That Makes a Lot of Cents

Kroger has a commercial out now about how, if you buy their milk, you can get ten cents off per gallon when you buy their gas. The woman in the commercial says, "at today's high gas prices, ten cents a gallon really adds up."

That is a statement worthy of Yogi Berra.

And, though it may be a total non-sequiter, you can't deny the truth of it. I think that when raises come around at work, I'm going to propose that everyone gets 10 cents an hour more, across the board. When my boss objects, I will say, "At your salary level, 10 cents an hour really adds up." He's probably too dumb to realize that it adds up the same no matter whose salary we're talking about.

Of course it adds up! That's what number do! And they add up regardless of the price of gas. The additive property of numbers doesn't change with the economy. 10 cents a gallon will still be 10 + 10 + 10 and so on, even if gas prices drop. What's more, it would be a better deal at a lower price of gas. If gas is $2.50/gallon, a dime gives you a 4% savings, whereas, at $1/gallon, you would be getting 10% off.

If the woman said, "at today's prices, 10 cents a gallon is marginally less in savings," it wouldn't sell much gas, but I'd be more impressed with the advertisers.

When JohnnyB Comes Marching Out of the Closet

*It's 1863. Irish-American bandleader Patrick Gilmore is seated at a writing desk in his parlor. Hillary Duff enters the room.
DUFF: Writing another song, Patty?
PATRICK: For sure. I ripped off this tune called "Johnny Fill Up The Bowl" from some stoner and I'm writing a nice Civil War ditty called "When Johnny Comes Marching Home".
DUFF: Let me see the lyrics. "Oh the men will cheer and the boys will shout. And we'll all feel gay"? That's insulting. Think B4 you write.
PATRICK: "B4"? What a queer thing to say. Oh WTF, I'll just use the name Louis Lambert and no one will know it was me, except my life partner, Johnny.

*Today I pulled a t-shirt out of my closet that I got at Tall Stacks in Cincinnati (the Queen City of the West) a few years ago. We had taken a riverboat cruise and saw a dinner show on the boat. I bought the t-shirt as a souvenir. So I came out of the closet today wearing my shirt that says "Creole Queen" across the front. Mocha-choco-lata-ya-ya.

*Last year, three of my friends at work and I all became shareholders, or "principals" in the firm we work for. Though the business entity we work for is a corporation, not a partnership, we still call each other partners, because it's just easier. When I introduce Mike, I say, "this is my partner Mike.....I mean, we're business partners."

If my friend Bill was still writing, he would tell all about how words evolve and "gay" and "queer" and "queen" and even "partner" take on new meanings.

I was thinking about all that when I came out of the closet with my Creole Queen t-shirt on and I had an epiphany, which, I hope to God, has only either a religious connotation or means a "sudden insight". My epiphany was to finally realize what the opponents of same sex marriage are talking about when they say that it will destroy marriage. As they say, marriage "is defined as between a man and a woman" If same-sex marriages proliferate, "marriage" will become another euphemism for gay - er, queer - I mean, homosexual, and cause confusion. The anti-same-sex people are just all about language purity. It's words they care about.

I don't believe that you can stop the evolution of language or the changing mores of society. The understanding of the word "married" is already in doubt. When I introduce Mike, I say, "this is my partner Mike.....I mean, we're business partners. We're married." Then I have to explain THAT. "I mean, he's married...to a woman. And I'm married...to a woman - not the same woman."

So just relax, light up a fag, grab some fruit and we'll all be gay.

You Feelin' Me, Bro'?

I am not now, nor have I ever been, cool. I was never in with the in crowd, part of the scene, or remotely in synch with “what’s happenin’ now”.

For example: When I was a teenager, bell bottoms and flares were popular fashion items. We were the Woodstock Generation. It was Cool Times in America. However, those bell bottoms were way beyond my cool status level. But I did wear flares. I assume everyone knows what these items are, but, for an in depth discussion, click here. The short definition of the style is “Trousers with legs that flare at the bottom.”

