Cartoonist Tunes Up to Words

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Words Easily Confused with One Another

       I've seen and heard this happen with "prostate"  and "prostrate."  One is a male gland; the other is lying flat out on your stomach.  One has one "r"; the other has two "r"s.  They're easy to confuse by sight or sound, not likely meaning.

       Another pair of words is "theses" and "feces."  You hear them, and they sound very much alike, not because the first letters are similar but because the first sounds are.  [th] is made between tip of tongue and upper teeth; [f] is made between upper teeth and lower lip.  The sound in both cases is  frictional air going between related speech organs.

      I always find this one especially perilous:  The Ninety-Five Theses Martin Luther pinned up on the church door in Wittenberg.

Philip Schultz: Pulitzer Poet

       I read two poems today by Philip Schultz who won the Pulitzer for poetry in 2008. I could see why he won.

       Glancing into Schultz's memoir My Dyslexia, I read his wife is a sculptor; Schultz says artists don't think too much about money--he and his wife have a comfortable house that just meets their needs.

       You can discern the tone of Schultz's poetry by a joke he tells about himself and his accountant, discussing Philip's retirement. The accountant told Philip he'd be able to retire 10 years after his death, and Philip held out for 5.

    The fine poems I read today can be found at my daughter's blog for Wednesday, October 19, 2011. To read them, click here.

A Mouthful of Words

       My dentist was unfamiliar with the marvelous poem "Master of Instruments"; I emailed it to him.  From the list of instruments:

    the lovely burnishers to polish the amalgam,
    the double-notched cord packers plying thick tissue,
    flat spatulas for loading plumb
    and tapered flutes to tap the crown down solid
    and lute the inlay tight,
    curved chisels to mold the stubborn cusp ridges,
    gingival wedges and lariats of floss and smooth heron-billed                         pluggers
    and even the humble rubber dam and clamps
    to shield the tongue from the serrated forceps.

Finally:

    With the help of my instruments...
    I insert implants where none but Nature has ratcheted before.
    And I give you your smile and your bite back.

                    David Solway

Same Referent, New Contexts: New Names

       Burger King has come out with French Fries with less fat and salt and calls them "Satisfries."  Good old French Fries except tailored to consumer desire for healthier options.

  

       More than 50 percent of World Wide Web users now listen to Internet radio outlets of various kinds.   Growth of Web streaming doesn't mean traditional AM and FM radio is losing out.  "90% of [smartphone] participants listen to terrestrial stations."

       "Terrestrial stations."  There's a term that would not have been needed until recently.

       At a Dodger game last month, when checking over my tote before entry, the guy at the gate stopped and wondered about an item of mine:  "Oh, a radio.  I haven't seen one of those in some time."

Cartoonist Warns Us on Child Naming

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"Remembering Makes Me Whole"

       It may have taken my maturer years and the death of my parents to appreciate the value of the Yizkor (memorial) service on Yom Kippur Day.  One year I was asked to write about "What Memory Means to Me" and to read it during that service.

       A dad who had died at 96 and a mom at 101 left me with much to remember and savor for its contribution to my own nature and life course.  This naturally brings tears to my eyes...knowing that could be maudlin and indulgent...yet my reflections before the audience ended this way:

                  Remembering to me is not self-indulgence in emotion;                 remembering  acknowledges the limits of my self and how much
             has fed into me to make me what I am.

                  In other words, remembering makes me whole.

              

 

"Homewords": Introduction, 4

       Words themselves are at home on this planet.  Where else do they acquire the images that are their roots?  What better word than "roots" to suggest how words belong here, grow here, thrive here, that their home and sustenance is planet earth?
 
       Words express a longing for what is absent and yearned for--the Silent Eloquence they emerge from; but words may also be as much as we get of home.  So check the attic and the cellar, under the eaves, and deep in the closets--you could find what you are looking for, even in exile.

