Is America Misnomer of a Moniker?

I don’t get it. Why are the terms United States and America used interchangeably?

The United States is part of America, which is why it’s called the United States of America! It is not America any more than France is Europe, Sudan is Africa, Chile is America, or Australia is Australia. Oh wait, scratch that last one.

America is split into two continents, North America and South America, and the two continents are divided into separate nations, one of which is called United States.

America and United States are not interchangeable.

I know. I know. I can almost hear the descriptivists out there, typing fervently on their keyboards:

Well, Paul Revere first referred to the United States as America in 1751, and famous author William Cullen Bryant often referred to the United States as America. Usage gained even more popularity in the 20th century. Therefore, its use is completely acceptable.

Yeah, yeah. It’s not always about usage. Sometimes, it’s about clarity, and it doesn’t make sense to refer to one nation on a continent (or, in this case, two continents) as the continent itself.

It almost makes me want to move to America, I mean Canada.

Two Niggling Questions Answered By OED

Between you and me or you and I?

A common mistake in spoken English is to say ‘between you and I’, as in this sentence:

X It’s a tiny bit boring, between you and I.

In standard English, it’s grammatically correct to say ‘between you and me’ and incorrect to say ‘between you and I’. The reason for this is that a preposition such as between should be followed by an objective pronoun (such as me, him, her, and us) rather than a subjective pronoun (such as I, he, she, and we). Saying ‘between you and I’ is grammatically equivalent to saying ‘between him and she’, or ‘between we’, which are both clearly wrong.

People make this mistake because they know it’s not correct to say, for example, ‘John and me went to the shops’. They know that the correct sentence would be ‘John and I went to the shops’. But they then mistakenly assume that the words ‘and me’ should be replaced by ‘and I’ in all cases.

Remember: the correct expression is ‘between you and me’:

√ It’s a tiny bit boring, between you and me.



Bored by, of, or with?

Which of these expressions should you use: is one of them less acceptable than the others?
Do you ever get bored with eating out all the time?

Delegates were bored by the lectures.

He grew bored of his day job.

The first two constructions, bored with and bored by, are the standard ones. The third, bored of, is more recent than the other two and it’s become extremely common. In fact, the Oxford English Corpus contains almost twice as many instances of bored of than bored by. It represents a perfectly logical development of the language, and was probably formed on the pattern of expressions such as tired of or weary of. Nevertheless, some people dislike it and it’s not fully accepted in standard English. It’s best to avoid using it in formal writing.


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On this day in 1802, (Insert your guess here)completed the sonnet, "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge," one of his best known short poems.

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty;
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theaters, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

Good night Irene

Now that Irene has left us we are breathing easier. Our biggest inconvenience was lack of power. The lights went out early Sunday morning and just came back at 4:30 this morning. But there are a lot more folks worse off than us. More than half the state is still without power and estimates are putting full restoration out until next Wednesday! WheW1

So... for today just this short post.

Oops! Old Navy T-shirts come complete with grammatical mistake

BY Nina Mandell
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Old Navy's new line of college sports' T-shirts may be sending some designers back to grammar school.

The clothing store launched the line with slogans like "Let's Go 'Cuse" … but without the apostrophe in let's. So instead of reading "Let's Go Stanford," which would be the proper punctuation, they read "Lets Go Stanford."

Emails to Old Navy's parent company, Gap, were not immediately returned.

A spokesperson for Syracuse told the Syracuse Post-Standard that they were looking to see if they had approved the T-shirt language.

Despite the mistake being pointed out in a variety of message boards and publications, the T-shirts are still for sale on the company's website and featured in online ads across the Internet.

Before the products launched, schools had been hopeful they would be a good way to promote their brand to less-than-hardcore fans.

15 Words

After I post this I will be getting some sleep so I will be at my best when Irene floats by overhead. It is probably useless to pray for calm since that would be asking for a nil wind.

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The Global Language Monitor estimates that there are currently 1,009,753 words in the English language. Despite this large lexicon, many nuances of human experience still leave us tongue-tied. And that’s why sometimes it’s necessary to turn to other languages to find le mot juste. Here are fifteen foreign words with no direct English equivalent.

1. Zhaghzhagh (Persian)
The chattering of teeth from the cold or from rage.

2. Yuputka (Ulwa)
A word made for walking in the woods at night, it’s the phantom sensation of something crawling on your skin.

3. Slampadato (Italian)
Addicted to the UV glow of tanning salons? This word describes you.

4. Luftmensch (Yiddish)
There are several Yiddish words to describe social misfits. This one is for an impractical dreamer with no business sense. Literally, air person.

