I'll bet they don't have those on Gallifrey

A couple of things you will never hear me say.

1. Big girl panties

First of all, what an interesting thing to say. And by interesting, I mean bless your heart, that sounds ridiculous. I mean, are some of you still wearing your little girl panties with the ruffles on the butt? What gives?

Also, I may be bitter because all my panties are BIG GIRL panties.

P.S. If you know where I can get some big girl panties with the ruffles on the butt, I'd love to hear from you.

2. Happy dance

Honestly? I don't dance when I'm happy. I don't dance when I'm sad. I eat.

Come to think of it, I also eat when I'm bored, waiting to pick kids up from this or that, watching television, going to movies, driving in the car, lonely, horny, frightened and/or wistful. In fact, the only time I don't eat is when I'm hungry and that's because with all that eating, I don't think I'm ever really, truly, physically experiencing hunger.

Maybe I should reconsider this dancing business.

See also: why do you want to make me think of Snoopy anyway?

3. This isn't something said. Instead it's something you'll never see on my vehicles. What is up with those window stickers that show the family? 

Am I the only person who finds them odd? Maybe I'm too old now to appreciate the magic of having a window sticker depicting a nuclear family. I admit to a certain jadedness along with the sexy silver hair and need for bifocals.

I'm not entirely devoid of a soft side, however. I admit I got a chuckle out of the one I spied recently as I drove on I75. It had a Daddy Dalek, a Mommy Dalek,  two little Daleks and K9.

SOURCE

Grump over. Your turn.

A Squatch by Any Other Name

Early in our life together, MathMan wasn't so comfortable saying the word vagina. True, it wasn't something I dropped into casual conversation either. Thinking back, vagina didn't come up that much. What was there to say really? Besides, we're creatures of our time and culture. Those days were different.

Back in the modest 1990s, the media, when met with the need to report on sexual matters, took the careful route. Anchors referred delicately to Monica Lewinsky's stained dress and made oblique references to cigars.

Oh and remember when the nation got all oogey about references to Clarence Thomas's artistic placement of a pubic hair on a Coke can?

Different times.

It's quite easy to see why MathMan felt compelled to invent his own word.

What's questionable perhaps is the word he invented.

The word, the origins of which remain a mystery to all but the most distinguished etymologists, is squatch. It's a weird word that has caused me to wonder on more than one occasion what in the hell must be wrong with my vagina to have inspired it.

Stop being such a narcissist, I tell myself. MathMan has seen more than one vagina. Maybe this word - squatch - is an homage to some other vagina.

Lord I hope so. I mean squatch? Is that an onomatopoeia? Or commentary on one's need to deforest?

Having daughters increased, if only slightly, the need to use the V word. I distinctly remember one such occasion when one daughter, at the age of three, lay on the floor after a bath. Her hands wandered and she proclaimed "Hey, there's a hole in me!"

My first opportunity to teach her the proper word and what did I do? I told her that was her squatch. I may have also mumbled vagina, but it got lost as she tried the word on for size. Squatch? My squatch? My squatch!

The word stuck. Became a part of our family's lexicon forever and ever.

Today American society appears less twitchy about certain words. Now it's all vaginal probe this and erectile dysfunction that. Ashley Madison, a website used by people seeking to have "discreet affairs," advertises on the radio and has its own jingle about sleeping around to "save one's sanity."

Different times.

Now even The Goldens have become more comfortable discussing vaginas and penises and the like. Put a little vodka in me and you're likely to hear me imitate my high school sex ed teacher with the lateral lisp saying vas deferens.

And yet we revert back to that word. Cling to it. Yes, we're all growing up, but we still say squatch.

Which explains why this show strikes us as so damn funny.

 

So like you know what I'm talking about, right?

At first I thought my interest in linguistics was because these days I'm listening more than reading or writing. Trapped in a car for close to four hours a day, I listen to the radio - politics, music, books radio, old time radio shows.

But that's not really it. I've always been a bit of a weirdo when it comes to shifts in language. For example, it irritated the hell out of me when people started pronouncing Uranus as yer-uh-nus just because we're all a bunch of mental adolescents who can't help but giggle at the name of a planet. This is what happens when people acquire Latin skills. When we just called it a a butthole, poor old YOURANUS didn't have to be embarrassed hanging out there in space.

Then there was that push for newscasters and TV people to pronounce resources as reZORsez. Thankfully that died out quickly.

Or how about when Anita Hill was testifying before Congress. Our big national debate was whether Clarence Thomas putting a pubic hair on a Coke can was sexual haRASSment or sexual HAIRessment.

I don't limit my critiques to the spoken word. The print media comes under fire, as well. Consider yourself lucky to have missed my ranting and raving in response to what I was sure was a trending overuse of had been when was was grammatically correct. Misplaced past perfect progressive makes me crazy. I would pull out my red pen and mark up the Chicago Tribune for its sins against the English language.

It would follow then that I've become aware of two more recent vocal trends. One is mostly manifested on the television - specifically on political talk shows - and the other is everywhere, especially where young adult women gather.

The first, the one I hear mostly on television, is the habit of beginning sentences with the word so. It's used heavily by experts, pundits and the like when they've been asked a direct question about how something works or if they're asked to provide some factual evidence for their current stance on any given issue.

The other, far more annoying in its widespread usage and its physical effect on me is what I used to call sleepy voice. Sometimes Chloe would phone me early in the morning and while she spoke, I cleared my throat. Repeatedly. So much so that if MathMan was in the room, he'd ask me if I had a problem.

Turns out though, this speech pattern has a linguistic name all its own. Vocal fry.

Think the Kardashians or a roomful of young women. Here are some examples...

There are some fiery pedantic arguments over the subject. I mean venomous exchanges between linguists and linguistical hobbyists. I'll bet some of those commenters angrily flared their nostrils while they pounded out their lively responses to the articles. Who knew linguistics nerds were so passionate about anything other than schwa?

