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No legacy is so rich as honesty.
--William Shakespeare
After considering the above statement for a goodly length of time I find that I have failed to grasp the intended meaning of the phrase to a sufficient degree that I am able to agree with it. But, in real life, dishonesty usually triumphs over honesty, and legacies often reflect severe distortions of what were actual truths within most lives.
Especially those of politicians.
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A while back I read an email message that contained the following: "We had 'are' Thanksgiving dinner around noon." -- and this made me think about how often I have heard, in conversations, the word 'our' pronounced as 'are' ('ahr') instead of 'hour' as I pronounce it. I recently heard Hillary Clinton, on TV, speak of "are" troops, instead of 'our' troops.
I have noticed various such mispronunciations often and judged that the speaker had merely heard a word but had never seen it written, such as 'et cetera' pronounced 'EX-Zedra' or 'EK-Setra.' One time I actually heard a woman say, "... farm animals, cows and pigs... excedrin, excedrin."
And that's the truth.
I often ask myself why I have grown to be so judgmental in my old age. Do others also acquire that habit of judging others as they age?
Or just me?
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I recently read a Paris Review interview with William Faulkner:
The Art of Fiction No. 12
The interview was published in The Paris Review, Spring 1956 (when I was sixteen years old) and I read it for the first time a few days ago at age 72.
Better late than never, I've been told.
September 25, 1897 - July 6, 1962
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Another one of those words I thought I knew the meaning of but actually did not is:
parapatetic
(adj.)
walking or traveling about; itinerant.
(noun)
a person who walks or travels about.
Now, if I can just permanently implant that meaning in memory...
Hitchling is a newly coined word meaning: a child born without religious indoctrination who is encouraged to read broadly and to seek the truth unapologetically.
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Cedric opening one of his gifts
(a manufactured bone)
(a manufactured bone)
Christmas Day 2011
__________
The writer doesn't need economic freedom.
All he needs is a pencil and some paper.
--William Faulkner
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