July 27, 2010 · 9:22 am

Not the end of the world

You may have noticed that Word Nymph didn’t post yesterday.

Following 100 consecutive daily posts (except Sundays), the streak was broken yesterday by a series of outages here in the Washington, D.C., area.  The irony is that yesterday I had planned to send out a hello-world-I’m-here notice about the 100th post.  The one person who asked me yesterday, “hey, where’s my blog?” pointed out that one never says a word when one is on any kind of a streak.  Like a pitcher headed toward a perfect game, I learned that I was about to speak too soon about Word Nymph‘s streak.

I don’t know if our power and cable outages made national news–because I have no TV service.  Internet comes and goes, and it was reported this morning that it could be some time before power is restored to the region.  The Washington area takes enough heat about its drivers.  You can only imagine what happens at a dark intersection.  Most of us are aware that, by law, intersections without working traffic lights are to be treated as four-way stops but, in typical Washington fashion, there is wide interpretation.

Please accept my apologies for yesterday’s lapse.  Most readers are now thinking, there was a lapse?

I know I don’t owe anyone an explanation, but it’s just too good not to share. 

I’ll first say that my neighborhood didn’t lose power; we seldom do.  We’re a little unexplained oasis.  But we lost cable Sunday afternoon.  Around the region, trees snapped like matchsticks all over our county, taking power lines and, tragically, the life of a young boy who could not get out of the way in time.

Yesterday morning, determined to not break the Word Nymph streak, I set out to find Internet.  I first drove to the home of my aunt and uncle, to use their Internet and also pick up a bee removal suit my husband wanted to borrow.  I arrived at their house to find a note taped to their door: No power, no phone service, no cell service, back later.  I decided to try and find them to make sure they were all right.  Given the downed trees and power lines and dark intersections, driving was a challenge.  I drove to five places I thought they might be riding out the crisis–my aunt’s nail salon, her health club, Macy’s, the movie theater and Starbucks.  I planned Starbucks for last so I could settle in and use the wireless.  Everything was closed–including Starbucks. 

I went home, resigned to the unavailability of Internet and worried about my aunt and uncle, and went out back to clean up the storm debris.  As I was filling a large bag with broken limbs, I looked up to see another large bag being hurled toward me from over the six-foot fence.  I approached it cautiously, as I had been feeling all day that this might just be the end of the world.  I peeked inside and saw something wrapped in netting.  It was a bee removal suit.

I opened the gate to find my aunt and uncle.  I told them I had been worried sick and had looked everywhere I could think they might be.  I scolded them, “Where have you been?!” 

“Holy Cross Hospital,” my aunt said.  I hadn’t thought to try the hospital. 

“Are you all right?  What were you doing at the hospital?”

“Getting coffee.”

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July 24, 2010 · 8:37 am

Centesimal celebration

I am tired of talking about me.  When I posted my first blog entry in late March, I expressed discomfort about blogs in general, because people tend to use them as platforms for talking about themselves, and I just didn’t want to do that.

Today, on the occasion of Word Nymph’s 100th blog entry, let’s take a look at some others.

If you are reading this from the Word Nymph site (as opposed to a subscription e-mail), look toward the right of the screen and scroll down just a bit.  You will see a section entitled Blogroll, and a list of half a dozen blogs I visit regularly.

But first, let’s talk about me—and why I’ve chosen these six.

I am interested in broadcast news, as a viewer of course.  Not just the Holly Hunter movie, but live television news.  I watch as much of it as a working person can fit into a day.  In Advancing the Story, veteran journalists Deborah Potter and Deb Halpern Wenger provide an enlightened glimpse into broadcast media—the art and the science, the complexities and the nuances.  Their recent piece on interviewing victims was inspired.

I am a lover of words, a lifelong learner and maker of mistakes.  I try to be tolerant of others’ mistakes but draw a big fat line between an earnest slip and steady patterns of egregious violation.  I have peeves that make me itch like a case of poison ivy.  I commend to you two blogs that illustrate blatant assaults on our language.  Please visit Apostrophe Abuse, study it and tell all your friends—be militant about it—that apostrophes do not make words plural.  Ninety-nine percent of the time, an “s” makes a noun plural, NO APOSTROPHE needed, or wanted.  My family and I are the Welches, not the Welch’s.  We are not having the Nelson’s over for dinner and we won’t be serving clam’s.  The blog will give you a good laugh and, I hope, a good lesson.  Let’s stop the abuse.

