A thing of beauty is a joy until she files a restraining order.
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
And if you can't stand the dinner, get out of my house.
If you can't beat them, join them.
And if you can't join them, weld them.
If at first you don't succeed, try, try to find someone to blame.
6/09/2013
Important American Vocabulary for Foreign Peoples (3)
Okay, it’s time for the third installment of this important vocabulary series. Today, I’ll cover words that are significant in that they are the next five on my list.
detritus: This word’s alliterative qualities make it perfect for describing trash in a manner that also depicts the aspersions (another fine word) cast upon the items by the speaker. Just the fact that the speaker used three syllables to mean “trash” should be enough to convince any listeners that the speaker can’t possibly be lumped in with the target of his denigration (yet another fine word).
ludicrous: This word is especially effective in its spoken form when the initial lu syllable is stressed and lengthened (“luuuu”), mimicking the ridiculousness of the subject with the luuuudicrousness of the speaker’s enunciation.
nostrum: I just like this word because it sounds like “nostril” (an inherently funny word and orifice), but actually has naught (another good word, especially if you want to sound snotty and over-educated, or English (a synonym)) to do with it.
sewage: I like sound of this word, mimicking as it does the sound you might hear if you mistakenly walked through a pile of it. I also like its relationship to the legal term “sue”, as in the phrase, “Greedy lawyers are creating entirely too much sewage in our courts.”
meek: This word has a fantastic sound, verbally defining its meaning through the final eek sound. I can picture a mouse uttering this syllable, right before getting squished, or before running out onto the kitchen floor and causing the cook to shout a similar word prior to jumping onto a stool, which makes the same sound just before it teeters and falls, sending the stool and the chef onto the poor, meek mouse, who dies with a final, quiet “meek!”
Sure, they’ll inherit the Earth. (The meek, I mean. Not the mice - they'll just continue living in the walls of The Meek's inheritance.) But that’s just in compensation for suffering for the rest of all history getting needlessly squished by everyone and everything else.
detritus: This word’s alliterative qualities make it perfect for describing trash in a manner that also depicts the aspersions (another fine word) cast upon the items by the speaker. Just the fact that the speaker used three syllables to mean “trash” should be enough to convince any listeners that the speaker can’t possibly be lumped in with the target of his denigration (yet another fine word).
ludicrous: This word is especially effective in its spoken form when the initial lu syllable is stressed and lengthened (“luuuu”), mimicking the ridiculousness of the subject with the luuuudicrousness of the speaker’s enunciation.
nostrum: I just like this word because it sounds like “nostril” (an inherently funny word and orifice), but actually has naught (another good word, especially if you want to sound snotty and over-educated, or English (a synonym)) to do with it.
sewage: I like sound of this word, mimicking as it does the sound you might hear if you mistakenly walked through a pile of it. I also like its relationship to the legal term “sue”, as in the phrase, “Greedy lawyers are creating entirely too much sewage in our courts.”
meek: This word has a fantastic sound, verbally defining its meaning through the final eek sound. I can picture a mouse uttering this syllable, right before getting squished, or before running out onto the kitchen floor and causing the cook to shout a similar word prior to jumping onto a stool, which makes the same sound just before it teeters and falls, sending the stool and the chef onto the poor, meek mouse, who dies with a final, quiet “meek!”
Sure, they’ll inherit the Earth. (The meek, I mean. Not the mice - they'll just continue living in the walls of The Meek's inheritance.) But that’s just in compensation for suffering for the rest of all history getting needlessly squished by everyone and everything else.
6/07/2013
Things I Believe: Thoughts for Friday
It's better to light a candle than curse the DAMMIT! HOT WAX!
Talk is cheap, but listening's expensive.
You owe me big.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Except for the wreck that puts you in a coma.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
Or until it opens its mouth and speaks.
Talk is cheap, but listening's expensive.
You owe me big.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Except for the wreck that puts you in a coma.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever.