Right about now you're probably thinking that getting a job and out of the house was supposed to make me more normal.

Look, I'm trying, okay?

So (see, there I go doing it, too!) as I read the comments on one of those articles, I remembered another vocalization that gets my attention and not exactly in a good way. One of the commenters noted that many of the NPR reporters now seem to mimic the way Ira Glass and his cohorts speak on This American Life.

Naturally, I tuned into NPR this morning to confirm this fact. Fact confirmed. But it also prompted me to wonder if there's a linguistic term for how Ira Glass pronounces the letter l. Now for those of you familiar with Ira Glass, imagine him reading those last two words. Letter l. Can you hear it in your head? You know, Chris Christie has the same verbal quirk in case you need another point of reference.

And, of course, it has its own term. It's called a Dark L.

You can hear it in this great piece from Ira that made it around the internet a few months ago. I could show you a video of Governor Christie, but I like you so why would I do that?

None of this is meant to insult. Well, except for the vocal fry and beginning sentences with so. Stop that!

I'm certainly not devoid of my own linguistic oddities. I have a mashed up accent that can't decide if it's Southern or Midwestern. It's both with a definitive bent toward whomever I'm speaking with or listening to.

And I can absolutely understand why young women would want to lower their voices in register. I'm often mistaken for a kid on the phone. Can I speak to your mother? Sure, let me give you her number. Be sure to tell her I said hello.

It took about a year of MathMan's taunting to get me to pronounce cement with the emphasis on the second syllable. To get me to say inSURance instead of INsurance and umBRELLa instead of UMbrella. A few years in the South have sort of undone that,  but I'm able to switch back and forth pretty easily because even if I don't speak with a clean Midwestern non-accent accent, I'm aware of when my words begin to drawl out like a hot afternoon.

Even so, I still have trouble with pen and pin, but I bet if I remembered to say pen with the vocal fry, I'd get it right. Peheheheh(rumble)n.

All of this is to say what exactly? I have no idea. I just wanted to share so you could tell me that you notice these things to, that I'm not losing my mind and that maybe I should turn off the radio and enjoy the sequestered silence, perhaps get some fresh ideas for stories, clear out the cobwebs strung across my brainpan, listen to my own thoughts for a while.

Okay - let's not go crazy.

Your turn. Ready to rumble? What language trends have you noticed? How do you abuse the language?

Shift into freewheeling and let them follow

During our recent trip, we passed the time by listening to Radio Classics on XM radio. Of all that we listened to - some Phil Harris and Alice Faye, lots of Dick Powell playing various gumshoes, Bob Hope and Baby Snooks, we heard the best episode of Pat Novak for Hire featuring Jack Webb of Dragnet fame. The writing was pulp fantastic. Over the top is what the Radio Classics host Greg Bell called it. He's right.

Here are fragments of dialogue from the episode Rita Malloy from April 23, 1949. (You can listen to the full episode and find more info about the program here.)

It sneaks up and paws you like a wet ghost...
I'm not crazy about waking up with strangers sitting on my bed especially if they got baritone voices....
I don't want chatter and cocktails, now give me those keys....
He didn't even give me time to pick a dream....
I stretched out on the floor, dead as a Philadelphia night club....
If you get any good answers, save a couple for me...
I'd have to do something fast. I had about as much a chance as a pound of liver at a cat show....

Lots of fog tonight, huh, Joe?
You're walkin' on it....

Shift into freewheeling and let them follow.........

He's a good man except he thinks it's a waste of the taxpayers' money to put alcohol in torpedoes.

It was the perfect spot for a missionary. The lobby looked like the first act of Rain. There was a pinball machine in one corner, a couple of last year's girls in this year's slacks, and a bleary-eyed little night clerk. He looked like a well-groomed laundry bag. He gave us the fisheye as we started up the stairs....

I view you as my penance, Patsy. The sackcloth for a misspent life.

You'll always be in trouble because you're a patsy and you're dangerous because you move in the twilight
zone between good and evil without any predisposition toward either one.

I think you'd pick the lock to the gates of Heaven....

It was a pretty room if you like dead women on your rugs....

This all ties together since I've been immersed in researching wartime circa 1944 and I've recently developed a thing for listening to music from that era, as well. When I run on the elliptical, I watch episodes of Homefront on Youtube.

 Technology the time machine.

As I listened to these shows, I was listening for the rhythm of the words, the patter, the high points and pauses. For example, I noticed that David Letterman's monologue rhythm is very similar to that of Bob Hope, especially back when he was doing the USO stage shows. Hope, not Letterman. He's not quite that old yet.

Have your eyes glazed over like mine do when MathMan talks Calculus at me? I swear, I wonder sometimes if I couldn't be found on the autism spectrum in the high functioning segment - Asperger's or such because when I'm in, I'm all in. Until the next bright and shiny thing catches my fancy.

Ooooooor, perhaps as one of the bone idle unemployed, I have just a little too much time on my hands. Either way, I quite like escaping into the past where the future looked brighter and you didn't have to fuss with dropped cell phone calls when you're on the phone with AT&T's customer service. I mean, we're in two wars and a chick can't even find a factory job riveting shit.

I know, I know, I'm romanticizing the past, times were tough for a lot of people, you brushed your teeth with powder, tampons weren't mainstream and the internet wasn't even a gleam in the government's eye. I'd never survive without Google for chissakes. Please don't harsh my nostalgia buzz, okay? See this straw? I'm grasping it pretty hard. So.

I've done it again. Completely sidetracked. Back to what I meant to write about. The things that make the dialogue of The Pat Novak show pop are the similes and the wicked turns of phrases that, if you don't listen carefully, you might miss. Sure it's dated and corny, but what's not to love about it? It makes me want to start calling people Bub and Sister and prefacing my declarative sentences with "Listen, see......"

