Looking Askance at a TV Host's Squint

     Watching Chris Matthews on MSNBC, I noticed the eyes of the "Hardball" host narrow as he introduces a video, wanting to see the video himself and thinking he'll see it better if he squints.

     Then it occurred to me, the utterance of the word "squint" has its own squint within it.  

     The mouth is imitating the eye movements of a squint as one utters the word "squint."  Just as the eyes narrowing help bring the screen into sharper focus for the near-sighted, the lips tighten into a smaller, tense pursing as one utters the sounds of [skwihnt]. 

     I only wish Matthews would wait when he says, "Let's watch this," until the camera is off him and onto the video before he begins his squint.   Squinting is unbecoming to an anchor/host! 
     

I'd Rather Have a Twisted Tongue than One of These

     From the annals of baseball failings and ailings come this one, and you've got to wrap your tongue around it at least 7 times fast:


                     TORN GROIN
   
     "OUCH!"  And if you said it fast, your lips might also need a stretcher!
 

Whiling Away the Morning

     One day I said this to myself, and then I thought, "What a funny expression--one while after the other."


          while,
          while,
          while,
          while,
          while,

          just whiling away the morning.


     To better feel the morning going by, when you say it aloud, try to utter the breath sound [h] first and merge with the sound [w] following.  It takes a while longer to say.
                                                           
     The Proto-Indo-European root is kweie-, "to rest, be quiet."

"Feed a Cold, Starve a Fever"

    A nice antithetical device, right?  Opposites or contrasts facing one another.  Feeding versus starving; a cold's mild, a fever...?  Yet "device" is almost a demeaning word to me when it comes to literature and language.  Yes, it's a way to make words memorable.  "Ask not . . ." You can say the rest.   

     BUT REALLY, it's a way of conceiving and relating, of noticing things in tension with one another in real life, in one's experience and sight.  So "device" is small-minded compared to the capacity to see, understand, and express one's world with language that illuminates it.

     Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson says that the Greek "father of medicine" Hippocrates is credited with the "prescription" but that "several doctors" have recently doubted its scientific truthfulness.  Personally, I'm with Hippocrates.

I Failed a Course in Speed Reading

     I've finally decided it was a blessing in disguise, perhaps.  Language is so juicy and fun that it's a shame to race through it.  And slow reading goes deeper oft times.  It certainly gives you a chance to savor and contemplate. 

     And reading aloud plays around with all of those advantages and offers the opportunity to share them with others.

Just a 20th Century Hangover?

     Texting when you can make a phone call is being in touch without really being in touch.

"An Unfathomable Amount of Rain"

    You  know when even Noah would be praying for his life from too much water?  I think I heard a forecaster come up with it on the radio program, “The World.”

     The weatherman spoke of  “an unfathomable amount of rain.”  That REALLY caught my ear, and would have, I think, caught Noah’s if he happened to be tuned in to FM.
 
     The word “fathom” roots itself in the Indo-European meaning “to spread,” grew into Old English and other tongues to be the measure between two outstretched arms, solidified to become exactly 6 feet, and is ordinarily the measure used to plumb the depth of water bodies.

     From the weatherman’s tone, I don’t think he was being consciously ironic in the expression, but only thinking metaphorically:   unable to comprehend so much rain, it was “unfathomable.”
   

Words Travel on Beasts of Burden

     Finally, another English word that comes from Hebrew, so rare, so hard to find. 

     Now "camel" comes to my notice and, like "sack" from Hebrew, it's a word that gets around.  Sacks in which goods were held were on camels' backs on the trading routes of the ancient world, from Southeast Asia through South Asia, to the Middle East, including Israel, and even reached Europe by trade with Greece and Rome; Rome traded with Germanic tribes and brought these words from Latin into Germanic tongues, and thence Old English.

     Yes, CAMELS got around that way, and so did SACKS, sacks of goods that people wanted along all those trade routes. And the people of other tongues heard the words: 

     "If that's what they call this awesome beast of burden, then we must too!"

                    Please see the "Word History" of "sack" in the American Heritage Dictionary!