Or until it opens its mouth and speaks.
5/31/2013
Things I Believe: Thoughts for Friday
All you need is love.
But I need money, too. And donuts.
A rising tide lifts all boats.
Like a tsunami, for example.
A man who is his own lawyer overcharges himself.
He who laughs last doesn't really get the joke.
But I need money, too. And donuts.
A rising tide lifts all boats.
Like a tsunami, for example.
A man who is his own lawyer overcharges himself.
He who laughs last doesn't really get the joke.
5/27/2013
Head Games
I’ll tell you why I don’t use the handicapped stall in bathrooms, since you asked so politely.
Years ago, I had a summer job in a technology firm. The bathrooms in my building had two stalls: one was handicapped-accessible and the other was the standard size, about the width of a coach seat on United, minus the armrests to fight over.
I always chose the handicapped stall. I mean, why wouldn't I? It cost the same as the other one, and it was just so much bigger. There was room to spread out. I could set down my backpack, hang up my coat, really make myself at home. I'd thought about spending my work day in there; it was a lot nicer than my cube. I could have dragged my workstation in with my large monitor, roll in a filing cabinet and drawers, and still have room for a throw rug. If I could have gotten rid of the smell and the noises from the stall next door, I'd have been set. I could even see setting up house in there; it was a lot bigger than my apartment. There was a lock on the door, and some sturdy walls to hang some art. There was a a constant draft, but it wasn’t too bad since the bathroom was kept pretty toasty.
Even the terminology made it obvious: the handicapped stall is "accessible," implying, of course, that the other one is not. Which one sounds like a place you'd like to use: the inaccessible one? It would be like a restaurant offering you a choice of two entrées, one of which was edible.
So I went into the larger stall on that particular day, just like I always did. As I was in there, I heard someone enter the bathroom and open the other stall door, which was then followed by a lot of noise and commotion. I couldn't imagine what was going on that the person had to make such a big deal out of this daily routine.
I completed my task and left my little studio apartment, opening my door to see the empty wheelchair outside the other stall.
I froze in place, guilt-rooted to the spot. To my partial credit, I may occasionally make the wrong ethical decision, but I always feel quite guilty about it when I'm caught.
I finally mobilized into action, making my way over to the sink, washing up, and getting the hell out of the bathroom as soon as I could. The only thing worse than making that person go through that ordeal would be interacting directly with him over the incident. I expect I would have felt much like my dog feels when his nose is forced into his latest pile of Bad Dog.
This situation alone would, I tell myself, have been enough to cure me of my large-stall ways. It's one thing to assert squatter's rights on a room that would otherwise go unused and unloved. It's another to force the people that need the space into some kind of shuttle-astronaut anti-gravity ladder climb just to get into position. I may not be the most saintly person around, but I can at least let guilt guide my actions.
Nevertheless, the lesson didn't end there.
Later that morning, I was walking between wings of that building. As I approached the door to the other wing, the person that had just come out of the door was holding the door open for me. Just to save me the effort of unlocking and opening the door, he was leaning forward, straining to support the heavy door at an awkward angle as he stretched out from his wheelchair.
I figure there were two possible reasons for the guy to go such pains for me. One is that he was just a nice guy, going out of his way for another human being, because we're all in this together and we should always try to help our fellow man. Like not using the facilities designed for others that actually need them.
The other reason is that he recognized my shoes, and was taking the opportunity to rub that lesson in my face.
Either way, I’ve never forgotten, and I have never used a handicapped stall since that day. I've never shared the bathroom with a disabled person since then, but I know that I will one day, and I don't want to suffer that particular guilt again.
Okay, this is not entirely true; I will still use that stall if it's the only one available. I figure that's an allowable clause in the Law of Handicapped Stalls, which goes something like this:
But when I am forced to use the handicapped stall, I make sure to do the following:
1) Verify that there's nobody in the bathroom that needs that space more than I do
2) Make a lot of noise and commotion, so it sounds like there's an empty wheelchair in there with me.