Cool people wear bell-bottom or flared jeans or cords or even “pants”. Cool people do not wear “trousers”. But I did. I had “Trousers with legs that flare at the bottom.” What’s more, I was a tall, skinny child and the flared bottoms of my trousers were just above my ankles. Not dragging the ground, becoming fashionably frayed at the hem. No, my flared trouser legs flapped at my ankles, giving the cool folk a great view of my white socks and my Hush Puppies. I was not cool.

Having been around back then, I have now aged beyond hope of being cool. My daughter, who is cool, tells me that I get cool points for having done stand up in actual theaters and comedy clubs (strictly amateur). But those few points are apparently a mere drop in the cool bucket. If I accidentally say anything that sounds like I am trying to be cool (or “hip” or “hep” or “the shizzle” or whatever the kids these days are saying) she wall warn me “Dad. No. Don’t ever say that again.”

So I don’t try to use current slang (or “lingo”, or “street”, or “text-speak” or whatever the kids these days are saying). I speak, white, mid-western English, which is no better or worse than anything else, it’s just the language of my people: The Uncool. That’s not to say that a manner of speaking is limited to a given region, age or ethnic group, but we characterize certain ways of talking with such groups. Certain expressions are associated with white culture, some with brown and some as black culture. Cool people can cross over cultures, but uncool people who try that are what we commonly refer to as “dorks” (or “nerds”, or “fools”, or “dweebs” or whatever the kids these days are saying).

I told you all that to tell you this:
You know how certain expressions are automatic? You pick up the phone in the U.S and you say “Hello.” You don’t try to be Chinese and say “Ni hao,” unless you are from that culture. Likewise, at the end of a discussion about some conflict, some people would say “Are we okay now?” and some would say “We good?”, depending on culture. Again, you don’t think about what words to say, it’s automatic based on who you are and the way you learned to speak.

Last weekend an African-American man was explaining to me the service he was providing on the trees at our house. When he was done, he said “alright”, signaling, “Alright, I’m ready to get started,” and I said, “a’ight”.

What? (or “Say what?” or “WTF?” Or “Huh?” Or whatever the kids these days are saying). I could have said “alrighty, then” or “okey-dokey” and not thought I sounded any more uncool. ”A’ight” just came out of my mouth, leaving me wondering who had said it, while the black guy was saying “alright”. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but it made me feel like I was Gene Wilder in "Silver Streak" ("Get down! Feelin' fine!"). For sure! (or “tru’ dat”, or “right on”, “I heard that” or whatever these kids today are saying).

"A'ight"? Seriously?

As my daughter would say, “Dad. No. Don't ever say that again.” To which I would instinctively reply, “A’ight. We cool.”

(Don’t forget to go to Humor Bloggers dot com, read all the “Funniest Post Ever!” contest entries and then vote for “What Chinese New Year means to Me” because it is the best one. A’ight?)

You Lost Me There

"Ala. policeman feared missing arrested in Vegas"
"Feared" missing? You might be "feared dead", but we know you are missing; the definition of missing is "not able to be found". Would you now say, "I know where he is, I fear he might not be missing"? Drop the "feared" and you have room to spell out the state "Missing Alabama Policeman Arrested In Las Vegas", which is even better because you've missed the confusing adverb-adjective-verb combo "feared missing arrested" mess in there.
So what I really liked about all this was the sentence used to illustrate the second definition of "missing":
"lacking: nonexistent; 'the thumb is absent'." What? Who says a sentence like "the thumb is absent"? And, really, the word you are supposed to be illustrating is "missing", not absent. I fear the logic is absent, not there, lacking, um, what's the word I want?

Please go to Humorbloggers and rate my blog with lots of stars and write a review if you wish.

