Distasteful food words.

Handy in the kitchen

Do you like to eat food? Sure, we all do! But sometimes it bothers me that English, which is such a useful and interesting language, manages to have the ugliest words to describe food. Sometimes I wonder how we stomach the stuff with words like these. 

Seriously, look at this list and think of the words as words rather than what they mean. Eating is a pleasure; food is lovely. Why do we have gross words like these to ruin the experience?

Moist -- famously a top hated word in the English language, possibly because it is squeaky and is used equally for baking and fungal infections. 

Vegetables -- I've complained before that vegetable is a horrible wreck of consonants and vowels, more suited for something that clogs the toilet than a class of healthy comestible. Shortening it to veggie just makes it a toilet clog for children and idiots. 

Succulent -- An X-rated verb masquerading as a G-rated descriptor, and using the word when being arrested in an eatery probably just makes the situation worse. 

Slurp -- Another word for boneheads and a violation of every table manner since tables began; if there wasn't a punk band called The Slurps then I'm disappointed in the genre. 

Juicy -- About as bad as moist and for similar reasons. It also makes you spit a little at the end, which makes it a little more demonstrative than we really need. 

Scrumptious -- Anything that is described with a syllable like scrump ought to be involved in crushing, like a trash compactor. Supposedly a bastardization of the less-painful sumptuous. 

Toothsome -- Who thought this was a good word? It's usually used to connote good flavor, but teeth have no taste sensors. If your teeth are getting strong feelings from your food, it's time to see your dentist. But that brings us to:

Mouthfeel -- We know what it means and there's no real substitute word, but does it have to be so... vivid? Oral tactility is now my preferred phrase. 

Yogurt -- You get no sense of the creamy goodness of yogurt with this ugly Turkish word. The cows would go on strike if they knew. 

Munch -- Violent and stupid. Used for comical purpose by people who can't tell jokes. 

Chomp -- Violenter and stupider. 

Yummy -- Another word for small children, dingdongs, and dummies, and damn near incites me to violence. Grow the #@#^&! up.

Dripping -- Not really a food word although often used to describe supposed benefits of foods that are moist and juicy and a big fat mess. I ain't cleaning that up. 

Delicious -- Two shusches in a row make thus Latin import a wet mess. Pity, as it is the fundamental word for describing things that taste good. Shortening it to delish is almost as bad as veggie. 

Barbecue -- Not too too bad, but compared to its lyrical Spanish origin (barbacoa), it's definitely more violent and ugly. Shortening it to 'cue is just stupid. 

Mouthwatering -- What whets your appetite better than a word that makes you think of obvious, uncontrollable drooling? 

Luscious -- Delicious's drunk brother. 

Well, that's my list, and I daresay it's probably only the offenders who came to mind today. You may have other such words that hit the nails-on-the-chalkboard-o-meter, which I invite you to share in comments. English is such a wonderful language but can be so gross. 

Dips and drips.

As long as there have been people and language, there have been ways to call people losers. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it. 

English has a very impressive list of synonyms for losers. For starters, Merriam-Webster gives us disaster, failure, catastrophe, disappointment, bust, flop, washout, bomb, fiasco, has-been, mess, lemon, miss, dud, shipwreck, debacle, clunker, turkey, débâcle, bummer, fizzle, clinker, frost, also-ran, dog, hash, shambles, botch, near miss, nonevent, nonstarter, muddle. That doesn't include others like never-was, failure to launch, useless, trainwreck, wet match, doofus, wet lettuce, dip, and drip. Also, fill in your own favorite. To the connoisseur they have their differences; a turkey is more annoying than an also-ran, a bomb more of a spectacular loser than a near miss. Whether they tried and failed or failed from lack of trying, or even (like the has-been) have enjoyed past success, they have this in common right now: failure. 

Still, there is a lot of overlap between failures and other kinds of problem people. A doofus and a goof might have a lot in common, but it seems that while both are dopey, the goof may be lovable and even stumble into luck. A jerk is often not a loser, but like a bomb, is dangerous in proximity. 

It's funny to me that Merriam-Webster has many words for loser that imply spectacular failure, like catastrophe and shipwreck. Usually we see loserdom as a chronic rather than acute condition. A fiasco may pull things together for another try, but a loser can never win. We may avoid them in real life, but we like them and kind of root for them in the funny pages. Charlie Brown is the best example, but since 1965 the Born Loser has been sharing his hopeless case with the reading public.  

I thought about adding Joe Btfsplk of Li'l Abner to this list, but he's not a just a loser, he's a jinx -- a man whose loserdom is so bad that it extends to those around him. 

Always have some sympathy in real life for the losers you may meet. Sure, some do nothing but loaf, smoke weed, or krex and moan, but others keep plugging even though it's hopeless. Tenacity is a virtue. Besides, the most loveable loser many of us know is staring back out from the mirror, brushing his teeth (and doubtless finding a new cavity). I have read recently that from 1947 to 1950, Jackson Pollock painted in his “drip period.” My drip period has lasted from approximately nursery school to the present day.

Sike?

Honestly, I wonder what kids are thinking. I didn't know what they were thinking when I was one, to be frank, so you can imagine how bad I am at it now. 

Today's complaint concerns the abuse of an interjection that my generation made great, a tagline so profound and so much fun that it arose from nowhere and became universal in no time. 

Of course, I am referring to

PSYCH! 

It seems that youngsters, who literally know nothing, are rendering the word as "Sike!" Which is inscrutably dumb. If they aren't doing this as some parody of Gen X, which Occam suggests is not the case, then they are making a silly mistake. 

Psych! as an exclamation, of course, is something one says as to indicate that the other has been fooled, gulled, pranked, or otherwise tricked -- from the expression psych out. I think Webster's errs in listing as synonyms for psych (out) words like terrorize, frighten, and discourage. Psych out was and is a less serious term in common use, at worst meant to intimidate or distract an opponent, not drive him into the fetal position. 