Years ago, I had a summer job in a technology firm. The bathrooms in my building had two stalls: one was handicapped-accessible and the other was the standard size, about the width of a coach seat on United, minus the armrests to fight over.
I always chose the handicapped stall. I mean, why wouldn't I? It cost the same as the other one, and it was just so much bigger. There was room to spread out. I could set down my backpack, hang up my coat, really make myself at home. I'd thought about spending my work day in there; it was a lot nicer than my cube. I could have dragged my workstation in with my large monitor, roll in a filing cabinet and drawers, and still have room for a throw rug. If I could have gotten rid of the smell and the noises from the stall next door, I'd have been set. I could even see setting up house in there; it was a lot bigger than my apartment. There was a lock on the door, and some sturdy walls to hang some art. There was a a constant draft, but it wasn’t too bad since the bathroom was kept pretty toasty.
Even the terminology made it obvious: the handicapped stall is "accessible," implying, of course, that the other one is not. Which one sounds like a place you'd like to use: the inaccessible one? It would be like a restaurant offering you a choice of two entrées, one of which was edible.
So I went into the larger stall on that particular day, just like I always did. As I was in there, I heard someone enter the bathroom and open the other stall door, which was then followed by a lot of noise and commotion. I couldn't imagine what was going on that the person had to make such a big deal out of this daily routine.
I completed my task and left my little studio apartment, opening my door to see the empty wheelchair outside the other stall.
I froze in place, guilt-rooted to the spot. To my partial credit, I may occasionally make the wrong ethical decision, but I always feel quite guilty about it when I'm caught.
I finally mobilized into action, making my way over to the sink, washing up, and getting the hell out of the bathroom as soon as I could. The only thing worse than making that person go through that ordeal would be interacting directly with him over the incident. I expect I would have felt much like my dog feels when his nose is forced into his latest pile of Bad Dog.
This situation alone would, I tell myself, have been enough to cure me of my large-stall ways. It's one thing to assert squatter's rights on a room that would otherwise go unused and unloved. It's another to force the people that need the space into some kind of shuttle-astronaut anti-gravity ladder climb just to get into position. I may not be the most saintly person around, but I can at least let guilt guide my actions.
Nevertheless, the lesson didn't end there.
Later that morning, I was walking between wings of that building. As I approached the door to the other wing, the person that had just come out of the door was holding the door open for me. Just to save me the effort of unlocking and opening the door, he was leaning forward, straining to support the heavy door at an awkward angle as he stretched out from his wheelchair.
I figure there were two possible reasons for the guy to go such pains for me. One is that he was just a nice guy, going out of his way for another human being, because we're all in this together and we should always try to help our fellow man. Like not using the facilities designed for others that actually need them.
The other reason is that he recognized my shoes, and was taking the opportunity to rub that lesson in my face.
Either way, I’ve never forgotten, and I have never used a handicapped stall since that day. I've never shared the bathroom with a disabled person since then, but I know that I will one day, and I don't want to suffer that particular guilt again.
Okay, this is not entirely true; I will still use that stall if it's the only one available. I figure that's an allowable clause in the Law of Handicapped Stalls, which goes something like this:
Thou Shalt Stay the Hell Out of the Handicapped Stall at All Times*
*Unless it's the only one available and you really have to go.
But when I am forced to use the handicapped stall, I make sure to do the following:
1) Verify that there's nobody in the bathroom that needs that space more than I do
2) Make a lot of noise and commotion, so it sounds like there's an empty wheelchair in there with me.
 |
Decisions, decisions
|
5/24/2013
Things I Believe: Thoughts for Friday
It takes a village to raise a child.
But just one naughty child to raze a village.
Live every day as if it were your last.
In a hospital bed.
A man's home is is castle.
That's why I post sentries in the turrets and have prisoners in the basement dungeons.
Blood is thicker than water.