"Homewords": Introduction, 3

       A professor retires and discovers an old bag in a closet stuffed with slips of paper--with words on them.  He is taken aback; there are 20 or 25 years of words that had caught his attention--but that he didn't have time to investigate while working.  He just stuffed them in a bag.

       Finding the way home seems to be what this writing is all about, getting to the source, the etymological root of the words, but also to a source in experience, to the point at which the words brushed against my life.

"Homewords": Introduction, 2

       How can one be at home with words and yet long to be at their source?

       It is not only thirteenth century Persian poets who ponder such thoughts.  Contemporary French writer and philosopher Edmond Jabes says "being Jewish means exiling yourself in the word and, at the same time, weeping for your exile."

       More broadly, we are all exiles:  from our childhood, often from the place we were born, from our grandparents' country or language or religion, from an earlier stage of our own adult lives.  Words can return us part way to those places, and we can reside in them, in the words.

"Homewords": Introduction, 1

       “All language is a longing for home.”  This is the way Coleman Barks speaks of the Sufi poet Rumi’s theory of words.         

       Rumi has it that we humans are like the reed flute cut from its reed bed.  Hollowed out and empty away from its source, the plaintive sound of the flute hearkens back to its origins.  So we make sound that both tells of our separation from the Source and our yearning back towards It. 

       Language is a longing to be home, a “belonging.”

       In this sense, all words are “home words.”

       In Persian bet means both “house” and “word.”  In Hebrew beth means “house” and is the second letter of the alphabet.  In Chinese shih means both “temple” and “word.”  Perhaps words are sacred, a place to dwell and find shelter and spirit . . . to be at home.

"Iterating"; "Reiterating"; "Constantly Iterating"

       Apple is introducing a fairly radical new operating system for its mobile iPhone, and app makers are scurrying to get their products in synch with it.  Soundwave is one of those apps.  It received favorable reviews when it came out in June, yet has elected to start from scratch to adapt to and take advantage of the new Apple iOS 7.

       Founder of Soundwave  Brendan O'Driscoll says, "We relish the challenge.  You've got to be constantly iterating anyway."

       "Iterating."  Comes from Latin iterum,  meaning "again."  I've heard "reiterating" fairly often, which I suppose then means "again and again."

       Let's see:  "iterating" is a repeat; "reiterating" has to be at least three times, yet it must be less than "constantly iterating."  This could get to be "irritating"!

Dis Cahtoonist Loves Woids 'nd Lettahs

"The Dome"

       Connie watches "The Dome" on TV.  I happened into the room last night when the dome was somehow being covered all over with huge black splotches, turning day into night, and the town's lights were coming on everywhere.  Fearful faces looked up, not knowing what to make of it or what to do.

       I leaned close to Connie, whispered, "Don't worry.  We got rid of DOMA earlier this year!"

Words That No Longer Work

       In today's Los Angeles Times, I found these two items:

Click on items to Enlarge

It's Time for a Favorite Quatrain!

                               The Turtle

               The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks
              
               Which practically conceal its sex.

                I think it clever of the turtle

                In such a fix to be so fertile.

                                        Ogden Nash

Yom Kippur Day

       I learned  two things in the course of this day: 

       1.  One phrase from the High Holy Day prayer book hit me where I live.  It all too precisely characterized my very worst fault of character:  "hiding from others behind an armor of mistrust."  Something to repent for and to try hard to eliminate.

       2.  In an entirely separate recorded talk today, I heard this wonderful line:  "Jews are like everyone else, only moreso."   Rob Eshman, Editor of the Jewish Journal, said it was by Mark Twain; checking it out, I found no confirmation about Twain online but someone citing the quote said it was by Chaim Weizman!    

An "Honor" Reading Still Takes Work, 3

       Floundering, but putting a lot of time in thinking and saying. 

       An important key, I'm finding, is a sense of direct petitioning of God, on behalf of the congregation and people, a sense of not saying it TO the audience, but, rather, for them to be able to overhear as a prayer in their interests.