Obviously this term comes from psychology, "from scientific Latin psychologia 'the study of the mind and behavior,' derived from Greek psychē 'soul, mind' and Greek -logia 'science, study,'" according to Webster. Pretty common terms, especially in this over-analyzed era, no? Been around in English since at least 1749. And yet the youth of the country has to make up some strange spelling for psych?  

If only there'd been a popular TV show, one that lasted, say, eight seasons, using the term as a title; perhaps a show featuring a fake psychic, a member of Gen X; a show titled after the term that would have the double meaning of psychic and psyching out (since the hero is a fake). Perhaps the show's theme song might even use the expression "psych you out". 

Maybe then, kids today might remember how to spell the word. Oh, who knows. Probably not. 

Sharks, sharps, flats.

We played a lot of card games in my house when I was growing up, and if someone were to have a particularly good run my mother might call him a card shark. Interesting to note that was kind of a misnomer, except it wasn't. 

The term card shark is well-known, and was the name of a popular game show, but it doesn't make much sense. While the term shark is used for someone very driven at work (especially lawyers), we don't usually append the term shark to an activity to show someone is good at it. A good cook is not a kitchen shark; a great writer is not a word shark. But a pool shark is someone really good at pool, and for the same reason as the card shark -- it comes from cheating.  

We're gonna need a bigger pot.

In centuries past, sharks were not considered the magnificent beasts that the aquariums tell us they are now, but rather were considered parasites, ones that fed on others, as with loan sharks. So we might think that a card shark is either a mighty beast or a parasite that lives on smaller prey, but that may not be how the term originated. 

The word sharper as a noun likely came to the English language from the German schärfen, for sharpen, a way of calling someone a cheater, at least according to Grammarist. I suspect it may come from cheaters doctoring card decks by trimming or notching particular cards in a subtle way so they could tell what their opponents were holding. Oddly, I haven't seen that possible explanation online, but we know that deck doctoring is why new cards come in sealed boxes -- to avoid such tricks. 

Over time the card sharp, a kind of odd phrase, seems to have accidentally become card shark. But while the card sharp may be a cheat, a card shark is more often someone who's just really good at card games. (Different dictionaries, however, will define the terms differently.) It has been my experience in the real world that calling someone a card sharp is an accusation of cheating, but calling him a card shark is not. Whether the player is a card sharp or shark, though, he's not someone you want to go up against. Or at least, you'd best be a master at either method of play to go against him. 

Personally, that's why gambling has been the one vice that's had limited attraction for me -- there is no limit to the amount you can lose, and in a short time. What fun is that? I work too hard for my dough.

Bad words.

As usual, those on the Left are portraying themselves as champions of banned books, but not giving the facts behind the books the Right want banned -- which are only and specifically graphic sex books from kids' libraries. Seems like a reasonable ask.

On the other hand, conservatives are not the ones who subject books to diversity and sensitivity readers. These new drugs on the market are paid by publishers to read books before they go to press and flag things that might be offensive or triggering to readers. But only certain readers, as we shall see. 

Obvious ones are, of course, words insulting to ethnicities, but there's definitely a hierarchy in place. Words that have been used to insult blacks are out entirely (unless maybe if used by a black author). Even if an evil character uses the word, it cannot be allowed in print. Words offensive to Latinos face automatic ejection as well, but may not bring the ban hammer down on the author. I'm told it's all about context.) Words that insult Asians of any type may be used if important to the story. Jews and other whites (all Jews are now whites even if they aren't) are fair game. 

Wops, Micks, Dagoes, Krauts, Squareheads, Hebes, Polacks, Rednecks, Crackers, and so on -- use them all you want. And as a white guy I have no problem with that. Here's a little white secret: We use those terms on one another, even within our own families.

Some ethnic words have to go, we are told. But there are many words that you might not know are ethnically insulting that are also banned. Cakewalk, for one, has a historical background that makes it (all together now!) problematic. Master bedrooms are no more, as you may have heard. And don't talk about slaving away on a project, even for comic exaggeration, even if you had a Castilian ancestor sold into slavery by the Barbary pirates. 

Of course, insulting words about sexual orientation are right out. So is misgendering -- and this can be a bear trap for the unwary, as there are now more genders than Baskin-Robbins flavors. This also means you can't use any collective noun that implies gender -- not just the long-despised mankind but also guys as in Hey, you guys! Even ladies and gentlemen, which used to cover everyone, is insulting because it leaves out those who do not conform to either or who choose multiple genders. 

Let us not forget the words that are banned because they might offend the differently abled. Bruce Springsteen can no longer be blinded by the light; he may be dazzled or find it difficult to see but not blinded. Never mind that the light actually caused a brief loss of vision; the verb is no longer allowed. Similarly, deafening is out. Dummy is no good anymore, not because it offends the mannequin-American community, but because it was used to make fun of deaf-mutes. 

Crippled? Are you kidding? Banned for life.

What about the crazy people, you ask? Well, you are now banned for using the word crazy. Mental illness isn't funny, buster! Wacko, looney, nuts, ga-ga, all those words are problematic because insane people need love too, right up until the moment they shoot up a school. (Then it's the gun's fault, anyway.) 

Don't expect to get away on technicalities. Words that sound like banned words are also banned, even if there's no connection. A guy lost his job for using the word niggardly, which comes from Middle English and Norse (hnøggr, meaning stingy). Merriam-Webster even warns against its use -- not that it can bring itself to use the word that it sounds like. As for spick-and-span, its origin is "short for spick-and-span-new, from obsolete English spick spike + English and + span-new" -- but you'd best drop it anyway. I'm surprised KIK Consumer Products still uses the brand name Spic and Span.