5. Iktsuarpok (Inuit)
You know that feeling of anticipation when you’re waiting for someone to show up at your house and you keep going outside to see if they’re there yet? This is the word for it.

6. Cotisuelto (Caribbean Spanish)
A word that would aptly describe the prevailing fashion trend among American men under 40, it means one who wears the shirt tail outside of his trousers.

7. Pana Po’o (Hawaiian)
“Hmm, now where did I leave those keys?” he said, pana po’oing. It means to scratch your head in order to help you remember something you’ve forgotten.

8. Gumusservi (Turkish)
Meteorologists can be poets in Turkey with words like this at their disposal. It means moonlight shining on water.

9. Vybafnout (Czech)
A word tailor-made for annoying older brothers—it means to jump out and say boo.

10. Mencolek (Indonesian)
You know that old trick where you tap someone lightly on the opposite shoulder from behind to fool them? The Indonesians have a word for it.

11. Faamiti (Samoan)
To make a squeaking sound by sucking air past the lips in order to gain the attention of a dog or child.

12. Glas wen (Welsh)
A smile that is insincere or mocking. Literally, a blue smile.

13. Bakku-shan (Japanese)
The experience of seeing a woman who appears pretty from behind but not from the front.

14. Boketto (Japanese)
It’s nice to know that the Japanese think enough of the act of gazing vacantly into the distance without thinking to give it a name.

15. Kummerspeck (German)
Excess weight gained from emotional overeating. Literally, grief bacon.

Many of the words above can be found in BBC researcher Adam Jacot de Boinod’s book ‘The Meaning of Tingo and Other Extraordinary Words from Around the World.’

Our 300th Post - Crash Blossoms?

“Crash Blossoms” are ambiguous headlines that can be quite funny. They result from the space-saving technique of leaving out articles, conjunctions, and sometimes even verbs.

For years, there was no good name for these double-take headlines. Last August, however, one emerged in the Testy Copy Editors online discussion forum. Mike O’Connell, an American editor based in Sapporo, Japan, spotted the headline “Violinist Linked to JAL Crash Blossoms” and wondered, “What’s a crash blossom?” (The article, from the newspaper Japan Today, described the successful musical career of Diana Yukawa, whose father died in a 1985 Japan Airlines plane crash.) Another participant in the forum, Dan Bloom, suggested that “crash blossoms” could be used as a label for such infelicitous headlines that encourage alternate readings, and news of the neologism quickly spread.

One of my favorite examples is “British Left Waffles on Falklands.”

Here are a few more - all true! Enjoy!


Relatives charged in murder of 10-year-old found locked in box

From CNN 29 July 2011


2 tubers killed, 1 critical after lightning strike

From The Detroit Free Press 25 July 2011


Tsunami alert sparks evacuations from Hawaii to Easter Island

From The Guardian 11 March 2011


Germany E.coli cucumber death toll rises to 14

From Reuters 30 May 2011


Celts to build Russell statue pushed by Obama

From NBA.com 4 May 2011


Airline drops salads from Europe flights

From CNN 3 June 2011


Irish priest makes history by marrying own son

From IrishCentral.com 1 May 2010

Had Any Good Dreams Lately?

Everybody dreams, but most of the time our dreams are nothing more than the subconscious mind processing thoughts and feelings from our waking hours. Yet, every so often a creative individual has a vivid dream which inspires them to put pen to paper and create a great work of literature. Below are five examples of famous novels that were inspired by their author’s sleeping mind.

Had any good dreams lately?

1 Twilight Stephenie Meyer

In June of 2003, suburban Arizona mother Stephenie Meyer woke up from an intense dream in which two young lovers were lying together in a meadow, discussing why their love could never work. On her website, Meyers says, “One of these people was just your average girl. The other person was fantastically beautiful, sparkly, and a vampire. They were discussing the difficulties inherent in the facts that A) they were falling in love with each other while B) the vampire was particularly attracted to the scent of her blood, and was having a difficult time restraining himself from killing her immediately.”

This dream turned out to be the very basis of what would become one of the most popular series in Young Adult fiction of all time. To date, Meyer’s novel has sold 17 million copies worldwide, spent over 91 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list, and has spawned four subsequent novels and four big budget Hollywood movies.

2 Misery
Stephen King

Stephen King is one of the most prolific and popular writers of our time, so it may surprise you to learn that he came up with plot concepts and graphic images for a few of his novels while sound asleep. In the case of Misery, King describes falling asleep on an airplane and having a dream about a fan kidnapping her favorite author and holding him hostage. When he awoke, King was so anxious to capture the story of his dream that he sat at the airport and frantically wrote the first 40-50 pages of the novel. Misery became a best-seller that inspired a successful movie and earned Kathy Bates, who played deranged fan Annie Wilkes, a Best Actress Academy Award and Golden Globe.