Re-gifting

I just realized that I forgot something I wanted to write about. When Allie (the 19-year-old psych major) was here last week, we were listening to holiday music and "It's the most Wonderful Time of the Year" came on. When Andy Williams sang about "...scary ghost stories and tales of the glories..." I asked, "Who tells ghost stories at Christmas?" As soon as Allie said, "I always wonder that too," it came to me. "Oh, 'A Christmas Carol' - Scrooge is visited by ghosts." To which Allie said, "After 50 years of hearing that song, you just had that epiphany?"
First off, my dear, that song hasn't been around 50 years, it just seems like it when you hear it 2000 times every November and December. Regardless, it struck me that "epiphany" was the perfect word to describe a revelation at Christmas time and perfectly fitting to the theme of "A Christmas Carol". What I said, though, was, "I guess I never really tried to figure it out"; to which she replied, "Okay, I just thought people at your age didn't have any more epiphanies.
Oh, that's right - a sudden insight into a harsh reality from my daughter: You get a little bit over 50 and there are no more intuitive perceptions. You'd better have everything figured out by 49 because after that, everything is perceived according to stock footage of life in your brain.
I'd never realized life would be like that until she told me - but I just smiled because it did occur to me suddenly at some point that you can't argue with a 19-year-old.

Under Rated

What is the movie ratings system hang up with “language”. I watched a movie yesterday that was rated PG because it had “some language” (“some language” is not as bad as “language”, which might have earned it an R rating).
Every other movie element that we desire has a more descriptive term or at least some modifier to tell you what great stuff you will find. They don’t say “rated R for action, situations, use, bodies and language.” They list violent action, sexual situations, drug use, nudity and language. Yes, they occasionally modify the last one as some language.
I wonder in what sense they mean “some”. In the movie I saw, two people spoke a few lines of French; possibly the ratings board was unsure what language that was (“just some weird language or other”) or they just meant it was only a few lines (“just some foreign words, not enough to be annoying”).
Why not just use “profanity”, “obscene language”, “dirty frickin’ words” or something like that? The people who came up with that non-descriptive term are rated L7 for "some vocabulary".

Maybe Dickens Should Have Put a Disclaimer on "Great Expectations"

I have some investments sitting at Morgan Stanley. Well, presently they are not sitting, they are doing jumping jacks, but that’s not my point. Today I received a press release from them (from Morgan Stanley, not from my stocks), announcing that Mitsubishi-UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) had “closed on a $9 billion dollar equity investment in Morgan Stanley (MS)”. Is “$9 billion dollar equity investment” a euphemism for “bailout”?
The press release summarizes the major elements of the deal and goes on to say how great it will be working together (a) to keep the doors open and (2) “to enhance their global footprints”. Personally, I’m tired of hearing about carbon footprints and global footprints and would much rather think about the actual footprints I will make in the sand when I go on the vacation that I now can’t afford because the world’s financial giants have crushed my savings with the prints of their calloused and smelly feet beset by toe jam. But I digress.
At the end of the press release there is a disclaimer:
“Cautionary Statements Concerning Forward-Looking Information
This press release contains forward-looking statements such as ‘expects,’ ‘looking forward’ and other similar words regarding the current expectations of MUFG. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance or events and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those described in such forward looking statements as a result of various factors. MUFG does not undertake any obligation to update the forward-looking statements contained herein, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements.”
Those weasely MU FGers sure don’t want you to develop any actual expectations from what they “expect”. I read back through the release and the only words of that nature I could find were these: MUFG’s President and Chief Executive Officer, said, “We are now looking forward to working with Morgan Stanley.” However, we actually might not be; who can say? Their disclaimer was longer than their promise.
The head of Morgan Stanley made far more definite statements, such as: “Today’s investment…will help us realize opportunities created by the continuing dislocation in the financial markets.” We will crush the weak and sick financial institutions. Since he didn’t say they “expect” to or “look forward” to, I assume they will actually do that.
Related blogs:
The "blog" of “unnecessary” quotation marks
Bill Brohaugh’s comments on euphemisms
PurpAnd’s various comments on investments (three separate entries – read them all). PurpAnd’s author is the husband of a friend of my sister’s daughter, so I think we are related. I “expect” to and “look forward” to meeting him someday.

Wanted Dead or LIVE!

