Sometimes I place my eyeglasses on his tusks. Often I put my little black pillow on his back. That's the pillow I put under my chin to keep my jaw from dropping open while I doze in my recliner. (If I open my mouth while sleeping, I snore.) He is both a decorative and useful beast of burden.
Friday, September 30, 2005
And the winner is . . .
Nobody. Only two guessers and neither one hit the mark, although the comment about walrus tusks was the closest miss. Several years ago I bought Cat a big elephant for Christmas. Since she has been collecting elephants for quite some time, it seemed appropriate. She was less than thrilled. So the nearly three-foot-tall, leather-covered pachiderm stands in my study.
Sometimes I place my eyeglasses on his tusks. Often I put my little black pillow on his back. That's the pillow I put under my chin to keep my jaw from dropping open while I doze in my recliner. (If I open my mouth while sleeping, I snore.) He is both a decorative and useful beast of burden.
Sometimes I place my eyeglasses on his tusks. Often I put my little black pillow on his back. That's the pillow I put under my chin to keep my jaw from dropping open while I doze in my recliner. (If I open my mouth while sleeping, I snore.) He is both a decorative and useful beast of burden.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Weekend Words E
Still no winners on the photo ID. Well, I guess I will just have to reveal the item in the next posting. OK, on to vocabulary.
First of all, let's talk about EGREGIOUS. I like this word for several reasons, one of which is that it contains my son's name. It means "spectacularly bad," not just horrid, but sensationally so. It is based on the same root as gregarious which means "very sociable." Ain't that a kick? Just that little "e" at the beginning changes everything. (Well, I guess it changes "very thing" into "everything." ~stunned silence before the groan~). So tell your boss, especially if he is rather dim, that his new marketing plan is so egregious, it's beyond description. Go ahead, tell him. I'll just stand over here.
And now for ENORMITY which I almost never hear used properly. Most folks think this refers to the state of being enormous. Well, that's a miserable little third- or fourth-rate definition, certainly not the preferred definition. Essentially, the word means "atrociousness." So, feel free to rave about the enormity of Ethel's cubic zirconium. She'll be delighted and so will you.
(I sincerely hope, as with Uncle Shelby's ABZ book, that you do not follow all the instructions given.)
First of all, let's talk about EGREGIOUS. I like this word for several reasons, one of which is that it contains my son's name. It means "spectacularly bad," not just horrid, but sensationally so. It is based on the same root as gregarious which means "very sociable." Ain't that a kick? Just that little "e" at the beginning changes everything. (Well, I guess it changes "very thing" into "everything." ~stunned silence before the groan~). So tell your boss, especially if he is rather dim, that his new marketing plan is so egregious, it's beyond description. Go ahead, tell him. I'll just stand over here.
And now for ENORMITY which I almost never hear used properly. Most folks think this refers to the state of being enormous. Well, that's a miserable little third- or fourth-rate definition, certainly not the preferred definition. Essentially, the word means "atrociousness." So, feel free to rave about the enormity of Ethel's cubic zirconium. She'll be delighted and so will you.
(I sincerely hope, as with Uncle Shelby's ABZ book, that you do not follow all the instructions given.)
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Inspired by Captain Wow
There's another blogger whose writings I have tasted and whose idea I am going to use now. Her site is CaptainWow and she posts photos from her house interior. Below, you will find a photo from my house. Guess what it is. I will send my killer recipe for crispy oatmeal cookies to the first correct answerer.
Monday, September 26, 2005
Meme (again--see previous post)
Ha-ha-ha-ha! What an idiot I am! Oh, brother, sometimes I really cannot see past the trees. I have been reading in other people's posts the word "meme" and I promise, my first thought was that it referred to a language unit. When you study generative grammar (as I have) you run into a whole boodle of words that end with -eme. A phoneme is an irreducably small unit of sound. A tagmeme is the smallest meaningful unit of grammatical form. When I read "meme" I was pronouncing it as if it rhymed with "seem." It wasn't until I read Jonboy's post that I realized it was "me" + "me" because he spelled it "me-me." Good grief, I am such a dolt.
So, in recognition of my epiphany (no, that is not the E word for this weekend) and because a handful of naggers have requested it, here is my MEME.
Five things to do before dying:
• Win the bonus round in Wheel of Fortune.
• Sky dive, or at least hang-glide, over Hawai'i. Or Fiji, maybe. Or Tahiti.
• Spend time in Australia, and China, and Ireland (not necessarily in that order).
• See my grandchildren graduate from college. (Yes, I realize that they may not want to go to college. Or get married. Or lots of other things, but this is about me, right?)
• Finish painting the kitchen (really, this project has just dragged on too long.)
Five things I say most often:
• "Hello, Virtual Campus, this is David"
• "It's all my fault" (Please note that I only say this when I believe that it is NOT my fault. I am a guy.)
• "I love you"
• "I don't know. What do you want to eat?"
• "Amen"
(I asked Cat for help with this, but she said she doesn't listen to me half the time anyway.)
