Number 105
Although I can't locate the issue, I'm sure I've written about the trend of TV newscasters to report stories without using complete sentences, as if they're writing newspaper headlines. Here's a case where this atrocious habit confuses the story: "Indian copters attacked with bows and arrows." This was about helicopters from India, which were delivering supplies to an island hit by the tsunami. Who attacked whom with bows and arrows? If you didn't hear the "ed" ending to "attack" you might think the Indian helicopter pilots were shooting bows and arrows, except of course that now we're conditioned to hear all the news in the present tense. It wasn't at all clear from this lead-in sentence. In fact, the Andaman and Nicobar islanders attacked the helicopters. The good news is that the tribes weren't completely wiped out. The bad news is the news. I don't ever want to hear "New Yorkers attacked with copters," for instance.
Two daBees and Richard Lederer say that "the" is pronounced "thuh" before a vowel. Don't think I didn't think of that. In fact I think that's the rule I was taught, but when I went over various combinations, I could usually make it go either way (for instance, I could say "the ant" either way). Singers, they say, are taught to enunciate more precisely, using "thee" before a vowel (and I can't sing). Richard Lederer brings in the article "a":
The main context of the sounding THEE for the article THE is before a word beginning with a voiced vowel, as "THEE apple." On this topic, you may wish to ask your readers to listen carefully to President Bush's pronunciation of the article A. The general rule is that A is pronounced UH in all contexts unless one wishes to communicate a strong emphasis. But President Bush almost always pronounces A as AY. For me, it's President Bush's second most prominent mispronunciation after NUKE-YOO-LEHR.
Dave daBee wrote re last week's "I bit my foot" (actually it was "I bit myself in the foot", which I wrote down half asleep): Speaking of which, this month I found myself malapropping (or perhaps not): "God and singers reconciled."
More misheard lyrics: For years, decades, I misheard this line in the great Temptations song, "Papa Was a Rolling Stone": And when he died / All he left us was alone. I thought it was "a loan" but the correct line is much better and I'm much relieved to have finally understood it.
Regarding my triple mixed metaphor, "I bit my foot," Richard Lederer wrote:
Metaphors that are mixed together in small space are often called malaphors. My favorite student malaphors include "During the Napoleonic era, the crowned heads of Europe were trembling in their shoes" and "The poet Dante stood with one foot planted in the Middle Ages while with the other he saluted the rising dawn of the Renaissance."
In "I don't want anyone stepping on anyone else's thunder!" you claim to see three metaphors mixed together. I see only two ~ metaphors (cliches): "stepping on someone's toes" and "stealing someone's thunder" ~ but what do I know: I've got a mind like a steel sieve.
Three, four, five, or even more metaphors have been mixed in string statements. The best specimen I've captured is the late Chicago mayor Harold Washington's statement to the press: "It has been our purpose all along to have sort of a periodical potpourri to cover all the flotsam and jetsam that flies through the media that can get nailed down on a regular periodic track. So, in a sense, that can be interpreted as open sesame, but don't throw darts."
Actually, the "thunder" line was from the Dilbert newsletter, and I didn't mean it was a triple threat. Mine was though.
Every year I buy The Old Farmer's Almanac. There are other almanacs, maybe just as good, but this is the oldest. Published since 1792, it's full of interesting articles and astronomical information, and has a handy hole punched in the corner for hanging in the outhouse. I just noticed that every full moon has a name, from Eastern American Indian tribes' names for the month itself. This month, the full Wolf Moon is on January 25. Here's the list for 2005:
January, Full Wolf Moon
February, Full Snow Moon
March, Full Worm Moon
April, Full Pink Moon
May, Full Flower Moon
June, Full Strawberry Moon
July, Full Buck Moon
August, Full Sturgeon Moon
September, Full Harvest Moon
October, Full Hunter's Moon
November, Full Beaver Moon
December, Full Cold Moon
In 2004, there were two full moons in the month of July, the Buck Moon and the Thunder Moon. The names of the full moons for the rest of the year followed the usual sequence. The Old Farmer's Almanac web site gives more alternate names, which come from various Algonquin tribes.
Other full moon names are: Old Moon, Moon After Yule (obviously European or from European settlers), Hunger Moon, Crow Moon, Crust Moon, Sap Moon, Lenten Moon (European), Sprouting Grass Moon, Egg Moon, Fish Moon (coastal tribes), Corn Planting Moon, Milk Moon, Rose Moon (European), Hay Moon (must be European), Red Moon, Green Corn Moon, Grain Moon, Fruit Moon, Barley Moon, Frosty Moon, Moon Before Yule (European), and Long Night Moon.
Perhaps we could make up our own names for private use. January could be the Resolution Moon.
Rod T. wrote me about an online petition to President Bush for a National Dark-Sky Day, to promote awareness about light pollution. Have you ever seen the sky thick with stars, seen the Milky Way or a comet? If you've only lived in brightly lit cities and never spent a night in the country, you may not know what it's like to see the night sky without interference from all-night street lights, store lights, car lights, and so on. I know the sky doesn't look the same as it did when I was a kid. I'm afraid that the first thing that comes to mind now when a young person today hears the word "star" is a celebrity.
I urge you to sign this petition.
Mike Sykes sends this on Antony Flew:
"I have not changed my views" Antony Flew informs Rationalist International ~ By Sanal Edamaruku
On 16th December 2004, Professor Antony Flew, British philosopher, well known rationalist, atheist and an Honorary Associate of Rationalist International, telephoned me and informed that the wild rumours about his changed views are baseless. He expressed surprise over the confusion some people have spread and asserted that his position about the belief in god remains unchanged and is the same as it was expressed in his famous speech "Theology and Falsification". "I find no new reason to change my views", Professor Flew said.
A 2004 interview with Professor Flew may help clarify his ideas. So what does this have to do with language, i.e., how does it get into PO? Well, it seems there is disagreement not only about whether God exists, but on what it means to "believe" in "God".
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I have a contribution in a new anthology about the
"center of life", Changing Course: Women's Inspiring Stories of
Menopause, Midlife, and Moving Forward, edited by Yitta Halberstam.
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