WALLA-WALLA AND RHUBARB

I always thought background actors in a movie crowd scene traditionally said "rhubarb" over and over to simulate conversation without being a distraction to the chief players. I also thought it was the noun for that fake conversation. (In fact one definition is "a heated discussion".) But I just read that, at least on radio, they may say walla-walla too. And they may also use other words and phrases, or even make real chit-chat. When Fred was studying Russian at the Army Language School in Monterey, California, two of his Army buddies, Art Lisciandro and Frank Tatule, acted in The First Theater of California in their free time, and they were taught to recite the alphabet for background crowd noise.

If you're planning a career as a crowd extra, check out Tony Palermo's page. Could be useful for filling in the gaps in a dull party, too.

ROUND-HEELED

A couple of more innocent readers, Fred included, weren't familiar with the phrase "round-heeled". Is it something like "well-heeled"? No. It's an old slang expression for a woman who has sex at the drop of a ... well, any number of things; i.e. her heels have gotten round because she tips over on her back so easily.

Jane Juska wrote a memoir called A Round-Heeled Woman : My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance. At the age of 67, she felt she hadn't got what she came for, and placed a personal ad looking for something like luv. She was old enough to know the meaning of round-heeled, at least.

MIXED METAPHOR

Dave Da Bee sent this:

"Director Fernando Meirelles (City of God) makes certain his characters swing at every blame-America-first straw dog like they expect candy to come pouring out." ~ Megan Basham in Townhall.com :: Opinion

Sure, on the surface it's a mixed metaphor ~ "straw dog" <> pinata. But it seems there are cases where one might say "take a swing at every [your object here] like they expect candy ..." ... well, no, maybe not. Anyway, if there were such cases, then inserting a clearly distinct metaphor as [your object] doesn't seem to be in the same league as the usual dull-headed mix-up.

I think I'll go out to a sidewalk cafe and argue about it with myself.

It could work. But yeah, it's time for a drink of something or other.

THE BRITISH CORNER

Ineffable

We always think England's educational system is superior to ours, but cracks may be appearing.

The National Review (9/26/05, p. 12) reports that a secondary school in Northamptonshire, England, is permitting students aged 15 and 16 to use the F-word in class, on a rationed basis (5 times per class). The teacher keeps track on the blackboard. The headmaster justified the policy by saying that this is reality, it's part of the students' everyday language. The reporter or editor wrote that his own "disgust at this further advance toward civilizational suicide is too deep to express in words, four-letter or otherwise ~ is, in fact, ineffable."

The headmaster might just as well say ignorance is permitted in the classroom because the students come in ignorant; fighting is permitted because it's part of their everyday lives; sticking pebbles up their noses ... well, perhaps that's not so frequent a reality, but it is a reality nevertheless. Is frequency the criterion for permissible behavior?

On the American side, though, a woman on a radio talk show complained that when her son was in an advanced placement high school class studying the history of Russia, the syllabus included the movie Anastasia, a fictionalized story of the Czarist princess. A cartoon. By Disney. What can I say. Especially since this happened in the town of my birth, Akron, Ohio, once celebrated as the Rubber Capital of the World. Likewise, an English teacher one of my sons had in a junior high in Kansas cut a book by Charles Dickens from their reading list because she thought it was too hard for them. I think it was too hard for her.

It's effable.

Arabella

Arabella is a new UK magazine still in development: "Quarterly luxury lifestyle publication reaching over 80,000 UK and international high and ultra high net worth individuals of Middle Eastern origin." Arab-ella, get it? You can take a survey to help them figure out where to take this new consumer mag.