Five things I cannot do (I presume this means things that normal people can do but I can't--not flying by flapping my arms):
• Make a snap decision
• Smack bubble gum (you know, when you pop a bubble inside your mouth)
• Roll my "R" in Spanish
• See without my glasses
• Understand why God gave me such a wonderful life
Five things I can do:
• Spit very accurately
• Whistle while playing the guitar
• Teach
• Work crossword puzzles
• Make a fabulous chocolate mousse (I modified Julia's recipe)
Five things that attract me to other people:
• Integrity
• Modesty
• A keen sense of humor
• A willingness to learn
• Warm pecan pie
Five celebrity crushes:
• Juliette Binoche ("Chocolat")
• Jennifer Garner
• Julie Christy (about thirty years ago; not now)
• Liv Tyler
• Condaleezza Rice
Five people I would like to see do this:
Well, I would be interested in seeing my two sons and their wives, plus Cat, do this. But none of them blog.
So, in recognition of my epiphany (no, that is not the E word for this weekend) and because a handful of naggers have requested it, here is my MEME.
Five things to do before dying:
• Win the bonus round in Wheel of Fortune.
• Sky dive, or at least hang-glide, over Hawai'i. Or Fiji, maybe. Or Tahiti.
• Spend time in Australia, and China, and Ireland (not necessarily in that order).
• See my grandchildren graduate from college. (Yes, I realize that they may not want to go to college. Or get married. Or lots of other things, but this is about me, right?)
• Finish painting the kitchen (really, this project has just dragged on too long.)
Five things I say most often:
• "Hello, Virtual Campus, this is David"
• "It's all my fault" (Please note that I only say this when I believe that it is NOT my fault. I am a guy.)
• "I love you"
• "I don't know. What do you want to eat?"
• "Amen"
(I asked Cat for help with this, but she said she doesn't listen to me half the time anyway.)
Five things I cannot do (I presume this means things that normal people can do but I can't--not flying by flapping my arms):
• Make a snap decision
• Smack bubble gum (you know, when you pop a bubble inside your mouth)
• Roll my "R" in Spanish
• See without my glasses
• Understand why God gave me such a wonderful life
Five things I can do:
• Spit very accurately
• Whistle while playing the guitar
• Teach
• Work crossword puzzles
• Make a fabulous chocolate mousse (I modified Julia's recipe)
Five things that attract me to other people:
• Integrity
• Modesty
• A keen sense of humor
• A willingness to learn
• Warm pecan pie
Five celebrity crushes:
• Juliette Binoche ("Chocolat")
• Jennifer Garner
• Julie Christy (about thirty years ago; not now)
• Liv Tyler
• Condaleezza Rice
Five people I would like to see do this:
Well, I would be interested in seeing my two sons and their wives, plus Cat, do this. But none of them blog.
AAAAaaaargh!
I just wrote a long, thoughtful post and previewed it. Then I clicked the wrong button and lost the whole stinkin' thing! Grrrrr!
Friday, September 23, 2005
Weekend Words D
A busy weekend for me is this one. It includes a two-hour roundtrip drive on Saturday for a conference and a five-hour one-way drive on Sunday for another conference. No rest for the wicked, I suppose. So, I will have to post my vocabulary entry early. Maybe I can take my Sunday nap on Saturday afternoon.
DEFENESTRATION
I ran across this word in my studies of church history. The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) was probably the bloodiest European war ever before we figured out how to do it up really big in the twentieth century. It started in Germany which, at the time, was the seat of the Holy Roman Empire (every term is ironic here). The Catholics and the Protestants were bunching up and spitting at each other, so you just know there had to be a fight brewing. When Ferdinand, cousin to the Emperor and staunch Catholic, was appointed king of Bavaria, he ran into a lot of opposition from the resident Protestants. One day a group of Bohemain Protestants appeared before the court asking for policy changes. When the king scoffed at them, they grabbed a couple of his advisors and threw them out the window. And that, my friends, is defenestration--throwing someone out a window. The Defenestration of Prague set off the Thirty Years' War.
So next time your kid or one of your students or a subordinate at work asks about the consequences of some infelicitous action, just intone gravely, "Denefenstration. Now." Of course, in West Texas where most buildings are single-story, that's not much of a threat. More humiliation than anything else. (BTW, the Prague advisors landed in a pile of garbage, so they suffered more humiliation than physical harm, too.)
DEFENESTRATION
I ran across this word in my studies of church history. The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) was probably the bloodiest European war ever before we figured out how to do it up really big in the twentieth century. It started in Germany which, at the time, was the seat of the Holy Roman Empire (every term is ironic here). The Catholics and the Protestants were bunching up and spitting at each other, so you just know there had to be a fight brewing. When Ferdinand, cousin to the Emperor and staunch Catholic, was appointed king of Bavaria, he ran into a lot of opposition from the resident Protestants. One day a group of Bohemain Protestants appeared before the court asking for policy changes. When the king scoffed at them, they grabbed a couple of his advisors and threw them out the window. And that, my friends, is defenestration--throwing someone out a window. The Defenestration of Prague set off the Thirty Years' War.
So next time your kid or one of your students or a subordinate at work asks about the consequences of some infelicitous action, just intone gravely, "Denefenstration. Now." Of course, in West Texas where most buildings are single-story, that's not much of a threat. More humiliation than anything else. (BTW, the Prague advisors landed in a pile of garbage, so they suffered more humiliation than physical harm, too.)
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