Category Archives: Language

Family, Humor, Language, Personal

FU Mom, With Love

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FU Mom, With Love

Periodically, I have to remind everyone that I am an expert curser. I know my angelic appearance apparently indicates that I’m not. Don’t let my amateur bowler looks fool you.

I grew up with world-class cursers. If Merriam-Webster had published a compendium of cursing, both of my parents would have been mentioned in the preface.

Dad loved paying anyone young enough and stupid enough to approach another family member and quote whatever curse word he was currently tickled with. I’ve mentioned before what his favorite was. If you’ve watched the TV show Deadwood, Mr Wu spoke almost exclusively using this word.

(If you haven’t watched Deadwood, you’re missing out on the juxtaposition of Shakespearean turn of phrase and sailor-worthy cursing.)

My mom could and would curse at the most inappropriate times and sometimes at maximum volume. Attempting to get her to stop was the equivalent of pouring gasoline on a forest fire in hopes that it would go out. Even though I shouldn’t recall some of it so glowingly, a lot of my good memories of her were referring to people as a son of a bitch at the drop of a hat. You could almost feel the demons being summoned when she pulled out the MOFOof.

Studies have shown that people who curse tend to be happier than those who don’t. The corollary to this is that most non-cursers tend to be unhappier precisely because of all the cursers around them.

I pity anyone who gave up cursing for Lent. If cursing were represented in real life as they are in comics, the air around me would be filled with “@#!@#$” while I watch or read the news.

P.S. I created the video using AI. Had it REALLY been my mom, no one would dare be closer enough to her if she were rant-cursing. I’m convinced her aura was powerful enough to negate a modern MRI. Now that she’s memories, I love remembering how epic her rants could be. She was a Pat Conroy in the world or creative cursing.

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English, Grammar, Language, Social Rules

Wrong

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“Ye Olde”

I love that language is messed up. The title of this post is a great example of people openly and mistakenly mispronouncing words. This one is based on the consequences of early printing presses originating from Germany. It’s never been pronounced with a ‘y.’ Mispronounced, though? Yes. Our language had more letters and one of them was the TH symbol which was spelled like a b with a line down the bottom of the left side. Having no easy way to represent the symbol, printers opted to use a’y’ to represent the letter that didn’t exist on their printing presses. And because language is formulated to allow us to decipher visual symbols into ideas and sounds, of course people pronounced it incorrectly.

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English, Grammar, Language, Opinion, Social Rules, Writing

Freely Erroneous

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I l-o-v-e hearing words mispronounced. It is usually a sign that someone has learned a word from reading it. I devised this couplet to remind people to encourage language and vocabulary instead of mocking it. English “rules” are arbitrary and devised with no rhyme or reason. We owe it to the stupidity of our language to mess with every aspect of it. Think about the magic of language. We translate little squiggles into ideas in our heads. And then we argue how the imaginary and arbitrary symbols are supposed to look or sound. As I age, my tolerance for supercilious and snarky attitudes has plummeted. Say it wrong. Spell it wrong. This language belongs to all of us. All the rules we claim will one day be meaningless. Since I speak and read more than one language, I am comfortable and fearless in navigating all the errors I make when communicating. Most people are nervous when speaking or writing. There’s no reason to be. No matter how careful you are, you’ll sound or seem a bit ignorant to someone, somewhere. You have permission to break the language. If you run into someone who is a bit of a wet blanket about your right to do so, look them in the eye and say, “I’d like an eXpresso.” And prance away. 

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Education, Language, Opinion, Social Rules

Knowledge

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Observation

If you ask the average adult in what month the Earth is closest to the sun, you’ll be surprised by how many people don’t know. If you push them to guess, they’ll likely cite a summer month.

While I truly believe that scientific vocabulary and the inane insistence that we memorize such terms is foolish, the fancy-pants term for the closest point to our sun is the perihelion. And it occurs in early January. We’re the furthest from the sun six months later, in early June. That point, too, has a fancy name derived from old languages. If you want people to remember it, why not “farpoint?”

The seasonal changes are caused by the tilt of our planet.

I think it is much more valuable to understand the concepts without the need to know the scientific terms we’ve assigned. It is more valuable educationally to understand the concepts than to identify the bottle of words we use to label knowledge.

Failing to understand such basic concepts as the ones I’ve cited lead people to incorrectly believe they understand climate, weather, and other phenomenon in our world.

This same observation applies to multiple things in our world and society. Minimal understanding often gets expressed as certainty regarding fallacious ideas and concepts.

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Language, Lemon Moment, Personal