       In a brief part asking God to be with those who suffer because they are Jews, I suddenly caught the ancient iconic reference in appealing to God to "lead them soon from bondage to freedom."

       Tomorrow I read on Yom Kippur morning.  Perhaps a chance to look it over one more time before the 9 o'clock service.



      

Names that Metamorphose

       I shop at "Tennis Doctor" in Glendale when I need to equip and outfit myself.

       I love shopping there and do so every year or two, but last time I was astonished to see the name was really "Racket Doctor."
 
       Don't know exactly how this process happens.  I spoke of my dad's clothing store for years as "Joe's Clothes" and couldn't believe it when I saw a photograph with the sign out front; it was "Joe's Store."  I was there many, many times in my childhood and growing up.

       Maybe in my dad's case it was the rhyme I wanted to give it for euphony's sake; maybe with "Racket Doctor," I knew I bought lots there besides just having my racket restrung.

An "Honor" Reading Still Needs Work, 2

       I'm reading from an older High Holy day prayer book, and the word "Lord" needs to be changed when I read it to "Adonai," the way the Hebrew word is read, partially due to more recent sensitivities to the masculine implications of "Lord," thus leaving the gender neutral.

       Basically, even though I read and re-read this prayer and try to understand it, I find myself at this moment at a total loss for how to say it.  It's a prayer for abundance, and happiness, and peace, etc., and it's asked for our congregation and maybe every Jew in the world, maybe (still) every person of  faith.  There's something selfish about it.

       I'm at pains with it, not knowing how to approach it, partly wondering how I can speak for the whole congregation, let alone, all Jews or all congregations of faith.   

      

      

My Kind of Sonically Sensitive, Punning Cartoonist

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An "Honor" Reading Still Needs Work, 1

       I was asked to read a few paragraphs of the liturgy on Yom Kippur morning this Saturday.
 
       On my first familiarization reading a few days ago, one sentence caught my eye:   "Bless this holy congregation...together with all other holy congregations, in all lands near and far."  I thought it might refer to all religious congregations of any faith and have quite ecumenical implications.  But today I really registered the title of my passage, "FOR OUR CONGREGATION AND OUR PEOPLE," and realized it was speaking of Jewish congregations everywhere. 

       Today I picked up on a reference to "the blessing of Moses."  What was that and where was it in the Torah?  The computer suggested two possibilities but finally helped get me to the exact verse, Deuteronomy 1:11.   Ah, yes.

      
 

       

Cursive Handwriting and Penmanship

       The new "Common Core" curriculum doesn't require the teaching of cursive writing and penmanship.  The Core emphasizes critical and computer-based skills.

       Miss Evans came to our classroom once a week to teach us the Palmer method of penmanship.  We would marvel at her flowingly eloquent Spenserian handwriting as it swirled words across the blackboard.  My mouth would drop open as I compared my pinched, barely legible hand to hers.

       The ballpoint pen came in during those years; I fancied that Miss Evans would never use or approve of ballpoint with its intermittencies and fainter ink compared to inkwell and fountain pens.

       Ballpoints didn't put cursive handwriting and penmanship out of business, and I doubt that laptop and tablet keyboards are going to manage to do it either. 

Emerson and Nature

       Knowing the sadness and frustration I feel when I look at the tall city pine tree at our front curb entirely brown and dead (it all happened in the space of two or three months, inexplicably, while neighbors' pines still thrive), I am the more sensitive to this grand quote I found as a filler in the Sierra Club Schedule.

Said by Ralph Waldo Emerson during a conversation with John Muir:

              "The greatest wonder is that we can see these trees 
                                   and not wonder more."

              

"Eucerin," Pronounced??

       There's a skin moisturizer called Eucerin.   I hear it pronounced YOU-suh-rin, but ever since it was first given me at Kaiser Hospital, I've said it as YOU-kuh-rin--until recently.

       It looks like a Greek word to me.  And how do you pronounce Euclid?  Or eucalyptus?  Or Eucharist?  They're all Greek in origin.  All have the hard "c."