🔨🔨🔨🔨🔨

Most of you know I'm a pretty nice guy, and I genuinely try to be respectful to everyone. But I'm also respectful of the idea that speech must be free, and not restricted among adults for any trivial reason, least of all because someone might get annoyed. (Christians have been getting annoyed for 2,000 years and no one worries about our feelings.) Adults have the freedom to not listen to or read something we don't like. If its very existence bothers us, we need to grow up.

I have one simple message, and if you never remember anything else I've written, I would ask you to remember this: 

Do not take seriously the claims about banning books by people who are set on banning words.

Thank you and good day!

Apples of crabbiness.

It's crabapple time again in the ol' orchard! Come on down and bring your crabbiest friends!

Okay, that's like the one crabapple tree I know of in town. It's on the yard of a house that's more than sixty years old, and since it looks like the only such tree on the property, I would guess it was planted on purpose as an ornamental tree. The crabapple, despite its cross name, is a pretty tree when flowering.

In my childhood, my grandmother's little house had some crabapples around the neighborhood, and we were told that they were not edible. That's not strictly true, but the crabapple is known to be very tart, more suitable for jellies and cider. 

We kids of course found the crabapple most suitable for throwing at each other, because boys are dumb about things like that. You could usually ping one off a kid without causing too much damage, and I speak as the pingee as well as the pinger. Still, I'm glad we had no proto-Randy Johnsons in our family. 

The Latin name for the plant and its various species is much more pleasant than CRABapple. Malus floribunda, for example, is one of the most desirable crabapples for its flowers. But how did an appealing tree with a somewhat useful fruit get such a grumpy name? 

It seems to have been the name for a wild tree going back to the middle ages -- the crab part, anyway, coming from Nordic languages, the apple added later for wild trees that bore these fruit. Although some say it's the "wild fruit" part that was the crab. It's a little obscure. It doesn't seem to be related to the crustacean, who got his name from the Germanic for claw, descended from the word for scratch. Or is it? Because according to Ancestry, the name Crabbe (as in Larry "Buster") came from the "German Dutch and Flemish: metonymic occupational name for a fisherman from Middle Low German krabbe Middle Dutch crabbe '(sea) crab'." So if the name Crabbe (or Crabb) comes from the crab, from the same languages at the same time, how can there be no connection between the crab tree and the crab crustacean? 

And I must say, I've known more crabs (the people) than Crabbes (the people) or crabs (the animal) or even crabs (the fishermen). Undoubtedly the crab one knows at the office gets his or her appellation from the armored sea animal, not known for its cuddly nature. 

That's what I mostly knew of as crabs when I was kid. Lucy Van Pelt from Peanuts was known for her crabby nature. Crabby was a common word then; less so now, a few decades on. I don't know why. It's still useful. I think we all sense the difference between someone who is crabby and someone who is just grumpy; the former is more likely to be looking for a fight, the latter wants only to be left alone. 

I'm not sure why the word in this sense has fallen into disfavor, unless it's because of its association with the famous crab lice. That might make someone crabby. So might getting pelted (or Van Pelted) with crabapples. It might make one as crabby as a crustacean. And speaking of crustaceans, the Asian crabtrees are among the prettiest floral varieties. But not if crushed. Being a crushed Asian would make them crabby. So it's all connected, somehow. Or is it?

Banjaxed!

It may be a sad commentary on the human condition that our words for aiding and for creation are not as plentiful as our words for beating and for destroying. Furthermore, the words for creation tend to be specific to the task (assemble, sculpt, carve, concoct, cook) while those for destruction tend to be interchangeable (ruin, crush, crunch, pulverize). 

All that said, we do have some pretty great works for wrecking things. Wallop, pound, smash, annihilate, shatter, ravage, and raze are all fun. Also, we do understand that there are implied differences in the severity and methodology of these verbs. 

One of the coolest words is banjax, which has that great ax at the end. It's thought to be of Irish origin, and Merriam-Webster dates it to 1939, but no one knows for sure where it came from. That stressed B-syllable at the beginning is reminiscent of beat or batter, and X is always good for destructive purposes, as a sound or as a mark to indicate things that must go. You get the idea of being hit and broken in two. It also sounds like getting hit with a banjo, and even the sound the banjo might make when you get hit. 

No disrespect to El Kabong, but an acoustic guitar weighs about five pounds, while a banjo can weigh as much as fourteen. Plus, the guitar has more air resistance. I think I'd rather be kabonged with a guitar than banjaxed with a banjo. 

As we head toward football and hockey seasons, where the verbs for destroying each other will be flying in the sports coverage, I would to remind everyone that banjax is a fine word for beating the snot out of an opponent. 

One important side note: Remember, the word is whup, not whoop. Whup, generally combined these days with ass and often available in a can, is a variation of whip that dates back to 1852. Whoop means to cheer (as a verb) and goes back to the 14th century. One does not whoop one's opponent -- unless one is cheering for him, I guess. You'd be surprised how often I see this mistake from professional writers -- and, it must be said, female ones, because they've never watched pro wrestling. 

Above all, do not whoop ass, because that sounds like some strange butt-related fetish, and I don't think we need to know any more about one another's sex lives these days. 

A tragic rime.

 

Saga of the Homophones

Or, Long Knight's Journey into Daze

By Fred Key, Righter

Knight fell slowly on the town

And it hurt him on his knee.

A boulder knight no one could know

It tripped him up, you see.

“This rock has merely hurt my pride;

My hart is much more pained.”

Indeed the dear looked shaken as

He wobbled off, half sprained.

“Sad knight,” his squire said to him,

“Despair misaimed your boot.

I’m saddened to my sole for you!

How sorry is my foot!”

“Alas, the pain is all too reel,

A fishhook in my heart.

It lands my fate I know not wear!

I rend my clothes apart.

I love the Princess Jezebel

If I may bear my sorrow.

The sorrow growls, shows its teeth,

And haunts me for the morrow.

Ah, Jezebel! Beloved one!

Such a gorgeous site!