I am serious about punctuation.  What I’ve said about the apostrophe, likewise with quotation marks.  If we keep using them unnecessarily, they will become endangered and we won’t have them when we really need them—for quotations.  Please visit The “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks and notice how silly it looks to wrap serious punctuation around ordinary words willy-nilly.   If you want to make words stand out, there are plenty of text formats available, including italics (CTL + i), bold (CTL + b) and underline (CTL + u).  And if you must—and only if you must—ALL CAPS.  Please do not use quotation marks for emphasis.

I love English, but realize what we speak in the United States is American (I love that too).  I am also interested in all things international.  The Economist is a magazine that is read and respected by intelligent people throughout the international community.  It maintains a high standard of thought and writing, so when it launched a language blog, Johnson, earlier this summer, naturally, I signed up.  Check it out.

I love humor, possibly above all else.  My motto is “laughter heals” and I need a steady diet of it or I’ll die.  If you too need a chuckle a day, log on to The Sticky Egg.  The Egg posts every day, providing a full week’s worth of minimum daily hilarity, as the clever Carla Curtsinger muses about the entertainment biz and life in New York City.  She’ll also explain the origin of her moniker.  Be sure and check out her Blogroll.

I miss my kid.  He grew up in the blink of an eye, probably because I worked 12 hours a day and traveled regularly for the first 15 years of his life.  To bring back memories of having a child in the house, I get great enjoyment from the colorful tales of Cara Garretson, a  mother of two young kids, a gifted storyteller and a writer who works at home.  Time Out will make you smile.

But enough about me.

See you Monday.

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July 23, 2010 · 7:58 am

Got your nose

Yesterday we talked about shooting ourselves in the foot (or is it feet?).  I hope you won’t mind our carrying this idiomatic conversation into a second day, as there’s another expression that goes hand in hand with the foot.

“Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.”

Haven’t we all been handed this admonition at least once in our lives?  I recall hearing it at as a young girl, too shy to ask what it meant.  I never considered cutting off my nose or spiting my face.  Whatever that meant.   

It’s been a little tricky to pinpoint the origin of Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.  In looking into it, I stumbled on to some interesting sources, each with a different take on the phrase’s birth.  My, it’s easy to get sidetracked.  I had ordered a copy of the Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, written by Francis Groce in 1796, when I remembered I was in the middle of writing a blog.

The sources agree on what it means to cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face—essentially, to engage in an act of anger or revenge that will hurt you more than it hurts anyone else.  Where it came from is a little fuzzier.

The origin of shooting oneself in the foot, while painful and untidy, is an image we can readily envision, whereas the historical events that involved nose-cutting and face-spiting are almost too gruesome to fathom.

It seems that, in the Middle Ages, there was a group of nuns who cut off their noses to disfigure themselves to become unattractive so they wouldn’t be raped during Viking pillages.

It has also been posited that the idiom was first used in 1593, by a courtier who advised King Henry IV of France not to destroy Paris because of its citizens’ objections to his reign.

Before we move on from body parts, does anyone have a different understanding?

Then there we have it.  We’ve covered the shooting off of feet and the cutting off of noses. I am up to my eyeballs in cultural dictionaries, urban slang and ancient tomes and still can’t seem to wrap my arms around it all.  I stand on the shoulders of all those who have already tackled the question. 

At least my nose is still intact.

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July 22, 2010 · 7:54 am

Coward or careless?

In matters of public affairs, we often hear about a person shooting himself in the foot.  Typically, this means the person has exercised either poor judgment or incompetence, thus jeopardizing his cause.

Frankly, I’ve never given the expression much thought.  It’s a descriptive image that accurately depicts an easy but serious error.  The phrase is used, perhaps overused, in wide range of personal, business and political contexts.

My mother recently conveyed to me a peeve.  She wondered why so many people, including articulate public speakers, misuse this expression, and not just use it incorrectly but use it essentially as a direct opposite of its real meaning.   