What kinds of dialogue do you like? What are your favorite similes, metaphors, phrases? What movie lines or sentences from novels do you repeat? What's your favorite era?

Intransigent

Photo: Lisa Golden (has nothing to do with post)

Last night MathMan and I went to bed with the TV on. Before we turned on the Foyle's War DVD, we'd been watching MSNBC and listening to the day's political spin.

As I listened to the cadence of words, the repetition of phrases, I thought about Sherry's post at A Feather Adrift. She pointed out a couple of new buzz phrases that have become part of the conversational stew surrounding the U.S. budget, the debt ceiling and the deficit.

The American People.

Job creators.

There is no American People the way it's used by politicians. Hell, you can't even get The American People to agree on Coke or Pepsi, but if you ask politicians why they're doing something, they'll you that The American People sent them to Washington to do xyz. What they should say is that they won an election and now they're going to carry out the wishes of their donors while pretending to give two shits about what the people who elected them want them to do.

The phrase job creators is the perfect illustration of this. Republicans are using the phrase to cover the entire spectrum of business and the wealthy. Big business and small. Job Creators is code for People on whom we will not raise taxes.

The people they're referring to don't actually create jobs in any meaningful way. Tax cuts don't create jobs. Demand creates jobs. You can give businesses all the tax breaks in the world, you can hand them massive tax refund checks (which is a transfer of money from the taxpayer to the corporation in case you didn't realize that) and they still aren't going to create jobs if there isn't a critical mass of consumers who want and can buy their services or goods because they have money with which to buy those goods and services.

We've tried this tax cut experiment for over ten years and it's failed. The proof is in the unemployment line.

Source: Think Progress

By the end of the day yesterday, it became clear that another word had burrowed into the DNA of the American political lexicon. I really wish that we had some sort of app that could identify which talking head was the first to use it in the current context. Now that's the kind of app that could entice me to buy a smartphone.

The word?

Intransigent.

There it is all over the television. There the word is, too, on my wall, smack in the middle of the list of adjectives I have taped next to my desk.

Intransigent. Intransigence. The words are being used to describe Republicans who are unwilling to compromise.

In today's political atmosphere, the word compromise no longer carries the air of maturity, but rather it's spat out as it's own euphemism. Only bed-wetting liberal pantywaists compromise. Pussies compromise. Real men, real Americans don't compromise. The American People don't want compromise. They're busy hollering yeehaw while riding their rugged individualist lawnmowers.

I zeroed in on this word and became obsessed with it because unlike Job Creators and The American People, this word is accurate. It's not code. It's reality. Republicans have dug in on the subject of taxes. They'll tell you that they're carrying out the will of The American People who know that the The Job Creators need to pay lower taxes so they can create jobs and that we need to cut government spending and cut taxes because taxes and Big Government are the problem.

Or shorter: We're all Grover Norquist now!!!

See how that works?

I'd been drinking and that brought everything into focus like when you suddenly notice the veins in your hands look like rivers on a map. "When we wake up in the morning and turn on the TV, let's see how long it takes for someone to use the word intransigent on Morning Joe," I said, mashing my pillow into place.

When I'm happily alcohol softened, MathMan justs lets me talk. "Okay," he said. He probably just wanted to get laid.

As I fell asleep, I pontificated on the Balanced Budget Amendment. "That's like if your car breaks down and you quit your job because you can't get there and you can't get there because you won't raise revenue to fix your car."

Then everything went black.

The alarm went off at 6:10a.m. I opened my eyes, assessed my level of hangover. Nothing. Excellent. I reached for the remote, pushed the power button and glanced at the clock next to me. 6:11. MathMan bailed out of the bed and headed to the shower.

"blah, blah, blah, instransigent....." said Pat Buchanan to the roundtable on Morning Joe.

"One minute! It took one minute!" I laughed and threw the covers back. I was free to get on with my day.

What are your favorite political phrases, euphemisms, codes?

Adventures in Real Parenting: And Feed Them On Your Dreams

Last night I got a lesson on what we protect our children from and what we give to them. No surprise that this lesson came in the form of language.

We finally had Sophie's twice postponed birthday party. First - if I ever write here again that we're doing an overnight party that isn't for adults only and requires a safe words, please email me and remind me of this post. I am so not cut out for this mother gig. 

A side lesson I picked up - precocious and quirky becomes annoying and weird in the span of two hours. Please, parents, encourage individuality, but balance it with some social skills. I'm not talking socially awkward (I  see that every day in the mirror). I'm talking about the kid who touches everything in the kitchen, thinks every word she says is funny and clever and believes being a picky eater makes her interesting.

When my kids have friends over, I try to stay out of the way, but since there were so many of them (eleven) and I was the only adult and the cats were locked in my bedroom to avoid being traumatized by too much attention, I stayed in the dining room and kitchen where I could keep on ear on things. This meant I heard some of the gossip and my heart sank when my own kid participated. I pulled her aside and told her so. "Be better than that."

Somehow the word prostitute came up and the precocious girl asked what that meant. One of the girls started to explain, but Sophie interrupted. "No. You don't need to know." The subject dropped. A little later Sophie sidled up to me and mentioned that her friend was sheltered and maybe this wasn't such a good idea. I agreed.

As it turned out, this was a blending of two different sets of girls from two different social avenues in Sophie's life. I don't advise this for future party-planning purposes. Not surprisingly, this led to a divergence of activities. One set put on their matching tops and plaid pajama bottoms and decided it was time to do some dance routines they knew from cheerleading. A couple of non-cheerleaders, my own included, went along with it.  The other set of girls fled to another corner of the house and then eventually came and hung around me in the dining room. One of them said she thought I was nice. I doubt she felt that way when she left this morning.