Yes, her castle is quite nice,

And she’s a bit all right.

I sought to woo her to be mine

I brought a bunch of flours.

The sacks all busted on the way!

Was sweeping up for hours.

Covered as I was I thought

To play a dashing roll.

Alas, she’s gluten-free these days!

She shunned me, on the hole.

When I climbed out I wrote a note

With finest stationary

The note, I fear, I could not send!

Stuck to my reliquary!

I made a book of poems for her;

Enclosed it in a phial.

But all the pages jammed in there

So it was not worthwhile.

Once more I leapt upon my horse

And took him by the rain

Which meant I had to shower off

That horse is such a pain.

At last I rode once more to her

And to her castle peek

I found my interest peaked in her

As in her bath I sneak.

Once more disaster struck, for she

Whose love I tried to steel

Had me tossed out upon the tush

And that raised quite a wheel.

I rolled back home and now I sob

Thwarted in love thrice.

What a scandal! What a waist!

And the rest of her was nice!

You clearly see me in such pane

All riven by love’s wars!

And thus my tail is at its end.”

He pointed to his drawers.

“Such a poem of -- whoa!” the knight

Herd from his faithful flunky

While chasing off a pesky flock

Of sheep who all smelled funky.

The squire said, “A lesson, lord,

Is learned by eye or ear.

And yet ignored, for it is said,

You can’t get there from hear.”

✍🏰🐑

The rules of sarcasm.

A while ago I heard an acquaintance I'll call Dave tell a group that he and his wife have an agreement -- they never use sarcasm on each other. Calling it the anger of cowards, he said it was one of a few little rules that makes their marriage work. 

I thought that was a pretty good idea. I wouldn't ever advise a married couple to come up with a list of a hundred-odd rules they each MUST follow, but a couple of simple ones to keep the peace can certainly help. That didn't seem too onerous. 

I asked a mutual friend about it, a guy who's been married longer than either Dave or I have been, and he assured me that without sarcasm it "would be like everyone had taken a fucking vow of silence" in his house. 

Sarcasm is a kind of irony, a means of saying the opposite of what you're actually saying. That's why it's so mean. The word sarcasm itself is interesting, as Dave also pointed out. For a mode of expression so well known and so long used, its origin is a bit mysterious. Here's what Merriam-Webster has to say:

earlier sarcasmus, borrowed from Middle French or Late Latin; Middle French sarcasme, borrowed from Late Latin sarcasmos "mockery," borrowed from Late Greek sarkasmós, from Greek sarkázein "to jeer at while biting the lips" (in GALEN; perhaps, if the original sense was "to bite or strip off flesh," derivative of sark-, sárx "flesh") + -smos, suffix of verbal action — more at SARCO-

NOTE: The original sense of the Greek verb sarkázein is conjectural, as all instances referring to jeering or mockery come from late or post-classical sources, generally lexica. The sole significant early uses are in Aristophanes' play Peace, where the Megarians, while pulling boulders from the entrance to a cave, are described as performing the action of the verb sarkázein "like mean (?) curs," while perishing from hunger ("hoi Megarês … hélkousin d' hómōs glischrótata sarkázontes hṓsper kynídia"); and in the Hippocratic treatise "On Joints" (Perì Arthrôn), where the verb is used to describe hoofed animals eating grass. In both cases the interpretation of sarkázein is far from transparent.

"To bite or strip off flesh" -- ouch! That certainly shows the cruel edge to the concept. 

My wife and I don't usually get involved in trading sarcastic barbs with each other, and when we do, she is entirely to blame. No, that's not true, but as she was a female teenager at one time, she's a past master at the art form. However, when sarcasm does pop up, regardless of who unleashes it, it doesn't last long -- because a regular fight breaks out quickly. 

Of course, I would never be sarcastic in any way on this blog. I'm always sincere when I compliment someone, and wouldn't dream of using snark to torpedo a target, no matter how worthy. I'm just a regular living saint, am I.

Apples and eyes.

There are some weird ways to express affection. Of course there are all the silly pet names we give each other, like punkin and babycakes and honeybunch and, as one girlfriend liked to call me, turkey (it didn't last long). 

More archaic terms might include the bee's knees and the cat's pajamas, Jazz Age phrases that seem to have, like jazz itself. just come to be out of a love for rhythm and rhyme over sense. Mental Floss couldn't find any known logic to them, anyway. P.G. Wodehouse preferred the lodestar of my existence and variations, which at least makes sense -- a lodestar being a star by which one navigates. Webster notes that the literal sense of a lodestar as a guide to a happy destination didn't outlast the 17th century, but the figurative sense lives on. 

The one I always disliked was the apple of my eye. The idiom comes from the Bible, where it appears in several places. By its use, the apple is a metaphor for the pupil, in that it is something in the center of the eye, and thus the beloved is always in the center of one's vision. 

He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.

(Deuteronomy 32:10)

Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings.

(Psalm 17:8)

There's something weird going on here regarding the word pupil. Apparently there was no English word for the little black spot in the center of the iris until the 15th century, can you believe it? And why is the word for student the same as the word for the aperture of the eyeball? Coincidence? Nope! Here's the story: 

If you look into another person's eye, you can see a small reflection of yourself. That small image made the ancient Romans think of a doll. Thus, they called the part of the eye in which it appears the pupilla. This word literally meant "little doll." The English word for that part of the eye, pupil, can be traced to the Latin pupilla. Pupilla also had another meaning. A little girl who was an orphan and was in the care of a guardian was called a pupilla. A little boy in the same situation was called a pupillus. From these two Latin words we get the other English pupil, meaning "a young student in the care of a tutor or in school."

It's appropriate in an upside-down way to think of the image of yourself as a little doll in someone's eye, because the image does register on the retina -- upside down, along with everything around you. 