Lawyers We Love

Who said all lawyers are liars? In The American Conservative (10/10/05, p. 35), Taki writes a short eulogy for his late friend Patrick Pakenham, barrister and son of the 7th Earl of Longford. While summing up for the defense in a fraud case, Pakenham said to the jury: "It is my duty to explain the facts of this case but the judge will guide you and advise you. Unfortunately, for reasons I can't go into, my grasp of the facts is not what it should be. The judge is nearing senility; his knowledge of the law is pathetically out of date and will be of no use in assisting you; while by the look of you, the possibility of you reaching a coherent verdict can be excluded." Pakenham was then escorted from the court. I like to think he is now arguing (or not arguing) cases such as the following in some higher realm.

NOT EVEN WRONG

The October calendar page in the 2005 Old Farmer's Almanac says "Not even wrong is a term scientists use to heap scorn on bad theory." That is, the theory may not be exactly logically false, but it's hopelessly irrelevant. But the example Castle Freeman, Jr. uses to illustrate this wonderful phrase is not from science but from the story of Job, who was bereft of everything he had in life by God, who had made a deal with Satan to test Job's love and fidelity in this way. Knowing he was an innocent man, Job questioned God. Job's protestations of his innocence just don't matter, in the face of the inscrutable Almighty.

ENTITLEMENT

Bill R. wrote regarding inequality in address, especially when one person is disadvantaged by lack of clothing:

A former boss of Peg's was a PhD in physics. When he first met his new doctor, the MD bustled in and said, "Hi, Norm, I'm Dr. Jones." Norm looked at the guy's nametag and replied, "Hi, Tony, I'm Dr. Smith."

My old friend Rose used to own a couple of bars, or joints, as she called them. One day a man came in and said, "Hello, Rose. I'm Dr. Whatever." She looked at him and said, "If it's Dr. Whatever, it's Mrs. Brudno."

I think those of us who are neither MDs nor PhDs ought to mount a campaign and put these people in their place, which is on our own level, unless the other person is vastly older or otherwise deserving of some respect.

COLOR SCHEME

Oxford University Press says "beige" is slang for bland and uninteresting. A student of mine from Mexico told me that in Spanish, at least in Mexico, they call a dull person, a nonentity, a "gray person". Both very tasteful and discreet colors, I might add, that go with everything.

NOT JUST YET, THANKS

Heard on the radio: A rather too peppy ad for mausoleum space, not unlike a used-car ad, was followed immediately by another ad, "Would you like to retire early?"

THE RIGHT WORD

Remember what Mark Twain said about the importance of choosing the right word ~ it's the difference between lightening and a lightening bug. Or, it occurred to me the other day, the difference between an outhouse and an outbuilding. Why the difference? It just is.

OLD PO'S

Remember that old issues of Parvum Opus can be found at www.keithops.us. I'm often a few weeks behind in posting, but there are nearly three years of weekly issues now.

Bernadette Roberts Workshop

I am organizing a workshop with Bernadette Roberts, a remarkable Christian contemplative and author of three books:

What is Self? : A Study of the Spiritual Journey in Terms of Consciousness

The Path to No-Self: Life at the Center

The Experience of No-Self: A Contemplative Journey

This workshop, called The Essence of Christian Mysticism, will be held on the weekend of May 5-7, 2006, in Loveland, Ohio. For more information, go to Bernadette Roberts Workshop. The site may be updated from time to time.

Link here to look for books on Amazon.com!

NEED A SIMPLE WEB PAGE? WOULD A NEWSLETTER, ELECTRONIC OR PRINT, HELP YOUR BUSINESS? TALK TO ME ABOUT PROFESSIONAL EDITING AND WEB WORK.

Go to Babelfish to translate this page into Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, or Spanish!

Parvum Opus is a publication of KeithOps / Opus Publishing Services. Back issues may be found at http://www.keithops.us/. Feel free to e-mail me with comments or queries.

If you don't want to receive Parvum Opus, please reply with "unsubscribe," "quit," "enough," or something like that in the subject line, and I'll take you off the mailing list.

Copyright Rhonda Keith 2005. Parvum Opus or part of it may be reproduced only with permission, but it is permissible to forward the entire newsletter as long as the copyright remains.