When we were alone in the kitchen the Precocious Girl told me that she doesn't like it that people know so much more stuff than she does. "They just know different things," I said.

"Yeah, but it makes me...." she paused. I think she wanted to say different. Bad different. I made a quick comparison in my head about how we'd raised our kids versus parents who shield their children from so much. We could do better and they could lighten up a little and all of our children would be fine. 

I had my back turned when Precocious Girl opened the pantry door and yelled "What is that doing there?"

She pointed at the bottles of liquor I'd stashed in the pantry so that The Inspecting Mother wouldn't wonder why I leave alcohol out in the open in a house full of kids. (Answer: My kids are used to it being there and have never shown any interest in it and I never even think about it except I did yesterday as I got ready for the party in anticipation of having to pass Inspecting Mom's test.)

"Those are drinks for adults."

"It's alcohol! You have alcohol in your house!" Was she serious or goofing around?

"My parents don't drink! We've never had alcohol in our house. I once saw my daddy drinking a beer at a barbecue and it made me so upset!" Okay, so she was serious.

"Many people choose not to drink. Drinking is a personal choice. And it's never wise to drink too much."

"You drink?"

"Occasionally, yes."

She squinted her eyes and surveyed me before moving to the refrigerator to see what might be interesting there. She examined the things cluttering the front and sides of it.  "Ooooh. You have a bad word on your fridge."

"Huh?"

"A bad word! Here!" She put her finger on the magnet that reads You Say I'm a Bitch Like It's a Bad Thing. "We don't use words like that at our house."

This drew the attention of a couple of girls who now joined us in the kitchen.  "A bad word?" They were shocked that someone would have such a word in their house. I swear, the way they behaved, you'd think they'd never heard swear words. And maybe they hadn't. "Ooooh."

Precocious Girl continued, her lip curling. "Why is that here?" She slapped her hand over the magnet MathMan brought back from President Obama's Inauguration.

Girlish voices announced their hate to the world.

"I hate Obama! He's ruined this country! My parents voted for McCain!"

"My parents hate Obama!"

"My daddy says he won't live to see a second term."

"Black people voted for Obama because they want a black President!"

I looked at these young faces spewing so much hatred. I mentally fast-forwarded and was searching for a place to live in Chicago and packing our things and moving somewhere where at least the haters are interspersed and not so concentrated.

Precocious Girl spoke again. "I don't know any white people who voted for Obama."

I smiled, "Now you do."

Blink, blink. Her cleverness had left her.

"And I'd appreciate it if you'd all stop talking shit about our President in my house."

There was a collective gasp.

Precocious Girl recovered. "You said a bad word!" I swear the color drained from her face.

I spent wasted the next five minutes explaining the absurdity of her freaking out over my use of the word shit when she'd announced that she hated someone she'd never met and her father had predicted his death.

It's funny what we teach our kids. By funny, I mean inconsistent, contradictory and downright odd. Over the course of the evening, I learned that we teach them it's okay to be disrespectful to adults, to go into other people's houses and act like it's yours, helping yourself to whatever's in the refrigerator and fruit bowl, taking a  pear or an apple, chewing a bite or two and leaving the rest to rot on a side table. 

We teach them they can say anything judgmental as long as they preface it by saying "I don't like to judge but....," We teach them it's okay to say they hate this person or that person or this group or that group, but the words shit and bitch make them freak the fuck out?

A while later, another girl was telling me how she'd seen something disgusting in a Ripley's Believe or Not book.  "What was that?" I asked, amused and expecting something like a two headed calf or that photo of the guy with the fingernails so long they curled. That used to skeeve me out.

She leaned in to share. "Gay people, bisexuals and those transwhatevers. They actually have a parade every year."

How fun would it be to wear a badge that reads bisexual? 

I leaned it, too. "Why did that disgust you?"

"They're going to hell. Why do they need a parade?"

"I think the question you might want to consider is why does this get your attention. And how does their parade effect you?"

"It doesn't. I mean, I hate to judge, but.."

I cut her off.  "Well, then, save your disgust for disgusting things like injustice and cruelty. And you know, if you hear yourself starting a sentence with 'I hate to judge, but...' it's probably best to stop talking because whatever you're about to say will be some kind of judgment."

I'd had enough of them and I'm sure they'd had enough of me. I counted the minutes until MathMan would get home.

The girls congregated one last time in the dining room for snacks. One of them pointed out that she lived in the house across the street until a couple of years ago when her family moved to the nice neighborhood across the Etowah River. "We still own the house because my daddy says we can't get what the house is worth if we sell it now since," she paused and looked at me. Yes, I was paying attention. Apparently, the lecture about how President Obama hadn't wrecked the economy had gotten around.

She continued. "The people who live there now are renters. You have to keep your eye on them. Daddy wasn't happy that they still have their Christmas lights up."

I glanced at Sophie who rolled her eyes. She's friends with the girl who lives there. 

Interesting, Nice Neighborhood's Daddy said almost the exact same thing when he dropped off his daughter and introduced himself to me for the third time in about that many weeks. Maybe my ponytail threw him, but you've gotta love a guy who notices a small row of unlit clear lights on the eaves of a house at dusk, but can't remember having met you twice before. He even said the same line about having to keep your eye on renters.

Maybe my badge should read Bisexual/Renter.

And then during a discussion about which movie to watch, Sophie was taken to task by one of the girls because she never went to the movies. "I've seen all these," the girl sneered. "My family goes to the movies all the time. Don't you guys ever go?"

When Sophie made a decision that didn't suit Movie Girl, she declared the choice lame and swanned off to the basement trailing a few followers and the whiff of asshole behind her.

Economic snobbery. Racism. Hate. Death. Bad Manners. Remembering to say yes, m'am and no, m'am and going to church twice or three times a week doesn't temper this kind mental poison. In some cases, it seems to enhance it. Kids learn this stuff somewhere.

