pusillanimity," which is "small spiritedness."

       The two words share the root anima, --"spirit."

       So I guess we have this choice, and to expand on the differences between the two:  magnanimous--large souled, great spirited, noble, rising above pettiness, with the accent on generosity; pusillanimous--small souled, pettiness of spirit, very little courage of heart, cowardly.

       And our choice is?...

       

"Mairzy Doats"

       Connie and I were musing in bed last night about a "nonsense" song from our childhood:

                Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
                A kiddley-divey too, wouldn't you?
                     
       It had a pleasant nursery-rhymish tune along with the silly words.  Something must have clicked back then, and we each got the delight of the language:

               Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy
               A kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you?

       Wikipedia says that it was a 1943 novelty song by Milton Drake, Al Hoffman, and Jerry Livingston. 
                    

"Flatulent"

       I said to my wife, "I've been unusally flatulent tonight."  She said, "No, I'd say about normal."

       Merriam-Webster:  flatulent, "marked by or affected with gas generated in the intestine or stomach," from Latin flatus act of blowing, wind, from flare to blow, as in "inflated."

Who Wrote Shakespeare's Plays?

       It 's hard for me to get animated or make a big to-do (there's always one around the corner) whether or not Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare's plays. The movie Anonymous not too long ago advanced the Earl of Oxford. The year before that a highly placed Jewess with both English and Italian background was proffered as certainly better positioned and equipped than Shakespeare to write his plays.

       My feeling is Shakespeare by any other name would smell as sweet.

"Eponymous"

       I come across the word twice in one day. I recognize it but cannot recall what it means.


Newspaper movie guide:

            "Le Havre--A bohemian shoeshiner meets and looks after a young African refugee in the eponymous French port city."


Liner notes for Barbra Streisand's music album.   Lyricist Alan Bergman writes:

            "Finally the day of the first session arrives. The eponymous Streisand Scoring Stage at Sony Studios is filled with Hollywood's finest musicians."


      "Eponymous" means "named after."  The second example is clear. In the first, I had to confirm:   sure, Le Havre in French is "harbor" or "port."

      Greek.  Epi--"after"; onyma--"name." 
      And consider.  An--"no"; onyma--"name" = anonymous.  

Etymology Online

       "Etymonline.com" is a website aimed at aggregating and assimilating online the roots of words from a number of etymological sources.

       Douglas Harper of Pennsylvania is the laborer of love here.  A college graduate in history and English, he is combining the fields by doing a "history of English"...word by word.

       As befits someone who chose this excellent preoccupation, Douglas writes well.  Here's a sample from his bio:


       In 1960, when I was born, my parents lived in a place in Pennsylvania called Exton, a village given that name, for all anyone can remember, because it was just a crossroads "X" on the map.  [T]heir house sat across the Swedesford Road from what is now the sprawling mothership of Exton Hall, but was, in 1960, a bog.


       You may check out Doug's website with a click. 

 
     

The Wits of Watts and Wilde

       A good pair of statements I came across in a 1997 page-a-day calendar I created:


               "Because you don't know who you are, you are never,
                        never, never going to be bored."
                                                                                     Alan Watts

               "Only the shallow know themselves."
                                                                                    Oscar Wilde