Number 54
Some of you are likely wearing a pair of glasses to read this. Most of you are probably wearing a pair of pants, over or under. You may be wearing a pair of shoes, or at least a pair of slippers or socks to keep your feet warm. But even the women among you who are wearing a pair of earrings and a pair of pantyhose are not wearing a pair of bras. Why? I don't know, but I think something should be done about it.
A TV craft show hostess while gluing said "make it adhese" and not only that, remarked on the new word of the day, apparently forgetting "adhere." I don't know why we have the word "adhesive" instead of "adherive." People who can't deal with these Latin constructions, as ancient as they are, ought to cling to the Old English or Old German of their DNA, and say "stick."
When Hitchcock's classic suspense movie, Rebecca, came on the other night, I noticed something in the opening credits I'd never seen before: "Selznick International presents its picturization of Daphne DuMaurier's celebrated novel Rebecca." I've never read or heard "picturization" anywhere else, and it's not in the dictionary. Its meaning is clear, but although the movie industry gave it a try-out, it never stuck, unlike its converse, "novelization." The MS Word spellchecker doesn't recognize either word, but I have read "novelization."
You know why I've watched the news more often than usual in the last few days. The other good news is that I collect more PO material that way.
I can, you can, he/she/it can, we can, they can [do it]
I was able, you were able, etc. [to do it]
I could [do it, have done it]
This is one of the things I have trouble explaining to my ESL students. It just is what it is, like the fact that "woman" and "women" are pronounced differently in the first syllable, when it's the second syllable that changes spelling.
George W also pronounced "meting" (as in "meting out justice" or "punishment") as "metting" ~ over and over again, because the clip has been aired frequently. He probably thought that as the infinitive is "mete" it must be pronounced differently from the other verb "meet." As I explain to my ESL students (and perhaps GWB could qualify as one), the silent E at the end of a word (with the usual consonant-vowel-consonant-silent E pattern) usually means the first vowel is a long one. Perhaps whoever wrote George's teleprompter notes misspelled the gerund with two T's, which gives us another familiar English spelling pattern indicating a short vowel, "metting."
You may know the old Chinese tale about a man whose one horse ran away. When his neighbors commiserated, he said calmly, "Who's to say what is bad fortune or good fortune?" When the horse returned with a beautiful mare, the neighbors congratulated him, and his answer was the same. But then the man's son was crippled in a fall from the new horse, and once again, the neighbors offered their condolences, and he gave the same reply ~ "Who's to say what is bad fortune or good fortune?" Some time thereafter, the emperor's army came to the village conscripting young men to fight, but the man's son was exempted because he wasn't physically fit. Who's to say what's good fortune or bad fortune? Everything changes.
While it's good to see a corrupt and cruel dictator run to ground (literally, in this case), we may ask, did the U.S. government support him at one time, and sell him WMDs or the materials thereof? Yes. Is the U.S. now being foolhardy, setting a bad precedent, and breaking the law by starting a war of aggression? Probably. Is our current administration profiteering from this war, directly or indirectly? I think so. Was the war started for mixed reasons? Yes. Is it a good thing, nevertheless, that Hussein is out of commission? Definitely. Will this coup show the Islamic world that the U.S. is strong (and they admire strength)? Yes. Will they be angry at the humiliation of this head of state? Yes. Will they retaliate? Probably, but might they also attack without this provocation? You bet. Is searching old man Hussein for lice and generally checking his health and giving him a haircut and shave the equivalent of beating him and dragging his body through the streets of Tikrit or Baghdad? No.
As soon as oil was found in the Mideast, all of this provocation both by us and to us was inevitable. A passive and conciliatory political stance would probably have results as bad or as good as the results of aggression. There's a military principle that says making some decision will generally work out better than making no decision, or as my dad (a military man) used to say only half-jokingly, "Do something, even if it is wrong." Lack of action also produces consequences. As for those who say the United States in general, if not its citizens in particular, deserved 9/11 and the disapproval of the world and the hatred of the Muslim world, remember that we, and they, are a mix of good and evil. It can't be otherwise. The history of the United States, like that of the rest of the world, is a story of tremendous achievement growing out of noble aspirations and corruption, greed and generosity, murder and self-sacrifice. What will the next turn of the wheel bring? We don't know, but it will be both bad and good.
The Chinese also have a saying ~ "May you live in interesting times." We do.
Copyright Rhonda Keith 2003. 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.
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