WHY . . . ?

    

Tucson Weather Today

 

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I was browsing the Words and Language blogs, as I often do, when I once again encountered the clever quotation by George Bernard Shaw: "England and America are two countries separated by the same language." And, as usual, I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly.

Some British words and phrases, in good ol' American English, "simply drive me up the wall."

One of those horrible-sounding words is whinge, which is supposedly British for the American "whine." I don't know why whinge should affect me as adversely as it does... but it does -- IT DOES!

In fact, I hate that word so much that I once wrote a limerick about it.

Whenever a Brit says, "whinge"
I shudder, I quake, and I cringe.
In the States, we say, "whine"
Which is perfectly fine --
A Yank would never say, "whinge"

Sometimes I shake my head in perplexed confusion and wonder why the hell I am that I am.

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Did You Know . . .?

'Topolino' is the name for Mickey Mouse in Italy.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1901 Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi succeeded in sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, disproving detractors who told him that the curvature of the earth would limit transmission to 200 miles or less.

The message -- simply the Morse-code signal for the letter "s" -- traveled more than 2,000 miles from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada.

In 1909, he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in physics with the German radio innovator Ferdinand Braun. After successfully sending radio transmissions from points as far away as England and Australia, Marconi turned his energy to experimenting with shorter, more powerful radio waves. He died in 1937, and on the day of his funeral all British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) stations were silent for two minutes in tribute to his contributions to the development of radio.

Note: The Morse Code signal for the letter 's' is three short 'dits.'

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WORD FOR TODAY

bloody
adjective
1. Stained with blood.
2. Of, characteristic of, or containing blood.
3. Accompanied by or giving rise to bloodshed: a bloody fight.
4. Bloodthirsty.
5. Suggesting the color of blood; blood-red.
6. Chiefly British Slang Used as an intensive: "Everyone wants to have a convict in his bloody family tree"
adv.
Chiefly British Slang Used as an intensive: bloody well right.
1. To stain, spot, or color with or as if with blood.
2. To make bleed, as by injuring or wounding: The troops were bloodied in the skirmish.

Interesting explanation of the British term: 'bloody'

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra
(Dec 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998)

Frank Sinatra was an American singer and film actor. Beginning his musical career in the swing era as a boy singer with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra found unprecedented success as a solo artist. He released his first album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra in 1946.

Sinatra won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in From Here to Eternity. He signed with Capitol Records in 1953 and released several critically lauded albums (such as In the Wee Small Hours, Songs for Swingin' Lovers!, Come Fly with Me, Only the Lonely and Nice 'n' Easy). Sinatra was a founding member of the Rat Pack and fraternized with celebrities and statesmen, including John F. Kennedy.

Sarah Douglas
(born 12 December 1952)

Sarah Douglas is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for playing the Kryptonian supervillain Ursa in Superman (1978) and Superman II (1980). Her other prominent roles include that of the evil Queen Taramis in the 1984 film Conan the Destroyer, and Pamela Lynch in the 1980s primetime drama series Falcon Crest (1983–85).

Edward Goldenberg Robinson
(Dec 12, 1893 – Jan 26, 1973)

Edward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star during Hollywood's Golden Age, he is best remembered for his roles as gangsters, such as Rico in his star-making film Little Caesar and as Rocco in Key Largo. Other memorable roles include insurance investigator Barton Keyes in the film noir Double Indemnity, Dathan (adversary of Moses) in The Ten Commandments, and his final performance as Sol Roth in the science-fiction story Soylent Green.

Sheree Julienne Wilson
(born December 12, 1958)

Sheree Wilson is an American actress, producer and former model. She is best known for her role as April Stevens on the American prime-time television series Dallas (a role she played from 1986 to 1991), and as Alexandra "Alex" Cahill-Walker, on television series Walker, Texas Ranger from 1993-2001.

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Language... has created the word 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone.
--Paul Tillich

This Is Who I Am

Definitions, Etc.

