Word Nymph is unplugged this week. She leaves you with this quote:
“Tell me I’m clever, Tell me I’m kind, Tell me I’m talented, Tell me I’m cute, Tell me I’m sensitive, graceful and wise, Tell me I’m perfect – But tell me the truth.”
— Shel Silverstein
Filed under Quotes
Word Nymph is unplugged this week. She leaves you with this quote:
“I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.”
— Oscar Wilde
Filed under Quotes
Word Nymph is unplugged this week. She leaves you with this quote:
“I haven’t trusted polls since I read that 62 percent of women had affairs during their lunch hour. I’ve never met a woman in my life who would give up lunch for sex.”
— Erma Bombeck
Filed under Quotes
Word Nymph is unplugged this week. She leaves you with this quote:
“Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out.”
— Art Linkletter
This quote is also attributed to John Wooden. I don’t care who said it; I just like it. By the way, did you know this sentence is known as a chiasmus? I didn’t. I recently learned that a chiasmus is a verbal pattern in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first with the parts reversed. — W.N.
Word Nymph is unplugged this week. She leaves you with this quote:
“Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.”
— Mark Twain
Filed under Quotes
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Even Word Nymphs need an extended rest now and then.
This one is running off to a secluded cottage for seven days without Internet, while her permanent home is guarded by two Sumo wrestlers, an Army Ranger and Mr T.
In recent times, “sabbatical” has come to mean any extended absence in the career of an individual in order to achieve something–in this case, enjoying a little sun without burning, perfecting her Skee-Ball game, beating her husband at 500 Rummy, filling up on seafood, catching up on sleep and reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
Thanks to readers who sent in their favorite summer songs, her iPod is locked and loaded for a week of sunset-gazing on an amazing ocean-front deck.
While away, the Word Nymph will be dreaming up all kinds of new wordish topics for her online forum. She’ll also be leaving behind for her readers a favorite quote each day. So, if you don’t subscribe, check in periodically and enjoy the words of some of her favorite writers.
If you’d like to suggest topics for future discussion, by all means, send them as Comments.
Thanks for reading. See you on June 21st.
Filed under All Things Wordish, Food, Reading, Travel
This week I have been spending a fair amount of time in the air.
I don’t travel as often as George Clooney in Up in the Air but, like George’s character, I am robotic in my process. I go through security like a zombie—that’s the best way to do it, actually—and seldom get rattled. I often rent cars on the other end and that too has become rhythmic.
I don’t even travel as often as many of my colleagues. I have one client who flies out of Philly so often she’s been offered the airport employees’ discount at Auntie Anne’s.
Erma Bombeck wrote a popular book entitled, When You Look Like Your Passport Photo, It’s Time to Go Home.
While, sadly, I haven’t used my passport in quite some time, Erma’s book title swooshes through my head during some of my busiest domestic travel weeks. In fact, during time spent recently in a boarding area (no, not that time), I drew up a list of it’s-time-to-go-home triggers.
It’s time to go home when:
How about you? When is it time for you to go home?
Filed under Foibles and Faux Pas, Food, Movies, Television and Radio, Travel
I have followed the career of the legendary veteran reporter Helen Thomas for many years and have learned from the examples she has set–up to and including the recent mega-blunder that abruptly ended her historic career.
By example, Helen Thomas taught me that women with intelligence, ambition and guts can make groundbreaking advances in male-dominated fields.
She showed me that love and passion for one’s work, coupled with serious pursuit of excellence, engender job satisfaction and career sustainability.
She showed me that showing up every day, even when one is sick, tired or facing treacherous weather, counts for something.
She showed me that having the courage to ask hard questions helps keep people honest.
She showed me that a person can work productively and happily well into her eighties.
Or maybe not.
In her 2006 book, Watchdogs of Democracy?: The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public, she observed that the news media are steadily losing their objectivity. The once-bright line between news and commentary is fading, she suggested.
It is no secret that Helen, too, has let more of her personal views spill into her fact-finding and reporting. Like those she criticizes, she has stepped boldly over that once-bright line.
This week, by example, she showed me something I already knew: think before you speak or you could regret it for the rest of your life. Comments made within earshot of anyone can be your demise. Always behave as though your comments are within someone’s earshot–especially if they are tasteless and offensive. Better yet, keep them to yourself.
This week, Helen made a horrific comment about Israeli Jews living in Palestine that cost her the precious remainder of her career, as well as a reputation that was 89 years in the making.
I have long looked up to Helen Thomas for reasons too many to list. I have met her several times and a year or so ago, had occasion to spend time one on one. My limited personal experience is that she is warm, gracious and humble. But to me, what has always stood out about Helen is how much she loves her work.
