’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.  😦

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.

Word Is It’s Fibbing Friday

Pensitivity101 has some more familiar words and wants to know if I can make up new definitions for them.  Step back!  You’re about to be impressed…. or it could just be gas.  🙄

1.   Silicone

It’s the name that the Kardashian Family LLC trades under, on the stock exchange.

2.   Fluff

It’s one of the kinder epithets used to describe many of my blogposts.  It’s why I am current President of The Fluffernutter Society.

3.   Loofah

That’s how I greet the arrival of my (much) larger cat, when he launches himself onto my abdomen while I’m taking a nap in my recliner chair.  His mother was a Bengal Cat, but I think his father was a concrete building-block.  😳

4.   Caddy

It’s the car that every MAGA motormouth, owns to Buy American.  It’ll pass anything but a petrol station.  Some of them have tried the new electric version, but can’t find a long-enough extension cord.

5.   Pedantic

It’s a mischievous trick or prank that your child plays on you.

6.   Tangent

He’s a bloke who’s returning from two weeks in the sun in Spain.  Is that Dick Brown?  It should be.  It’s been on the nude beach all week.

7.   Muffler
That’s the new euphemism that the Woke society is using these days.  It sounds so much better than Cancel Culture.  We’re just trying to prevent anyone having their feelings hurt.  They’re like lawnmower parents – mowing down every little obstacle, so that the young never learn how, or build the strength, to deal with adversity.  At least there’ll be lots more upcoming candidates for Fluffernutter President.

8.   Calamity

That was the supposedly haunted house that was in a book and a movie, some years ago – The Calamityville Horror.

9.   Archive

Archive was my Mother.  She named me after herself.  Archon is the male version of the name.

10. Fortify

Time flies like an arrow.  Fruit flies like an over-ripe banana!  It seems like only yesterday, but that’s how old I was 33years ago!

Tell Me If You’ve Heard This One – Ate

And the Word came to me from above – and from below, and from all sides – for the Word was ubiquitous.

Concoct – to prepare or make by combining ingredients, especially in cookery
to devise; make up; contrive; make up
The disturbance and interruption in the interrogation gave the suspect time to concoct an alibi.

Cruciverbalist – a designer, or aficionado of crossword puzzles
A word which describes me to a T, or a tee, or a tea
Even the most skilled cruciverbalist has trouble with the New York Times Sunday Crossword.

Ecocatastrophe – A disaster caused by changes in the environment
Polluting the water, and harming its wildlife, the Gulf oil spill was an ecocatastrophe.

Hippogriff – A fabulous creature resembling a griffin, but having the body and hind parts of a horse
A hippogriff named Bucklebeak features prominently in the Harry Potter series.

Mishpocha – Yiddish; An entire family network comprising relatives by blood and by marriage, and sometimes including close friends; clan
She invited the whole mishpocha to the Seder.

Mukluks – Soft boots worn by the Inuit, often lined with fur and usually made of sealskin or reindeer skin.
Her furry mukluks kept her feet warm during the winter.

Odious – deserving or causing hatred; hateful; detestable.
highly offensive; repugnant; disgusting.
The captured prisoners were given a particularly odious task.

Primogenitor – A first parent or earliest ancestor
A forefather or ancestor
Typewriters are the primogenitors of today’s computers.

Pestiferous – Bringing or bearing disease – pestilential – pernicious; evil
Informal; Mischievous, troublesome or annoying
Carrying salmonella and other diseases, houseflies can be pestiferous guests in your home.

Propine – (verb) To offer as a present
She was shopping for a housewarming gift; something perfect to propine to her new neighbors.

Pulchritudinous – Physically beautiful; comely
She looked pulchritudinous in her elegant ball gown.

Taradiddle – A small lie; a fib; pretentious nonsense
To avoid spoiling the birthday surprise, the mother told her young son a taradiddle.

Tiglon – The offspring of a male tiger and a female lion
Zoo staff were surprised and delighted when the mixed-race feline couple conceived a rare tiglon.
Personally, I’ve never encountered this word.  I’ve only heard of Liger, which, to me, seems to make more sense.

Watershed – An important point of division or transition between two phases, conditions, etc.
The Montgomery bus boycott was a watershed moment in the Civil Rights Movement.

Word is, it’s time for me to move on again.  Just follow the trail of bread cookie crumbs to my next post.

O No – O Not

 

Once upon a time, in olden Greece, there lived two little vowels, almost identical twins.

Recently, I was watching videos…. Perhaps on a site I shouldn’t have been at.  😳

Attention!  Your computer has notified us that it has been infected by a very contagious virus.  You have been locked out so that we can contain it.  Please call the toll-free number listed below so that we can erase it and prevent further infection.  Failure to do so can result in a permanent shutdown, and loss of files and data.

Not that I’ve ever received such a notice.  😉

I watched a young man talking about realizing something about these two Greek vowels.  In English, there is only one letter ‘O,’ but it is pronounced in two ways.  There is the long O, like in the word No, and the short O, like in the word Not.

In Greek, there are two Os – Omega, and Omicron.  He had just become conscious of the fact that – the long O, the big O – was O–mega, and the short O, the small O – was O–micron.  It’s so blindingly obvious…. after someone points it out to you.

He looked so familiar.  Who was this young man taking so much delight to explain such a minuscule linguistic detail about a foreign language, with such fervor?  My old eyes aren’t what they used to be, but I’m pretty sure it was me.