I just don't dig eyeball-related metaphors, I guess. When I was a kid Keep your eyes peeled grossed me out; I was thinking not of peeling back the eyelid, but of Mom's apple-peeler going to work on the eyeballs. Yeesh! 

So I'll just stick with my favorite terms of endearment and leave the biblical apples of eyes alone. Terms like Hey you and Bozo and What's your name again? They always work.

How to feel.

I was listening to a podcast by America's favorite priest, Fr. Mike Schmitz, but he was driving me nuts. Although the title of the video/podcast episode is "3 Reasons You Still Feel Bad After Confession," throughout it he talks about why one would "feel badly."

Grrr! Father, you need to get to English language confession, right NOW!

As George Phipps, the world's most physically fit English professor (played by Kirk Douglas) put it in the 1949 film A Letter to Three Wives, "You feel badly with your fingers." When your feelings are bad, you feel bad. Not badly.

This one catches a lot of people up, even smarties like Fr. Mike. But it's really simple. While it's true that bad can be used as an adverb, that's just another example of the dictionary throwing in the towel, like a modern DA saying people will commit crimes if they want, so we won't prosecute. 

Properly speaking, bad is an adjective. And badly is always an adverb. Adjectives modify nouns. Adverbs modify verbs. Adverbs can also modify adjectives or other adverbs, but there are none in this simple statement:

As we can see, bad modifies the noun: I. How do I feel? Bad. But when the word is the adverb badly, it's modifying the verb, feel. How is my tactile sense performing? Badly. (The verb performing being the modified word here.)

So I feel bad means I have bad feelings, while I feel badly means I am bad at feeling things, which is a statement one would seldom be obliged to make. 

Another reason this screws us up so often is that the reverse, I feel good, is usually treated as passable although it ought to be I feel well, well being the proper adverb. But Merriam-Webster muddies the waters, saying, among other foolish things: 

Adverbial good has been under attack from the schoolroom since the 19th century. Insistence on well rather than good has resulted in a split in connotation: well is standard, neutral, and colorless, while good is emotionally charged and emphatic. This makes good the adverb of choice in sports.

So... dumbbells who play sports should use good? Really, they make it seem like good is fine as an adverb if you're a moron. Not like dictionary editors, who are smarty-pantses who suck at sports. Why do we have to drag class and envy into everything?

Bottom line: If you want to sound smart, feel bad if something negative is up, feel well if something positive is up. The dictionary guys are going to look down on you either way, because that's the only joy they have, but you'll feel better. 

Knock off the single quotes!

I have just been through a manuscript with a lot of inappropriate single quotes. Now, I'm not one to shame singletons in general; standalone items and persons are perfect the way they are, and do not require a twin to be made complete. However, standalone quotation marks in inappropriate places are a black mark, or lack of one, and something up with which I shall not put. 

Single quotes -- and here I'm not discussing apostrophes -- are seldom used in American English. We've settled on the double quotes for quoted material, as a means of setting off someone's words, and we like it that way. Single quotes are almost exclusively used for quotes within quotes.

"Hot damn," said Barney. "This morning Betty said, 'Get your lazy ass out of this house!' Can you believe it?"

The British do it the opposite way, which is their problem. 

'Blimey!' said Barnabus. 'This morning Betsy said, "Get your idle arse out of this house!" Can you imagine?'

The rule for single quotes goes as follows, and I quote from the seventeenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (chapter 13, verse 30): 

Quoted words, phrases, and sentences run into the text are enclosed in double quotation marks. Single quotation marks enclose quotations within quotations; double marks, quotations within those, and so on.

The problem, however, is that all of a sudden people -- and here I'm referring to professional writers -- seem to think that if it was not said aloud, it doesn't get the double quotes. Like so:

Sam went for his gun, the gun he liked to call 'Boom Hilda' for some strange reason.

This is wrong, wrong, wrong. There are two better choices than single quotes in standard text before we even get back to the double quotes. Words as words (like the name Boom Hilda used in that sentence) may be italicized, or they may be given no special treatment at all. Chicago 7.63 says: 

When a word or term is not used functionally but is referred to as the word or term itself, it is either italicized or enclosed in quotation marks. 

You can argue that Boom Hilda is not really being used non-functionally and leave it alone, no italics or quotes. Or you can italicize it, which would be the preferred method in books. Or, if you were texting the sentence or otherwise dealing in a method that allows no italicization, you would use double quotes. But there's no call for single quotes here. 

Somehow, though, just in the last couple of years, I get these manuscripts in which people cannot bring themselves to use double quotes except for directly attributable speech. How did this happen? I blame COVID. 

Well, maybe not, but it happened around the same time. I think the real problem with the pandemic was that it made everyone stupider. But that's a much larger problem, and one for another day. 

Look back in irritation.

So here we are, at the start of a new year. 

This is it!

Before we go charging into 2023, I thought I'd have one last glance backward. I thought that, rather than a roundup of the things that made me and many others absolutely insane with fear or fury this year, I'd just note a few things that were memorably annoying, at least as far as I am concerned. As they say (and Benny Hill once quoted), it's the little things that hurt. You can sit on top of a mountain, but you can't sit on top of a pin. 

In no particular order: 

😠 Americans can't pronounce monsieur

This one's for my wife. The French makeup company Lancôme (part of Paris-based L'Oréal) released a new mascara called Monsieur Big, and all her favorite online influencers have been pronouncing the first word MON-sewer. Even one in Louisiana, a state founded by French people, where they don't pronounce Baton Rouge BAYten ROOgee. Merriam-Webster has no other pronunciation for monsieur except slight variations of the French meh-syeur. What happened? Doesn't anyone take French in high school anymore? 

😠 Whoop/whup

Ain't these people never watched wrestling? When you want to beat someone up, you want to whup him, not whoop him. To whoop is "to utter a whoop in expression of eagerness, enthusiasm, or enjoyment". If someone says he wants to whoop somebody's ass, it sounds more like he wants carnal knowledge of said end, not to leave the imprint of a boot on it. The whoop/whup menace is not as common as the inability to spell whoa that I mentioned early in December, but it's always a show of ignorance. Whup too is in the dictionary -- let's resolve to look words up before we use them this year!