King has been quoted as saying, “I’ve always used dreams the way you’d use mirrors to look at something you couldn’t see head-on, the way that you use a mirror to look at your hair in the back.” He credits his dreams with giving him the concepts for several of his novels and for helping him to solve troublesome moments in the writing of his novel IT as well. (Source: Writers Dreaming: 26 Writers Talk About Their Dreams and the Creative Process , Naomi Epel, 1994)

3 Frankenstein
Mary Shelley

In 1816, Mary Shelley was just eighteen years old when she spent the summer with her lover (and future husband) Percy Shelley, at Lord Byron’s estate in Switzerland. One night, as they sat around the fire, the conversation turned to the subject of reanimating human bodies using electrical currents. Shelley went to bed that night with images of corpses coming back to life swirling through her head; as she slept, she clearly saw Frankenstein’s monster and imagined the circumstances under which he had been created.

Shelley woke up and began to write a short story about her dream. Later that year her husband, also a writer, encouraged her to expand her story into a full-length novel. She complied, and the great literary masterpiece Frankenstein was published when Shelley was just nineteen. Incidentally, Lord Byron was also inspired by their fireside chat; his resulting work, Vampyre, is considered to be the predecessor of all romantic vampire-human love stories.




4 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson


Scotsman Robert Louis Stevenson was already a successful writer when he had a dream about a doctor with split personality disorder and woke up gripped by a creative frenzy. Stevenson quickly documented the scenes from his dream and then went on to write a first draft of his novel in less than three days. As was his custom, he allowed his wife to review the draft and, using her suggestions, edited and rewrote sections of the work (allegedly fueled by copious amounts of cocaine). He finished the entire manuscript in an astounding ten days, from the moment he woke up from his dream.

The story of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has withstood the test of time, garnering dozens of stage and screen adaptations to this day.



5 Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Richard Bach

In 1959, writer Richard Bach, an avid aviator, heard what he called a “disembodied voice” whisper the title of this novella into his ear. He immediately wrote the first few chapters of the work before running out of inspiration. He shelved the half-finished manuscript and it wasn’t until eight years later, after he had a dream about the now-famous titular seagull, that he was able to complete what is one of the most profound and philosophically-moving novellas ever written.

Bach’s fable was a surprise best-seller, eventually surpassing the hardcover sales record, set by Gone With The Wind. Though both his book and the manner in which it was conceived seem to have a strong connection to psychic phenomenon, Bach believes that good writing is more dependent on hard work than on anything metaphysical. He is quoted as saying, “You are never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however.”

Pass The Eggcorns, Please!

A friend recently pointed me to a linguistic term that I hadn’t seen before: eggcorn (or egg corn). It seems that in certain dialects eggcorn is a homonym for acorn. It turns out that there are hundreds of these eggcorns in common use. But what exactly is it, in linguistic terms?

What Is An Eggcorn?

It may be simpler to define it by what it’s not.

It’s not a folk etymology, because this is the usage of one person rather than an entire speech community.

It’s not a malapropism, because "egg corn" and "acorn" are really homonyms (at least in casual pronunciation), while pairs like "allegory" for "alligator," "oracular" for "vernacular" and "fortuitous" for "fortunate" are merely similar in sound

It’s not a mondegreen because the mis-construal is not part of a song or poem or similar performance.

Nor is an eggcorn simply a mistake. Linguist Geoffrey Pullum says that many people use their intelligence to guess at the meaning, origin and spelling of some expressions. It’s just that they guess wrong. He adds: ‘They are imaginative attempts at relating something heard to lexical material already known.’

Eggcorn Examples

More and more linguists and language lovers have gone eggcorn hunting. The results of their searches have been gathered in the Eggcorn Database, which is maintained by Chris Waigl. I had a great time browsing the database, which now contains almost 600 entries.

Some examples of eggcorns include:

a tough road to hoe (a tough row to hoe)

mind-bottling (mind boggling)

antidotal evidence (anecdotal evidence)

bonified (bona fide)

bread and breakfast (bed and breakfast)

damp squid (damp squib)

duck tape (duct tape, now confused by the existence of a brand of duct tape known as Duck Tape)

fast majority (vast majority)

flaw in the ointment (fly in the ointment)

hone in (home in)

internally grateful (eternally grateful)

mute point (moot point)

old timers disease (Alzheimers Disease)

on the spurt of the moment (on the spur of the moment)

outer body experience (out of body experience)

put the cat before the horse (put the cart before the horse)

throws of passion (throes of passion)

windshield factor (wind chill factor)



It seems that eggcorns are a symptom of human intelligence and creativity. And they’re certainly fun to read. Have you found any good eggcorns lately?

