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Speaking of Something Dumb… · 9 March 2024

I do not know if you ever do dumb stuff, but I do. Seemingly all the time. Usually, when I think I am being clever.

It does not snow that often where I live, but I have lived in snowy places during my lifetime. So I really ought to know better. I ought to know better than to turn on the windshield wipers when the door is open. Especially if there is powdery snow on said windshield.

I remember being younger living in the Spokane area and turning on the car to warm it up. I would just hang one foot out the door and start up the car, turn on the defrost, get out, and scrape the windows. It was pretty normal preparation for winter driving. I am not sure exactly why I just left the door open and kept that one foot dangling, but I did it most of the time. Maybe I just wanted to take one less step when getting out to scrape the windows. I am not positive, but that sounds about right.

Living in the Seattle area is a bit different. Not quite as much snow. But I suppose that old habits, even habits from long ago and not often used in the present, still rear their heads now and again. Which happened a couple times recently. The first time that I left the door open to turn on the car, there was a tiny bit of snow on my car. And apparently, I had left the windshield wipers on when I turned the car off, so I got a tiny bit of snow on the inside of the door. Silly me. But no harm.

The second time, I remembered that I did not want the windshield wipers to be on, so I thought I ought to shut them off. Apparently, I had turned it off when I turned the car off, so that if it did snow, the wipers would not push the snow off the windshield onto the door, onto my leg, and into the car. But alas. I pushed the wiper selector up to intermittent and the wiper swished all that powdery snow onto the door and my leg, and into the car. And it was not a little bit of snow, it was a lot of snow. How silly. In reality, I should have checked the wiper settings before I turned the car on. That would have been the wise thing to do. But I do not think anybody has called me wise. At least not seriously. And definitely not recently.

It is funny. Whenever I do something dumb, I think that I ought to write about it. Okay. Not whenever. After all, if I wrote about all the dumb stuff I do whenever I do them, I would never run out of material. But I did need to write about these two incidents. After all, they were within about a week of each other. I could not believe that I did the same dumb thing twice in such a short period of time. Ah well.

I am sure that I will turn on my car with my leg hanging out the door again. Just because I want to save that extra motion when getting out to scrape the snow or ice off my windows. (Yes, I do scrape them all.) But perhaps I will make sure the windshield wipers are off before I turn on the car. After all, now I have written about this particular dumb thing that I did when I thought I was being clever.

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Clever Word Play · 2 March 2024

I like clever word play. Even when I do not recognize that it is clever word play.

Now, I know that I am not that clever. Or funny. Or punny. Or anything that resembles entertaining. But still, I like a good pun or other word play. I have even used some of those clever word plays. Sometimes without even meaning to. Which is par for the course. I am never funny or clever or entertaining when I try to be. I am usually funny, clever, or entertaining when I do something dumb.

I did make a somewhat clever word play in my previous blog post. “Words are interesting. But do not take my word for it.” Okay. Maybe not that clever. But it is at least interesting.

Think about it. There are two different definitions of WORD being used in the two sentences. The first word is just a normal use of the word. A word is just a part of language that stands for something. The second use of word is the notion of the trustworthiness of a person.

(By the way, I am not trying to see how many times I can use the word, WORD, in a blog post. I have already done that before with a different word. In fact, I think I wrote a whole blog post with just one word. … … … If you wondered where I went just now, I looked through a few of my blog posts to see if I really had done that. Apparently, I just thought of using a single word in a blog post. But I did post a blog about Jibber Jabber. I used Jibber Jabber quite a few times in that post, but they were not the only two words. Although I seem to recall trying that. Ah well. So much for great ideas.)

So where was I? Oh yes. Word.

Okay. My clever word play was not. That is, it was not clever word play. But still, I had to laugh at myself for not even thinking about word play. After all, I do fancy myself a writer. Then again, I sometimes wonder why I am writing. I suppose I do it because it is part of my calling. I do it because I am supposed to write.

At any rate.

I started this blog post thinking I might say something clever or witty about clever word play. Turns out that I do not really know much about clever word play. Oh sure. I can sometimes spot clever word play. But whenever I say something that might be considered clever word play, somebody else usually needs to point it out. I never realize that it was clever. Which begs the question. If a person did not mean to say something clever, it just came out that way, was it really clever?

Maybe someday I will be able to use clever word play on purpose. But I would not hold my breath.

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Words Are Interesting · 24 February 2024

Words are interesting. But do not take my word for it.

I mentioned the origins of worrywart in my previous blog post. It comes from a comic called Out Our Way, by J.R. Williams and ran from the 1920s to the 1970s. I looked at a couple of the single-panel comics, and decided that they do not necessarily translate to today. At least for me. Of course, the small sample size does not mean that they are not applicable to us today.

Many words have interesting origins. Worrywart is just one of those words. But just think about it. Anybody can make up a word and if it catches on, it might make the English lexicon. Of course, it might help if you spoke Greek or Latin. Then, you could claim that your word was from the one or both of those languages. (Like lexicon. It comes from the Greek lexikon, which means book.) You could make up your word and if it sounded like it might have a Greek or Latin origin, you could just claim it did and make up its origin story. And voilà! A new word is born. (Actually, I am glad it is not that easy.)

I do not have enough word prowess to make up a word that might fit into that category, but I am sure there are people who do. People who obsess over words and have enough creativity to make up some word and its plausible origin, its etymology.

Which is another interesting word. Not because of its origin (which is probably not very interesting), but because of its closeness to the word entomology. Think about it. The two words are just a couple letters apart. One has nine letters, the other ten. The longer word has an added ‘n’ and one different letter (an ‘o’ instead of a ‘y’). And yet the two words mean completely different things. Etymology deals with the origin of words. Entomology is the study of insects. They both come from Greek through slightly different paths, but it is so interesting how they can sound so similar and yet be so different.

Which makes me glad that I do not speak a language that is completely dependent on tones and nuance. Yes, English has nuance, and people certainly need help in enunciation and pronunciation (but that is a completely different story). Then again, enunciation and pronunciation are interesting words in and of themselves. I always wondered how pronunciation lost its ‘o’. Think about it. We pronounce words, but words have their own pronunciation. What happened to the ‘o’ when the verb became a noun? Such horror.

Well, I know that there is much more to thinking about words. People study words. They may even make their careers out of studying words. Which I am not making fun of. I take words seriously, even when I am making fun of them.

I am sure there are many more interesting things about words and many more interesting words than I could ever mention here in a simple blog post. But however much fun I may or may not have made about words. I do think they are interesting. You just need to be curious and find out more. And like I said in the beginning, do not take my word for it. (By the way, is it clever word play, if you did not notice it until later? Especially if it was your own inadvertent word play? Hmm.)