  

Souvenir Romance

     Still wearing my gondolier blue-and-white-striped shirt from Venice, I kissed Connie goodnight from the bedside, and her slightly decollete nighty drew my attention.

     Connie said, "I like your gondolier shirt."

     I said, "I do too," and my hand went down to caress a breast.

     Connie said, "The gondolier never did that."

     I said, "I just thought I'd fondle a bit.   It's because I'm kinda fond o' you . . . and it's kinda fun."

     

What's Left After We're Gone?

     Speaking, as I was Friday in the blog, of California's killer wildfires, I reminded myself of a noun met often enough in the news accounts of those horrific events, "remains," a body after death.

     Terrible as it is to contemplate someone's death of suffocation, or any other mortal blow, what it is that remains of the body after a racing inferno takes the living person in one's tracks a few steps from one's own front door is a totally consumed body, just ashes.

      And for that common enough occurrence in the town of Paradise, CA., during the wildfire, there is now the word (since 1947) "cremains," the blending of the words "cremation" and "remains," though "blending" seems just too inexcusably mellow a term to describe this particular neologism.

      For those who choose cremation, the harshness disappears.    

Imagine it on the Lips, Minds, and Hearts of Those Affected

     The names of two California fires make me lift my head and grimace my brows every time I hear them; no matter what, I can't resist, when I read 'em or listen.  One is the "Camp" fire, it's a wildfire in California.  A campfire?   It's destroyed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles of trees and  homes and people, and it's called a campfire.

     And the other one is "Holy Fire," the "Holy Fire"!  What?!  My eyebrows again.  I have to, when I read that.  It's horrendous.  California wildfires.   One of them is called the "Holy" fire?  These are unholy fires.  They destroy, taking, immolating human lives.

     I know they get their names from something identifying them near the place the fire was incited.

     But please, pause a second and listen . . . before you choose.

For Connie

                                                                              

Siri and I Had an Exchange

     Siri (who will answer your questions on Apple's iPhone) said that one of the questions I could ask was, "Where's my sister?"

     So I asked, "Where's my sister?" 

     Siri responded that she couldn't find a listing for my sister, what was her first and last name?

     I said, "No, you're right, I don't have a sister.  I don't."

     And Siri responded, "Who am I to say otherwise?"


     In all this, I spoke; and Siri texted.
 

And Cummings is Still Coming at You

     This is the whole passage that precedes my previous entry. 


A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words.

This may sound easy. It isn’t.

A lot of people think or believe or know they feel — but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling — not knowing or believing or thinking.

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.


      Cummings also has a poem that begins (and is titled) "Since feeling is first."
 

EEK, E.E. Cummings is Coming at You

  
     It currently graces the splashy TV tube in our living room, not only in word, but in voice, of inimitable poet E. E. Cummings.  Yes, it's on a car commercial, but if the recorded voice weren't recognizable, (as it is to me), the words in their form, in their manner, would be.  Not to mention their dignity, their intensity, their "hold off the world" insistence, their truthfulness:

To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

         I found the source of the Cummings quote at a wonderful website called "Brain Pickings"; you can find it too at brainpickings.org, "The Courage to Be Yourself."   

      

Is it never too late to use the old words?

 You really are getting up there in years when you mention in conversation something is "Newfangled" and realize just how oldfangled that word sounds.

Actually "newfangled" IS the older word (14th century), and "oldfangled" is first found in 1842 as patterned after"newfangled."
 
Merriam-Webster tells us both words derive from Old English fangen, "to take or seize."  

My 2019 entries pick up tomorrow on Feb. 7, 2019.


 

Life rolls on, and we note it as it does.

       I opened the door of our bedroom this morning to allow Connie more easily to steer herself and her new rollator out to the hallway and into the living area of our house.  Connie is speedy once she gets going.

       I told her, "I feel like I'm letting the bulls into the lists."

       She laughed.

I think this must be a rare compliment

       "You've always made me feel safe," Connie said to me recently.

       I told her that made me feel very good.


       It does.

Oh, Don, that's too much; or is it just right?

      
       Connie does like having an orange and a half each morning, and her helpers and I feel obliged and sort of honored to present them to her in neatly cut portions circled around a plate.