This is a sad story. I, in no way, want to make light of someone being killed, even if he was a politician.
What drew my attention to the story was a link that said "Arkansas Democratic Leader Shot Dead." "Shot dead" always sounds odd to me, possibly because I am the sort of geek who can slide right past the human tragedy and become obsessed the vagaries of English. If he had not died, there is no parallel construction to describe his condition: one can be shot dead or shot to death but never shot wounded or shot to woundedness. One can be shot and live to tell about it but one can not be shot live. Unless one is a reporter.
Reporters are constantly being shot LIVE! It bothers me when a reporter says, "So, Jim, thousands of people are dead as a result of this disaster and many more are missing and presumed dead. I'm E. Norma Stouchbag, LIVE, on the scene with Channel 1 News." To me, that has the same mocking tone as "I ha-ave ice cream and you-oo do-on't." It's "I-i'm ali-ive and you-oo are-en't."
What's the big deal about being LIVE, anyway? Maybe back in the day, when sending moving pictures through the air to a TV studio and broadcasting them through a TV box was akin to getting a competent leader to run for President (i.e. nearly impossible) it was worth promoting. But now when everything is broadcast LIVE, even when the reporter is standing in front of an empty building in the dark after whatever stuff that went down, already went down hours ago, it seems superfluous at best to announce it every stinking time.
Maybe every time a reporter says that from now on, they ought to shot to injury.

Follow the footprints to Humor-Blogs.com and vote for my entries.

No Pun Intended

If you look at some of the blogs that I have links to, you might think that I like words. My sister does too. She reminded me about our family’s oft repeated line, “What’s that up the road, a head?” which never failed to amuse us. In our family you could do that – for one, you could use phrases like “oft repeated” – and you could reuse a word related joke or, dare I say it, a pun over and over. If I told my mother I was going to get a haircut, she would say, “Why don’t you get them all cut?” She would say it every time. It was her “Freebird”, her “Who’s On First”; she had to say it - and I waited to hear it.
Now that I’m the parent, with a routine full of witty wordplay, my daughter, who is otherwise very intelligent and well-educated, does not like puns and would surely never tolerate serial punning. (“Yes I would, and don’t call me Shirley” – sorry, had to say it.) If my wife asks me to “put strawberry jam on the grocery list,” I want to say “But that will make the list sticky.” I want to say that every time. When I was a kid I would have; now I bite my tongue. I don’t even say it the first time because that is just asking for abuse.
Puns are like mathematics: people claim to hate them and then use them without realizing it. I had a friend in college who hated puns, but told this joke: “There are three guys. One is running into a room, one is in the room, in bed with a woman, and one guy is running out of the room. What nationality are the men? --- The guy running in, him Russian. The guy in bed, Himalayan, the guy running out, him Finnish.” So, forget whether “Himalayan” is a nationality, that joke is funny (to me) and it is all puns. If you are making genital-related jokes about George “Bush” and “Dick” Cheney, those are puns. I know, “and Barack Obama is half Caucasian but no one is going to call him whitey”. And no one is going to say my puns are funny if they are not grounded in sex or crude humor.
Which gives me an idea: A new service that is like phone sex - but with puns. For example, you might call up and a woman answers:
“Hello, this is Anita.”
“Anita who?”
“Anita Betterjob.”
“Anita, did you hear about the woman who is suing Victoria’s Secret because she was injured by a thong?”
“No. Is she okay?”
“Well, she got rid of the underwear, of course, but the scar hasn’t healed. So, the thong is ended, but the malady lingers on.”
And Anita would laugh. Every time.

Go to Humor-Blogs.com, register and vote for Late for the Sky entries.

Words Are In Style (and a contest?)

If you like words, your friends have undoubtedly received a certain email from several friends repeatedly over the years. It starts out with "Each year the Washington Post asks its readers to take a word from the English language and by adding, removing or changing only one letter create a new word..". Oddly enough, the same words win every year. (click here for the longest list I found.) The Washington Post does indeed have writing contests and undoubtedly had this one at some point, but they don't do it every year. People are better at creating emails and urban myths than at creating new words. The Post still has writing contests in their weekly "Style Invitational". The current contest asks you to "Translate a sentence or two of literature or other good writing so that "Los Angeles residents under 40" can appreciate it." You have to read the contest to see why they ask that. (You have to register to read the Wash. Post online, but it's free and easy).
I know the Bills (Brohaugh and my dad) and Susan (word whores all) will be right on this.
My first entry is already in, so I can reveal a bit of it here. I took "A Tale of Two Cities": It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair . . ." becomes "Times were good, the LA Times sucked....we thought the Dodgers could win, we knew they'd be out of the playoffs".
When you are done entering that contest I have one for you here. I invite all 5 of my readers to take a word from the English language and by adding, removing or changing only one letter create a new word and define it. I would add a space to "contest" to make it "con test", an email or a blogger contest that you can't decide whether is real or fake. The winner of my contest gets a copy of Everything You Know About English Is Wrong.