You Say Goodbye And I Say Hello

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I sat in my little blue car as the rain pounded the roof. I wasn’t waiting on the rain to subside. I was writing my little anecdote about the family bicycling in the rain. When I finished, I exited the car and went into the store to buy some empty calories. Preferably something hotter than the surface of the sun. I paid and then stepped to the side to use the lottery ticket checker. Obviously, I did not win, or this post would be markedly different. The clerk and I exchanged pithy commentary about language. Because that’s what people do, right? This clerk in particular, who I’ll call MacKenzie (because that’s his name), commented about the French language. And then we digressed, as is our custom. I told him that the Marshallese language was one of those interesting languages wherein you could use the same word for “hello” as “goodbye.” And I pronounced it for him: “Yokwe.” He repeated it perfectly but then gave me the look that indicated he thought I MIGHT be pulling his leg. Which is also customary. He’s one of those people whose job definitely doesn’t match his intelligence. As we quickly jumped to another related subject, a customer approached. I saw him obliquely and assumed he was Latino due to the pronounced mustache. Having finished checking my lottery ticket, I said, “Yokwe” to the clerk as a goodbye. The allegedly Latino customer looked quickly at me and repeated the word. “Are you Marshallese?” I asked him as he smiled. He nodded. I told the clerk, “See!? I wasn’t pulling your leg.” We laughed. I went out to my car, and as I turned to get in, I saw that the Marshallese gentleman was at his car and looking in my direction. I waved and got in. Since I was ravenous, I tore the bag open and dumped about half of the fiery contents in my mouth. A car honked behind me, and as I looked in my mirrors, I saw that the Marshallese man was passing behind me and waving again. I’m certain that he was tickled that his language was being used and talked about. The encounter was a surprise of coincidence and rapid-fire wit. And we inadvertently made someone happier because of it.

Love, X
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English, Erika Saboe, Grammar, Language, New Word, Opinion, Writing

E c s t a p h o b i a

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Noun: A word that describes the feeling that something is about to go miraculously well or so terribly wrong that it might scar you forever.

You can’t step away from the moment, nor would you want to.

Whatever happens, you know it is inevitable, necessary, and life-changing.

You’ll either be fulfilled or left vacantly discontented.

There are words that approximate the feeling, but none capture the personal essence of that infinite certainty that what is about to happen will be a liquid miracle or massive catastrophe. A liquid miracle is one that seeps into everything in your life and finds its way into everything about you: love, an epiphany, the motivation to suddenly just “do” the thing that you couldn’t do before.

The risk of love, the birth of a child, surgery, or the moment when all your reasoning collapses and your course of action becomes a decision rendered as involuntary action and certainty. It is a surrender to the idea that you don’t have control of the outcome.

You’ll be changed forever.

You want it and fear it.

Because our language is entirely invented and arbitrary, I have as much ability to create new words as anyone. Words are what we say they are, just as love and happiness are. I’ve always been fascinated by words and language – and especially the absence of any controlling factor to create and use them. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows made me realize just how ridiculous our defense of grammar and etymology is. I will put a link in the comments to a TED talk by the creator of that fascinating idea.

PS If you find yourself in a crux moment, one in which life will either reward or bash you for having the audacity, please remember that you might as well fall or jump into the opportunity. Ask.

“Life is exactly like wanting to go for a ride and jumping on a bicycle with square wheels.” – X

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https://www.youtube.com/c/obscuresorrows

Book, Grammar, Language, Review / Critique

Things You Probably Didn’t Know – Dr. Seuss

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Think of the name “Dr. Seuss.” Pronounce it in your head.

You’re wrong. Almost everyone pronounces it wrong.

He took the pseudonym from his mother’s maiden name.

All his close friends and family pronounced it to rhyme with “Joyce” or “Zoice.” If you are saying it like “Soose” or to rhyme with “Zeus,” you’re wrong.

There are multiple reasons why Dr. Seuss went along with the mispronunciation. You can look it up if you’re interested.

You’ll also discover the heart-breaking suicide of his first wife. She knew that Dr. Seuss was having an affair with one of her best friends, while significant health problems were affecting her.

Not that I ever get writer’s block, but he’d sit in a room of hats and try one on to stimulate his creativity.

Depending on whom you ask, he might have coined the word “Nerd” in his book, “If I Ran To The Zoo.” That book is no longer printed, among several others, for reasons based on perceived prejudice. He also wrote and illustrated a book for adults about seven naked ladies.

“Green Eggs And Ham” was written on a dare that he couldn’t write a book with fewer than fifty words.

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Fayetteville, Language, Lemon Moment, Personal

Sabah Kind Of Morning

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I talked to an Arabic clerk at an inconvenience store very early this morning. He works at one that has a history of trouble. Of course, that’s true of many such stores when the sun has set. When I entered, he was busy mopping the floor. Don’t worry, it wasn’t blood he was cleaning. I assume. There wasn’t a chalk outline on the floor at least. (Although if I owned the place I’d put one there as a prank.)

He asked me if I was possibly Arabic. Surprisingly, we looked a lot alike.

We started discussing languages and he became very animated. He lit up because he could see how fascinating I found the conversation.

I don’t know many Arabic words but he was tickled that I already knew about some of the guttural sounds required to speak it fluently. I confessed that despite speaking Spanish, I still had trouble pronouncing the rolling “rr” letter in Spanish. He trilled it like a songbird! He took a moment to have me say “Good morning” in Arabic: “sabah alkhayr.” I like that they say “morning good,” which is odd for English speakers but normal for many other languages. I already knew that one, but my pronunciation sounded like a drunken sailor. Yes, I speak drunken sailor, all thanks to my dad Bobby Dean.

I don’t list it on my résumé though. For some reason, it doesn’t impress anyone; I find that odd, given that most managers seem to be alien and well-practiced at indistinct communication.

As I left, just for fun, I shouted “Au revoir!”

“Auf Widersehen,” he replied. We both laughed.

In another life, I know that I would speak ten languages. I wouldn’t speak any of them well and that’s okay. Enthusiasm is enough. Remember that if you’re on the journey to learn a new one. We all have beginner’s minds, even if we are 55.

Love, X
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