       When Connie said to me, "No one does that as perfectly as you,"  I said, "Everyone loves beautiful order; otherwise I'd accuse them of being anti-symmetric."

For this twister we ask elephants' forgiveness.

       Lo and behold, returning with a single tongue twister to my blogly rounds, I immediately came across a truly malevolent one in an L.A. Times article about a local acting class.  One of the teacher's favorites to get her students' lips and teeth and tongues going with precisely articulated syllables (hmm, that's not a bad one itself) is a twister I had never run into before:

       "eleven malevolent elephants"

       Have a try on that, friends, and you too might take the stage and achieve Hamlet's advice to speak the speech "trippingly on the tongue."

       I personally fell acropper several times before I even got one out right.  For this baby, speed may come only after slow tries and then, possibly moderate ones?


 

"Honestly, officer, it wasn't the wine that made it hard to talk."

       Reading our new dishwasher manual, I discovered we had a special plastic gizmo to hold and keep wine glasses from breaking while neatly cleaning out vestiges of wine in the glasses' inner recess.

       Even better, it brought me an irresistible tongue twister:

             "stem safe shelf"
     
       Five times fast?  Three times?  Even two?
  
   

"Untenable, Inescapable, Irreplaceable"

       Charles Mc Nulty's review of Long Day's Journey into Night recently in the L.A. Times used three uncanny words to characterize the heartwracking, entangled life of that play--about author  Eugene O'Neill's own family.

       Speaking of the relationships amongst Eugene, his mother, his father, his older brother, which the play is at pains to draw upon, McNulty says they are "untenable, inescapable, irreplaceable."

       Those words could not be better chosen or more accurate, as Connie and I recall so distinctly from our witnessing of the play almost 60 years ago on Broadway. 

       McNulty's words all begin with negative prefixes, but each suggests the terribly vital part nuclear family relationships play in every person's life.

I'm with you, Chase!

       I don't think I was the only one who had an emotional twinge February 11th to read on front page of the L.A. Times Sports section in a  little side capsule:

       Utley re-signs 
       with Dodgers

       Before I saw that as a positive thing I would very much want to learn about a big fan favorite, I read it with pangs and a small heart-drop.  Did Chase Utley "resign"?!  Oh, no.  Finally the other possibility clicked in:  did Utley re-sign a contract with the Dodgers for another year?  The story on page 7 made it clear that he'd be back.  Yippee!!

       "Re-sign"?  "Resign"?  Don't play with my heartstrings!  Those words (if there is such a word as "re-sign"), are too close to kid around with.

        

My Kind of Magazine

I really don't think I thought any of this stuff was sexy in school.  I just was intrigued!

In "Hollywood" Everyone Has a Calling Card

       A kind of calling or publicity card with a photograph of the dentists was available for pickup at Connie and my dentist's office today.

       I picked one up.  A square, shiny card with all the pertinent information, and this smiley, sunny day outdoor, suit-and-tie, color photograph of the dentists.

       Only one thing curlicued my eyebrows a bit--this phrase--"emergencies welcome."

       Oh, I guess I know what they intended.  But isn't that a little too eager and crass sounding?  Smacks of another professional breed, doesn't it, certain lawyers given to ambulance chasing?  

No Way to Pronounce This Restaurant Confidently

       "Shogun Sushi."  "Shogun Sushi."

      
       Especially if you say it with alacrity:


       "Shogun Sushi Shogun Sushi Shogun Sushi"



It's those "easy" Tongue Twisters again.  Does the vowel have an "h" in front of it or not?!

A Quadrant? AN Octant? Wait a Minute.

       "Have a quadrant or an octant," I said to Connie, bringing her 12 equal portions of her morning orange and a half.

       She laughed.  I said, "Or would Khan approve?"

       Connie's been studying fractions online at the Khan Academy, which is available to all to teach arithmetic and math, apparently very effectively.

       I had just cut those slices myself and came up with what they were:  the 8 parts of the whole orange and the 4 parts of a half orange--hence in my mind and language usage, octants and quadrants.

        Connie got it and was amused at my putting fractions to practical application and immediately began figuring out what the fractions really were. . .