I didn’t know this, but she explained that shooting themselves in the foot was what some soldiers did during World War I to get out of going into battle.  It was done deliberately and out of fear or cowardice.  One source explains that shooting oneself in the foot is “to deliberately sabotage an activity in order to avoid obligation, though it causes personal suffering.”

Clearly, to shoot oneself in the foot comes from such wartime acts.  But these days, we hear a lot less about soldiers intentionally wounding themselves and more about people at home accidentally shooting their firearms and wounding themselves, often in the foot.

So it’s easy to see how the expression’s meaning morphed from intentional to accidental, from being caused by fear to being caused by stupidity.

As I contemplated whether there might be a scenario that encompassed both meanings, a long-repressed childhood memory came to mind that, until now, has remained a secret.  When I was in the seventh grade, I jumped six feet off a jungle gym, hands first, intentionally spraining my wrist, to get out of a piano lesson.

The daughter of two musicians and a lover of music, I still regret not being able to play the piano.  I guess I really shot myself in the foot.

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July 21, 2010 · 8:09 am

Last words

Is anyone else a creature of habit when it comes to reading the newspaper?  I don’t mean that you read it but, rather, how you read it.

I’ve been reading The Washington Post every day for 27 years and still read it in print.  First the Business Section, then Metro, followed by the main section and, for dessert, Style.  On Tuesdays, the Health section comes first; Wednesdays it’s Food.  The Crossword page gets torn out, folded in quarters and filed chronologically in a bedside folder for later enjoyment. 

Recently, when honey they shrunk my paper, Business was folded into the main section.  And it just isn’t the same.

During my years as a corporate lobbyist, the Business section was everything.  All stories high tech and financial, where I focused, were to be devoured and responded to as part of a day’s work.  That’s why it still comes first–old habits die hard.  Mondays were especially fun in those days, when the announcements ran—and still do—about major players changing jobs around town.  It used to be that I knew about 75 percent of the movers and shakers whose names and job changes appeared in this feature.

These days, I recognize more names in the obituaries than I do in Washington Business.

I’m not  kidding.   At least once a week, I see a familiar name or face in the obits.

When I started reading the death section years ago, my parents (Mom lives out of town; Dad travels a lot) appreciated my letting them know when a family friend or neighbor had died.  More and more, my own contemporaries are making appearances in the back of the Metro section.

But even when they aren’t my acquaintances, I have come to really enjoy reading obituaries.  This might sound twisted, but I also enjoy attending funerals.  Please don’t get me wrong.  I grieve the losses of my loved ones as deeply as anyone.  But I appreciate the words that are written and spoken, and the music played, when they pass.

It is hard to sum up one’s life in mere words.  The fact is, the words that are chosen, and they way they are put together in final tribute, are an art.

To me, the most interesting obituaries typically include an unusual profession coupled with an odd or obscure hobby, musical talent or second language.  While the heading might read “Church Member,” we may learn that the deceased also made a mean pound cake or could whistle Bach’s Fugue in G Minor.

It’s hard, when reading the obits, not to wonder what will be written about oneself after passing.  It makes me approach my life a little more conscious of what might be said about me when I’m gone.

Chances are, when I go, I’ll leave my own write-up behind.

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July 20, 2010 · 7:53 am

Beware of age

Yesterday’s disappointing news from the Gulf of Mexico has had me fixed on a particular word, one that seldom appears in good news. 

Not long after it seemed the cap on BP’s spewing oil well was going to hold and finally begin to contain the massive spill, something troublesome was discovered—seepage.

Seepage is never good.  It’s unintentional.  It’s messy.  It often means something is going somewhere it’s not supposed to.  If seepage is in your story, chances are, you’re in trouble.  Just when the higher-ups at BP were looking forward to exhaling, along came seepage.  The last thing the poor citizens and businesses along the Gulf Coast want to hear is seepage.

Yesterday, for whatever reason, the word leapt off its prominent spot on the front page and created little puddles in my brain.  But with every lame attempt to blot them up, more disturbing words ending in “age” came at me. 

