Oops, I Guess I Should Explain

My brain works in peculiar fashion.

Sometimes it's a lot like frozen peanut butter. It's thick and hard to do anything with. Other times it's like thin jelly, spreading hither and yon until stopped by a boundary of some sort.

Yesterday and Thursday were peanut butter days. It was hard figuring out what I wanted to say. First I had one thought, then another, then a third. None were pleasing. None were satisfying. I started a rant because of passwords, which we probably share as a pet peeve, and decided it was too ranty to start off a new year, so I stopped. I went in another direction.

I started in on New Year's resolutions, beginning a post explaining that I used to make New Year's  resolutions but never kept them. Explaining my experience is that Resolutions are an exercise in self-directed failure.

When I used to make them, I did the normal things a lot of people do: "I resolve to..." followed by a promise to Self. It doesn't matter if it's eat less, exercise more, lose weight, stop smoking, stop drinking or something else entirely. People make these promises to themselves, perhaps in public or to a close friend or relative, and start off with good intentions.

For myself, the first few days were pretty easy. I would be "good". I would keep to my guidelines but, sooner or later, I would slip. My foot would inadvertently tip off the edge of the curb. I'd scramble to find my balance, but the spell was broken. Within a day or two or three I would slip again, only this slip was more planned. It wasn't a matter of error or chance. It was usually more of, "Oh, just once. Then I'll be good again."

By February 1st all of the resolutions I had made were lost far behind in the cloud of dust filling my rear view. By then guilt had also passed and I was resigned to having failed again. As a result, I stopped making resolutions. It's easier that way. I have no guilt, no shame, no sense of failure.

With all of that said, I noticed while re-reading Friday's post that I do use some words a lot. I use them a whole lot. A whole lot more than I should. I throw them in like salt, or like confetti spewed into the air by a machine at New Year's or at the end of a football (American football) championship game. Like this:

My confetti words are 'hope', 'so', and 'now' and I hereby mostly swear them off.

I'm not going to resolve not to use them. It's a habit and I probably will use them from time to time, but I'm going to try not to. If I do (when I do, more like) I am not going to feel guilty. I am not going to give into the urge to go back into a posted post and fix it. That's a resolution, too, and one that might be harder to keep.

That's the reference I alluded to at the end of this morning's post.

Yesterday, as part of my peanut-butter-brain-day, I started writing a post about resolutions, drifted over to the words I use too often, and my determination not to use them. Then, without posting that post, I started a different post which I put up this morning, In that, at its end, it refers to something unreleased - resolutions.

There's that jelly-brain at work. The one that spreads and doesn't stop until it finds a boundary.

So now I hope that's clear (winking at you because I did that with deliberation!).

Wishing you a lovely day - resolved or not!

Best~
Philippa

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Ya Know - I'm Having Fun

Again, it's all little things - just the small stuff that comes along in a day that makes it worth getting out of bed.

Last night I went home feeling lousy. My legs hurt as if I'd done about a billion squats - the long muscles in my thighs, from skin through to bone. I felt like a kinda sorta wanted to kneel before the porcelain princess in the loo, but wasn't queasy enough to make the trip. I just felt like crap - and like I wanted to curl up in the nearest corner and sleep.

There's a bug going around and I got in its way. It flattened me - first on the sofa at about 6:45 last night, and then in bed from about 8:30. Sleeping all night straight is unheard of for me, but I did. Between the getting up from the sofa at 8:30 and collapsing into the bed was no more than about ten minutes, and I was asleep as soon as I settled into position. I didn't wake up until the first alarm went off at 4:45. At the third alarm at 5:45 I debated, then sent an e-mail saying, pretty much, "you'll see me when you see me" and then I went to sleep again, and slept some more. In all, it was probably twelve hours. Not bad for me, since 6.5 is normal.

When I finally did manage to pry my eyes open at 7:30 I felt a lot better. The achiness in my legs was gone. The general malaise and yucky stuff had passed. I didn't have a fever, so it was good.

Getting to work I still felt like I'd left my brain on the pillow - 2+2 was an advanced mathematical formula at that point. Since then, though, I've started feeling better, more alert and think I can figure out 2+2. I might even be able to manage 3+3 or 4+4.

I solved a few problems that were lurking, then got a project out of the way. After that, I got started in on the growing pile of other stuff waiting.