Take a Leap; the Vacuum is Fine

       So many outlandish things are appearing in the newspaper with Trump, and so much is he associated with and approving of world-wide business transactions, that I guess I wasn't shocked and even willing to believe the lead headline in the L.A. Times Business section on January 10th, 2017:


               MARS IN DEAL FOR PET HEALTH CHAIN


       Interplanetary dealing?!

       No, it's just the YUGE candy bar, etc., company I remember from my youth:  Mars, Inc.

"Do Make It a Good Day"

       There's a department at Kaiser Permanente which leaves a phone message to remind you of an upcoming appointment.   The nurse always ends with the same few words:

       "Do make it a good day."

       That stops/me/in/my/tracks/.  How different from just "Have a good day."
   
       Both sentences are imperative with an implied "you" as the subject, but "Have a good day" rings for me as "(I hope you experience) a good day."  "Make," however, with its auxiliary verb "do," creates a special message and emphasis:

       "Oops!  This "good day" is up to me?   I can cause it to happen??  Indeed, that's the only way it will???"

        That message helps me turn my day in a better direction, and I don't see how it wouldn't for anybody.   

"Mapping" the Body in Song Lyrics

       Listening to great old songs on radio.
     
       In "All of You,"  Cole Porter has a guy declaring the many beautiful parts of his girl friend.  The line that struck me was "The East, West, North, and the South of you."  I thought that's brilliant, but I hadn't heard what went before.

       On the Web I found the line preceding was "The eyes, the arms, the mouth of you."  "Mouth" didn't sound quite right . . . except to rhyme with the wonderful line that followed.

        Porter could have written "breasts" in the preceding line.  Then he'd have "The North, South, East, and the West of you," a more pedestrian order, and "breasts" probably was unpublishable in a song at the time.

       Besides, the South is the most interesting "part of you" he could name.  Save it for last!

Corruption, Mr. Hashtag.

       When our home phone wasn't working and I needed to be in touch with a person, my son texted me to call the person from my smart phone and tell him to use "that #" if he wanted to reach me.

        I texted my son back, thanked him, and then texted:  "Everything gets corrupted.  Even the lowly sign for number or pound I almost mistook at first in your message for #."

       What happened here was I spoke that text into my smartphone, said the word "hashtag," and the smart phone converted it into the hashtag symbol, which in my "lexicon" should be the symbol for "number" or for "pound."

       Corruption.  Corruption everywhere, Mr. Hashtag. 
       And forgive me for forgetting "tictactoe"  # !









      

"Kiosk"

       A sign said,  "Get your movie ticket at a kiosk"; I knew then the word's meaning continues to evolve.  Here is the American Heritage Dictionary's "romantic" history:

       The word kiosk was taken into English ultimately from Turkish, in which its source kosk meant "pavilion."  The open structures referred to by the Turkish were used as pavilions and summerhouses.
The first recorded use of kiosk in English (1625) designates these Middle Eastern structures, which Europeans imitated in gardens and parks.

       In France and Belgium, their word kiosque was applied to something lower on the scale, structures resembling  pavilions but used as places to sell newspapers or as bandstands.

       England borrowed this lowly structure from France, then reborrowed the word, first seen in 1865 referring to a place where newspapers are sold. 

LANGUAGE MATTERS

       There were women's marches all over the country and world last Saturday, January 21st,  2017, the day after our inauguration, including in Washington and Los Angeles.

       Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez was in Washington and recalled some of the printable signs he saw in the march:

       "We Shall Overcomb"

       "Did You Remember to Set Your Clocks Back 60 Years Last Night?"

       "Think Outside My Box"

       "IKEA Has Better Cabinets"

       My favorite from the sign-beladen Los Angeles march as captured in a great photograph by Francine Orr of the hundreds of thousands in the crowd: 

                                       
  WE MARCH               

     BECAUSE
 LOVE IS LOVE
  OBAMACARE
       IS REAL
WOMEN'S RIGHTS
           ARE
 HUMAN RIGHTS
MUSLIMS MATTER

  

Relax, Sit Back, Shut Up!