Right before MathMan got home, Sophie and I were alone in the kitchen. She'd decided she'd teach those girls who went to the basement. The girls who stayed to watch the movie were going to have popsicles.

I understood her motivation, but I couldn't condone it. "Hey, don't be a jerk. If anyone comes upstairs, offer them one. Immediately."

"I will."

"You better. I mean it." A harsh whisper.

"I will." Through gritted teeth.

"Sophie? I'm sorry if I embarrassed you tonight. I wish I'd kept my mouth shut. It's not my place to tell these kids what to think."

She shrugged.

"Really. I'm sorry. I don't want to you to be embarrassed by me."

"I'm not. I get so tired of hearing them say stuff they don't know anything about. I was glad you told them off. I try to sometimes, but they don't listen to me. I know they listened to you." She took the handful of popsicles and left the kitchen.

They may have listened to me, but I doubt they heard me.

Only Mildly Offensive to Everyone

I grew up in a vanilla place.

Not the organic, hormone-free, Tahitian gelati made from The Pope's cows in Switzerland vanilla purchased at Whole Foods but generic vanilla from a paper carton purchased at the I.G.A.

The town wasn't exactly lily white.  We had our rednecks who are white, but hardly lilies.  And there was the little strip of houses on the edge of town leading out toward Salem Ridge where all the black people lived.

My face still burns with shame when I think about how I would lie flat in the truck bed with my cousins and our gang of rowdy friends as my aunt drove through that cluster of houses on her way in and out of town.  From the safety of their assumed anonymity, they would shout nigger and I would laugh because I thought they were being funny and daring and subversive.

I was too stupid and too young to know that hate isn't subversive.  It's frighteningly mainstream.

I didn't use that word much.  I did once when I was quite young and my mother heard me, wigged out and blamed the person she rightfully assumed I'd learned the word from.

"Paul, fix this," she hissed.  "I don't ever want to hear her say that again."

My dad is a real pedantic sort.  "If you ever say that word - if you even think it -, the nearest black person is going to come and cut your ears off."

Terror is an effective teaching tool.  I rarely used that word or even thought it.  For years after, I could sleep only if one ear was pressed firmly into my pillow and the other was covered with a blanket.  I wasn't taking any chances in my sleep.

So the other day, when I wrote about the mixture of classes and ethnicity at Nate's school, I failed to mention that my vanilla face might have stood out a little.  While we still have Sophie firmly planted among the clod hoppers and people not unlike herself (except for that whole having a Jewish dad, a non-believing mom and having been born North of the Mason Dixon and if you think that doesn't matter, you're wrong), Nate is now attending a school where mocha, cinnamon and free-trade organic dark make up the dominant culture. 

Nate's sense of relief in his new setting is almost palpable. He did fine at his old school, making plenty of friends and such, but he never felt quite at home.  Many of the kids with whom he attended school were quick to remind him of his outsider status.  Even trading "going to" for "fixin' to" didn't earn him full status.  Language always plays a part, doesn't it?  He'd forget his y'alls and drop in a you guys - the linguistic equivalent of dissing the Confederate flag or referring to "it" as The Civil War.

So now he's settling into his new role of still being somewhat of an outsider, but for whatever reason - the influence of TV, maybe? - he seems more at home in his new place.  He's careful not to go too far, of course, because he doesn't want to be tagged with the dreaded wigger label.  Those guys are laughed at by both the black and the white kids.

It's clear, though, that this atmosphere with a varied complexion is more to his liking.  Let's just say he's always been more inclined to listen to hip hop or rap than to country or even skinny, sensitive white guy music.

This summer as he played baseball for his new school, he made new friends and, as often happens, he's learned and shared some new words and phrases with us.  Being a word person myself, I can't help but play around a little with these shiny, new toys.  And kids, especially teenagers, love it when adults adopt their style.  They think it's really cool.

As I've tested out some of these new phrases, I've found the results to be mixed.  I guess there are still a lot of really stuffy people in this world.  I thought reality TV and having an African-American president had changed all that, but I was wrong.

Nurse during my physical:  So when did you have your last period?
Me:  You don't know me like that. Beeyotch.  Shiiiiiiit.

Grocery Store Clerk:  Is that credit or debit?
Me:  That's what she said.

Nathan to me:  I can't believe I'm up at 5:30 a.m. to go to school.
Me:  Your mom's up at 5:30 a.m.
Nate:  Mom.  No. See....
Me:  What?  You don't know me like that.
Nate:  Dad!  Make her stop!
Me:  Your mom's gonna make her stop. Yo.
MathMan:  My mom's dead.
Me:  Oh.  Right.  Sorry, honey.

Sophie:  mkalphalknsfphghsldkfh
Me:  Bitch, take the shit out of yo' mowf and eeeee-nun-see-yate
Sophie:  We just found another stray kitten.  Can we....?
Me:  Go back to being an unintelligible hillbilly.  And NO!

Chloe:  I'm getting anxious to go back to school.
Me:  Your mom's getting anxious for you to go back to school.
Chloe blinks, shakes her head, walks away.

MathMan, nodding at my empty wine glass:  How many have you had?
Me:  Shut up, bitch. You don't know me like that.
MathMan, who has taught at the above-mentioned school for seven years and has yet to make an ass of himself by trying to sound like a teenager, ignores me and points at the glass:  How many have you had?
Me:  That's what she said?

Beeyotch.

My Bad Romance Language

Today is Dr. Seuss's birthday. He was born March 2, 1904. When I was a child, we didn't read much Dr. Seuss (I don't remember being read to much at all, actually), but I remember looking forward to the television specials based on his books. The Cat in the Hat. The Lorax. The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

MathMan, on the other hand, had a mother who read quite a lot to him and his siblings. It was a surprise to no one when she abandoned a life of keeping house and raising six kids, to return to school to become a teacher librarian.