I do have to say that, right now, I feel as if I'm standing at the bottom of a col in the Swiss Alps and there's an avalanche heading directly for me.

(Aside as a sanity check: yes, 'col' is a word. It means a narrow gap between two mountains - narrower than a pass.)

See? There's another cool word. I love words, but then I've mentioned that a time or two before. Another point in my favor today - I got to use a rarely used word. Yay me!

Back to that, though, it's coming in faster than I can process it, so the stack is growing and it's getting a bit scary. Of course, it is month-end, so that's part of it. At least I'm busy. That's a good thing, too.

We're supposed to get rain here tonight. Again, as I have for the past couple of years, I'll believe it when I see it, but 'they' keep talking about it. First, it was supposed to be rain - with an 'r'. Now they're saying sprinkles - with an 's'. A baby water-falling-from-the-sky event but at this point, we'll take whatever we can get.

It is cloudy outside right now.  What I don't get though is when people say "it looks like rain" or "it feels like rain". I hear that and it's a head scratcher.

Maybe because I'm from California and it's drier here, we don't get that heavy, damp feeling before a rain very much. When it's cloudy, it's cloudy and there are few times when it "feels" like rain. Sometimes, when the clouds are thick and heavy looking it will "look" like rain but, for me, because of how literal I am, unless it's actually a water-falling-from-the-sky event, it doesn't look or feel like rain. It's dry until it's not is an easier way of saying it.

But that's me and I'm not you so if you like saying 'it looks like' or 'it feels like' you go right on ahead. I'll ignore it and just smile, nod and maybe, if I'm so inclined, will say, 'yep, it sure does'.

The countdown to NaNo is getting shorter. My fingers are itching to cheat but my character is saying, 'no' even though I am starting to wonder how on Earth I'm going to get 50,000 words written in the time allowed, along with working full-time, commuting ten hours per week, and trying to have a home life with the family. I guess I'll just have to type really, really fast.

Another really nice gift from today is that I've been asked out to lunch tomorrow - in thanks for saving someone's bacon. They were doing something, it didn't go well, I stepped in and saved the day for them. In thanks, they're going to feed me. I love being fed, so I didn't say no, even though I did try the, 'oh, you don't have to do that!'.

So, the good things all lined up for today are:

Maybe some water falling from the sky
Being fed
Being upright without feeling like I'm about to fall over.
And I got to use the word 'col' in a sentence.

Yep. It's been a pretty darned good day. So, on that note, I hope your day was equally filled with little blessings and that your getting out of bed this morning was worthwhile.

Best~
Philippa

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Why Do Sports Announcers Sound So Stupid?

This is a serious question. I am not being flip or a jerk. I am curious and ask that someone explain to me why it is that college educated sports announcers seem to deliberately want to make themselves sound like idiots?

Is it because they want to look like jocks, or sound like blue collar Joe Average? If that's the reason, it's condescending and mean. "Oh, look at me. I'm a guy who gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to sit here behind a microphone and pontificate, but I can talk just like you, you uneducated dolt."

To me, that's the message they're sending and it's rude.

Those guys sitting there in the broadcast booth don't have to be erudite and use every big word in the book. But how about trying to be themselves?

Do these guys really say things like 'oh, yeah, he played real stout' or 'did you see him go yard?' when they're hanging out with their friends? If they do, that's a college education wasted.

Stout is one that makes me nuts. When I hear someone say, 'He played stout.' I can't help but wonder, what? He played like a pint of Guinness? Or is it that he got fat while he played?

'Of late.' Is another one. What is that supposed to mean? That one, in our house, is like a drinking game. It's used so frequently it's a joke.

Announcer: 'blah blah blah-de-blah of late...'

Us: 'Of late!'

The other night one of the announcers of the All Star game said 'he went yard'. How does one 'go yard'? I know what he meant. The guy hit a home run. Okay. There are other phrases that could be used. Saying 'he went yard' sounds like the hitter made a prison break. It is both illiterate and stupid.

'Filthy' is another one that's recently hit my outer word defenses. I heard that the other night, several times from the same guy. The reference was to the player's skills. 'He's filthy good.' Huh?

Okay, let's break it down for understanding and comprehension.

'He is.' Got that. The player exists. Check.