So is peanut butter.
But just one naughty child to raze a village.
Live every day as if it were your last.
In a hospital bed.
A man's home is is castle.
That's why I post sentries in the turrets and have prisoners in the basement dungeons.
Blood is thicker than water.
So is peanut butter.
5/10/2013
Things I Believe: Thoughts for Friday
Never put off till tomorrow what you can put off indefinitely.
Early to bed, early to rise. Again. Dammit.
A friend in need is a friend of somebody else.
A house divided against itself cannot stand home inspectors.
Early to bed, early to rise. Again. Dammit.
A friend in need is a friend of somebody else.
A house divided against itself cannot stand home inspectors.
5/03/2013
Important Vocabulary for Foreign Peoples (2)
As promised, yet wholly unexpected, here are some more important words to learn and use frequently. That is, here are some more words that are important, not words that are more important, unless you’re comparing them to other words and phrases like “paradigm” and “action item” and “synergy.” No, scratch that - here are more words that are more important than most other words you will hear excreted at work today. The words are fun, sound good, and unlike typical business vocabulary, actually have meaning.
Read them. Learn them. Use them. Often.
serendipity: I like this word not because of its meaning as much as its fun, percolating sound and its sheer density of syllables. Look at it, five syllables in just eleven letters. This word means business. Which is to say, its meaning has nothing to do with business, but it’s serious. Like business.
Ah, never mind. Use the word.
subtly: The best part of this word is how it looks completely different than it sounds. It’s like a good spy, or a great actor. (Like Miranda Richardson, who can play the hilarious Queen on Black Adder and a terrifying killer in The Crying Game, not Adam Sandler, who always seems to play Adam Sandler.)
Silent b? Really? Since when was that a rule of English? It’s this disconnect with all rules that we thought we learned that makes it fun.
pompous: I like the imagery of this word, somehow the alliteration of p’s makes it’s meaning clearer, especially if you build up a good mouthful of air before you expel it, as if the word just couldn’t be bothered coming out until it was resigned to consort with the rest of the sentence.
ghastly: I like dated words, words that are covered in the dust of disuse after falling out of common parlance sometime around the end of the Victorian age. My wife, when I met her, spoke in Jane Austen paragraphs (the funny and caustic ones, not the romantic ones). It’s words like ghastly that cause awkward pauses in conversation as all of your listeners page vocabulary in from disk to parse the sentence.
Also, it just sounds great in context, and is typically used to refer to fashion: “That hat was ridiculous, but paled in comparison to his absolutely ghastly shirt.”
remnant: I like this word for its unusual consonant combination, causing a shift from m to n in mid-pronunciation, like that chili-pepper chocolate bar that changes from sweet to pain in the same bite. It lacks some of the obvious fun alliteration of some of these other words, but has a nice meditative sound, like you might hear uttered in the chant of a monk, or a serial killer.
Read them. Learn them. Use them. Often.
serendipity: I like this word not because of its meaning as much as its fun, percolating sound and its sheer density of syllables. Look at it, five syllables in just eleven letters. This word means business. Which is to say, its meaning has nothing to do with business, but it’s serious. Like business.
Ah, never mind. Use the word.
subtly: The best part of this word is how it looks completely different than it sounds. It’s like a good spy, or a great actor. (Like Miranda Richardson, who can play the hilarious Queen on Black Adder and a terrifying killer in The Crying Game, not Adam Sandler, who always seems to play Adam Sandler.)
Silent b? Really? Since when was that a rule of English? It’s this disconnect with all rules that we thought we learned that makes it fun.
pompous: I like the imagery of this word, somehow the alliteration of p’s makes it’s meaning clearer, especially if you build up a good mouthful of air before you expel it, as if the word just couldn’t be bothered coming out until it was resigned to consort with the rest of the sentence.
ghastly: I like dated words, words that are covered in the dust of disuse after falling out of common parlance sometime around the end of the Victorian age. My wife, when I met her, spoke in Jane Austen paragraphs (the funny and caustic ones, not the romantic ones). It’s words like ghastly that cause awkward pauses in conversation as all of your listeners page vocabulary in from disk to parse the sentence.