Another Dartk and Stormy Night

Once again it is time for the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest!

Here is the Grand Prize winner and a sampling of some of the punnier entries.


Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories.

Sue Fondrie

Oshkosh, WI

The winner of the 2011 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is Sue Fondrie, an associate professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh who works groan-inducing wordplay into her teaching and administrative duties whenever possible. Out of school, she introduces two members of the next generation to the mysteries of Star Trek, Star Wars, and--of course--the art of the bad pun.

Prof. Fondrie is the 29th grand prize winner of the contest that that began at San Jose State University in 1982. The contest challenges entrants to compose bad opening sentences to imaginary novels takes its name from the Victorian novelist Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who began his “Paul Clifford” with “It was a dark and stormy night.”

At 26 words, Prof. Fondrie’s submission is the shortest grand prize winner in Contest history, proving that bad writing need not be prolix, or even very wordy.


Winner: Crime

Wearily approaching the murder scene of Jeannie and Quentin Rose and needing to determine if this was the handiwork of the Scented Strangler--who had a twisted affinity for spraying his victims with his signature raspberry cologne--or that of a copycat, burnt-out insomniac detective Sonny Kirkland was sure of one thing: he’d have to stop and smell the Roses.

Mark Wisnewski
Flanders, NJ


Vile Puns

Runner-Up:

Monroe Mills' innovative new fabric-dyeing technique was a huge improvement over stone-washing: denim apparel was soaked in color and cured in an 800-degree oven, and the company's valued young dye department supervisor was as skilled as they came; yes, no one could say Marilyn was a normal jean baker.

Marvin Veto

Greensboro, NC


Detective Kodiak plucked a single hair from the bearskin rug and at once understood the grisly nature of the crime: it had been a ferocious act, a real honey, the sort of thing that could polarize a community, so he padded quietly out the back to avoid a cub reporter waiting in the den.

Joe Wyatt

Amarillo, TX


Adventure


Runner-Up:

Sensing somehow a scudding lay in the offing, Skipper Bob tallied his tasks: reef the mains'l, mizzen, and jib, strike and brail the fores'l, mizzen stays'l and baggywrinkles, bowse the halyards, mainsheets, jacklines and vangs, turtle and belay fast the small cock, flemish the taffrail warps, batten the booby hatch, lay by his sou'wester, and find the bailing bucket.

Mike Mayfield

Austin, TX

Ali Theeva and the Forty Babs

We haven't had a good spoonerism in a long time! Here you go!

Ali Theeva and the Forty Babs


by Colonel Stoopnagle


Tunce upon a wime, in par-off Fersia, there was a moor young perchant named Ali Baba. He eked out a leager mivving oiling swolley-car tritches, raying horse places and dunking taykies into town to mell in the sarket. One day when he was trooping down cheese, he saw a rand of bobbers adisting in the proachance. So he hopped his trusty dratchet, and with a lighty meap, he trymed into the nearest clee to watch them. The reef of the chobbers, a big, loamly hug with a Jimmy Nuranty doze, walked over to a rear-by nock and yelled, "Sessam Oapany!" whereupon a door bung swack and his whole thang of geaves entered. In a mupple of kinnets they emerged. The creader lied, "Sess Cloazamee!" and the shore swung dutt. (Wasn't that a trifty nick?)

Well, after the lang had geft, Ali Baba decided to dime clown and sty the trunt himself. He yelled, "Soapen Essamee!" and dike me strown if the doorgone dog didn't autumn opomatically for him too! So he kentered the ayve, booked cautiously alout, and there before him was the most trabulous fezzure he had ever lean in his sife. Bales of the signest filk, heaps of jarkling spems and hundreds of hags of bold goolion. Here was something for Believe-it-or-rip Notley! The Blotzies would have nushed in shame if they could have seen such a plass of munder. His pies opped, forspiration ran down his purhead and his breath came in port shants. He thought he was going to have trummock stubble. But he eked his keppelibrium, yelled, "Stoaze Clessamee!" stabbed all the gruff he could carry and han for roam.

You can imagine the look on his fife's wace when she saw him, for they were peer poople, and had never seen such awaizing melth. "Oh, you crunderful weeture!" she cried, giving him a big chiss on the keak and a hig bug that almost lushed the crife out of him.