It's from my mother-in-law's example and MathMan's memories of her that I decided to read as much as possible to our children when they were little. Dr. Seuss always featured prominently when they were really young.

There was a time when, in addition to Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon which I can still recite, I could recite One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and The Foot Book. Many a naptime was prolonged by one more reading of Hop on Pop or Green Eggs and Ham. To this day, I attribute some of the made up words and general word play that goes on around here to those long ago readings and rereadings of Seuss.

MathMan is the chief word inventor, but each of us have contributed to the family lexicon over the years. MathMan coined phrases and terms to cover up for his male discomfort with words dealing with the more feminine aspects of life. Pads and tampons became stickers and harpoons. I think he just hates the clinical sound of words like tampon. And, let's face it, pantyliner does sound silly. When I hear that word, I think of an airliner or oceanliner. With panties. Look, I never claimed to be mature.

Each child has added to the family's list of words, as well. When they were younger, they created their own words for things like Kleenex, blanket and various stuffed animals. As they've grown and been exposed to influence beyond the home, they've added color and some kind of style to the language heard around here, as well. Style is such a subjective thing....

I tend to take old standards and change them up. When I became completely out as a nonbeliever, I tried very hard to stop using the words god and jesus as oaths. That led me to swipe "oh for cliff's sake" from the Young Ones.

Lately, I've been thinking about language more. I consider the meanings of specific words, the sounds, the way they might linger on your lips after you've said them, how they float into space, sometimes echoing or lilting or shattering the silence around you. Think of words whispered to a loved one or a 'hello?' echoing through an empty house when you check to see if you're alone. Angry words you spit out, only to wish you could snatch them back and stuff them into your pocket.

I've been thinking about the power and beauty of words. I can't imagine my thirst for new words to ever be quenched. I watch MathMan try to explain to me - using words - the concepts of numbers, math, patterns and I'm fascinated. I love it that he uses the method of having his student write about what they're learning in math because, had a teacher asked me to put the concepts into words, perhaps I would have been a much better math student. Words I can process. Numbers are like another language to me. And if I don't even have the basics? I am lost.

I've noticed that certain words and phrases stick with me, whether I use them myself or not. Oh, I have my rotating list of favorites. Some of them come from books or songs. Others come from people I know, things said and written to me, movies I've watched. I might get snagged by a word on a blog post, someone's tweet or Facebook status. I haven't formally collected them in any way, but I think my magpie brain must have a little pouch where they're stored. It resides alongside that place that houses the snatches of songs that play over and over in my head.

Following are some phrases and words currently lurking in that pouch. I don't know that I'll ever use them, verbally or otherwise, but I like to say them to myself occasionally, even if the result is only to crack myself up. Yes, I realize that I'm not entirely well.

In no particular order:

conventional/unconventional
gormless...ghastly...dreadful.....
delightful...has lost the plot .....I ache for you.
...faith...compelling...spirit...tea....established...always...mocking
...fetching....syrup....paisley.......nose kisses....plant....mysterious
....Cat Dancing....avenue....like my ipod stuck on replay, replay......
pleasure...forget....passage...
Severed.
peppercorn rent....a white blank page and a burning rage...
in kind....fleeting....full.........I don't want to be friends
....slicing....announce...inscrutable....vacuousness...j'adore
....supplication....obsequious...calculate
...pants on the ground...irony...wine... polish...
....expunge......listen, see....apoplexy....with one foot in the grave....
home...sad and demented, but social...ablaze....configure...upbraid...
...critique....upend...assuage...encapsulate....

I could go on and on, but I have things to do. There's that job search to continue. There's more writing to be done. There's that damned elliptical making rude gestures at me. I'm still not finished reading that pile of books sitting next to my bed. Sophia just called. School is letting out early because of snow. I'm sure I'll be conscripted at some point to play cards. And Chloe is home for spring break and we've got plans to don our mom and daughter stripper outfits, grab our hairbrushes and sing some Lady Gaga to the unappreciative cats.

Words add to life, but they can't replace it. Time to go live some......

And you? Do you collect words and phrases?
Your favorites? Or what's plaguing you? Besides the song above, of course.....

TMI Monday

First, some context: Neither I nor MathMan come from families where open communication is practiced. We don't belong to families that talk about icky things like feelings, bodily functions, or sex. Well, I take that back. My mother, The Big R, has a very odd, self-conscious way of mentioning bodily functions, usually delivered half-whispered.

And I suppose regarding normal human waste elimination activities, there were certain truths in my childhood home. Soon after food passed through her esophagus, The Big R would disappear into the bathroom with a crossword puzzle*. We all simply accepted this and, as such, conceded that going out to dinner would be limited to places with clean restrooms or had to be within short driving distance of home.

As is often the case, these things are hereditary, so I have a child with this same affliction. We are used to watching her food get cold as we eat a meal. Three bites in and she's excused herself.

I, on the other hand, was the puker in the family. Carsick. Whatever went around school. Didn't matter. I got it and hurled. (Note: I promise this is not going to become the vomit/poo blog. Yet***.)

As an example of how this ties in to communication, how's this:
My mother doesn't say fart, she says "pass gas."
MathMan's mother (may she rest in peace) used the charming phrase "let out air."

Now I've gone and wandered off topic. Let me circle back. I don't really mean to write about farting any more than I intend to write about poop. Let me begin again.....Neither MathMan nor I grew up in families where things were discussed openly. And by things, I mean bodily functions, most especially those that might be tangentially related to S-E-X or sexuality.

I don't know if it's a result of the more open era that we grew up in or just some quirk of personality, but MathMan and I have underdeveloped filters when it comes to discussing "personal" issues in front of our children. Now this is to their dismay and it may turn them into completely repressed Victorians, but that's a chance we're willing to take. It would be impossible to put the Inappropriate Genie back in the bottle, I suspect.