'Good.' Okay, the player is good. Check.

Where does 'filthy' come into it? I just checked. Type filthy into the Google search bar and you'll get:

* * * * *

filth·y

ˈfilTHē/

adjective

adjective: filthy; comparative adjective: filthier; superlative adjective: filthiest

1. 1.

   disgustingly dirty.

   
   

   "a filthy hospital with no sanitation"

   synonyms:

   dirty, grimy, muddy, slimy, unclean, mucky; More foul, squalid, sordid, nasty, soiled, sullied; polluted, contaminated, unhygienic, unsanitary; informalcruddy, grungy, skeevy; literarybesmirched; formalfeculent "the room was filthy" unwashed, unclean, dirty, grimy, smeared, grubby, muddy, mucky, black, blackened, stained; literarybegrimed "his face was filthy"

   antonyms:

   clean

   • obscene and offensive.

     
     

     "filthy language"

     
     

     synonyms:

     obscene, indecent, dirty, smutty, rude, improper, coarse, bawdy, vulgar, lewd, racy, raw, off-color, earthy, barnyard, locker-room, ribald, risqué, “adult”, pornographic, explicit; More informalblue, porn, porno, X-rated "filthy jokes"

     antonyms:

     clean, polite

   • informal

     used to express one's anger and disgust.

     
     

     "you filthy beast"

     
     

     synonyms:

     despicable, contemptible, nasty, low, base, mean, vile, obnoxious; More informaldirty (rotten), lowdown, no-good "you filthy brute!"

   • (of a mood) bad-tempered and aggressive.

     
     

     "he arrived at the meeting half an hour late in a filthy temper"

     
     

     synonyms:

     bad, foul, bad-tempered, ill-tempered, irritable, grumpy, grouchy, cross, fractious, peevish; More informalcranky, ornery "he was in a filthy mood"

     antonyms:

     good

   • Britishinformal

     (of weather) very unpleasant.

     
     

     "it looked like a filthy night"

adverb

informal

adverb: filthy

1. 1.

   to an extreme and often disgusting extent.

   
   

   "he has become filthy rich"

   
   

   synonyms:

   very, extremely, tremendously, immensely, remarkably, excessively, exceedingly; More informalstinking, awfully, terribly, seriously, mega, majorly, ultra, damn "filthy rich"

* * * * * * 

Does anyone see anything in there complimentary? I don't.

Granted, in the second meaning 'he's filthy good' translates to 'he's (disgusting) extremely good' or 'he's (disgusting) tremendously good'. But since it's the secondary definition, the first is what captures my attention.

Is the announcer trying, in a round-about way, to say the guy sucks? Or is he really trying to be complimentary? I dunno. I'll assume that because the guy is as good as he is, it's the second. It still leaves me scratching my head, though.

And it's not just sports announcers that do this. It's everywhere.

Last week I received a business letter that contained the phrase 'I would like to...' four times. It started with 'I would like to thank you for your business' and went from there. Okay. So thank me for my business. Don't pussyfoot around.

It's like saying 'I would like to say how sorry I am that Bozo died.' Better yet, 'I would like to offer you the job.'

What? Why are those hesitant or qualified? Why aren't they just stated? Seriously!

Look at that, think about it, let it soak in.

'I would like to thank you.' To me, that sounds like 'I would like to thank you, but I can't so I won't.'

Okay, fine. Get lost, buddy.

'I would like to say that I'm sorry Bozo is dead, but I can't because he was a twat and I'm glad he's gone.' Well isn't that sweet.

'I would like to offer you the job... But you're an unqualified, overblown incompetent, so we're giving it to Monty over there. Yeah, the guy with buck teeth who looks like a homeless dude.'

Why can't people come out and say what they mean?

Why can't they say, 'Thank you for your business...' or 'I/we appreciate...'? or 'I'm so sorry Bozo is dead.'

Is it really so hard?

Another is 'I could care less.' Okay. You could care less - how much less? How much caring do you have left to give away?

If you cannot care one whit less, it is 'I could not care less.' As in, 'I have nothing left to give in the way of caring.' This is contracted to 'I couldn't care less.' That means zero is left for caring. No ambiguity remaining.

Expresso and axe and further when it should be farther also make me crazy, but that's another post.