Also, it just sounds great in context, and is typically used to refer to fashion: “That hat was ridiculous, but paled in comparison to his absolutely ghastly shirt.”
remnant: I like this word for its unusual consonant combination, causing a shift from m to n in mid-pronunciation, like that chili-pepper chocolate bar that changes from sweet to pain in the same bite. It lacks some of the obvious fun alliteration of some of these other words, but has a nice meditative sound, like you might hear uttered in the chant of a monk, or a serial killer.
4/28/2013
Important American Vocabulary for Foreign Peoples
A friend at work had just moved to this country with the intention of becoming more fluent in our language, so I took it upon myself to help. I figure it’s the least I can to do assist people in learning to speak my language better, because the more people that speak American, the less need I’ll have to learn anything else.
I’m not much for rules of grammar (diagramming sentence structure was the low point of my high school career, which is quite an achievement given the vast number of entries in that contest). But I do like words. In particular, I like words that sound funny, or dated, or quirky, or are particularly well-suited to niche situations. A choice bon mot is worth several gratuitous uses of foreign phrases tossed arbitrarily into unsuspecting sentences.
So I started keeping a list on the whiteboard of our office, appropriately entitled:
Note: Since the complete list of words is fairly long, I will not put it here in its entirety. I will, instead, dribble them out in bits and pieces over time, to draw out the suspense, prolong the anticipation, and simply because it gave me the opportunity to use the word dribble. Also, the list is not complete, because there are so many fantastic and obscure words that are not yet on the list, and because my friend returned to the country whence* he came. I’ll start with just five words each time, to give everyone time to absorb and utilize them, and because that will make the entire list last that much longer. I’ll increase it from five when I get bored. In the meantime, utilize is a great corporate-speak word, when you just need the word “use,” but you want to sound smarter in front of your boss.
Another note: These words are not all unusual, and many may even be common. The important thing is that they sound odd. To me. So if you don’t think they belong on this list, that’s fine. You’re free to make your own list. This one is mine.
One final note: There is no particular order to this list. Or, rather, the list is roughly chronological. That is, these words appear in the order in which I wrote them on the whiteboard, except when the board ran out of room and I squeezed some into small crannies of space in the existing list. Crannies is a good word, too.
meek: Okay, meek is not an uncommon word. Heck, it was even in The Bible, Yea Verily. But it has an excellent combination of long vowel sounds and an excellent “k” sound at the end, which always sound like a mistake, or like Dutch. The word reminds me of my favorite Flemish phrase, seen on many a restaurant in Belgium: Eetkaffe, which I always took to mean “a café in which you can eat.” Which makes a lot of sense, especially if you don’t speak English and you’re stuck in Belgium. I hope all of Flemish works this way so that I can speak like a mildly retarded toddler and get my meaning across anyway.
lascivious: I just love the sound of this word. It sounds like what it is; kinda sexy, kinda bad, with an excellent “s” sound at the end which always sound slightly evil (unless you have a lisp, in which case it’s not a great sound on which to end or begin. So sorry).
oblivious: Just a good, solid word meaning “clueless,” but with twice the syllables. If you need to pump up the intelligence in your sentences, go for increased syllable count; it works every time.
rambling: I like this word because of the imagery. The sound of it is so close to “bumbling” and “stumbling” and has the same meaning in my mind of walking along in a shambling manner, eventually getting somewhere, maybe, but not really caring where or when.
reprieve: This word has a nice official tone to it, one that sounds perfect for court decisions, or even royal ones, as in, “The prisoner was pardoned at the last minute by The Queen herself. Unfortunately, the much sought-after reprieve came through exactly one second after the axe had sheared his head clean off. Still, his widow was thankful, as it erased the besmirching of the family name.” (Besmirch is an excellent word as well).