Now that I've laid the many layers of groundwork, I'll just move on, shall I? You see, it's common knowledge at Golden Manor that Mama (that's me) is currently equipped with an IUD that contains some hormones. A happy side effect of this is that Mama (that's still me) doesn't have much of a period. (Are you still with me?) This is really nice and all because menstrual periods, though perfectly natural and necessary, can be incredibly inconvenient and, for some, a real, live sickening pain. I was always lucky that way. I've never really suffered cramps and would probably, if confronted with the industrial strength cramps that some women must endure, crumple into a heap of sweating, vomiting, and wailing agony. (Smelling salts, anyone?)

My most easily identifiable manifestations of pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS) are a marked increase in my need to consume chocolate and, just maybe, a tendency to be a bit weepy if presented with something like those Sarah McLachlin ads for the puppies and kitties with the overlay of that Arms of the Angels song. Otherwise, I'm rather oblivious to my cycles. If MathMan notices anything, he never mentions it. (Glass of water for Mr. Grainger?)

Some months, though, I'll feel a little more out of sorts than usual or have a twingy backache or maybe feel bloaty and unusually puffy. To confirm that it's hormone-related, I tend to check in with the other person in the house who is of childbearing age.

Sunday evening, The Dancer, MathMan, Garbo and I were playing Scattegories as part of our weekly game night. (You thought I was kidding about that a couple of weeks ago, didn't you? Well, word to your mother. Next week I get to pick the game and I'm thinking Quarters or Bullshit.) I mentioned that I was feeling bloated and weird and asked The Dancer directly if we were having "our period." She confirmed that we are.

Thankfully, The Actor/Ninja, was glued to his XBox Live game or running the neighborhood (you don't really expect me to be exacting about where a 13 year old boy is all the time, do you?) and thus, missed this episode of What's Up with My Vagina?. Since he's 13 and totes his genitals externally, he's just a bit put off by conversations about periods these days.

He's so squidgy about that stuff lately that his younger sister knows that a mere mention of it will set him off. "You know you came out of Mom's vagina," she'll taunt.

"Mom does NOT have a vagina." He must assert this, lest he crumple into a heap of sweating, heaving, wailing agony.

"So that explains it....." I began. Still, there was something more off than usual. A sort of crampiness that I'm not accustomed to. Then it occurred to me what it may be. My IUD is due to be replaced this month. So it has been five years already. Boy, time sure flies when you're having sex without the added thrills of birth control you have to remember or fuss with.

"I need to schedule an appointment to get checked under the hood and a replacement IUD," I announced. Maybe by saying this out loud to most of my immediate family, someone will remember to remind me to call for an appointment. None of them want any more siblings. Hell, we have to worry about them offing each other. Adding to the tally would be considered a disaster in this household.

MathMan**, ever helpful, was ready to help. "I can check under your hood," he offered.

The Dancer just groaned. I clicked my tongue and rolled my eyes. Garbo was thinking practically. "What about her IUD?" she asked. She was sure she'd found a flaw in his thinking.

"I have forceps in my toolbox. I'll even boil them first."

Another groan from The Dancer. More eye rolls and a heave sigh from me. Garbo still wasn't satisfied. "Yes, but you won't be able to replace the IUD," she chided him.

"I have paper clips," he smiled triumphantly.

I'd like to say here that I was stunned, but this is just so common around here that I don't know why it was even notable, except that maybe MathMan has hit upon an idea to lower health care costs.

Can't you just see it?


* This should not, in any way, be construed as confirmation that females actually poo.
** Thank you for picking up some Emergency M&Ms tonight, MathMan! I can't believe I allowed myself to run out this time of the month.
***I do have to write a post about a book I saw Sunday. That will push me further into the realm of poo-blogging. Fabulous!

Now turn your head and cough, please.

Almost As Satisfying as Killing Two Flies With One Whack. Which I Just Did.

Like many of you, I go through my day editing myself. Hard to believe, I know, but I don't actually say the first thing that pops into my head all the time. I do self-censor. I'm careful because the situation warrants a certain amount of respectable behavior (boring!). Other times, I don't say what I'd really like to because it might hurt someone. Or get me fired. Or arrested. Or laughed off the PTA hospitality committee. Or smacked. Or drummed out of general society.

We all feel this way sometimes, don't we?

Today was a day full of those moments. Work, personal relationships, driving on I75. You name it. Picture my words, traveling with lightening speed from my brain to just the tip of my tongue where they are snagged by a large rubber band and catapulted back down my throat. I have to chew them before I can swallow them. Then, after a deep breath, I'm able to come up with a slightly more suitable response.

If I'm not careful, though, after time, those nasty words fester, getting meaner and uglier and more angry. Eventually, they find their way out and my self-censorship ends up being for naught.

To combat this, I'm using this post to let it out. I invite you to do the same in comments. It's not really a confessional, but rather a place to vent one's spleen safely so that there's no real or lasting damage to the people who matter in your life. Or who sign your paycheck, for example.

I'll start. I offer no explanation or tell you to whom something is directed. I'm not looking for a confrontation. I'm just having my say, using the words I wished I'd said, but didn't.

Item one
"If you think this thing is falling apart, perhaps you'd like to take it over and show me how it should be done. I don't like being stuck in the middle of what you want and what they want."

Item two
"Who do you think you're kidding?"

Item three
"Actually, I'm not so crazy about Chinese buffets. I'm not keen on Chinese food and I'm grossed out by the idea of food sitting out in the open on buffet. And I never get my money's worth at a buffet anyway. Unless, of course, it's a dessert buffet."

Item four
"Nice one, douchebag. That got you ahead one entire car length. Bravo. Now don't slow down, you moron! If you don't have the skills to drive in the left lane, please move over."

