’23 A To Z Challenge – E

The Sound of silence…. Music…. Language

Each language has its own sound – its own tempo – its own delivery.  Even if you don’t know what the foreign speaker is saying, you can often tell what language it is, simply by the sound of it.  Italian and Spanish sound like the machinegun chatter of chickadees on meth.  French sounds like the speaker is trying to evade being charged with child luring.  German sounds like someone is training a dog, and Russian seems spoken by a crew of cesspool cleaners.  I often know the area where an English native is from, just by the local accent.

Most languages don’t change much, or very quickly.  Spanish-speakers can read El Cid in the original, while Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written at the same time, requires a translator.  English evolves, and its sound has changed over time.

It’s not just the new words, and the new meanings and usages of old words.  It’s that the world, and therefore the language, has grown larger, and more complex.  We have less time, to say more.  The construction is getting shorter, quicker, tighter, and wider, but not as deep.

A century ago, or two, we had the time – at least the privileged, educated,  upper crust – to converse and orate, using grandiloquent, polysyllabic words, often from Latin or Greek bases.  Those idyllic days are gone.  The grand old days of the unhurried Romance-era are long past.

I recently read a piece from another archaist like me – someone who likes to throw the occasional impressive antique usage in.  He used the word

EFTSOON

Soon after, before 950; Middle English eftsone,Old English eftsōna.See eft², soon

While it was a sweet, caramel-sundae kind of word, we just don’t have the time for it anymore, in our fast-paced, frenetic lives.  The leisurely, imposing sound of it has been replaced by curt, businesslike words like ASAP, or stat.

The Good Old Days were only good for the cream of the social crop, but their relaxed, melodious language usage was pleasing to the ear.  Hurry back ASAP stat soon for another helping of blather.

’23 A To Z Challenge – C

By the year 2050, the entire world’s skin tone will be beige, and religion will be just a memory.

While I think that the first part of this prophecy is inevitable, I feel that the prophet who claimed it was optimistic – or pessimistic – that it will occur so soon – and the second part will come to pass, only when, as Freud said, The last human loses their fear of Death.

This past century has been one of inclusion and amalgamation.  Widespread, free movement of people, things, ideas, and information is finally breaking the grip of tribalism, isolationism, and the extensive US vs. Them mentality.  “Seasonal” fruits and vegetables have become a thing of the past, with daily airplane flights from Chile and Australia.

Immigration and tourism has opened so many narrow minds to the facts of other races, other religions, other moralities, other social customs, other legal systems, and other languages.  Language is the easiest and most often absorbed.  Here in Canada, because of the Province of Quebec, every citizen, from Inuit to immigrant, must have at least a working knowledge of the poutine that the locals claim is French.  Many French words, phrases, and place-names have crept into the “English” language, because of French explorers in Canada and northern United States.

Spanish exploration and conquest in Central and South America has resulted in the insertion of many Spanish words and terms into the, especially South and Western United States, ‘English’ language.  ‘Lazo’, the Spanish word that also gave the word ‘lace’ to English, and means noose, or bond, became ‘lasso’.  His cousin, la reata – the rope – became the cowboys’ lariat.

All of which deviously brings us to the word of the day

CALABOOSE

An Americanism dating back to 1785–95; through Louisiana French calabouse, from Spanish calabozo “dungeon,” of obscure origin

From the same base comes ‘calabash,’ an organic little dungeon of a gourd, with all the little seeds held prisoner within – the inspiration for Jimmy Durante’s girlfriend, Mrs. Calabash. Good night Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.

Good night!!  Isn’t this fool done prating yet??

Words Society Has Distorted

MORE WORDS SOCIETY DISTORTS

Gay does not mean homosexual, yet means merry and joyful.

Lesbian derives from Lesbos which means forested and woody, not homosexual.

Fag derives from Fag-end which derives from the word Remnant and Remnant means what’s left or remaining around and does not mean homosexual.

Fagot derives from Fagotto which means bundle of something or sack of something and does not mean homosexual.

Gigolo derives from Gigolette which derives from Gigue which means Irish dance and ette which means smaller form of something and does not mean a man who has sex with different women for money.

Prostitute derives from pro which means before, for and statuō which means to set up, to erect and does not mean a female who has sex with different men for money.

I empathise with this author’s intent, and I congratulate him for his attempt to reduce Fundamentalist hate-mongering.  It’s just that correct English usage, better research, and valid assertions would have been so much better.  Out of six claims, he only got all of them wrong – and all for the lack of the word ‘just,’ or ‘only.’