“Age” is a common suffix, used, among other ways, to turn verbs into nouns, such as seepage.   It is also used to turn singular nouns into uncountable nouns, such as signage and plumage.  Signage and plumage are good things, and, if you were delivering news, you wouldn’t mind them in your story.  Acreage, coverage and cleavage are also nice things to have.

But all I thought about yesterday after reading about the seepage were all the other “age” words—most, oddly, beginning with “s”—that one would not want to have to use in his or her story, nor want to hear when receiving news.

Sewage isn’t something you want to hear about.  Steerage isn’t a desirable place.  If you are relying on your work or the product thereof, a stoppage is bad news, as is a shortage.  Don’t tell me about spillage, spoilage or soilage.  Slippage is unacceptable.  And absolutely no one wants to have to explain shrinkage.

Those are the “s” words.  Please don’t send me back to the beginning of the alphabet or we’ll have to talk about blockage, bondage, breakage and carnage.  So let’s not go there.

Before we move off yesterday’s front page story, let’s add “burbling” to the list of words that aren’t usually used in good news.

Note:   I first thought burbling was a portmanteau for bubble + gurgle, because isn’t that what the seepage is doing?  As it turns out, burble is also a scientific term.  It’s a turbulent eddy in fluid flow caused by roughness near the boundary surface or loss of energy in the laminar flowing fluid.  But then you all probably knew that.

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July 19, 2010 · 7:52 am

Two-fer

Once again, where have I been? 

Over the weekend I was so tickled to learn a new language term, only to find out everyone is already talking about it.

The portmanteau.  It’s been around for years, or at least as long as smog.

There are hundreds of portmanteaus (portmanteaux?) in circulation today, and the booming trend of blending two words into one continues to spread.  I just didn’t know there was a name for it until a friend sent me a Groupon (that’s another one) that used the term in a marketing promotion.

A celebrity couple can’t be mentioned as separate individuals any more, but rather, by their portmanteaus—Brangelina, Tomkat, Bennifer.  Does the First Couple go by Barelle or Michak?

A large share of the high tech vernacular is composed of portmanteaus.  WiFi, for example, as well as modem and even Internet.  Almost anything with “aholic” added on the end is a portmanteau:  chocoholic, workaholic, shopaholic.  And who can forget the Manssiere?

Can you come up with an original portmanteau or two?  Or maybe tell a story?

Billy had a dreambition of becoming a televangelist.  After school, he would go into the cafegymitorium and practice giving a sermily.

One day, in walked Isabella, looking fantabulous in her jeggings.  Billy loved how she ate Gogurt with a spork.

They began talking on their iPhones, with their conversations full of insinuendo.  They became frienefits and starting sexting in Spanglish.

When their parents found out, Billy and Isabella were forbidden to see each other.  But one day, as they were chillaxing in front of the cineplex, a photographer with the local ragazine exposed their relationship.  Billabella was busted.

Horrific, I know.  Try it?

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July 17, 2010 · 8:52 am

Never on Sunday

What’s your favorite fast food restaurant?  Okay, okay, if you had no other option but to eat on the run, what would be your choice? 

Mine is Chick fil-A.  I’ve totally bought into their Save the Cow campaign, EAT MOR CHIKIN (I won’t fault a cow for poor spelling).  But also, even though I’ve got no beef with beef, those nasty fast food burgers can pretty hard to choke down.

My husband’s a McDonald’s man, so when we’re on the road, that’s where we go.  All hail the Dollar Menu.

But when it’s my choice alone, I choose the Chick.

For better or worse, Chick-fil-A is different from the other chains in three ways that I can discern.  One, the place offers no hamburgers.  I am sure their chicken sandwiches are loaded with fat and calories and all kinds of nasty stuff, but they taste pretty good on their buttered buns after a long stretch in the car.  Two, their employees bend over backwards to be nice and helpful.  Three, they are not open, and apparently never will be, on Sundays.

They take a lot of heat for it too.  From mall owners and customers for obvious reasons, but also from a few employees and observers who criticize the staunch position held by company founder S. Truett Cathy, a devout Christian who remains firm in his position to put family and worship ahead of business.  Over the years, the company has gotten in some legal and PR hot water for some of its policies.  I just hope the company is taking these seriously and treating people fairly.