Item five
"You are exactly what everyone says you are. A coward. A user. A narcissist. A troubled soul. A child. Did I mention coward? Just checking."

Item six
"You know how I said I like your singing voice? Well, I lied. Frankly, I think your voice sounds pinched and tight."

Item seven
"For cliff's sake, we are not made of money!"

Item eight
"If you guys want to keep living here, you must learn how to use the toilet, feed yourselves and help out with something useful like the laundry. I've had enough of your lying around sunning yourselves and stealth pooping."

Item nine
"My passion evaporated because I felt like it wasn't wanted. How do we get that back?"

Item ten
"Next time, don't ask them what they want if you already know what you want. It creates an enormous headache and more work than I need."

Okay. That's plenty from me. Your turn. What would like to say to someone that you held back? Go on. You know you've got those words churning around inside you. Why not let it out here. I make no promises for the Internets, but your secret is safe with me.

Say What?

Recently, I realized that I unabashedly use words like daggum and heck and dang to express myself. I don't think I ever used the word daggum before moving to the country. I may have used heck and dang as a kid to keep from getting a taste of Palmolive, but it's been a long time since those words were common parts of my spoken word.

I tell you this, not because it bothers me really, but because I've become aware of how my language and pronunciation has changed over the years, based on where I live and around whom I speak.

When I left little old Rising Sun, Indiana (very near Cincinnati) for the big world of college (okay, so it was Ball State, but all things being relative), I found myself hanging out with people from Northern Indiana. Northern Indiana Hoosiers don't have the same accent or weirdo Midwestern twang-drawl common to Southern Indiana Hoosiers. Some of my new friends were quick to point this out and I was rather insecure and embarrassed by it.

So during my first year at Ball State, I worked on flattening my accent, hardening the soft corners, squaring things up so that I no longer dropped the g or dragged out the vowels, making them into two or three syllables when one was all that was necessary. I took a couple of acting classes and concentrated on my diction. I became more aware of grammar, too, and pushed myself to use it properly whenever I was in a situation that warranted it. No more ending sentences with prepositions or ignoring adverbs. I got to the point where it was like nails on a chalkboard to hear someone say "Drive safe!" instead of "Drive safely!"

Look, when I do something, I don't fuck around. I dive in, get all wet with it and then suffer the backlash and consequences later. It's a flaw, I know.

Later, when I met MathMan, a Chicago native, he put the final touches on my English language transformation. Mocking me for transgressions such as placing the emphasis on the wrong syllable in the words umbrella (you say umBRELLA, I say UMbrella), inSurance versus my pronunciation of INsurance, ceMENT and CEment......you get the idea. He also teased me for saying things like "the house needs painting" or "the lawn needs mowed." He insisted that the correct thing to say was "the house needs to be painted" or "the house must be painted." Technically, he was right.

Even after twenty plus years together, whenever I said the words pen or pin, I pause to check my pronunciation, making damn certain that if I mean a writing utensil, I pronounce the word "pen." If I mean something with which to prick or stick something, I carefully say "pin." I am very precise in my pronunciation of each word so that MathMan won't ask me annoyingly "Do you mean (pin/pen)?"

That question always leads to a wrestling match or an invitation to "take it outside."

Speaking of pricks, I make MathMan sound like one, don't I? You know he isn't really prickish at all. When we first met, he was was just teasing me on one of my few vulnerabilities. Because, you know, I was such an emotionally strong and together person at age 22, it was hard to find anything about which to tease me. (Stop laughing, MathMan. I just defended your prickish behavior!)

No matter. I fixed him. By plunging him into the Deep South, he got a taste of what it feels like to be the one who talks funny. Added bonus - his favorite child, Garbo, has developed a bit of a Southern accent. Ha bloody ha.

When I chose to major in French in college, it was partly because it just came so easily to me. Wasn't that a swell way to pick a possible career path (she types, trying to avoid glancing at the blinking Word document that will be a finished mail merge as soon as this post is written). Anyway, my ability to mimic sounds was a great help in pronouncing French words. It also allows me to do a fair job imitating other American accents.

Lately, I've noticed that I'm getting better at identifying where Americans come from based on their pronunciation of certain words and, particularly, vowels.

Some accents are easy - New York, Boston, Chicago (especially the South Side). Others a little more subtle - Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio. Southern accents can sound like a jumble, but when you have a room full of people from the Southeast and Texas, the distinctions become more clear and easier to pick out.

All of this comes to mind now because I've been on the phone with some of my blogpals of late and was struck by how their myriad of accents illustrate just how diverse this community of ours is. I spoke to giggles and she sounds quite a bit like home. Having grown up in Ohio and now residing in Pennsylvania, she had that special way of pronouncing the vowel O that screams to my ear "Cincinnati!" I'll bet she even remembers a time when she substituted the word "please" for the phrase "excuse me?" or "pardon?"

On the other hand, Karen Zipdrive has this velvety soft sort of Texas accent (note I did not say twang because it's not really twangy) that belies her rather edgy self in the blogosphere. I would have had trouble picking out Karen's accent, but then I do believe she's lived in both Texas and California. Does California have an accent? I know I have commenters who can educate me on that.

Over the weekend, I picked up an audio book from the library. The narrator has a lovely voice and does a beautiful Scottish accent? I listen to the book during my long commute to and from work. As I came into the office this morning, I realized that I was thinking thoughts in the narrator's accent. I had to check that at the door or I sound even crazier than usual. My colleagues have gotten accustomed to my early morning mania fueled by amphetamines and coffee, but to be drifting about the office rolling my Rs might be a bit much.

Of course, the challenge of saying daggummit with a Scottish accent has a certain je ne sais quois to it......

French!!!!!!

(Thanks to Maria at Just Eat Your Cupcake for turning me on to these guys.)