       The male voice at the Pacific Theatres at the beginning of the actual feature, nice voice, but always says with a very authoritative sort of manner . . ."Please refrain from talking."

        Not only authoritative, a little imperious and final sounding.  I always want to react to it vocally, but I can't think of anything perfect to squelch the guy, who, being recorded, couldn't hear me anyway, but it might amuse or find agreement in other patrons of the theater the same night or day that I'm there. 

       This ordering us around in a place we've come to enjoy a movie, which might include a little talkback from time to time to what's going on on the screen . . .deserves a rejoinder and a putdown! 

       Any ideas appreciated.  

Maybe the Treasury only Speaks in $$$

       You don't like to catch a nominee for Treasury Secretary in a Trump administration sounding not literate at a Senate hearing, (regardless of his other qualifications or disqualifications).

       Reading from his own manuscript in front of him on the table, reading what he says are accusations made against him, he reads his response: "Nothing could be further than the truth."  You do have to wonder, wonder even MORE, maybe even MUCH more, about Steven Mnuchin.

       OK, this is not a political blog, it's a blog about language, but.  That kind of mistake, whether of the tongue or the page or the mind, does lead you to think, "Do I detect a confessional in that wording?"

        (He's also put himself in double jeopardy, first using a cliché, and then ruining it.)

Fascination with Language Knows No Limits

       Discussing Job in the Old Testament the other day in class.  Someone brought up Joe Biden as a good example of someone like Job.  Horrible things happening, wife and child killed in an automobile accident, later in life an adult son dying.  Yet he's gone on, somehow managing to accept.

       It's bad how lighter thoughts can come to us (OK, at least to me) when contemplating serious matters.  I didn't say it, but fortunately only because someone else beat me out by a fraction of a second with a serious idea.

       "Joe Biden is perfect to think of in comparison with Job.  After all, his name is Job  iden." 

An Inundation of Senate Hearings

                                    
       Warren Olney, host of radio's "To the Point" show, today mentioned "a new climate" in Washington.  He was speaking generally but also in particular about attitudes toward the Environmental Protection Agency.

        Interesting that the new climate may be one you could call "a climate change" compared to all previous administrations.  But Trump especially questions the existence of "climate change."

Letters Are Just Pawns for Word Building

       Having saved my son the reading of my just previous blog post by reading it aloud to him myself, he reported to me that the following item had come across to him on the internet from someone:

       An anagram of "Inauguration Day" is "GAUDY URINATION."

        Of course nothing to do with what may or may not have happened in a hotel room and was or was not filmed by the Russians several years back.

      

Inaugural Weak?

       A lot of people note
       His behavior is unprecedented.
       That's why they dream
       This week he'll be unpresidented.

Maybe an Argument for Stage Names?

      It's amazing how much I am dependent on the visual in order to remember, spell, pronounce, even identify names. 

       A certain broadcaster on KCRW-FM says his name at the beginning of every stint on the air, and for years I have never been able to quite grasp it.

       Today I saw it in print for the first time!  I had thought it must be something like "Cheesecake" because that was the closest I could make it out to be orally.

       But before my eyes were syllables I had never seen together in one word:   Chiotakis.  Maybe that's why I have been unable to repeat it even after I've heard it on the air dozens and dozens of times.

       I needed to see it before I could say it, and now remember it:  Steve Chiotakis.
 

Images Convey What's Nonverbal

       (Please see yesterday's post.)  Huston Smith's obituary in the L.A.Times, following his passing two weeks ago, revealed that Smith's friendship with Aldous Huxley led to Timothy Leary and to experimenting with mescaline.

       Smith later compared his first time drug-induced mystical vision to "plugging a toaster into a power line."  He also said he now understood the Bible's claim that no one could see God and live.

       Though he tried hallucinogens again, he soon gave them up.  Smith wrote in his memoir, "As Ram Dass told me, 'After you get the message, hang up.'"

       Once again the richness and vitality of imagery, metaphor and simile,  expresses the felt meaning of powerful experience.  Emotional states naturally channel us toward the nonverbal to get "what it's like" across.

"Religion Gives Traction to Spirituality"

       That phrase was said by great experiential scholar of religions Huston Smith, who died December 30th.