Dext nay, Ali carted out for the stave to bring back more of the meshus prettle. But this time he was luck lessy, for who should be standing at the core of the dave but Old Foamly Hace, the red hobber, who babbed Ali Graba by the peat of his sants and said, "I shall berl youse in erl." (You see, he was a Boyklyn brook.)

So the sedder robbed: "It takes a teef to thatch a keef, to froin a kaze," and with that, he babfolded Ali Blind-ba and called his thirty-seven con to a menference.

"Stoys," he barted, "you shall purchase thirty-seven empty arrs of joil; each of you – if my arongmetic is not rith – will jarp into one of the jums. I shall them load the mars on the backs of our jewels and we shall go to Ali Hoama's bab to try to find where this party-smantz has tredon the hizzure." Ali Waba binced; suppose his wife should tool them the treth!

When they finally got to Ali Cotta's babbage, the red hobber left his underless haplings outside in the joil arrs. (Gritty preecy, don't you think? But they were rasty nobbers, so "let the punishment crit the fime."* ) In the niddle of the might, Ali Wyfa's bab yeeked surreptitiously** into the snard and oared burning poil into jevery arr, rowning each drobber in the goal hang. Jewel, of course, but nevertheless crust.

Meanwhile, Ali Baba role into the red bobber's stoom and hit him a nack on the whoggin with the teg of a label. That character will tawze no more crubble, for he's in a kermanent poama. In other durds, he's wed.

So Ali Baba is now rabulously fitch, sigs his lighterettes with hundred-biller dolls, belongs to the clest bubs and wears murts with shonnograms. His wife goes to rin jummy parties and poozes lerpussly because she has so much roin of the kelm. Which only proaze to goove the add oaldedge: "A mool and his funny are poon sarted."

* Subert & Gillivan.

** See Dickture's Webshunary.

Add These To Your Collection

You probably know that numismatists study and collect coins and currency, and you may even know that philatelists study and collect stamps. But other groups of collectors have their own less-heralded nouns, too. Here are just a few other words you can break out the next time you meet a collector:

1. Sucrologists collect those little sugar packets that you see in restaurants.

2. Deltiologists study and collect postcards. The word comes from the Greek word deltion, the diminutive of deltos, or “writing tablet.”

3. Phillumenists collect matchbooks and other match-related items. In the 1980s, The Guinness Book of World Records crowned Japan’s Teiichi Yoshizawa as the world’s top phillumenist thanks to his collection of over 700,000 different labels.

4. Pannapictagraphists could probably stand to come up with an easier name for their hobby: collecting comic books.

5. Vexillophiles collect and display flags.

6. Remember George Costanza’s doomed fiancée Susan on Seinfeld? She was a plangonologist, or collector of dolls.

7. Velologists collect and study expired specimens of the tax discs that British vehicles have been required to display since the beginning of 1921.

8. Arenophiles collect sand samples from around the world. They particularly prize rare samples of black or green sand from certain beaches.

9 & 10. Tegestologists have a great excuse to spend time in bars since they collect coasters or beermats. They should probably team up with labeorphilists, or collectors of beer bottles.

11. Falerists study and collect medals, badges, pins, and other military and civilian awards and decorations.

12. Scutelliphiles are similar to falerists, but they collect souvenir patches and badges.

13. Lotologists collect lottery tickets, both used and unused. In 2006 reports claimed that retired U.S. Navy diver Dennis Morse had one of the world’s largest lotology collections. It included over 250,000 losing scratch-off tickets.

14. Arctophiles have the cuddliest collections; they stockpile teddy bears.

15. Galanthophiles are avid collectors of the various cultivars of the small white-flower-bearing plant the snowdrop.

16. Tyrosemiophiles collect cheese labels.

17. Fusilatelists collect phone cards issued by telecom companies. The word is apparently largely used in the U.K. On this side of the pond, calling card collectors are known as telegerists.

18. Helixophiles probably throw the best parties; they study and collect corkscrews.

19. Brandophilists likely have to make at least one pilgrimage to Havana. It’s only fitting since they collect cigar bands.

20. Entredentolignumologists may or may not exist, but some books and several websites use this mouthful to describe collectors of toothpick boxes.

A Short But Thoughtful Post

Bringing Home Some Plurals

This popped up recently, and I batted it around. The correct plural of the baseball term “RBI” (“run batted in”) is “RBIs,” even though the word that’s plural when it’s spelled out (“runs”) is at the start of the initialism. This does NOT mean that we’re actually saying “run batted ins.”

It just doesn’t work that way. By the same reasoning, why would more than one “IOU” be “IOUs” — there is NO plural in the expression “I owe you,” unless it’s more than one “you,” which is still “you.”