The Woke term ‘Presentism’ means, to apply the morals and social values of today, to actions which occurred in the past.  This writer is doing the exact opposite – ‘Pastism’??  He wishes to still apply the definitions of yesteryear, to today’s situations.

The English language is an amorphous, ever-changing entity.  I’ve said that it’s like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree.  Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive.  They reflect the definitions that the majority of people currently use.  What a word meant a week ago – a month ago – a year ago – a decade ago, it doesn’t JUST/ONLY mean now.

These derogatory terms have been in use, longer than he’s been alive.  While they’re not nice, they are part of modern speech.  ‘Gay’ is still used occasionally to mean merry and joyful, but despite any dispute, it now definitely means homosexual.  (It also means lesbian, as we’ll see next)

Homosexual is not the same as lesbian, in the same way that actor is not the same as actress.  If two men have sex, they are homosexual.  If two women have sex, they are lesbian.  They are all ‘gay,’ which indicates same-sex attraction.

Like the myth of the Amazons, the island of Lesbos was once thought to be populated entirely by women, who satisfied their urges with each other.  The island was, and still is, forested and woody – but that’s not what the Greek name Lesbos means.  It comes from the Hittite word Lazpa, which means, land, realm, or city.

A faggot (British – fagot) was a bundle of something, particularly wood for burning.  One piece from the bundle, represented by a cigarette, was called a fag.  A fag-end was a cigarette butt, or some other valueless scrap.  While the expression means something that is left, it did not come from the word ‘remnant.’  It also did not come from Fagotto, which is an Italian bassoon, but from the Greek, ‘phakelos’ = bundle, and it still currently means gay.

Gigolo is the masculine derivative of gigolette – woman of the streets or public dance halls.  The modern spelling is Boy-Toy, or Cougar-bait, but they still exist.

The continuation of the word prostitute’s meaning, ‘to erect,’ – (and there’s a Freudian allusion) is to then present to the public for sale.  It seems a very apt definition.  While these can be judgmental and insulting terms, they are definitely part of modern speech, like it or not lump it.

’23 A To Z Challenge – B

 

Following in the grand tradition of Assholery, I present to you, his next-door neighbor

BULLSHITTERY

I recently read yet another dirge for the continued deterioration of both good manners, and English language usage.  A woman, younger than me, (That percentage continues to grow by the day) wanted to know what in Hell has happened to the phrase, “You’re welcome.”

I say to someone – often a clerk of some sort – Thank you, and get back, No problem.  Of course it was a problem, a minor problem perhaps, but if it hadn’t been a problem, I wouldn’t have approached you to solve it.  Also, you’ve now trivialized my situation, and made me feel guilty for bothering you.

Certain related things (should) come in pairs.  If I say salt, you reply, pepper.  If I say Abbott, you respond with, Costello.  If I say Thank you, you don’t match it with pork schnitzel, or deck varnish, or this silly, disconnected, no problem bullshit.

A rejoinder to the lady’s discomfort was that, other languages and cultures have similar constructions.  (Some of) The French come back with, de rien, which roughly translates to it was nothing.  The same objections apply.  The French Language Law books say that the proper response should be, Je vous en prie, which isn’t much better, since it means, I will pray for you.

A common response in Australia is, No worries (mite mate).  As your Mother used to say to you, “If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump off with them?  Mom was a little OCD, but she had a point.  I don’t feel that holding up arrogant, frog’s-legs-munching Frenchmen, or descendants of deported criminals, who had no good manners or proficiency with The Queen’s English – I’m not counting Chuckles the Clown yet – is a good justification for poor, vernacular usage.

Alas, the language, Horatio, I knew it well – before it started hanging out with rap and Tik-Tok stars.  😦

Twenty-Tooth Fibbing Friday

My tablet chimed with a picture of a courier package delivered to my porch.  At first, I thought it might be the badger taxidermy kit I’d ordered.

Local council has told Pensitivity101 that I can’t be lurking around her little cottage.  I’ve been caught lying so often, that she shipped me another list of questions to be truthfully creative with.

1. What did the couch say to the toilet?

What do you think of the rectum, as a hole??  I feel it is a source of shit, and should be wiped out.

2. What caused the last traffic jam in town?

It was that girl, who moved here from the big city.  The friendly one, with the deep V-neck sweater that don’t stand for virgin any more.  The one with the short-short-shorts that barely cover her assets.  The town’s only got one pay-for-time parking meter – the one she always leans against.

3. What really powers the Internet?

It’s the download of the energy potential between the two poles of cognitive dissonance – Religion vs. Atheism, Flat Earth vs. Globetards, Faith vs. Scientism and Darwinism.  It’s like using geothermal to heat your home.  If you dig down far enough, someone’s always spewing some heat about it.