       And then I remembered the lesson I myself learned while tutoring 3rd graders in reading:  Use a soft "c" when it's followed by "e," "i," or "y."  When followed by almost anything else, it seems, "c" becomes hard, even the other vowels "a," "o," or "u":  "cat," "cow," "cut."

                    "Cindy ate cereal, cinnamon, celery, and apple cider.  Then                          she bicycled to the city to see the circus.  Animals pranced
                      and people swung from the ceiling."

"Oof-da"

       Last night, my neck was tight, tense.   That's where I  show my stress.  I asked Connie for a rub, which usually turns into a pummeling mixed with kneeding.  Connie was particularly thorough, giving me an "Oh, it hurts, stop / no, it's wonderful, keep going" response.

       When she was finished, I was finished.   I slid away with an involuntary "OOf-da" coming out of my mouth.  I hadn't uttered-muttered-breathed-sighed that in a long time.  It's Minnesotan, and Connie remembered it too.

       I knew it was Scandinavian, but that was about it.  Wikipedia filled in.  It's definitely Upper-Midwest, Norwegian in origin, spelled lots of ways, and is used as "a term for sensory overload."  I like that.

       An example of usage:  the logo of the Fargo Marathon includes the phrase "26.2 miles ... Uffda!"

"Holiday" / "Holy Day"

       This evening Rosh Hashanah began, and once again I think, in the corner of my mind, about the contrast between holidays and holy days.  The former have their source in the latter.  But the usage is quite different most times.

       To "go on holiday" quite simply means a respite from work, a break, a getaway, a vacation.  One doesn't hear the "holiness" in it any more.  Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the "High Holidays" but you don't usually hear "High Holy Days" even though Yom Kippur is the holiest day in the Jewish year.

       Since apparently the root meaning of holy is whole, complete, "holiday" might not be so far away since, from a stressed and scattered state, it often puts one back together, makes one whole.

"One Boy Told Me": Naomi Shihab Nye

       The link below will take you to a delightful, brief performance.  My daughter Elizabeth and I witnessed it in person at the Dodge Poetry Festival a few years ago.

       What it took was one of the most wonderful people, one of the best poets, one of the finest teachers (all the same individual), and one of the most delicious little poems you will ever hear.

       This particular audience is high school English classes and their teachers.  I'm sure no one there that day left unaffected by Naomi Shihab Nye.  Elizabeth and I were blessed to have happened upon it as our first event at the biennial Dodge Festival of poetry and poets in New Jersey.         
                                                    Go here

      

"Speaking with Forked Silence"

       Poet Seamus Heaney just died, and Robert Faggen, professor of literature at Claremont McKenna College, who knew Heaney, wrote "An Appreciation" in the L.A. Times today.  He  said the poet didn't like to give pronouncements or judgments, though no doubt he was often asked to do so; so Heaney developed a way of responding that he called "speaking with forked silence."

       It's very funny to me, but maybe because I identify with it a bit.  While still teaching, I had sometimes to critique performances of literature at festivals, and would usually find favorable aspects of the presentation and give only slight demurs or suggestions.  A graduate student once challenged me, "I see how you're avoiding saying anything substantial" or words to that effect.  He'd caught me out in my own version of "speaking with forked silence."

How Do Old Songs Come Back?

       How do old songs come back?  My experience is, a relaxed state of mind, and some odd association either by a chance word or rhythm:

•  This morning I sat tired but at ease after tennis, thinking it was Sunday, and suddenly I was singing, "I want a Sunday kind of love, a love that lasts past Saturday night, a love that's more than just a love at first sight, I want a Sunday kind of love." 

•  My January 3, 2013 post told how saying the word "gorgonzola" at dinner time brought back a forgotten song with the same 4-beat meter and rhyming ending, "Amapola."

•  Once Connie asked me what was wrong with my pants that needed sewing.  I said, "The seams, the seams, it seems" ... "Seems Like Old Times, having you to talk with." 