😠 Political infection 

Twice I have dropped out of groups on social media that specifically demanded NO POLITICS of their memberships. People can't help themselves. In one case it was a group dedicated to old comic books, and Trump seemed to still own these people's thoughts a year after he left office. In the other, a group about the history of my home town, one member who was also a moderator kept slipping in PETA propaganda. It's like a mania. 

😠 Loving villains

Disney has been leading the pack on this, of course; in its efforts to squeeze every nickel from every bit of intellectual property it owns, it's been doing films, novels, graphic novels, and whatnot celebrating the bad guys. We've also seen it with films like Joker and Black Adam. The bad guys never seem to choose wickedness out of overwrought ambition or greed or even the left's favorite hatred to hate, prejudice; they're forced into being evil. Great, now do Hitler. 

😠 Recipe introductions 

You go online for a mac & cheese recipe -- a recipe that takes five ingredients and four numbered instructions -- and the author first has to tell her life's story. Thanks for the recipe, but I don't understand why you went to all that trouble, writing all that. I almost gave up hope until I saw the header INGREDIENTS and realized I was saved. The personal touch is great, but usually a paragraph or two is plenty. 

😠 Affirmation dumps

Don't get me wrong -- I much prefer people who want to spread hope and cheer to those who want to cackle as the world burns. But you can't just dump and run. People say the darndest things about expecting the universe to magically respond to their desires if they desire them enough. If I politely explain that this is not my experience, or ask a question, I get ignored or brushed off. You have to be able to defend those posts to an honest inquiry, not just put them out there to perfume the air. 

😠 Owned truth

This one goes back to Jim McGreevey's shameful exit in New Jersey -- anytime someone introduces "my truth" or dismisses your facts as "your truth," expect a humungous pile of crap to follow. If it's not the truth, it is a lie. This seems to get worse every year.

😠 Really bad portmanteaux

Kidult. Manscaping. Beergarita. Foodlegger. Caucacity. Some are fine and fill a niche. Most, like these, have little wit and less sense. Unless beergaritas are really good; you'll have to tell me. 

😠 Christmas cards

I'm sorry, but I think we have to let this one go. Every year I send them out and get fewer back as people just give up. We all can stay in touch online, at least enough to know who's alive. Most of the cards we get aren't even signed, and may have been ordered through something like Shutterfly. Mine may be the first human hands to hold the card. Maybe we can send out a handful of cards for people we really can't stay in touch with without mail (old folks in the home, for example, or people working at Port Lockroy), but for the rest, I think this is one tradition we ought to drop.

That's my list, and I'd love to hear your pet peeves. I have a longer list of things that are really awful, but I'd guess most of those are on your list, too. On to 2023, which I can only hope will be no more tragic and horrible, and less annoying. 

Why trespasses?

Friend and correspondent Mr. Philbin weighs in on Sunday's blog entry concerning the enduring popularity of the Olde Englishe thys and thines ("and you forgot Art," he adds, "as in who ART in Heaven"). He writes:

"Fred: You gave us the KJV translation, but I notice it asks for forgiveness of our debts as we forgive our debtors. BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT PEOPLE SAY. They say 'forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass.' So if that didn't come from the KJV translation, why is it so ingrained in us?"

To which I say, Well, you dirty dog, Philbin! You ... that's actually a darned good question. 

And thank Heaven it is one dealt with online by someone more knowledgeable than I am. 

Richard Beck on the Experimental Theology blog addressed this in a short item ten years ago,  The source of the popular version of the Lord's Prayer, which includes that King James Version thees and thys, is the Anglican (i.e. Episcopalian) church's Book of Common Prayer, the compilation of prayers and rites going back to 1549. The translation of debts as trespasses, Beck notes, came from the 1526 William Tyndale translation of the Bible, a translation that predated the original King James Version by 85 years. 

No doubt Tyndale had a great influence on the KJV editors, but they did not use his same translation of the word for Aramaic words for debt and debtors. 

As for the Book of Common Prayer, that was a step I should not have let out when I addressed this topic. It is impossible to overstate the importance on that book on our culture, especially the 1662 edition that held sway for more than three hundred years. That's where we get the version of the Lord's Prayer people in America know best to this day (although God is said to be "Who art in heaven" not "Which art in heaven" as in that book). 

The Book of Common Prayer is also where we get the marriage rites seen in all the movies ("Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man's innocency...") as well as the graveside rite ("Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ" as dirt is shoveled on). You'd think everyone in the movies who dies or gets married, who is not specially designated something else, is an Episcopalian, although only about one percent of American adults identify as such. 

Okay, Mr. Philbin, you got me on that one; I hope you enjoyed your trespass on this blog. Now hit the road before I'm led unto the temptation to smack ya one!

Woah is me.

The word Whoa has been around since the fifteenth century as a command to stand still ("as to a draft animal"). I want to make it perfectly clear that this is the way it has been spelled since it descended from whoo in Middle English. And the meaning in casual discourse (popularized by Bill & Ted of excellent adventure fame) is exactly that -- like, "Stand still! I have to take a moment to comprehend all this!"

So, as I said, it has always been whoa, with the H after the W, as in who or which or why or where.

Until now. 

Universal's theme parks have made the misspelling the crucial word in its ad campaign, which has been going on for two years now. Maybe that's to be expected for an outfit that is letting literal dummies be its spokescreatures. 

Woah oh oh it's stupid.

The so-called Hit the Woah challenge, covered with gusto (if not shame) by KCEN, includes the word misspelled on its Chyron. To be fair, they didn't invent this challenge, and the misspelling may have come from some other dingdong.

They also don't know when to use double quotation marks.