Humor-Blogs.com are winners.

He's Got the Hole World In His Hands

Iowa has corn, Cincinnati has cornhole. The cornhole is big around here, which is why the MOVIE centers around a national championship tournament held in Cincinnati. This movie is sure to be every bit as good as Dodgeball or The Waterboy. The website is a treasure trove of grammar errors, which may be intentional to make it look trashy. There is the one-line summary: "'Cornhole: The Movie' follows four teams as they make there way to the National Cornhole Championship in Cincinnati, Ohio.", this line in the psuedo history: "the Kipling’s would parish of starvation that very winter." and a few tortured sentence constructions you can find for yourself.
My neighbor, the one with the kegerator, has a cornhole set (two boards and the corn bags) and I have spent a few pleasant, humid, mosquito-infested evenings tossing sacks with him and our other neighbors. We live in Blue Ash, just North and East of Cincinnati, but, sometimes when the bags are flying and the beer is flowing, you might think you were lost on the West Side.

cornhole = her colon
Cornhole the Movie = cheer hot moon evil

Mutual Admiration society

The brilliant Bill Brohaugh has critiqued and even recommended this very blog - and he doesn't even like blogs.
Seeing this language expert's links to some of my posts made me go back and check them over carefully. I had to hurriedly kick a couple errors under the bed and toss a few typos in the guestroom, behind closed doors, in the same way as I tidy my house when visitors are coming.
If you are one of those visitors and you also like this blog, please click here and add a vote for me.

Read Bill Brohaugh = bad, horrible laugh = rabbi laugh holder

I Am a Child

The movie "Animal House" premiered in 1978 and a year or so later was on TV. The TV showing was preceded by this caution: "The following program is intended for mature audiences only" (this was before the TV ratings system, boys and girls, so we had no alphabetic clue if we were being protected from violence, or sexual content or badly-overdubbed forbidden words). Now, I had seen Animal House in the theater and, the way I remembered it, it appealed more to immature audiences: those of us who could watch a man imitate a zit by spitting mashed potatoes on a prissy sorority girl and understand the humor in that.
The network people who attached the "mature audience" warning to the movie were using definition 8 of "mature": "composed of adults, considered as being less susceptible to (less able to be affected emotionally by) explicit sexual content, violence, or obscene language, as of a film or stage performance." By that definition, mature people would not laugh at a horse being shot to death in a college dean's office. I, however, thought it was hilarious (even though I was technically a 20-something-year-old adult).
So what did they really mean? They meant the movie was intended for sophmoric, crude, puerile people over 18, because we want to hide those traits fom those under 18, in whom we might still be able to repress them by means of forced church atendance, restrictive, modest, "appropriate" clothing and personal hygiene classes in public schools. Our hope was that by keeping young people from movies like "Animal House" we could raise a generation of adults who could hear the word "penis" and not giggle. Judging by movies today, our efforts weren't worth shit (**immature crowd reacts wildly to last word**).
Over at Humor Blogs, my blog is shown with a haloed smiley face, meaning "This site generally does not contain 'mature' content". Mature is appropriately in quotation marks because they just mean there are no boobies or bloody bodies or bad words. They don't mean that mature discussions of politics and language faux pas appeal to the same mature audience as "American Pie", "Jackass" or "Porky's". I think they mean my posts are not "3. fully developed" or "5. completed, perfected." I contend that my writing is mature in that it has "6.little or no potential for further growth."

"mature content" = "a ten ton rectum"

Once you've Read the Book, Is That Still True?