"Awry"

       A newspaper story headline I read recently contained the phrase "intentions often go awry," and it reminded me of something.   I once heard intelligent radio-talk-show-host Dennis Prager use such a phrase, and he mispronounced "awry" AW-ree.

       That's when I knew Prager was probably a voracious reader but hadn't always picked up what a word sounded like.  He'd learned it from print before he'd heard it, figured it must be pronounced  AW-ree.

       You might say "awry" was part of Prager's reading vocabulary,  his speaking vocabulary (he knew what the word meant and could use it appropriately), but not his listening vocabulary.  Prager may not have recognized the word if he heard someone else say uh-RYE!

"Blog"

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

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

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

He/Him, Who/Whom, Who Cares?

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

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

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

"I Have a Dream"

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

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

Latin Abbreviations: "I.E."

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

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

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

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

       

"Essay"

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

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

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

"Portal"/"Door"

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

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

       Jim Harrison's poem seals the distinction with imagery:

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

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

 
  

"Wizened"/"Wise"?

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

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

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

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

"Sorry," 2

"Sorry," 1

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

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

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

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

Singular, Meet Plural

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

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

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

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

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

"In the Bleachers" Cartoon

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

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

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

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

"Pro" 3: "Projector"

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

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

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

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

"Pro" 2: "Project"

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

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

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

"Pro" 1: "Prose"

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

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

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

       "To err is human," said Alexander Pope.

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

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

      May we humbly seek our ways to serve.

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

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

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

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

"Antithesis"

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

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

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

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

Front Page Puns

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

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

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

Topside

Mouth on Underside

 It's only













 2 1/2 inches in diameter.








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

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

"Patent Ailments" & their Patent Medicine Cures

Click on Comic Strip to Enlarge

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

Even Marcel Marceau May Be Smiling

Click on Cartoon to Enlarge

"Fug"

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

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

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

Foibles of the Mother Tongue

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

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

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

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

"Complaint"/"Compliant"

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

                                          Complaint
                                        Compliant

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

      Two words so near and yet so far.

      Ah, English.

"Bougainvillea"

   Our Bougainvillea in Summer

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

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

Click on photo to enlarge

"Magnolia"

Our Magnolia

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

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

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

A Blossom in Spring

 

"Pomegranate"

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

Our Pomegranate

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

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

Now

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

Pomegranate At Maturity

"Today Is Forever"

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

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

"Pyracantha"

Pyracantha, Pomegranate, Magnolia

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

Pyracantha

      



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

The Berries Now

   



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

      
     

      


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



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

"I've Taken on Teachers"

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

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

         

"Shedding" Jobs

         I've been bothered in tough economic times to hear the frequent use of the word "shedding" as in "the company is shedding jobs."  One of the meanings of the verb "shed" is to rid oneself of something not wanted or needed like shedding pounds through diet and exercise. And that's the connotation I hear when the economic, business, and employment reports come out. The economy is "shedding jobs," businesses are "shedding workers."    Please watch it, news media and economic analysts: those are people's livelihoods you're talking about!

Geriatric Anagrams

       Coming home one day from Connie 's periodic followup medical appointment with our primary physician, I recalled that I needed to take care of something before my own next followup with him.  What was it?  The name for it escaped me, but what came in its place was "Octopussy. "  (Wasn't that a James Bond movie?)

       That's how I proceed through life in these days of abrading memory: feeling my way sonically, knowing what comes misses the mark but probably partakes of the word I'm reaching for. What came had nine of the eleven letters in the word I actually sought and finally caught:  "colonoscopy. "

Is Language Important?

       Did I need to have a name for the sparrows that frequent our back yard and peck at the grass seed interminably like little bobbing automatons?

       Well, when I decided to shoot them (with my camera) to try to capture that cutely incessant group feasting, I saw in closeup and with zooming in for the first time the distinct black and white stripes on their heads.