4. What is really between Trump’s ears?

MSN just published an image of a super-gigantic black hole.  They claimed that it was at the center of the Greater Magellanic Cloud.  The image was a little blurry, but I’m pretty sure I saw that Mac-and-Cheese orange hair above it.

5. What is in the heart of Africa?

African trypanosomiasis may also cause a myocarditis. The protozoan parasite, Entamoeba histolytica rarely causes a pericarditis while Toxoplasma gondii may cause myocarditis, usually in immunocompromised hosts. The larval forms of the tapeworms Echinococcus and Taenia solium may cause space-occupying lesions of the heart.

All in all, not a very nice place to be.  Like Blackpool on a Saturday night.  It’s small wonder that British colonialists were glad to finally give it back to the natives.

6. What was the last meal eaten in the Garden of Eden?

Apple pan dowdy.

7. Who built the pyramids in the Yucatan?

One of Donald Trump’s earliest real estate development corporations.  They led directly to the first time he went bankrupt.

8. What is the highest form of flattery?

It’s my (possibly soon-to-be-ex) buddy, Bob, when he gets all smoked up, and full of booze, and calls me to come get him at 3 AM, and be the designated driver.  I love you, man!  You are beautiful, did you know that?

9. Speakeasies were not secret bars, what were they?

Open-mic nights at the local Comedy Club.

10. Alcatraz isn’t a prison, what is it really?

It’s the new home of Archon LLC, Sociopath, and Procrastinator clubs.  We held a Sociopath meeting, but nobody showed up.  We haven’t got around to scheduling a Procrastinator Club meeting yet.  We have leased a small wing to the Kardashian Petty Cash and Bling Repository Department.

11. What is in Hamburger?

Wiener schnitzel, sauerkraut, St. Pauli Girl lager, and Linzertorte.

12. What is the real question and answer to number #12?

Why is a mouse, when it spins??  The higher, the fewer!!
A brothel??  If we can’t get ‘em to drink beer, how are we gonna get ‘em to drink broth?

What??!  No applause??  No fan mail??  Well, you asked for it!  There’ll be another post on Monday.  😀

Book Review #30

Because I am retired, there is no external, commercial, reason for me to continue to attempt to improve my mind and my knowledge.  But self-satisfaction, and the ability to intelligently communicate, discuss and debate, drive me to occasionally read a book that is deeper than a rain-puddle oil slick.

The author: Lawrence M. Krauss

The book: A Universe From Nothing

The review:  The very title gave the first indication that this author thinks deeper and more profoundly than many, especially Theists, and Christian apologists.  When I asked Bing for an image of A Universe From Nothing book, the results page was titled The Universe From Nothing.  Krauss has not ruled out the possibility that our special universe may not be the only one.

This book does for astrophysics, what Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time did.  It describes and explains The Big Bang, and the universe, in simplified terms that anyone not wearing a MAGA hat can understand.  Not that I sailed through its 191 pages in one evening.  I limited myself to 10 pages a day, taking time to comprehend and assimilate.

Christian assholes apologists sometimes ask, “How can Something have come from Nothing?”  Apparently, they either forget, or ignore the fact that, this is exactly what they claim their God did.  Krauss explains recent cosmological discoveries, and how they are changing the definitions and usage of some words.

“Nothing,” whether outer space, (which is actually full of stardust and hydrogen atoms) or inner space, between the nuclei and electron orbits of atoms, or between the atoms of ‘solid’ matter, is not really “nothing.”  Just below the quantum surface, it is aboil with huge amounts of energy and creative potential.  “Nothing” is unstable!  It is almost inevitable that something will pop out, to relieve the quantum pressure – anything from individual virtual particles, to our entire universe.

“Why is there something, instead of nothing?” implies intelligent intent and control.  The question should be asked, “How is there something, instead of nothing?”  Theoretically, The Big Bang should have produced equal amounts of matter, and anti-matter, which annihilated each other.  A tiny random fluctuation in the initial expansion produced slightly more matter than anti-matter.  The rest blasted itself back into the bubbling quantum energy morass.  All the matter in the Universe is only a tiny fraction of its total mass.

Some Theistic arguers have claimed that the existence of pure, clear, mathematics, somehow indicates the existence of God.  The same mathematics does not ‘prove’ that God does not exist, but it does show that God is redundant, unnecessary, and not evident in any of the research.

The Universe is not only stranger than we know; it is stranger than we can know, but we keep asking questions, and finding more and more answers.