My friend Bill has written another book: "Everything You Know About English is Wrong".. The best thing about this one is that I am included among the smelly characters to whom it is dedicated. The rest of the book is fantastic. Buy it! Read it! (In that order). But save the dedication for last because....well, what I said before. Oh, and visit his blah blathering blabber.

Well, a "White" Guy Was co-author of "Elements of Style"

"Without a doubt, the rule system that white people love the most is grammar." That's pretty much the only rule system this maverick white boy likes. As you read the article, it seems that the author has taken a mocking tone, as if obsession with grammar rules was somehow strange. Does not everyone experience a knife-in-the-gut feeling when someone says "He gave it to Timmy and I." That gives I major indigestion! And, yes, "if (I) were to catch a mistake in The New Yorker, it would be a sufficient reason for a large party."
But grammar hawking can save your life.

Made You Look

Today I saw this sentence in a headline link to a crime story: "One day, she was unresponsive to her boyfriend’s text messages, which was then followed by a grueling discovery." She was found in the middle of her apartment living room, so the discovery was more gruesome than grueling. I shouldn't be so critical of language errors made by people trained and paid to use words correctly. After all, people who are trained and paid to use meat slicers often have fewer than ten fingers. People trained and paid to run a war occassionally declare victory prematurely and even get into wars based on lies erroneous intelligence.
See, not all "errors" are unintentional, including language errors. Most of us have seen or heard criticism of the redundant "free gift" offer made in various promotions. My friends, Mr. Barnes and Mr. Noble emailed me today to offer me a free gift if I get one of their credit cards. (We're very close friends; they email me every week about what they are up to at work. I email them back about what I'm doing that week also.) There is a high level of "freeness" associated with the word "gift" (see def. #2). The alert level of freeness in gift is, in fact, at red. Everyone knows that, including Messers. Barnes and Noble. They also know that if they offer me a "gift", I will subconciously know it's a euphemism for "not a gift". So companies tack on the word "free' because it still has the Pavlovian power to make us salivate, or at least read their offers ("Made you look, made you look, made you buy an on-sale book!"). I believe, though, that that word "free" is losing its effect. Soon they will have to offer a complimentary free gift, then a gratuitous complimentary free gift.
Words and sentence structure impart messages to us. "Free gift! We'll give you a travel mug when you sign up for B&N credit card!" says "Look! Pretty! Shiny! Travel mug! Can hold COFFEE. Don't look at the nasty, evil credit card; look at the shiny object! You want it." Why don't they change the ad to say, "We'll give you a pretty, smooth, plastic card if you take one of these old travel mugs off our hands." Make it seem like a status symbol, the way American Express does. People PAY to have an AMEX card. No free gifts for them. People with AMEX cards can buy their own gifts.
(By the way, I know "freeness" is not a word. I sometimes intentionally misuse language. You should assume that any language, grammar or spelling errors you see in this blog are intentional.)

Who Said

UPDATE: MSNBC has fixed the error I refer to in this entry) "It didn’t take long for Miley Cyrus fans (and their parents) to become outraged." I don't blame them; it is was shocking. (The article did say) "according to a magazine source, 'Cyrus felt that she was in imminently good hands.'" It is terrible when people are irresponsible and let you down. I can't believe that everyone involved just let this happen. They saw the phrase "Cyrus felt that she was in imminently good hands." and just let it slide. She felt she was in hands that were in immediate danger of being good? (as opposed to being in eminently good hands). (This entire post is was in imminent danger of someone editing the online story before you link(ed) to it, making a moo point of my comments.)
I don't know if the (imminent/eminent) error was made by the quoted Vanity Fair source or by the Scoop reporter who wrote down what she thought she heard. It doesn't matter; Miley Cyrus has been irreperably damaged.
And we can't blame Miley for her part in this. Sure, she did say “I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about.” when she clearly should have said "whom I care so deeply about." It's not Miley's fault; she is caught up in a world where grammar doesn't matter and language abuse is commonplace. And, of course, she's not to blame for failing to realize she was posing for sexy pictures. These days nothing is real until it appears in video or until it shows up in pictures in Vanity Fair or on myspacefacebookpage.