       Out with Kimball Garrett, Jon L. Dunn, and Bob Morse's Birds of the Los Angeles Region:  these were "White-crowned Sparrows."

       And I had a name.  An identifier.  Yes, "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet"...but...I had a name...and that too is important.

"Comity"/"Comedy"

       Al Franken made his reputation with comedy before election to U.S. Senator.  In the December 2, 2010 New Republic a photo caption:  "Franken is an unlikely devotee of the rituals of senatorial comity."

       The sonic chime struck:  comedy/comity.  The article said Franken seeks to be a Ted Kennedy, a master of working across the aisle.  He wants progressive measures but to be institutional,  recognizing the honor he shares equally with senators of other stripes.  The article noted he had two or three personal joshing relationships with conservative colleagues already in his first year.

       "Comity" means civility, an atmosphere of social harmony, derives from Latin comitas, "courtesy."  The Indo-European roots are "smiling together with."

       Maybe Franken's "comedy" is not far from his "comity," especially when we remember that comedy is the great leveler.

Counter-Parry at the Grocery Counter

       I thought I had an amusing remark when I said to the young man behind the bakery cases in the grocery store who had just sliced my loaf of their good olive bread, "I wish they could bake it sliced."

       He handed it to me with, "That would be the best thing since sliced bread." 

Hale Fellow, and Well Met

enlarge by clicking on cartoon

My Own Strained Pun

       I jotted the following in January 2011 while watching the Australian Open men's semi-final:


       Strangest thing I've seen (and heard) on a tennis court, Federer halting play in the middle of Djokovic's bouncing of the ball before serving to ask for something to be removed from the court--a white feather stuck in the net--ball boy did so midst a bird's loud squawking from above.  Camera then showed another feather drifting into Djokovic's space just as he served.  Apparently Djokovic had two opponents today, Federer and the Featherer.

       Oh, I know.  Forgive me.

       (And anyway, Djokovic beat them both in three straight sets.) 

Oops.

click on cartoon to enlarge

       I hope there's no connection between Norman and the author of this blog.

"ONCE Only"

       The epigraph to Mary Oliver's book Swan is a quote from Rilke's Duino Elegies.  It took me two or three readings, but I felt repaid for them:


               Everyone once, once only.  Just once and no more.
               And we also once.  Never again.  But this having been
               once, although only once, to have been of the earth,
               seems irrevocable.


       Taking that seriously is a lot of the import of Mary Oliver's poems:


              When it's over, I don't want to wonder
              if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
              I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
              or full of argument.

              I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.
                                               from "When Death Comes"


        (By the way, "epigraph" simply means "writing above or upon" from the Greek.)

 

                    

Was This Pun Really Necessary?

click on cartoon to enlarge

You can't get off the hook, Piraro, blaming it on a "guest cartoonist."

Another Wonderful Insight

       Here's a powerful understanding conveyed by Rabbi David Wolpe in the words of Abraham Joshua Heschel:

             "The reason a sin is a sin is not because laws are broken but
              because a person is hurt."

That brings it right down to the very human reality.

A Thought that Stuck With Me

       I jotted some notes quickly before the words escaped, from a talk by Rabbi David Wolpe at a temple men's retreat, especially this insight from Carl Jung:


     "The greatest influence on children is the unlived life of the parents."


Have a go-round on that as a child or a parent, or both.

"PET-i-TUDE"?

       After shopping, I noticed the name on the business next door and thought it was kind of weird:

Seeing the added-on banner underneath, I wondered why they changed the name and what it had been.  I stepped in and inquired to a clerk who was free at his register.

       The name was "Pet People," a chain I gather, and I was told when the company was sold, they didn't like the new ownership and dropped out.   Of course, they couldn't keep the name legally; hence the name change.

       But "PET-i-TUDE"?  Maybe it's a play on "attitude," a word I note their former company uses online to suggest a positive, fun approach toward pets.  Mightn't this store have done better with "PET FOLKS"?   Anyway, I hope business is doing well.