***

What are you doing for Easter??
Oh, just hanging around.  😳

’22 A To Z Challenge – Z

Our old mix-tapes had sides A and B.  It is only reasonable that their replacements should be CDs.

I used last year’s A To Z – Y post to babble about watching old black and white films on YouTube, an old and already, almost obsolete platform.  I thought I might close this year out by writing about an older system of watching even older moving pictures.  Ladies and gentlemen, Thomas Alva Edison Presents his fabulous

ZOETROPE

[ zoh-ee-trohp ]
a device for giving an illusion of motion, consisting of a slitted drum that, when whirled, shows a succession of images placed opposite the slits within the drum as one moving image.

ORIGIN OF ZOETROPE

1865–70; irregular <Greek zōḗ life + tropḗ turn

Western society has come so far, so fast, perhaps nowhere quite much as in Entertainment.  For centuries – millennia – a flickering candle was the zenith of amusement and attention-holding.  Technology has changed entertainment, particularly the visual arts – films, television, and videos.

A century ago, Lon Chaney – Senior – the great makeup genius and actor, played a Jekyll and Hyde type role in a film.  He walked around a ‘tree’ as Jekyll, altered nothing but the way he held his body and face, and came around the other side as the evil Hyde character.  Some women watching the movie actually fainted.  Play today’s Alien, or Predator, or even The Matrix, and we’d have the entire audience aswoon.

My attempts at entertainment are definitely spinning, and often best viewed through a narrow slit.  I’ve got to get out of this heavy white jacket.  I’ve got the month of April to put into motion.  😉

What Does That Say About You?

The following people were arrested for assault on the English language, and possession of more than 2 grams of Redneck speech.

Pros

I could smell the odor of petroleum esthers – a Jewish queen tells me they’re esters.

Pretend to swipe and glide through the air – Pretend you read the script, and it’s swoop.

Leaving Christian tracks on the vending machines – lines of holy fingerprints, leading to printed tracts

Waited for the nurse to hove into view – Sorry, Mr. Pretentious, hove is the past tense of heave.

Japanese gun deaths at 0.001 percent per 100,000 population vs. American gun deaths at 13.7 percent per 100,000 population – just one superfluous word killed a lot of extra people.

GMO foods cause a sleuth of medical problems – Sherlock Holmes tracked down the word slew.

A lack of nurses has only exasperated the problem – I am exasperated that you don’t know exacerbated.

The searcher found a cash of coins – Coins are cash, but he found a cache.

If you have flu symptoms please corn teen yourself – with a dictionary.

Amateurs

I am a bonified, card-carrying lesbian – but not a bona fide dictionary-carrying linguist.  I didn’t think that lesbians got bonified.  😳

Fake meat, made in a peach tree dish – Julius Petri will have some of that meat in his dish.

My sir name is Hendrix – and my madam name is surname.

Who blead the weak into poverty – They’re probably weak because they bleed.

I marched all over the play to find the culprit – and found him with Shakespeare, in the place that had the English textbook.

My family should know that buy now – I don’t buy that spelling of by.

A blue band on the ship’s haul – Haul out the dictionary, and look up ‘Hull.’

Synonym rolls, just like grammar used to make – I can’t swallow that phrase.

Someone stole my car’s catholic converter – Have the priest pray that you’re not fined.

He was under the rest for stealing – and for arrested English development.

The government is letting in Muslims and referees – Yeehaw!  Hockey Night in Canada!

1.5 Cu/ft. Michael Wave for sale – Hi, Mike.  Could you nuke my leftovers, please?

Flying saucers are just an optical conclusion – Doctor, My Eyes Is that more wrong with one, or two?  One, or two?

Elon Musk berst in to (sic) the press conference – I’ve got nothing for that, but Musk is his own smart-ass comment.  Just ask his seventh son, X Æ a-Xii – (When he gets out of therapy)

This is a courtecy note – Scammers should have the courtesy to spell it correctly.

Why can’t I do it?  My best guest – has a guess that it’s just writers’ cramp.

It amounts to chop change – Don’t be a chump, get it right

Black people were bread to be laborers – I think they were more meat than bread.

Free woshing masheen – comes with Spellchecker

His redneck neighbor has a was Maxine – with no Spellchecker

Chair has scuff Mark’s on front – probably from that woshing masheen

Different Kind Of Fibbing Friday

Time for something a little different from word definitions.
Pensitivit101 explored her archives and found some questions set by Teresa Grabs who was the originator of Fibbing Friday.
There are some gems so if any questions for March seem familiar, you can understand why!