That aside, though, it is hard to fault a business owner for closing down one day a week, for whatever reason.

In a recent interview for Advertising Age magazine, Chick-fil-A’s vice president of marketing David Salyers was asked what he thought would  you think would happen first, a hamburger on the menu, or a Chick-fil-A opening on a Sunday? Salyers answered, “Definitely a hamburger on the menu.  Not even close.”

I too take Sundays off, in part as my own Sabbath observation and in part to rest, renew and be better at what I do.  I just hope my CHIKIN cravings pop up on the other six days.

See you Monday.

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July 16, 2010 · 7:52 am

Real life

Greetings from Lake Chautauqua, where I’ve been with about 25 family and friends for a mid-week reunion.  Aunts, uncles, a niece, four nephews and another 25 or so second cousins, cousins removed several times and family friends who’ve been in my life since day one were all here in western New York for the gathering.

It’s fun hearing everyone’s news and even more fun re-hearing the old stories.  Yes, it is true that I was “baptized” with gin by a drunken lobbyist while in my baby carrier atop a night club piano.

If you saw the movie Dan in Real Life, you have a picture of what it is like here—right down to the used book store in the center of town.  Dozens of relatives, complete with their successes and worries and baggage and history, under a roof a wee bit too small for the crowd, loudly living the joys and bumps of real life.  

The fact that I write a blog has come up periodically, and people have asked if I’d be writing any stories from the week.  I simply said, only if they are blogworthy.  That was all it took for one aunt who set out actively to achieve blogworthiness.

Wednesday alone, we fished off the dock for hours, undertook a hopelessly disastrous group craft project, which I orchestrated after temporarily forgetting my deficit in this area.  We divided into teams for a putt-putt tournament, swam, ran, played basketball, attended my father’s brilliant performance before an audience of 5,000 at the Chautauqua Institution’s amphitheater and had a loud dinner with 50 spirited guests. 

Was it blogworthy?  You decide.  I must report though that my 76-year-old aunt succeeded in achieving blogworthiness in her own right, on the mini golf course.  On the 12th hole, she stepped back from a rolling ball, into a row of raised bricks, and fell backwards, landing simultaneously on her tail bone and her head.  She got up and finished the remaining six holes. 

It takes a lot to stand out in this crowd, but everyone tries.

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July 15, 2010 · 8:39 am

Buzz off

You never can tell with bees.

We all remember Winnie the Pooh, a bear of very little brain, trying to outsmart bees in a half-baked quest to steal their honey by floating up to a tree branch with a balloon.

“Wouldn’t they notice you underneath the balloon?” Christopher Robin asked. “They might or they might not,” Pooh answered.  “You never can tell with bees.”

Oh, they will.  Those mean, nasty, hurtful little demons.  You bet they’ll notice you and come after you with every trace of their vengeful wickedness.

If you can’t tell, I hate bees.

Last summer we called in a bee man after neighbors complained that there were yellow jackets coming from our yard.  The bee man came and, of course, there was nothing flying around.  He asked me to describe them—do they look like yellow jackets, hornets, wasps, bumble bees, what?  What do I know, they look like bees!  I don’t know one from another, I just hate ’em.  They sting.  The sting hurts, even kills.  I can’t enjoy time on our back deck because it’s them or me, and they won’t leave. 

Anyway, one or two flew by and I pointed them out to the bee man, who said, “Those are honey bees, I can’t kill honey bees.”  Then the neighbor walked over.  I reported, it’s honey bees.  She said, “Oh, well, you can’t kill honey bees!”

Well why in the world not?  Yeah, yeah, balance of nature, blah, blah.  Stupid nature. 

I can probably live without honey.  I can live without flowers if it means I can complete a crossword puzzle on a summer afternoon without being harassed by evil apiarian attackers.  And that infuriating buzz.  Heck, as much as I love Jerry Seinfeld, I didn’t even see Bee Movie. 

Sorry to drone on so, but get this.  I’ve just discovered that a colony of pollinating pests has built a hive in the rocker on our front porch.  And they were none too happy when I went out to sweep and unknowingly moved their cushy condo.

Well, I plan to cut them off at their little bees’ knees if it’s the last thing I do. 

Anyone have a hazmat suit?

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