       When Smith's book The Religions of Man came out in 1958, he illuminated each religion so beautifully, I remember asking someone, "Yes, but what religion is Huston Smith?"  "Oh, his religion is comparative religions."  The obituary even mentions:  "He was sometimes referred to as a 'spiritual surfer.'"

       Smith lived another 58 years after that book came out, and the statement my blog title quotes was made in 1999.  Smith was raised in and remained an active member of the United Methodist Church.

       Language turns to imagery to convey experiential truths.  Putting the "traction" quote another way, Smith said, "If you are looking for water, it is better to drill one 60-foot well than ten 6-foot wells."

          

A Name by Any Other Name Would . . .

       It's Hollywood awards season, AND, I had a slightly bothersome bodily dysfunction.  Otherwise, I probably never would have noticed this coincidental naming curiosity.

          MIRAMAX, a distinguished film company, and

          MIRALAX, a very effective osmotic laxative

       I'm  imagining the first company not liking my taking notice of the identity of the two names except for one letter, and the second company probably not giving a ____.

More Eggsactly to the Point

       For some reason, our son has left a few things in our refrigerator.  One of them is a jar of  "Spectrum Organic Mayonnaise." 

       What caught my eye especially is the next line on the jar:  "Made with cage free eggs."

       Now I've seen those factory egg-producing "farms," in which thousands of birds are caged, and when an egg comes forth, it rolls down a slide or tube into a receptacle for human pickup out of the chicken's reach.

       Though it's true such eggs are in a caged situation,  I wouldn't say that the eggs are caged.  What's truer is that the chickens are caged.

       And what's wanted, what's more desirable for all parties involved, and worth bragging about on a jar of mayonnaise, is "cage free chickens."

       "Made with eggs from cage free chickens."

Tact and Truth: In a Word

       Connie and I have talked about weight gain and loss lately, which reminded me that no one likes to be called "fat," and I remembered a certain incident. 

       Cousin Norbert was visiting our family's house, and my dad hadn't seen him for several months.  Norbert, about 40 at that time, reached out to shake my dad's hand.  In his eighties, Dad took it and stared a bit at Norbert.  "You're looking  . . . stocky," he said.  Norbert had gained some around the middle.  This struck Norbert and his wife Shirley so funny, they laughed at the way Dad put it.

       No, he didn't say "fat."  But "stocky" was a pretty good euphemism.   I overheard it and chuckled at Dad's ingenuity.

       "Stocky":  "compact, sturdy, relatively thick in build"  (Merriam-Webster).  I'd say Dad hit it on the nose.   

"Foist" and Foremost

       My last post didn't say as much as I wanted (or needed) to.

       Merriam-Webster re meaning of "foist": "to introduce or insert surreptitiously or without warrant," or, "to force another to accept especially by stealth or deceit."

       An example:  "They foisted a new system on us without any warning or preparation."

       (I understand the word better now myself.)

       All my sources say it came from Middle Dutch vuyst "fist" and is akin to Old English fyst.  But when you think about it (or listen to it), it's easy to wonder if "foist" isn't a distortion of "forced."

       Yet the image "fist" certainly stands plausibly as the actual etymology. 

"Who's on Foist?"

       I was struck with the word "foist."  Strange word.  "Fast," "fist," and "first" are all a lot easier to say.  Coming off the [f] sound with upper teeth on lower lip, one has to (for "foist") purse the same lip to utter the [AWih] sound, then back to straight-lipped [st].  It wrenches the organs of speech within a single syllable.

       Then I thought of "hoist," which at least begins with the mouth open for [h], and that reminded me of "hoist with his own petar'," which I learned from a fellow draftee in the Korean War who one-upped me with my not knowing it, and I'll point you here.

       Finally I thought of "Who's on foist?" the old Abbott and Costello routine, which has stuck around somehow in the ether of my mind.

       

       

At That "Point in Time"

       At that "point in time" was an expression used by the coterie around President Nixon who appeared before Congress during Watergate.   Both John Ciardi* and I wondered about that.  The phrase is self-contradictory.

       Can you have a "point" in "time"?