1. What did you find in the unopened can of mixed nuts?

Schrodinger’s cat.

2. They just cancelled your favorite TV show – what do you do?

Start to rebuild your IQ level.  If Facebook and Twitter had burned down, we’d have some decent politicians and we wouldn’t be in this Brexit mess.

3. What is the answer to 3 Down?

Prevarication.

4. What do Scots wear under their kilts?

I wear Argyle socks and my Sgian Dubh, ‘cause I’m a sharp dresser.

5. How did the platypus get its name?

My So–So Great-Great-Grandfather bestowed that name on it.  At least witnesses at the time think that’s what he said.  Aside from being Scottish, his pronunciation was never the best because he was the official taste-tester at a whiskey distillery just outside Canberra.  Some folks said that he had a drinking problem, but his mates said he never had a problem drinking.  He died when he tripped, and drowned in a big vat of it.  When the foreman told his wife she said, “Ach, Robbie, ya ne’er stood a chance.”  The foreman replied, “Sure he did.  He got out three times to go to the loo.”

6. You find a treasure map – what is the treasure?

It’s peace and quiet on a small, independent, bucolic island in the Caribbean, named Tikoyya, where ‘Woke Society’ has been declared a terrorist organization, and local ordinances forbid the import or possession of any of those Snapgram/Instabook/Facechat thingies.

7. They are making a movie of your life – what is the biggest whopper they invent?

Wanting to make me appear rustic and pastoral, they claimed that I was born in a log cabin.  I was born in the woods, to an old Momma wildcat, and didn’t build that cabin until I was almost three.

8. Bollocks doesn’t mean what Americans think it does…what does it really mean?

The problem is not with the meaning of the word.  The problem is with the idea of Americans – THINKING!  😳

9. What did you give the last person who asked you for a tip?

I said, don’t bet on the Eagles in the Super Bowl, and don’t take any wooden nickels.  I will safely take them off your hands because I’m a numismatist, although I’ve never been charged or convicted.  It just means that I’m a coin collector.

10. What is over the next hill?

Sisyphus, pushing a huge rock.  His shift is over, and I’ve come to relieve him.

Smitty’s Loose Change #20

So there I was, minding my own business, living my best life when all of a sudden this old guy snuck up behind me and took over my body.

***

The wife recently told me that there could not be a city in Turkey, or Iran, or Spain, founded 2000 years ago, that the city of Vidalia, in Georgia, named itself after – because the people in Georgia had it trademarked.

***

We must share space on this planet.  We have no good reason to make any appeals to anything supernatural, or to God(s), so it is up to us to work together, co-operatively, to resolve our differences and make the world a better place.  If answers are going to come, then those answers will come from humans.

***

Dear Lord!  I just got a 7200+ word porno spam, with 57 segments, and links to a wide variety of kinky fetish sites.  It took me three days to read it all, coz I can’t last that long.   😉

***

This has to be one of the best grammar posts I’ve ever read. The way you artfully included each error in this post is almost like art—a true God given talent. I am quite obsessed with grammatical errors ever since my professor at one of my past colleges told us to look for a grammatical error in real life and send him a picture of it for extra credit. I am now inspired myself to make a post about grammar. You’re doing the lord’s work

Perhaps you’re right. Every time I boast to the wife that I’ve found another one, she does a facepalm, and mutters, “Dear Lord.”

She don’t know me very good, do she??!

***

Among other things, Guru Food Products manufactures Energy Bars.  They must be healthful, possibly organic, and good for you.  The advertising blurb on the side of the box, seen at a Wal-Mart checkout line, says that they are – Made In Plants.

***

A world without God or purpose may seem harsh and pointless, but that alone does not require God to actually exist.

***

Gently urged by legislation, local businesses are (finally) eliminating single-use plastic items.  Earlier, they charged 5¢ for plastic bags.  Many people began bringing their own cloth bags, but many more happily paid the price.  Now local stores only offer paper bags.  The discount store charges 10¢/ea and the big supermarket charges 15¢.

Plastic drinking straws have disappeared.  I’m glad I have a few heavy-duty ones in my glove compartment, which I bought at the Dollarama last year.  In my youth, we had wax-coated paper straws.  The new paper straws are not coated.  You’d better suck up your iced coffee quickly, or they disintegrate.

Closers on bags of bread and buns are now made of grey-board (multi-layer paper).  I eat very little bread.  A loaf might last me a month – if I freeze it, bringing out a couple of slices at a time.  Paper closers do not survive well in the freezer.  Again, I trade them out for plastic ones that I saved earlier.