And then there's this sports report on FoxNews.com, which is the kind of thing that lets Times readers sit back and say "Look at those idiots, with their football and their Fox News. We would never misspell 'whoa'! Ha! Ha!"

They would have a point.

I'm usually not one to poke fun at bad spellers. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. I'd hate to see my math skills on display for all the world. But the people screwing up here are supposedly professionals, people for whom language is their currency, and they can't check the dictionary?

Merriam-Webster usually backs down like the nancy-pants they are when so many knuckleheads start misspelling a word. Once a sort of critical mass of dopeyness arrives, rather than defend the truth, their editors throw up their red pencils and say "The people have spoken! The word has changed!" But not this time, or not yet at least.

There will be those who say that it doesn't matter -- the H in whoa is silent (but it is not, not really) and it doesn't matter where you put it. 

Well, I have one thing to say to that: 

Pardon the punctuation.

The wh in words like why or whoa is supposed to sound different than the w in womb or wood; it actually is an hw sound. Spelling whoa as woah would seem to indicate that it should be two syllables, like Noah, and it's not. Hey, dunderheads, if you think the H is silent, why not just leave it out? Woa! Or try it other places? Woha! Hwoa! Who         H!

If I were to adopt a secret identity, I think I would become the Yardstick Avenger. I'd sneak into the offices where the Universal campaign was devised and whack everyone responsible. I would not wackh anybody. The Yardstick of Doom would become legendary. I'm not saying this will happen, but you professional communicators out there had better start using your dictionaries. You have been wharned. 

📏📏📏📏📏

Say that again?

One of the definitions for the word reduplication in Merriam-Webster's is

an often grammatically functional repetition of a radical element or a part of it occurring usually at the beginning of a word and often accompanied by change of the radical vowel

We love reduplications in English. They're fun. Mumbo jumbo, razzmatazz, hocus pocus, higgledy piggledy, helter skelter, okey-dokey, even-Steven, riff-raff, and huggermugger are just a few examples. The Yiddish method of disdain, adding a schm- to the word and repeating it ("Sleep, schmeep! We gotta get moving!") is a delightful all-purpose reduplication tool.  

Back in 2013, the Write At Home blog did a journeyman's job of compiling reduplications, separating them by types. There are the exact reduplications (night-night, pee-pee, so-so), the rhymes (abracadabra, boogie woogie, nit-wit, nitty-gritty), and the ablauts, which change form via the vowel (seesaw, knick knack, crisscross). You'll see a ton more on that page.

Some of these go back a long ways, and some are more modern. Riff-raff is traced to the 15th century. Zigzag is dated to 1712; namby-pamby to 1745; jeepers creepers to 1928; phoney-baloney to 1936;  bling-bling to 1999. We enjoy using them, whether to give the convo a little lightness or perhaps a little ironic humor. 

Rich Hall's Sniglets from the eighties had one I've always used: The Esso Asso is a guy who cuts through the gas station (or other corner establishment) to avoid a red light. (Esso stations are no longer found in America, but the brand name is seen in Canada and elsewhere.) 

But we need more modern-day versions, reduplications that reflect the way we live now. So, to get the ball rolling, I have ten new ones below for your use. Add any others you have come up with in comments. 

Cancel-dancel: The jig one makes when one realizes that a simple tweet has offended the Twitterati who are so very easily offended -- a jig that ends in useless abject apology.

Cellybelly: The effect of looking at one's phone all day instead of getting any exercise. 

Mailloraillo: An email that was meant to be anodyne but, due to lack of vocal cues and careful writing, comes across as sarcastic, furious, or insulting. 

Cuddle-coddle: A couple that can't stop with the PDAs even in inappropriate places.

Flyer-lyers: Private jet environmentalists.

Boredy wardy: A kid who complains of boredom when he has every means of entertainment at his fingertips. Extreme cases may be preceded by Lordy lordy.

Pity kitty: A feral cat that's exceptionally cute.

Cally-Wally: A guy who insists on calling you instead of texting like a normal person.

Paggro aggro: Passive-aggressive (esp. a boss who is this way). 

Hippocratic oafs: "Doctors" whose only medical service is milking the public treasury. (Okay, this is not a reduplication but it is a Sniglet-type phrase.)

So there's a few to get you going. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you have a tip-top day with no hurly-burly or fender-benders.

Word lesson #773.

 

What is a weed?

What is a weed? Is weed just a mean term for a plant we don't happen to like? 

Merriam-Webster defines a weed this way:

a plant that is not valued where it is growing and is usually of vigorous growth

especially : one that tends to overgrow or choke out more desirable plants

Similarly, the Encyclopedia Britannica says: 

general term for any plant growing where it is not wanted. Ever since humans first attempted the cultivation of plants, they have had to fight the invasion by weeds into areas chosen for crops. Some unwanted plants later were found to have virtues not originally suspected and so were removed from the category of weeds and taken under cultivation. Other cultivated plants, when transplanted to new climates, escaped cultivation and became weeds or invasive species. The category of weeds thus is ever changing, and the term is a relative one.

So yeah, they're plants we don't happen to find useful, as food, ornament, construction supply, etc. Worse, they tend to "choke out more desirable plants." 

Is it insulting to call a plant a weed, then, just because we don't like it? No. Plants have no minds and no feelings and so you can call them whatever you want. 

Some people will defend weeds. They may point to particular ones that are actually useful (dandelions, for one, are edible), or are important for wildlife (especially as pollinators). That argument, however, isn't saying that weeds are good; it's saying that things we think of as weeds are actually not, because they have an important purpose. 

Other people just like weeds because they are what nature would do if we weren't interfering. In the comic strip Miss Peach, scrawny weird kid Arthur was known for growing a weed garden. The character seemed to find identification with the unwanted plants. Perhaps Arthur thought that, like a weed, he was useless and ugly, but darn it, he was also persistent! Ironically, cartoonist Mell Lazarus said Arthur was his most popular character.

