QUITE THE BLITZ

From Herb H.:

1. Surprising that you didn't find right away that "blitz" means lightning, in German. Thus "blitzkrieg" is "lightning war." The more like lightning Hitler could make it, the more intimidating it was.

I already self-corrected last week, thanks to Mike S. (former RAF). Fred had reminded me of the German meaning, which I knew, but omitted.

2. I agree that Fred is not slovenly or vague, but is he "quite the reverse"? What would be the reverse of slovenly and vague? When we were in plane geometry (not you ~ but Fred was in there) we had to learn to differentiate between reverse, converse, and inverse, and maybe even another "verse" of some kind. Unfortunately, memory fails. But if I had to guess, I'd guess that we learned the "reverse" of "Fred is vague" would be "Not vague is not Fred."

Two negatives make a positive in logic and in English grammar, though not in some other languages. In "Not vague is not Fred", both the subject and the predicate are meant to be reversed, but what I wrote was, "Fred is neither slovenly nor vague." Reversing the positive and negative poles of both subject and predicate would make it, "Slovenly or vague is not Fred." Garner's Modern American Usage explains the difference between converse, obverse, inverse, and reverse in logic. I won't get into those lengthy distinctions here, but only quote this definition of reverse ~ "the broadest of these terms, means simply 'the contrary' ~ and embraces the other three."

3. In the course of a quick search for a source on differentiating the meanings of inverse, reverse, and converse, I ran across ads for a book called Wordtree, the first and only whole language reverse dictionary. (Or something like that.) You start with the idea and find the word for it. Well, first you pay $149 for the book, and then you find the accurate word for your process.

4. Fred's word is possibly "auto-correcting." If authorities will permit combining those two. It beats $149 for no promise of any good result.

I wouldn't pay $149 when alert readers notice everything.

So back to me and "quite the reverse". I use the phrase "quite the reverse" once in a while, ever since I picked it up years ago from My Friend Sashie, a book by the late Scottish writer Jane Duncan. She was a minor novelist who wrote pleasant fiction based on her own life and people she knew. Sashie used to say "quite the reverse" meaning "not so".

ON ALL FOURS

Dave DaBee sent this one:

Overheard in the optometrist's office:

"I've got a headache, I wanna go home, and I think I'm just not goin' on all fours."

At first I thought he'd been in a veterinarian's office.

But for those of you who might not recognize the idiom, "all fours" means an animals' four legs (or sometimes a human's knees and hands), but usually we say "not goin' on all four cylinders" to mean low energy, as when all of a car's cylinders aren't firing. This is from the old days when most cars had just four cylinders.

Dave sent this story about Gypsies too:

Re gypsies: indeed, my ex (a woman of no prejudice) worked at Mass General and had a gypsy patient, and was astonished to find the family stealthily absconding with a heart monitor machine, rolling it toward the elevator. "What were they going to do with it???" she wondered.

Sell it on eBay?

WHAT'S MINE IS YOURS

Today a short piece I wrote appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer, about Kelo vs. City of New London, the recent Supreme Court Decision allowing private entities (people or businesses) to take other people's private property. Following is a slightly different version of this article, with an addition I didn't think of in time (noting that private businesses surely could be taken by larger ones).

The Supreme Court decision that private interests can confiscate private property was based on equivocation and verbal chicanery. Until now, only the government could confiscate private property, with payment, for public "use," meaning something we all can use, like a road or a park or a sewage treatment plant. Public. Use.

The judges who voted to give private business owners the same privilege based the decision on the idea of public "benefit," which is much more loosely defined. Would-be business owners may argue that if they take people's homes, as in Norwood, the community will benefit from increased tax revenue, jobs, etc. But "benefit" is a weasel word for two reasons.

First, it's a matter of opinion—and speculation—whether a community inevitably benefits more from economic growth than from the right to ownership and the comfort of people who may have lived in their houses for a long time, may be too old to want to move, may be unable to find a similar situation for the price of their houses, and certainly won't find the same neighbors. It's not always about condemning a run-down crack house with an absentee landlord. Furthermore, a smaller business could be devoured by a bigger one. Call it a matter of values, even differing religious beliefs. The Supreme Court came down on the side of belief in money as the greatest good.

Second, there is no guarantee even of economic benefit. How many strip malls can't fill all their slots, for example?

The ability of private concerns to confiscate private property started with taxation. Cincinnati is not the only city that has raised taxes for private developers to build new sports stadiums, so more people will attend the games, bring in revenue, making everyone more prosperous and prouder to live in the city. This doesn't always work out, especially when the team isn't winning. But even if the team wins, I don't care. I'm not a sports fan. Either way, the taxpayer can't attend a game without buying a ticket. The beneficiaries are the people who put the money in their pockets. No one likes paying taxes when the government spends for things we don't approve of, but there's no justification for paying private owners for their pet projects.

Nevertheless, I have plans that I think will be for the public benefit. I'll be around to inspect your building in the morning.

I was happy to learn today (thanks, Chris) that someone is taking action. One of the judges who voted for this travesty could conceivably have his home taken by eminent domain, to be replaced by a hotel, which would certainly bring in more revenue to the town. Justice David Souter lives in New Hampshire. I hope they get his house, and the property of all the concurring justices, who were Souter, John Paul Stevens, Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer.

Dissenting justices were Sandra Day O’Connor, William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas.

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