My next post, on the rapid increase of initialisms, will all be in English, despite the fact that there really is no such language.  FYI, LOL, LMAO, ROFL, FWIW, IDK, LY, TTYL.

Book Review #29

Constantly curious about what Theists believe, but more importantly, WHY, I recently took advantage of the offer of three free books of explanation.  One was an actual printed paperback, while the other two were pdf downloads.

The books:
What Time Is Purple?
Answering Atheism
Proof of God

The Authors:
Tom Hammond
A blogger who only identifies as A Bit Of Orange

The reviews:
Nothing new – Same-old, same-old!  They disappointed equally, and to the same degree as all previous similar publications.

The purple book was a tiny, but expensive artifact – thick, glossy cover, only 46 thick, glossy pages, illustrations.  A copy was mailed to me from Maryland, by a blogger who calls himself HillFaith (Good News for Congressional staff).

The author began by inviting us on a journey to discover Truth.  A little reading quickly showed that all he really wanted to do was to find, or fabricate, evidence that somehow made his beliefs and presuppositions appear to be true.  That is not the same thing!

Even his title shows his prejudice.  The very fact that someone could question his unsupported claims was so alien to his vigorously-held, religious worldview, that he found it as strange as asking, “What Time Is Purple?”  Again and again, he would make unfounded statements and claims, and be bewildered that others would not simply accept them.

Bitter Mr. Orange Rind was no different.  His biggest, and constant, complaint/claim was that those rascally Atheists, Agnostics and Dictionaries – would not go along with his definitions and descriptions, so that he could blow those strawmen away.  He wanted to know what the number 5 smelled like.  They must all read from the same script/prayer book.  From his own, homemade, definitions, he fabricates claims about Atheists like, “Also, most of them manage to confuse Islam with Catholicism and attack the one with descriptions of the other.”

Like a short row of dominoes, he set up six, sequential premises to prove God.  Premise 1: God must exist by necessity – therefore premise 2 – therefore premise 3 – therefore premise 4 – therefore premise 5 – therefore God exists.  If you begin your circular argument with an unfounded claim that God exists, of course you’ll end up with that as an unsupported conclusion.

If you start with the assumption that Hillary Clinton is running a child sex-trafficking ring out of the basement of a cheap pizza joint, of course you’ll prove that it’s tr….  Oh, wait.  That one could be investigated, and was proved false.  When I ran into Nietzsche, Adolph Hitler, Hillary Clinton, Democrats, and Atheists, all in the same sentence, I was sure of who and what he was.  He apparently named his Bible-thumping blog-site after his favorite superhero.

He wanted Atheists to admit that they couldn’t be absolutely, positively, 100% sure that no God exists, so that he could stick the thin edge of his Christian arguments in.  I find the likelihood of God/gods to be slightly less than the existence of a square circle, owned by a polygamous bachelor.  If he can produce one of those, I will help him locate and present his God.

He kept making blanket claims that, (All) Atheists say this, Atheists believe that, Atheists claim….  While some – a few confused, uneducated Atheists make unsupported statements, I have never, personally, encountered any Atheist who said what he implies that ALL Atheists do.  He writes that, By necessity, Atheists must be Nihilists, but when observed reality clearly contradicts his view, he merely inverts his claim, and insists that Atheists do not really exist.

My Dad told me the tale of the Ginchee Bird, which flies around in ever-decreasing circles, until it disappears up its own ass.  I wish some of these Apologists would disappear up their own asses.  They pull out enough shit.  There should be room.  Ah well, it was cheap entertainment.  All I learned was that they were both charter members of the Lying For Jesus Movement.

If they worked half as hard at proving their claims to be true, as they do to try to prove others wrong, they might not be quite so desperate, but my past history has shown that that result seems to be impossible. I think they know that, and don’t want to admit it – but that’s the same argument they use against Atheists.  Damn the counter-arguments!  Full assumption ahead.  😳

’22 A To Z Challenge – U

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What word or phrase – beginning with the letter U – will I choose as a theme, this time?

As the singer, Tom Jones says, It’s Not Unusual.  But then, can you really trust a man who was willing to lop off his last name, to take advantage of a movie presentation of an old, smutty novel, to help kick-start his career??  😕

Words in the dictionary, beginning with the letters X, Y, or Z, are not terribly plentiful.  Words beginning with U, seem a bit more abundant – until you realize that most of them are un-something – the negatives of a bunch of positive words.

I am willing – I positively revel – to be G.O.D. – the Grumpy Old Dude blogger, grumbling about this and that.  But I don’t want the entire, overarching theme of my website, to be negative.  I don’t mind bitching about certain foibles of society, but overall, I want it to be

UPBEAT

A musical term which has come to mean; optimistic, cheerful, happy

I am positive that Donald Trump, and many other politicians, are total, and complete ASSHOLES!  Perhaps we should try to choose political leaders who are UN-assholes….  Are there any??!  😳  Maybe we could issue a UKASE – edict, order, directive, ruling, decree, fiat, proclamation, that no assholes are allowed.  Now that would be positive!

On my way out, I’d like to introduce you to my new, non-sequitur pet, an

URUBU

A Portuguese, vulture-like turkey buzzard.  Handsome little devil, isn’t he??!  😉