We Need to Be Taken Aback

       Sometimes, whatever we are doing, we need to hear what a poem we've come across has to tell us.



               What Can I Say?

What can I say that I have not said before?
So I'll say it again.
The leaf has a song in it.
Stone is the face of patience.
Inside the river there is an unfinishable story
   and you are somewhere in it
and it will never end until all ends.

Take your busy heart to the art museum and the chamber of commerce
but take it also to the forest.
The song you heard singing in the leaf when you were a child
is singing still.
I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four,
and the leaf is singing still.


 
       Thank you, Mary Oliver, for this from your book, Swan.

And My Fortune Is???

       I think the intention may be to say, "Watch your relations with other people carefully; be reserved."  Not bad advice (if one gleans it).

       I am glad to learn some Chinese and to utter "Jiu-pian"--now I have to figure where "Nine pieces" might be appropriate.

       But then the writers of this fortune perhaps would like to "Learn (some) English."

"Juxtaposition"

       I have received the new calendar for the Nature Conservancy with fine photos by members along with a few words about each image by the photographers.

       This is great, but once in awhile there's a little deficiency in the language:

          "I like the juxtaposition between the delightful harmless    
           butterflies and the sinister expression of the caiman..."

click on picture to enlarge

Taken in Peru, wonderful photo, amazingly captured by R. Grant Maslowski (mine is a retake of part of his shot to show what his sentence is referring to).

       It's probably to be forgiven, but if you know the Latin root of "juxtaposition," "placed next to," the word "between" isn't quite right.  "Of" would have been a better choice.  The "betweenness" is already implied in juxtaposition itself.

Cartoonist Fun Pun

click image to enlarge

"Welcome"; "You're Welcome"; "No Problem"

        At the Dodger game yesterday, I noted on the stadium above the entrance it said "Welcome" and also "Bienvenidos."  I noticed and observed to son David that the Spanish said exactly the same things in the two halves of its word:  "Well" and "come."

        David said "But other languages aren't the same as English in the response to 'Thank you';  they don't say 'You're welcome.'"  I knew a couple languages where that is so, and looking it up, here are several:

        French--de rien--"it's nothing"
        Italian--prego--"pray"
        Danish--selv tak--"thanks yourself"
        Polish--prosze--"please"
        Chinese (Cantonese)--(mn say-ha-hay)--"not necessary"
        Spanish--de nada --"nothing"

I personally think any one of these, including the English "You're welcome" is far better than the Johnny-come-lately, ubiquitous, and annoying "No problem."
       

Right Words Capture Taste

       Couldn't resist the occasional thrill of bringing home some Haagen-Dazs ice cream from the grocery store.  It's coffee, and they've got it exactly right on the box:

         FLAVOR TOP NOTES:  freshly brewed roasted coffee

         FLAVOR FINISH NOTES:  lingering sweetened cream

      Who wrote that? How did they figure that out? Is it a copywriter's description after the fact, or did the ice cream designers aim for that result? I don t know, but the immediate and prominent flavor is coffee, and the taste ends in "lingering sweetened cream."  And did they get those "top" and "finish notes" from wine tasting?

      What can I tell you? Once in awhile, calories or no, it's terrific.

      And the perfect words to describe it don't hurt either!!

The Need to Reconnect

       I made a call to a cousin whom Connie and I hadn't seen nor talked with in several years but have a shared history with in New York City and in the Twin Cities. There's a close kinship with many memories, laughs, sympatico attitudes. We just hadn't talked in too long.

       I wasn't sure I even had the right phone number because I knew they'd moved but gave it a try:

        Her Voice: (Inquiring) Hello?
        Mine: (Smiling with satisfaction) Shirrr-ley.
        Hers: (Recognizing) Don?
        Mine: (Amazed but not really)  A syllable or two and we know who
                    we are.
        Shir: How are you?
        Me: How are you?
        Shir: I asked you first.
        Don: I called you.

It doesn't take any more than that when the line's connecting two people who needed to talk to each other. . .as the next hour attested!  