*Dictionaries informed me that this odd-sounding use of “whence” is actually correct, and the more correct-sounding “from whence” is actually wrong because the “from” is already implied in the word "whence." So maybe I care about grammar a little, but only when caring about it allows me to use awkward-sounding words like whence.
I’m not much for rules of grammar (diagramming sentence structure was the low point of my high school career, which is quite an achievement given the vast number of entries in that contest). But I do like words. In particular, I like words that sound funny, or dated, or quirky, or are particularly well-suited to niche situations. A choice bon mot is worth several gratuitous uses of foreign phrases tossed arbitrarily into unsuspecting sentences.
So I started keeping a list on the whiteboard of our office, appropriately entitled:
Important American Vocabulary for Foreign Peoples
At the risk of making some of these words more widely used, and therefore more mundane, I’ll offer them here for inspection, introspection, and conscription. That is, I offer them to you should you find a need for them in your daily speakage. Maybe they serve you well, or at least cause your listeners the same confused looks as those people that make the mistake of listening to me.Note: Since the complete list of words is fairly long, I will not put it here in its entirety. I will, instead, dribble them out in bits and pieces over time, to draw out the suspense, prolong the anticipation, and simply because it gave me the opportunity to use the word dribble. Also, the list is not complete, because there are so many fantastic and obscure words that are not yet on the list, and because my friend returned to the country whence* he came. I’ll start with just five words each time, to give everyone time to absorb and utilize them, and because that will make the entire list last that much longer. I’ll increase it from five when I get bored. In the meantime, utilize is a great corporate-speak word, when you just need the word “use,” but you want to sound smarter in front of your boss.
Another note: These words are not all unusual, and many may even be common. The important thing is that they sound odd. To me. So if you don’t think they belong on this list, that’s fine. You’re free to make your own list. This one is mine.
One final note: There is no particular order to this list. Or, rather, the list is roughly chronological. That is, these words appear in the order in which I wrote them on the whiteboard, except when the board ran out of room and I squeezed some into small crannies of space in the existing list. Crannies is a good word, too.
meek: Okay, meek is not an uncommon word. Heck, it was even in The Bible, Yea Verily. But it has an excellent combination of long vowel sounds and an excellent “k” sound at the end, which always sound like a mistake, or like Dutch. The word reminds me of my favorite Flemish phrase, seen on many a restaurant in Belgium: Eetkaffe, which I always took to mean “a café in which you can eat.” Which makes a lot of sense, especially if you don’t speak English and you’re stuck in Belgium. I hope all of Flemish works this way so that I can speak like a mildly retarded toddler and get my meaning across anyway.
lascivious: I just love the sound of this word. It sounds like what it is; kinda sexy, kinda bad, with an excellent “s” sound at the end which always sound slightly evil (unless you have a lisp, in which case it’s not a great sound on which to end or begin. So sorry).
oblivious: Just a good, solid word meaning “clueless,” but with twice the syllables. If you need to pump up the intelligence in your sentences, go for increased syllable count; it works every time.
rambling: I like this word because of the imagery. The sound of it is so close to “bumbling” and “stumbling” and has the same meaning in my mind of walking along in a shambling manner, eventually getting somewhere, maybe, but not really caring where or when.
reprieve: This word has a nice official tone to it, one that sounds perfect for court decisions, or even royal ones, as in, “The prisoner was pardoned at the last minute by The Queen herself. Unfortunately, the much sought-after reprieve came through exactly one second after the axe had sheared his head clean off. Still, his widow was thankful, as it erased the besmirching of the family name.” (Besmirch is an excellent word as well).
*Dictionaries informed me that this odd-sounding use of “whence” is actually correct, and the more correct-sounding “from whence” is actually wrong because the “from” is already implied in the word "whence." So maybe I care about grammar a little, but only when caring about it allows me to use awkward-sounding words like whence.
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