PARVUM OPUS
Number 221
April 12, 2007
Ever play one of those kids' games where you're tricked into saying something silly? When my mother was a kid, they had a little tongue twister that went like this: You have the other kid say "Polish it behind the door" quickly. You try it. I learned a game at camp where everyone says slowly, then faster, supposedly "Indian" words: "Owah tahgoo siam." There's a new version of this game. One group of people insults itself, or the men insult the women of the group, in song and story, and another group of people learn the words and repeat them, then the first group gets to whack the second group for being insulting.
Don Imus is the latest jerk to get himself in trouble by blurting out racial insults, specifically, calling the Rutgers women's basketball team, which just had a very successful season, "nappy-headed hos". Imus has always been a jerk, that's how he makes his living. Made his living; he got fired. But the usual politicos are running with it. Not very important. I'd like to see the basketball team pound Don Imus on TV, and call it even. However, what used to be private racist insults among certain white people, which were not countenanced in polite company, are now common currency in rap music (and I do mean currency) and are occasionally used by white people who think they are amusing, or hip, when they pick up the language they hear addressed toward black people in rap music. That's why "ho" is a common slang term now. That's why you can buy baby clothes from a line call Pimpfants.
On a lighter ethnic note, in the 1940 movie Too Many Girls, the elegant Desi Arnaz sings a vivacious song called "Spic and Spanish". "Spic" had been used as a rude word for Hispanic for quite some time, and according to Wikipedia, "spic and span" was used by 1950 by blacks to mean a mixed Puerto Rican and black couple. The movie also has a college football team play a rival team called the Texas Gentiles. Imagine the uproar amongst the Gentiles about that.
"My client enjoys to take off his shirt", said the lawyer of a Chicago man named Duplessis. I don't know why, but we can say "likes to take off his shirt" but not "enjoys to take off his shirt". "Enjoys" must be followed by a noun, in this case a gerund: "enjoys taking off his shirt". The client in question got a tattoo to honor the city he loves, nicknamed Chi-Town, but the tattoo artist wasn't paying attention and spelled it Chi-Tonw, thus the lawsuit. Some other people have gotten Chi-Tonw tattoos, though, in support of the tattooist. I guess they've got skin to spare.
Fred says when he was a kid, it was common for kids to emblazon their love on trees or sidewalks and they often wrote "Ture Love" with their initials. So a couple of years ago Fred and I wrote our initials in some wet concrete above "Ture Love". Crazy kids. At least we didn't get tattoos. Yet.
Spelling and misspelling affect our feeling about words. Did you know "phine phrensy" was archaic spelling of "fine frenzy"? The ph is the Greek form of the f sound; the s in phrensy is probably just the British spelling. "Phine phrensy" somehow gives me the impression of a Victorian scene, perhaps illustrated by Edward Gorey, of someone having a fit and rolling their eyes. Humorist Josh Billings wrote about "tite boots" which conveys suffering better than "tight boots".
A notice to give one pause:
BANKS AND
THE STOCK MARKET CLOSED FOR GOOD
FRIDAY
Closed for the religious holiday, or closed permanently? Capitalization and line spacing make all the difference.
Richard Lederer wrote: "Attached please find my take on dueling aphorisms. I continue to suggest, respectfully, that, in your marvelous writing, you place your commas and periods inside end quotation marks."
I know the rule about quotation marks. It's an American rule, and although I usually frown on adopting Britishisms for no real reason, in this case, I think the British use of quotation marks is much clearer and more logical than ours. I've written about this before in PO 13 and PO 14. As I explained to Rich (as he said to call him), I think about it every time I use quotation marks. It's like breaking the (faulty) rule against splitting infinitives: I know people are going to think it's a mistake. And when I work for a client, I follow the customary rules. But in PO, I indulge myself.
Anyway, Rich sent his piece on dueling aphorisms. I'm linking to his online article, but what he sent me is considerably longer, and I don't want to waste any of it, so I'm giving you the longer opening and end of "How Wise Is Proverbial Wisdom?," and some sets of dueling aphorisms not found on the web page.
A proverb is a well-known, venerable saying rooted in
philosophical or religious wisdom. Just about everybody knows some proverbs,
and we often base decisions on these instructive maxims. But when you line up
proverbs that spout conflicting advice, you have to wonder if these beloved
aphorisms aren’t simply personal observations masquerading as universal
truths:...
So for better days ahead, all you have to do is figure out which proverb to use under which circumstances! Quite apparently, whichever side of an argument one takes, one can usually find a proverb to support it. That’s why Miguel Cervantes wrote, “There is no proverb that is not true,” while Lady Montagu proclaimed that “general notions are generally wrong.”
Here are some of the paired proverbs in his e-mailed piece:
Variety
is the spice of life, but don't change horses in mid stream.
Birds of
a feather flock together, but opposites attract.
Blood is
thicker than water, but familiarity breeds contempt.
The road
to hell is paved with good intentions, but it's the thought that counts.
A penny saved is a penny
earned, but penny-wise and pound-foolish.
There is nothing permanent except change and you never step in the same river twice, but there is nothing new under the sun and the more things change, the more they stay the same.
I know you can come up with more. Just don't tell your kids about this, because next time you tell them to share and share alike, they might come back with possession is nine-tenths of the law.
A couple of points about translation:
A lady I know wants to write a book for girls, and then maybe translate it herself with what remains of her high-school Spanish. Ambitious, but mistaken; you only translate into your native language.
For many people, a lot hinges on the translation of the Bible. "Thou shalt not kill" ought to have been translated as "Thou shalt not murder". We always make that legal distinction. I heard there's a bumper sticker that says "The King James Bible is the word of God". This must allude to a doctrinal dispute, or maybe someone thinks the word of God was originally English. Like in the 1967 movie Bedazzled, where God was English. Well, He used to be, anyway. By the way, I saw this message on a church sign: "Imagine". What were they thinking? The John Lennon song "Imagine" does suggest we imagine peace and brotherhood and other nice things, but it also says imagine no heaven, no hell, no religion, and living for today. Much like Flip Wilson's Church of What's Happening Now!
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Short Order is a new series of my short stories in 5
1/2" x 8 1/2" booklet format. The first two are available now for $5
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/// In Carl Kriegbaum Sleeps with the Corn, a young
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/// Still Ridge is about what happens when the old-time moonshine business meets up with a predatory modern bottled water corporation. How far will Kate, a newcomer to the mountains, go to protect the water supply? 22 pages.
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WHEN SONNY GETS BLUE! Check out the video clips of Sonny Robertson and the Howard Street Blues Band at www.sonnyrobertson.com and www.youtube.com/rondaria, with his new original song, "A Different Shade of Blue".
SEARCH
IT OUT ON AMAZON : It is the glory of God to conceal a
thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter. Proverbs 25:2
The poet Muriel Rukeyser said the universe is not composed
of atoms, but stories. The physicist Werner Heisenberg said the universe is not
made of matter, but music.
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