     

Tucson Weather Today


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Some readers may find my Word For Today section a bit boring. But I have a pretty good reason for including it in my blog. It helps me be more precise when I am trying to communicate via the written word. I have a great many words in my reading vocabulary, but I've discovered that the exact definition of a word is not always what I  thought it to be.

For example: A few years ago, during the 2008 campaign for the presidency, I wrote a short piece wherein I stated that Sarah Palin was an erudite speaker. Erudite, I believed, meant entertaining and personable -- at ease when addressing an audience.

I was immediately corrected by a man who really did know the meaning of the word erudite who wrote to me his own response, which was, "Sarah Palin is NOT erudite." When I looked up the word, I found that erudite is an adjective meaning: "Having or showing great knowledge or learning" which Sarah Palin most certainly was not.

I have never forgotten that embarrassing incident. And since then I have tried to know the true meaning of a word before using it in a sentence. I don't always succeed, but hosting my own Word For Today helps me to stay closer to achieving that goal.

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HISTORICAL CLIP

On this day, March 21, 1965, in the name of African-American voting rights, 3,200 civil rights demonstrators, led by Martin Luther King Jr., began a historic march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol at Montgomery. Federalized Alabama National Guardsmen and FBI agents were on hand to provide safe passage for the march, which twice had been turned back by Alabama state police at Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge. U.S. Army troops and federalized Alabama National Guardsmen escorted the marchers across Edmund Pettus Bridge and down Highway 80.

That August, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed African Americans the right to vote. Between the passing of the act and the May 1966 primary, 122,000 blacks registered to vote in the state. This represented a quarter of Alabama's voters.

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WORD FOR TODAY

vendetta
noun
1. a private feud, originally between Corsican or Sicilian families, in which the relatives of a murdered person seek vengeance by killing the murderer or some member of his family
2. any prolonged feud, quarrel, etc.

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BORN ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY


Matthew Broderick

 

 Born Mar 21, 1962
Age:   50 years old

Matthew Broderick is an American film, stage and voice actor who, among other roles, played the title character in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, voiced Simba in The Lion King, and portrayed Leo Bloom in the Hollywood and Broadway productions of The Producers.

Rosie O'Donnell

 

 Born Mar 21, 1962
Age:   50 years old

Roseann "Rosie" O'Donnell is an American comedian, actress, author and television personality. She has also been a magazine editor and continues to be a celebrity blogger, LGBT rights activist, television producer and collaborative partner in the LGBT family vacation company R Family Vacations.

Gary Oldman

 

 Born Mar 21, 1958
Age:   54 years old

Gary Leonard Oldman is an English screen and stage actor, filmmaker and musician. Some of his best-known roles are Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy, Joe Orton in Prick Up Your Ears, Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK, Count Dracula in Bram Stoker's Dracula, Norman Stansfield in Léon: The Professional, Ludwig van Beethoven in Immortal Beloved, Sirius Black in the Harry Potter series, James Gordon in Nolan's Batman series and George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Other films in which Oldman plays significant roles include Meantime, The Firm, State of Grace, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, True Romance, Basquiat, The Fifth Element, Air Force One, The Contender, Kung Fu Panda 2 and Lawless.

Sabrina Lebeauf

 

 Born Mar 21, 1958
Age:   54 years old

Sabrina Le Beauf is an American actress best known for her portrayal of Sondra Huxtable Tibideaux on the NBC situation comedy The Cosby Show. She has voiced the character Norma Bindlebeep on the Nick at Nite animated series Fatherhood, a show based on Bill Cosby's book of the same name. Le Beauf also appeared on two episodes of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Gambit, Parts I & II" as Ensign Giusti.


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I welcome new words, or old words used in new ways, provided the result is more precision, added color or greater expressiveness.
--William Safire
    

Hey Buddy . . . Wha'da'ya'say?

Tucson Weather Today

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Yesterday evening as I was reading through some newer websites, I spotted an error in one of the comments below the blog's text. In part, it said, "...that advices its readers to sell..." The error was the use of the non-word 'advices'. The word 'advice' is a noun, while 'to advise' is a verb... One can offer, give, or receive advice but one can only advise.

I used to see that mistake often but hadn't noticed it being committed for quite a while.