But are any people really like weeds? Should we not agree with Ars Nova, who sang "Fields of People / There's no such thing as a weed"?  

Yes and no; yes, because all humans have an intrinsic value and natural rights; no, we shouldn't, because it's an inexact analogy. A decent person can turn bad and become a vile slob; a sinner can reform. But whatever stinkweed does, it's never going to be a strawberry rhubarb pie.

The main thing about weeds is that they grow like, well, weeds. It's a symbol of this fallen world that the plants that help us to survive and thrive have to be brought along with effort, while the useless ones proliferate like crazy. No one ever found a field that just automatically produced delicious potatoes or amazing rows of corn.

Sure, sometimes you can find wild blueberries or bunches of coconut trees or other wonderful things, but those are the natural exception rather than the rule. One estimate says that only around 10 million humans could survive if we were all hunter-gatherers. That's roughly the population of Michigan, for the entire planet. And fewer would survive if they were vegetarians. 

Modern agriculture (and aquaculture and animal husbandry etc.) gets the credit for the survival of the other 6,990,000 of us. 

Seeing how vital plants are for us, heck yes, there are weeds. We ought to make sure there's nothing particularly useful about them before we murder them, but then it's fair game. Bring on the corn flakes! Say no to stinkweed flakes!

Cursing and cussin'.

I've shared here the story before of a friend who said having a child turned her into Yosemite Sam, because she had to replace all her naughty language with G-rated or at worst PG-rated words. 

The patron saint of swearing
without actually cursing

We generally know that most such mild appellations are euphemisms because of their similarity to the actual naughty words -- as George Carlin pointed out, shoot is just shit with two O's. Shucks goes all the way back to 1847, and is used the same way. See also sugar, which I think is a more recent interjection invention.

Some cuss words that we think of as pretty mild, however, are even worse than the ones we actually use. Some are straight-up blasphemy, like zounds! (short for "God's wounds!" meaning the injuries of Christ's Passion and death) and odds bodkins! (which was "God's body!"). The British blimey! is the shocking expression "God blind me!" to express shock, and egad! is the milder "oh, God!"

To get more into Yosemite Sam territory, we have the swear word drat!, which is the kind of thing that would get you laughed out of the biker bar. But drat is thought to be a contraction of God rot -- in other words, hoping that the person would be divinely condemned to rot, likely in hell. Thus, the Snidley Whiplash "Drat you!" is even worse than an effenheimer. Consarn's origins are a little fuzzier, but are considered to be connected to damn, and thus another hope that the hearer would be sentenced to eternity in hell. Compared to that, telling someone to perform an impossible biological function on one's self, while likely painful, would only be of temporal disquiet. Dadgum is also a spoonerism for God damn -- think of that next time the kids make you watch Cars. That Mater is one foul-mouthed tow truck. See also gosh darn, gul durn, gul dang, etc.

It's kind of funny how we went from thinking that the wrath of God was less of a curse than telling someone to, say, doody in his hat, but there we are. (Doody, by the way, as a euphemism for, well, poop, is also of mysterious origin, which is probably not much consolation to the many fine Doodys of County Mayo in Ireland.) When Deadwood was running on HBO, I read that while the idea of bad language was captured by the show, the actual Western bad language would have been more blasphemy, less biology. But I never saw the show, so I can't confirm. 

I could go on with this doody all day, but I leave you with this amusing list from The Tennessean of fifty swear-word replacements for when you're trying to keep it family-friendly. My favorites on the list, which I will undoubtedly use, are: 

William Shatner!

Frack!

Zoinks! 

However, they did put a few on that list that also have blasphemous origins, like gadzooks! ("God's hooks," as in what He hung on on the cross) and crikey! (a euphemism for "Christ"), as well as blimey! You just have to hope the toddlers around you don't have an Old English Dictionary available.  

An apple a day.

Behold! My new favorite apple. It's called the SugarBee, and I wonder if there was some apple chicanery going on. 

The SugarBee is trademarked to the Chelan Fruit Cooperative of Chelan, Washington, and yet claims that the whole thing was an accident. They have an involved story of the Little Honeybee That Could: 

One sunny spring day, a honey bee was buzzing throughout Mr. Nystrom’s orchard, collecting nectar and cross-pollinating apple blossoms along the way. The honey bee stopped at an unknown tree and collected nectar and pollen from a blossom.  As the day went on, the little honey bee passed that pollen onto a Honeycrisp tree. Little did this bee know its cross-pollination between a Honeycrisp and an unknown variety had just resulted in the beloved SugarBee® apple we know and enjoy today!

Months later, when apples of every shape and color began to grow, Mr. Nystrom discovered this all new variety of apple in his orchard! It was large and round, with bright red and yellow coloring. He took a bite…. “Yum!” The apple had a crispy firm texture and was unbelievably sugar-sweet. He was thrilled and spread word far and wide of a new delicious apple variety, which he then called B-51, commenting again and again on its sweet and crunchy nature.

Mr. Nystrom seems like an odd character, going around saying "Yum!" all the time, but it's the Pacific Northwest, where odd things happen. But did this strange cultivar just "appear" from the popular Honeycrisp, which was in development at the University of Minnesota from 1960 until 1991? Seems a little fishy.

But what is not fishy is the SugarBee. It is what they call an eating apple, like the Honeycrisp, as opposed to the cooking apple (Rome, Granny Smith) or throw-at-your-brother apple (crab apple). It is indeed quite similar to the Honeycrisp, but not so damn huge. I love Honeycrisps, but getting through one can be a chore, like eating a big grapefruit; I can start to lose interest about halfway there. The SugarBee is just the right size, about the size of a Gala apple, with sweet, refreshing flavor and a nice crunch. However it was created, good job. 

I can assure you that my reaction, however, did not include the word yum. It has been a long time since I was four years old.