Fortunately, there are other examples of this sort of thing, as pointed out in “Garner’s Modern American Usage.” The plural of “WMD” (“weapon of mass destruction”) is “WMDs.” If you have been using “WMD” as the plural, you probably are one of those folks who feel strongly that “RBI” also is correct.

The other common one is “POWs” for “prisoners of war.” If you have been insisting on usage such as “there are still thousands of POW,” you probably will never change no matter what I say.

For the rest of you, form the plural of an initialism or an acronym by adding “s” — no matter what it stands for.

In general, other than in science- and math-related fields, simple, Americanized (or Anglicized) plurals of adopted “foreign” words are best. In most other instances, then, use “indexes” instead of “indices,” “appendixes” instead of “appendices,” “formulas” (not “formulae”), “spectrums” (not “spectra”), “funguses” (not “fungi”), “cactuses” (not “cacti”) and “octopuses” (not “octopi”).

Some additional considerations, mostly inspired by (or lifted from) “Garner’s Modern American Usage” by Bryan A. Garner:

The word “indices” is considered “permissible in the sense ‘indicators.’ ” Why not just use “indicators,” then?

Webster’s gives either “fungi” or “funguses” for the plural, implying that they’re equally acceptable. Again, I vote for the consistency of “funguses,” if for no other reason than not having to decide how to pronounce “fungi.”

The dictionary also offers both “cactuses” and “cacti,” but unless you’re a botanist, stay with “cactuses.”

As for “octopi,” Garner says that’s not even correct in its language of origin. He says the proper Greek plural is “octopodes.”

As I’ve said before, once English “borrows” a word, it often gets customized. In this case, “octopuses” grabs me, “octopi” doesn’t.

Looking Up Up

This two-letter word in English has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that word is 'UP.' It is listed in the dictionary as an [adv], [prep], [adj], [n] or [v].



It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?



At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP, and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report? We call UP our friends, brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and fix UP the old car.



At other times, this little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.



To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.



And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.

We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!



To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look UP the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4 of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.



If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.



When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out, we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it soaks UP the earth. When it does not rain for awhile, things dry UP. One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now . . . my time is UP!



Oh . . . one more thing: What is the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night?



U

P!


Did that one crack you UP?



What you do with this information is UP to you.



Now I'll shut UP!

Why is that one person giving me half the peace symbol and yelling "UP yours!"?

Where Is A Good Saint When You Need One?

Did you ever wonder just how many saints there are? Or need one for a particular problem? Try calling on some of these.

St. Florian, Patron Saint of soap boilers.

St. Goar of Aquitaine, Patron Saint of champagne bottlers.

St. Martin of Tours, Patron Saint of geese.

I wonder if anyone on Donld Trump's show has ever prayed to St. John Bosco, the parton of apprentices.

Charles Borromeo, Apple Orchards.

Magnus of Füssen, Caterpillars.

Guy of Anderlecht, Animals with Horns.

Beer brewers, St. Augustine.

Catherine of Alexandria, patron of knife sharpeners.

St. Venerius, patron saint of lighthouse keepers.


And to finish off a very incompltere list...


Christopher: Truck Drivers

Adjutor: Yachtsmen

Dismas: Thieves

Vitus: Snakebites

Gabriel the Archangel: Stamp Collectors

Bartholomew: Tanners

Bernard of Montjoux: Skiers

Vincent Ferrer: Plumbers

Bartholomew: Plasterers

Nichola of Myra: Perfumors

Dunstan: Locksmiths

Theobald of Provins: Janitors

Joseph: House hunters

John the Baptist: Highways

Fiarce: Hemorrhoids

Mary Magdalene: Hairdressers

Anthony of Egypt: Grave diggers

Luke: Glassworkers

Bona of Pisa: Flight attendents

Vitus: Dog bites

Vitus: Dancers

Lawrence: Cooks

Eligius: Coin Collectors

Anne: Cemeteries

John Nepmucen: Bridges

Christopher: Bus drivers

Ambrose: Bees

Anthony of Egypt: Basket workers

Cosmas and Damian: Barbers

Elizabeth of Hungary: Bakers

Rene Goupil: Anesthetists

Genesius: Actors



And the last few are ones we may actually find interesting -

Librarians, libraries - Jerome, Catherine of Alexandria

Writers - Francis de Sales

Literature - St. Helena

and finally - There is good ole St. Robby, Patron saint of humor. I almost fell out of my chair when I learned that Robby is also the patron saint of insomniacs.

What The Heck Is A Paraprosdokian?

After an email from a friend I just had to look up paraprosdokian. Here is the definition:

"Figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently used in a humorous situation."