Suffice it to say that words and phrases have meaning and when they become so soft and squishy, or downright stupid sounding, they get my hackles up.

I'm sure it's more than just me, too. I'm neither special or unique, so I'm pretty confident it isn't just me.

So be decisive. Don't try to be clever or cute or soft or anything else.

Say what you want to say. Think about what you want to say and, if you do choose to try to be clever, go for it. Just make sure you don't sound like a complete idiot when you do. Maybe try it out on some other smart people you know. Perhaps on people who speak good English and know what works in the language and what doesn't.

Otherwise, you're dragging the rest of us down the language sewer with you.

Okay - enough said. Now please be careful with your words and phrasing, and have a lovely day!

Best~
Philippa

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Words Are Cool But Paragraphs Suck

Have you ever had something you've said, something that you thought was crystal perfectly clear, misunderstood or misinterpreted by others? Has that unintentional or misinterpreted comprehension caused friction, or hurt or anger?

I think that if you write or speak you probably have. We all have.

Tone, nuance, choice of words, where we choose to place the words, they're the problem. It's right back to that old saw, 'it's not what you say, it's how you say it'. Whoever said that was a genius, because s/he is spot on right.

Person A says so-and-so and Person B hears or sees it as such-and-such (or, in the spirit of this post, as 'suck-and-suck') and, there you go: misunderstanding.

It's not that the individual words Person A used were wrong, or that Person B is ignorant. It's just that when Person A strung the chosen words together, Person B misread or misheard what was written or said. Perhaps the phrasing was just a little bit off and the strung-together words came across in a manner different than what was intended. It might even be, in the case of written words in a letter or e-mail, that nuance is misplaced and what was intended to be clarifying instead comes across as accusatory.

In cases like those, it's not the Word's problem. It's the User's problem, or maybe the Hearer's problem. In either case, it's the problem of Language.

I love Words. I like some more than others. I wrote a post a while back about some Words that I like.  Plethora. That's a cool word. It slips around inside your mouth and glides off the tongue - try it. Try saying it out loud. Sublime is another one I like. I could go on all day (scintillating).

So it's not Words, by themselves, because Words are cool. They hang around, lounging in the corners of our minds, waiting for us to drop by and borrow them. It's when they get into groups that the problem starts.

Paragraphs are a group, a crowd of words that, when combined, can behave like a soccer crowd in Europe. That's the game in which football is played with round balls instead of 'prolate spheroid' balls. (Now THAT is a cool pair of words and that's how an American football's shape is defined.) Or like a bunch of protestors in Ferguson or Baltimore - breaking things up, burning things down.

You say something. You pick your words based on the meaning you want to convey. It's more than a couple of words. It's a paragraph, or maybe two or three. The individual words you chose and strung together were well-intended. It's just you, trying to be helpful and benign, but it's misinterpreted by your audience or, if to a bunch of people, by some.

In response, from someone else, another something is said. It's a sentence that begins 'You are'.

What does that sound like to you? Just those two words, standing all by their lonesome. Think about it, picture it in your mind. 'You are...'

'You are...' Hmm. To me it calls up a finger-waving scold. A parent leaning over a child, wagging that finger until it's just about ready to fall off.

One-on-one that is demoralizing. In front of a group, devastating because the scoldee is likely going to have to interact with that group and that scold will be there, front and center in everyone's mind for at least a little while.

Now that's a matter of interpretation, of course. Here, out of context, that 'You are' could precede 'brilliant' (yes, I am, thanks *blushes* and turns head). Or, it could precede a message that's intended to be helpful, clarifying, or corrective. But there we are, back to the Words.

'You' by itself is benign, unhurtful. 'Are' is the same, it doesn't do anything significant. Together, particularly if they follow an identifier, a name. 'Philippa, you are...', it takes on a different flavor. They are, together, forming that hooligan crowd. If the crowd grows to something bigger, to a Paragraph, it can become a riot - and not necessarily a laugh riot.

I write. I write a lot. I write at work. I write for simple pleasure. I write for outright fun - because I love words. Still, despite all the practice, I make mistakes with my Words that run into Paragraphs. What I think is clear might not be to someone else. It ends up causing trouble - my hooligans break free and start kicking things over. Someone else might come along and, thinking the canister they're holding has water instead of kerosene, they fling it and... conflagration.