"Gargle"; "Gargoyle"

       I leave a one-word note for myself with the oral inhalant I take each morning.  The word is "gargle" because I'd read it was good to cleanse after breathing in the medicine.  Peculiarly this morning I asked myself how a New Yawker might say the word "gargle":  "gargoil," I figured.

       THEN I wondered, "Is there any connection between "gargle" and "gargoyle"?  NO, I was sure; but I'll look it up. 

       YES!  Both the sputtering we do in our throats with liquid to freshen or medicate and the grotesque faces and figures projecting from gutters of buildings, especially in Gothic architecture, acting as spouts to drain rainwater!, have exactly the same root, a root that means "throat" in several languages.

       From Old French, back to Latin and Greek, and forward to English too, the root is imitative in origin.   The semi-"gagging" and liquid "gurgling" (imitative also) are what's happening with both "gargoyles" and "gargling."

click on image to enlarge

Everyone, Every Human Being

       A conjunction amongst three quotes.

       The first is by H. Jackson Brown, Jr., from his Life 's Little Instruction Calendar :
             Remember that everyone you meet is looking for       
             affirmation, direction, and hope.

      The second is by Philo of Alexandria:
             Be kind, for everyone is fighting a great battle.

      The last quote is a Chasidic teaching cited by Roger Kamenetz in his book The Jew in the Lotus:
             Before every human being comes a retinue of angels,
             announcing, "Make way for an image of the Holy One,
             Blessed be He. "
Kamenetz says, "How rarely do we listen for those angels when we
encounter another human being." 

"Houyhnhnms"

       As I noted in the last post, my essay on "Yahoo" pointed out that the "noble creatures Swift created to live by right reason alone were horses.  They called themselves Houyhnhnms.  Swift has Gulliver say,

        'The word Houyhnhnm, in their tongue, signifies a horse, and in its etymology, the perfection of nature.'"

I love Swift 's choice of the word to identify these creatures. If you try to give voice to the word Houyhnhnm, you can see how Swift came up with it.
   
       It's a pretty good imitation of what we ordinarily call a "whinny."

"Yahoo," "Search Engines"

       Re-reading my book of essays on words, I came across "Yahoo" again; yes it's a "search engine"  (which Jonathan Swift might have satirized for the sheer inhuman sound of needing an engine to search for anything), but Swift did create the "Yahoo," the lowest, least civilized, most stench-ridden being on earth, with a human form and every human vice in a land where horses are the noblest and kindest of beings.  I ended my essay this way:

           May we "Yahoos " be reminded by the reference to keep our uses

           friendly and our goals bent to extending the best that is in us

           through the powerful and pervasive computer.

Cutting Through Grammatical Awkwardness

       On a wonderful nature calendar sent to me, winning nature photographs from competitors are published by the Nature Conservancy.

       Each photo has words about nature by the winner and usually praise for the work of the Conservancy.  All this is well except for the last sentence of one winner who has just said she supports the N.C.: "Their work continues to leave the world in a better state than which they found it. "

       She may have been trying to avoid ending the sentence with the preposition "in", but she got herself kind of tangled. The solution here is to simply delete the word "which," and it makes perfectly good and clear English.

The "Patient's Belongings"

       Getting deeper into summer reminds me of going to Kaiser for an emergency two summers ago.  While being examined for dizziness, I renewed my anger at the "Patient's Belongings" bag supplied me.

       There were no problems discernible in heart, brain, or blood--hence vertigo due probably to slightly calcifying cilia, little hairs in inner ear, which help control balance. Best available medicine, meclizine, same one buys to prevent airplane stuffed ears or dizziness! I had had the worrisome symptom for five days, so it was time to attend to it.
 
       But there it was, a term I remembered from years before.  You feel you 're already dead when you see a bag imprinted "Patient's Belongings."  Connie recalled the usage: "His belongings were distributed to next of kin"!

       At least it didn't say "Deceased's Belongings."