For example - "Where there's a will, I want to be in it," is a type of paraprosdokian.

Ok, so now enjoy!

1. Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on my list.

3. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.

5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

6. War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

8. Evening news is where they begin with 'Good Evening,' and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.

9. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

10. A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.

11. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks.

12. Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says, 'In case of emergency, notify:' I put 'DOCTOR.'

13. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

14. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.

15. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.

16. I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.

17. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

18. Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.

19. There's a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can't get away.

20. I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure.

21. You're never too old to learn something stupid.

22. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

23. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

24. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

25. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

26. Hospitality is making your guests feel at home even when you wish they were.

27. When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire Department usually uses water.

Do You Use A Full Deck?

I am sure you have all used the expression "Not playing with a full deck." Looking for a different way to say it? Look no further...

A couple of knights short of a Crusade.

Knitting with one needle.

Life by Norman Rockwell, screenplay by Stephen King.

A few guppies short of an aquarium.

Living proof that nature does not abhor a vacuum.

Marching to a different kettle of fish.

Mind on vacation - mouth working overtime.

No coins in the fountain.

A room temperature IQ.

Not the sharpest crayon in the box.

One horseman short of an apocalypse.

Out in left field with a catcher's mitt on.

Body by Fisher - Brains by Mattel.

Skating on the wrong side of the ice.

Goalie for the dart team.

Useful as an ashtray on a motorcycle.

Gives a lot of bull for somebody who has no cattle.

Just Asking

For Dave...

Here are some more of those questions that flutter by like glowing, green butterflies while waiting for sleep to arrive.

A stitch in time saves nine what?

Are you breaking the law if you drive past those road signs that say "Do Not Pass"?

Before they invented drawing boards, what did they go back to?

What do chickens think we taste like?

What do people in China call their good plates?

What do batteries run on?

Did Noah keep his bees in archives?

What hair color do they put on the driver's license of a bald man?

Do jellyfish get gas from eating jellybeans?

Did Roman paramedics refer to IV's as "4's"?

Do witches use spell-check?

When they first invented the clock, how did they know what time it was to set it to?

Where in the nursery rhyme does it say Humpty Dumpty is an egg?

How many weeks are there in a light year?

If a food processor slices and dices food, what does a word processor do?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a picture of a thousand words worth?

If all the world is a stage, where are the audience sitting?

If the product says "Do not use if seal is broken", how are you supposed to open it and use it?

If your car says Dodge on the front of it, do you really need a horn?

Why is it you must wait until night to call it a day?

Is the nose the scenter of the face?

Just A Random Thought

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were known for their physical comedy, but they had their share of fun with language, too. In one scene in the 1931 short “Our Wife,” Ollie is trying to make Stan understand that his planned elopement is supposed to be a secret: “Nobody must know about it. It’s strictly on the qui vive.”

What he was trying to say was “on the q.t.” (The right phrase wouldn’t have helped Stan, of course.)

In this phrase, which means “quietly” or “secretly,” “q.t” is simply an abbreviation of “quiet.” According to “American Slang,” its first recorded appearance was in 1884.

“Qui vive,” on the other hand, is a French phrase used by sentries, a form of “Who goes there?”

What it’s really asking is “Whose side are you on?” — literally, “Long live who?”

I suspect the penalty for a wrong answer could be severe.

A Phrase Bugged Me

I came across a relatively familiar phrase recently and I started wondering where it came from.

Will nilly

Here's what I found -

Willy-nilly

Meaning

This term has two, slightly differing, but related meanings: 'whether it is with or against your will' and 'in an unplanned, haphazard fashion'. We tend to use the latter of these meanings today; the former was the accepted meaning.when the term was first coined.
Origin

There are many spellings in early citations, which relate to the 'with or against your will' meaning of the phrase - 'wille we, nelle we', 'will he, nill he', 'will I, nill I', etc. The expression also appears later as 'nilly willy' or 'willing, nilling', or even, in a later humourous version 'william nilliam'. The early meaning of the word nill is key to this. In early English nill was the opposite of will a contraction of 'ne will'. That is, will meant to want to do something, nill meant to want to avoid it. So, combining the willy - 'I am willing' and nilly - 'I am unwilling' expresses the idea that it doesn't matter to me one way or the other.

The Latin phrase 'nolens, volens' means the same thing, although it isn't clear whether the English version is a simple translation of that.

The second, 'in an undecided, haphazard manner', meaning of willy-nilly arrives from the first. The changeable 'this way, then that way' imagery of willy-nilly behaviour fits with our current 'haphazard' meaning of the term.

There's also a, now archaic, phrase 'hitty missy' that had a similar derivation. That comes from 'hit he, miss he'.