I will always remember watching an interview in which she was asked how much longer she would work before retiring. I was inspired by her reply, “I will die with my boots on.”
I always thought she’d go abruptly, perhaps right there in the White House Press Briefing Room, notebook and pen clutched in her red-fingernailed hands. A couple of years ago, she returned to work after a serious and extended illness and kept plugging away.
In retrospect, maybe returning to work was a mistake. As people get older, their cognitive wires get crossed, they lose their inhibitions and they can behave in shocking and inappropriate ways.
I am sorry Helen didn’t get to die with her boots on.
Perhaps she should have slipped off the boots, had one heck of a party and enjoyed a well-deserved retirement from a long and distinguished career, before it was too late. Before this is what she would be remembered for.
Filed under Marketing/Advertising/PR, News
If ever I was tempted to ask a stranger’s permission to snap a photograph, it was yesterday morning. I still regret not doing so. Definitely my loss–and yours.
I had just taken a seat on the shuttle bus to an early plane when I saw a tall, well-dressed man boarding the bus. I looked down for a split second, looked up and saw him getting on the bus, again. Déjà vu? I rubbed my eyes and shook my head and wished for a second cup of coffee.
I got on the plane and found my seat.
I saw the same man, I’d say he was between 45 and 50 years old, walking down the aisle. He was tall, wore a very good charcoal micro-plaid suit, a starched white shirt, gold cufflinks, odd-looking large-framed glasses and a bright red silk tie with a windowpane design and yellow accents.
Right behind him was another man, between 45 and 50. He was tall, wore a very good charcoal micro-plaid suit, a starched white shirt, gold cufflinks, odd-looking large-framed glasses and a bright red silk tie with a windowpane design and yellow accents.
The two men found their seats across the aisle and one row back from me, but before they sat side by side, each took off his suit coat. I confirmed the identical designer suits, shirts, ties, cufflinks, pocket squares, glasses, shoes and haircuts. I strained my neck trying to compare the monograms on their identical French cuffs.
They had identical faces. They were 45-year-old identical twins. Dressed identically.
Then, as the suit coats came off, I saw that one was wearing red suspenders and the other, yellow. Clearly, they were expressing their individuality. In identical ways.
The plane took off. As I looked over my shoulder, I was almost willing to risk air safety and turn on my camera phone, just to capture it—two oversized men, seated tightly side by side in Row 6 of a puddle jumper, impeccably and identically dressed, discussing college baseball. And then, at exactly the same time, they fell asleep, their heads dipped forward, chins resting on their identical red silk ties.
Oh, to know their story.
The only clue they provided — each carried on board a paper shopping bag. One from Brooks Brothers, the other, from the Supreme Court gift shop.
Filed under Beauty and Fashion, Foibles and Faux Pas, Travel
They’re everywhere. In your bowl of Rice Krispies. In comic strips. On Old McDonald’s farm.
What are they?
Onomatopoeias (and there is some question about whether that is its correct plural form) are words that sound like their meanings. Oink, chirp, meow. Wham, pow, boom. Jingle, zip, splash. Crunch, slurp, hiccup.
Originating from a Greek word meaning “word-making,” onomatopoeias are great tools for adding texture to writing or speech. And kids love ’em. As school lets out for the year, coming up with clever onomatopeias could be a fun summer game for your youngsters at home.
Wordies of all ages should enjoy these lyrics by Todd Rundgren. John Prine recorded an otomatopoeia song as well but I don’t care much for it.
Onomatopoeia by Todd Rundgren
Onomatopoeia every time I see ya
My senses tell me hubba
And I just can’t disagree
I get a feeling in my heart that I can’t describe
It’s sort of lub, dub, lub, dub
A sound in my head that I can’t describe
It’s sort of zoom, zip, hiccup, drip
Ding, dong, crunch, crack, bark, meow, whinnie, quack
Onomatopoeia in proximity ya
Rearrange my brain in a strange cacophony
I get a feeling somewhere that I can’t describe
It’s sort of uh, uh, uh, uh
A sound in my head that I can’t describe
It’s sort of whack, whir, wheeze, whine
Sputter, splat, squirt, scrape
Clink, clank, clunk, clatter
Crash, bang, beep, buzz
Ring, rip, roar, retch
Twang, toot, tinkle, thud
Pop, plop, plunk, pow
Snort, snuk, sniff, smack
Screech, splash, squish, squeak
Jingle, rattle, squeal, boing
Honk, hoot, hack, belch…
Do you have a favorite?
Filed under All Things Wordish, Music
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