The takeaway from all of this is that it's important to keep your Words in line. Straighten them up. Inspect them for potential fireworks. Move them or change them out if necessary. Be gentle with your Words, be careful with your Paragraphs and, if in doubt, ask for a monitor to make sure that your individual Words won't collect into a bad Paragraph.

Take your Words out and play with them today, and I hope you have a lovely time.

Best~
Philippa

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Whinge, Whine and Other Lovely Words.

When I started writing a few years ago I soon realized how limited my everyday vocabulary had become.

It’s not that I didn’t have the mental thesaurus available. It’s just that I never used it. It was weighted down with dust and inertia – it wasn’t going anywhere because I hadn’t driven it in so long.

Then I started writing. Suddenly I had to find extra words for things – you know, synonyms. Those different words that mean the same or almost the same thing, all so I wouldn’t end up repeating myself all over the place.

Within a matter of months, my vocabulary flourished again and my writing outgrew it. I needed more words (yeah, I’m a greedy slob, but that’s a different subject). So I started looking and do you know what I discovered?

Americans are bereft. We are pathetic in our language (borrowed, I grant you, and then abused).

For instance, when someone complains here we say they’re ‘whining’. That rhymes with wining as in dining and it doesn’t have the same punch as the Brit alternative.

Now, when a Brit or other non-American who uses the proper British pronunciation for stuff, s/he says ‘whinging’ (soft ‘g’ in the middle – win-ge-ing). With whinging, you can picture the snot-faced kid with the tear stained soulful stare and catch in their throat as they tug on their parent's garment – Mommee!

Gobsmacked is another one. What do you picture if I say, ‘I was gobsmacked!’? It's perfect! I picture smacking myself on the cheek, or over my mouth - gobsmacked.

See? You see? It’s beautiful – evocative – and we don’t have it here. We could, but we don’t because it’s Brit. So what do we have in its place? Shocked? No. Stunned? Borr-ing. Surprised? Oh, come on – that’s positively limp.

Foppotee yet another great word. I don’t know that most Brits even know about that one – but it really is a great word. Really great because it’s so far out of common use that if you say it about someone, no one will know what you’re saying (check it out – look it up). It has made it into the Urban Dictionary, but when was the last time you heard it used?

There are others, too. Beautiful words, lovely words that convey meaning and layers of meaning – veritable depths of meaning – and they rarely get used.

Plethora. A word that fills your gob and rolls right off your tongue.

Loo. Quick, succinct, not untasteful – ‘Pardon me, I must run to the loo.’ It just sounds so… so poncy!

Poncy. Great, great, great word! Posh, over the top, snobby even.

Sorry. Oh, the Brit understatement in that little word! It was bandied about on Authonomy a while back, offered up as the most useful word in English English. It can mean anything from an apology to a slur against one’s mother all dependent upon the arranging of the stresses.

SORree – apology

sor-ree – sneer

sor-REE – your mother wears army boots

See? You see what I mean? And there are so many others!

Scintillating and query (another Brit word not used here except if you're a computer geek talking about asking for something from a database).

We do have to careful, though, because we commonly say things that make the British eyebrows go up. Yeah, it's good exercise for an eyebrow, but it's almost always unintended.

Pissed here means angry. Yeah, I know that we all know that, but did you know that in other English speaking countries it usually means drunk?

How about that polite 'excuse me'? Nope - don't say it! Don't! It's the 'pardon me' for unfortunate bodily noises. You say that in a crowded restaurant and you might get a table to yourself, but it will be accompanied by many an aghast stare.

Did you see that? I slipped another great word in there - aghast. Agape. Awestruck (the original meaning, not the watered down modernized weak-as-water variety).

Fanny pack. Uh. No. Don't. Don't go there.

Fanny in England doesn't mean bottom or bum (although it is a diminutive <== [another one!] of Frances and variants [<==boom!]). It means, like... well, turn the woman around 180d (on the horizontal plane, please) and there, her... um... northerly nethers, at the top of her legs, between them.

So if you say fanny pack to a Brit, you're being very impolite. S/He might take offense and you'll be gobsmacked (in a not-a-good way) in next to no time.

Now - grab a thesaurus or hang out with your erudite friends, strike up a conversation and see what fantastic words you come up with today!

Best~
Philippa

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