"Who would succeed in the world should be wise in the use of his pronouns.
Utter the You twenty times, where you once utter the I."
This reminds me of so many political campaign speeches and commericials. Nice to know (or is it?) that the idea isn't so new.
circum-: A nice little prefix that means "around, about, surrounding." Notice its similarity to the word circle. This prefix gives us a number of polysyllabic gems, such as circumnavigate (to sail or fly around something), circumscribe (to draw a line around something, or, more figuratively, to set something's boundaries), circumfluent or circumfluous (to flow around, surround, or encompass something), circumambulate (to walk around something), and even circumcise (which at its base means to cut around something).
Then there's circumlocution. Locution has to do with speaking, and the style one uses when speaking. Circumlocution, then, is all about talking around something: a roundabout way of expressing something. We hear a lot of circumlocution from both sides in the presidential debates. I would wager that nearly every "answer" that a candidate gives is circumlocutory, ultimately expressing some idea that has little to do with the moderator's original question. A candidate is given a question about, say, foreign policy, and he (or she) begins to talk about his (or her) foreign policy ideas and experience, but through some amazing (and some not-so-amazing) circumlocution ends up making a statement about a completely different subject, say, offshore drilling.
Keep your ears open for circumlocution at the next debate. Politicians seem to have a knack for it.
It's a sign of how busy I've been recently that I completely missed the release of the newest novel by my favorite living author, Neal Stephenson. His newest book, Anathem, was released sometime last month. As far as I know, I've read everything he's written (including In the Beginning . . . Was the Command Line) except the two novels he co-wrote with J. Frederick George, Cobweb and Interface (although I own them both). I've been waiting ever since I finished System of the World, and even contemplating re-reading Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, but somehow, his newest release slipped under my radar. Unfathomable! This would never have happened with Kurt Vonnegut!
My birthday is about a month away. With copy editing and a Halloween concert and work picking up and everything else, I know I won't find as much time to read as I'd like in the next month (and I ought to finish my current book before I start a new one), so this is probably the perfect birthday present for me.
Well, that and a wireless router. (As opposed to a cordless router. I might have a difficult time trying to wire my laptop into a Black & Decker power tool. But if I could, think of the havoc I could wreak!)
proprioception: The normal physiological sense of your posture and the location of your limbs based on your sense of touch, space, etc. Proprioception is the reason you can close your eyes and touch your nose without poking yourself in the eye, walk down a stairway without staring at your feet, or eat soup without ending up with a face-full of hot chicken and noodles.
(With gratitude to the Dinosaur Comics.)
macaronic: Characterized by a mix of vernacular and Latin words or of vernacular words with Latin endings, or simply characterized by a mix of two languages. I imagine that pidgins are macaronic , at least when they first begin to form. Without having delved into the intricacies of the meaning of this word, I would imagine that creoles, and especially the Creole of Louisiana with its mix of English and French, could be described as macaronic.
This word has metaphorical possibilities outside of language, if only people knew it existed. Considering the Democrat/Republican partisanship in congress, one might say that the bills coming from Congress are sometimes ironic, sometimes moronic, but always macaronic.
Shiver me timbers! It be talk like a pirate day again! ARRRR! Methinks many a scurvy scallywag ha' forgot this blesséd day and gone about ye merry way parleyin' in the King's English. ARRRR!
Avast, ter celebrate the occasion, methinks I'll make the salmon walk the cedar plank! Tonight, I eat with the fishes!
I finally finished reading Kate Chopin's The Awakening last night. It wasn't that it was a difficult read, just that it didn't give me much of a sense of anticipation. I didn't put it down reluctantly, and when I put it down, I wasn't anxious to pick it back up to see what happens next. I mostly just read it in restaurants, over a solitary dinner.
But I finished it. I think this does have a decently high reading level — I'd think a HS senior honors class or above. I'd certainly feel sorry for any high school freshmen (especially the boys) who had this thrust upon 'em. The language is just too different from what we're used to. And since most of the novel takes place in New Orleans, there are a lot of French words thrown in there sideways. I guess it makes the main character look more like she is a bonafide member of the upper class. It's also hard to keep track of all of the minor characters who pop in and out of the life of the main character, Edna Pontellier — the Lebruns, the Ratignolles, Madame Weisz, Victor, Arobin — and their relationships with and to each other.
My major criticism, though, is that the symbolism is too obvious. For instance, I rolled my eyes a little at the appearance of the bird with a broken wing on the beach in the last chapter. And Edna's nakedness in that same chapter. It was a little too thick with symbolism.
Still, this would be a great book for a class on feminist literature, or feminism in literature. It's definitely a "woman's book," but beyond that, Chopin's message about the role of women and of wives, and the history of the book's public reception, reveals an important message that came way before its time.
But now my quest to read all the "classics" for which there are CliffsNotes can continue. I think I'll go for a little more action this time, though. Maybe Treasure Island or Gulliver's Travels?
My younger child entered kindergarten this fall. This morning, as I was dropping him off at his classroom, I heard one of the other teachers call to a student apparently named Dasani. I don't know if that is how it is spelled, but that's how I heard it.
I reconnected with an old friend from high school via Facebook this morning and found out that her two daughters are named Penny Lane and Lucy Sky. Those names aren't too horrible, considering they could have gone with Eleanor Rigby and Abbey Road. And they're still nicer than some of those horrible baby names that come out of Hollywood. Poor Pilot Inspektor Riesgraf Lee is probably counting down the days to his 18th birthday so he can legally change his name to "John Smith."
traducianism: The theological doctrine that a child's soul is generated from his or her parents. No witty remarks about this today, unfortunately. My best friend Jean is pregnant with her first, so this may come up in conversation over sushi (she sticks to the cooked sushi rolls just to be on the safe side).