Another grammar error that I have mentioned many (many!) times is the use of the term, very unique -- the original meaning of unique is one of a kind and you cannot be very one of a kind. But I fear that this valuable word is doomed and will soon come to be synonymous with unusual or exceptional or the like.. Why? Well, it's probably because so many celebrities are themselves, in their lack of a truly proper education, so often casually saying very unique. On his show, America's favorite surgeon, Dr. Oz, speaks of many products that he says are "very unique." And Talk-Radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity also often say it. Not to mention some of the politicians and televangelists.

In Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses Mark Twain wrote: "Use the right word, not its second cousin."

A writer-buddy and Doctoral candidate once told me, regarding my proclivity to call attention to grammar errors, "Gene, if I tell someone something or publish something that is not strictly correct but my listener or reader understands what I meant, then it doesn't matter whether it was grammatically correct or not."

Really?

Perhaps he was right.

But I don't think so.

The death of a once superior language? Since I am now in my 70s I may not live to see this travesty come about, but I'm pretty well convinced that it eventually will.

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A news item I saw yesterday on ABC's The Early Show featured Georgetown Professor Michael Eric Dyson who teaches a college course on rapper (and multimillionaire) Jay-Z amazed me. Dyson has taught the ‘Sociology of Hip-Hop: Urban Theodicy of Jay-Z,’ so why, I wonder, with college courses as valuable as that one, are American students so often branded as being under educated?

Read about that HERE.

A comment at the end of the above article from a concerned citizen states: "This class should be taught, but in a different context, students should learn how these thugs have contributed greatly to the 'dumbing down of America' and our moral decay. How this 'teacher' or professor can glorify these gangbangers is ridiculous. If it weren't for Rap/Hip Hop Jay-Z would be a Gang Banger or parking cars for a living."

Although I've been contemplating the above, I still have come to no definite conclusion about it. But, I did recently read an ancient Hebrew proverb that said: "Do not confine your children to your own learning for they were born in another time."

Hm... food for thought indeed.

And . . .

John Holt once said: "We don't have to make human beings smart. They are born smart. All we have to do is stop doing things that make them stupid."

Again, Hm . . .

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Old age is compulsory, wisdom is optional.
--Anon

Language, Spies, Gelato, etc.

Language changes over time. It evolves, as they say. Words and phrases that were once easily understood by all citizens of a nation eventually lose their meanings as new generations of book readers and playgoers arise with their own newly-coined words and terms. We all know this, of course -- for surely The Works of William Shakespeare would be more widely read (not pretended to be read) than they actually are if all readers were able to understand that hopelessly archaic language.

Over at The Writer's Almanac yesterday I read that H.L. Mencken once wrote a translation of The Declaration of Independence using the vernacular of plain, ordinary folks.

Here is the actual Declaration's first paragraph:

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

And here is Mencken's translation:

"When things get so balled up that the people of a country got to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are not trying to put nothing over on nobody."

See what I mean?

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According to all the local pundits, Arizona Roadrunners are never found up in trees. But Mike saw one on a tree branch alongside the road a few evenings ago. Here is a picture that I took of it.

Roadrunner Hiding In A Tree

. . .

According to The Atlantic --
When Stalin's men sought agents for the most depraved and most criminal tasks, they found them not among brutes of the underworld, but among sensitive and cultivated people in the highest levels of intellectual society -- poets and psychiatrists who became conspirators and spies.

And that makes perfect sense to me. It is the 'sensitive' and 'cultivated' individuals who are intelligent enough (and egotistical enough) to become effective conspirators and spies. The 'brutes of the underworld' are too busy 'taking from the rich' and satisfying their personal desires.

The best conspirators will be found manipulating global policy by pulling the strings attached to top elected government officials.

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Tim recommended a new Gelato place, Cafe Italiano, and Sunday we motored on over there to try it out. I had the Mamma Mia flavor, and it was awesome. Click here for info regarding Cafe Italiano and super-delicious Mamma Mia gelato.


You do not need a parachute to skydive . . .
you only need a parachute to skydive twice.
--Unknown