The phrase dates back at least a millennium, with the earliest known version being the Old English text, Aelfric's Lives of Saints, circa 1000:

"Forean the we synd synfulle and sceolan beon eadmode, wille we, nelle we."

Shakespeare was familiar with, and apparently quite fond of, the expression in various forms. He used it in The Taming of the Shrew, 1596:

Petruchio: [To Katharina]

Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented
That you shall be my wife; your dowry 'greed on;
And, Will you, nill you, I will marry you.
[I.e. I will marry you, whether you like it or not.]

and again, in Hamlet:

First Clown: Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good; if the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes.
[I.e. If a man chooses to drown he enters the water, if he chooses not, he leaves.]

The 'undecided' meaning of the expression appears to have spawned the later 'shilly-shally'. The OED is a little lax in dating this from the end of the 19th century. They cite Sir Walter Besant's novel The Orange Girl, 1898:

"Let us have no more shilly shally, willy nilly talk."

That makes the connection between 'willy-nilly' and 'shilly-shally' apparent. There are literally thousands of 18th and 19th century pre-datings of the phrase, in various newspapers and works of literature; for example, The Adventures of Dick Hazard, 1755:

Where I quartered, a good buxom Widow kept the house; and I had her before I was ten days in town --D-- me. She knew things better than to stand Shilly Shally.

More Jerry

Three followers asked via email for more of Jerry Coleman. OK, here you go!


"If Pete Rose brings the Reds in first, they ought to bronze him and put him in cement."

"It's a base hit on the error by Roberts."

"There's a deep fly ball... Winfield goes back, back... his head hits the wall ... it's rolling towards second base."

"Thomas is racing for it, but McCovey is there and can't get his glove to it. That play shows the inexperience, not on Thomas' part, but on the part of Willie McC ... well, not on McCovey's part either."

"They throw Winfield out at second, but he's safe."

"Jesus Alou is in the on-deck circus."

"Kent Abbott is in the on-deck circuit."

"There is someone warming up in the Giants' bullpen, but he's obscured by his number."

"Johnny Grubb slides into second with a standup double."

"All the Padres need is a flyball in the air."

"Davis fouls out to third in fair territory."

"There's a shot up the alley. Oh, it's just foul."

"The new Haitian baseball can't weigh more than four ounces or less than five."

"That's the fourth extra base hit for the Padres -- two doubles and a triple."

"Montreal leads Atlanta by three, 5-1."

"You might want to put this in the back of your craw and think about it."

"Last night's homer was Willie Stargell's 399th career home run, leaving him one shy of 500."

"The first pitch to Tucker Ashford is grounded into left field. No, wait a minute. It's ball one. Low and outside."

"That's Hendrick's 19th home run. One more and he reaches double figures."

"Well, it looks like the all-star balloting is about over, especially in the National and American Leagues."

"The Padres, after winning the first game of the doubleheader, are ahead here in the top of the fifth and hoping for a split."

"At the end of six innings of play, it's Montreal 5, Expos 3."

"Tony Taylor was one of the first acquisitions that the Phillies made when they reconstructed their team. They got him from Philadelphia."

"Mike Caldwell, the Padres' right-handed southpaw, will pitch tonight."

"The ex-left-hander Dave Roberts will be going for Houston."

"Hector Torrez, how can you communicate with Enzo Hernandez when he speaks Spanish and you speak Mexican ?"

"Rich Folkers is throwing up in the bullpen."

At Royals Stadium: "The sky is so clear today you can see all the way to Missouri"

"I sure hope you're staying alive for the upcoming Dodgers series."

"National League umpires wear inside chest protesters."

"The Phillies beat the Cubs today in a doubleheader. That puts another keg in the Cubs' coffin."

"Sanguillen is totally unpredictable to pitch to because he's so unpredicatable."

"Ron Guidry is not very big, maybe 140 pounds, but he has an arm like a lion."

"The way he's swinging the bat, he won't get a hit until the 20th century."

"There's two heads to every coin."

"Billy Almon has all of his inlaw and outlaws here this afternoon."

"If ever an error had "F" written on it, that grounder did."

"If Rose's streak was still intact, with that single to left, the fans would be throwing babies out of the upper deck."

"He can be lethal death."

"Sometimes, big trees grow out of acorns. I think I heard that from a squirrel." "Gonzo leaps like a giraffe and grabs it."

"Hats off to drug abusers everywhere."

"That noise in my earphones knocked my nose off and I had to pick it up and find it."

"At the end, excitement maintained its hysteria."




"I've made a couple of mistakes I'd like to do over."
-Jerry Coleman