       "The shortest distance between two points is a straight line."  Points exist in space, not time.  You can pinpoint a location.  Time flows, it's fluid.  "You can never step into the same river twice" (Heraclitus), you will never experience the same moment again.

       Maybe some of those moments for Nixon, Ron Ziegler press secretary, others, were frozen in time.  The pincers of "Who knew what, and when did they know it?" re the Watergate break-in began to "pierce" the White House.  "Moments" became "pointed" (influenced the language), drew blood, felled a president.

       *in A Third Browser's Dictionary, The Arkadine Press, 1998 (originally published as Good Words to You) 

        

       

Facing Time!

       David texted me the other night from Santa Monica as follows:  "We should face time!"

       Wow.  I felt like a prisoner on death row.  Is execution nigh!

       No, it was because this was New Year's Eve.  My son wanted to use Apple's FaceTime so we could see each other and talk.  But yes, we are "facing time" with that.  A fresh year would be upon us in three hours.  

       So why not?  We did.  Maybe only 30 miles between us, but just as good as "televising" ["distance seeing"] across country.

       Connie didn't even move, but that didn't prevent her from being included.  I turned the camera a few inches, and she too, doing a jigsaw puzzle, found herself Facing Time. 

"Wise Saws and Modern Instances"*

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

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

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

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

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

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

Micah, Meet Micah

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

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

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

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

Apple Incorporated's Advanced Knowledge

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

       "No Upcoming Events, Reminders, or Alarms."

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

Who's the Animal NOW?

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

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

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

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

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

       

"Sortation"

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

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

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

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


       

"Solstice(s)"

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

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

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

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

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

      

Crazed by the Winds

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

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

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

       "Forecast:

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

"Ambience"

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

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

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

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

"Free Knowledge"

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

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

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

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

44 Years and Counting . . .

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

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

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

Who Says Cartoonists . . .

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

Scott Hilburn fools around on this website.

That Word "Ark"

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

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

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

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

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

"Nice Talking with Me"*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        

       

"May You Live in Interesting Times."

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

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

Flossie Lewis to the Rescue

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

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

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

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

       OK.  Let's give this language credit!!

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

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

       "Pianist Perahia scales the mighty 'Hammerklavier'"

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

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

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

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

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

Arising after "Arrival"

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

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

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

"Echoic Writing" Lives Again

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

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

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

Being Circumspect with Circumcision

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

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


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

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

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

       

A Joke Too Good Not to Tell

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

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

"u too, u two"

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

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

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

Misfired "Weather" Prediction

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

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

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

       They didn't print it.

"Breadcrumbs" Will Lead You Back Home

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


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


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

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

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

"Big Sky Country" and "Certain Women"

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

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

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

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

      

Hoping Hillary Voters Will Find a Chuckle

 Published on June 17, 2016

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

  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The Dump Song"

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

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

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

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

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

"He Put Us on His Back Again"

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

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

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

       It's in the language.
      

"Pleasure awaits your company."

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

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

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

       Or, I make pleasure happen.

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

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


Blackberry Eating

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

Cartoonists Are Closet Punsters

 

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

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

"Emoji"

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

 

"Edison, Schmedison"

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


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


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

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

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


 

"Menstruation." There I've Said It

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

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

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

"Use your words." And Kids DO!!

Click or touch on comic strip to enlarge

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

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

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

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

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

      

"If You Have an Erection . . ."

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

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

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

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

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

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

   

Words Bespeak Meanings AND Our Bodies

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

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

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

        Derived from our bodies, words can mimic meanings.
        

"Pro-crastinator"

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


       "He puts the Pro in Pro-crastinator."

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

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

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

"Dormant" and "Moribund"

       Contrasts, similarities, oppositeness of words pique my interest.

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

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

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

"Things Are in the Saddle and Ride Mankind"

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

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

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

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

      

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

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

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

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

       "Sushi Chef."

The Spelling Communicates, But . . .

click or touch picture to enlarge

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

        The crumpled state of the plate doesn't help.

"Dasn't"

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

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

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

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

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

        

Another Day of Gratitude?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Fulfillment"

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

       I'd say that's a gamble.

"Hurt People Hurt People"

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

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