Redundant

Good Morning! Is that an oxymoron? Some days it is.

Happy Monday! That is.

"Blithe indifference." If blithe means happy, and indifferent means without feeling, it would be an oxymoron. But wait! If indifferent means without caring, and blithe means carefree, it really isn't an oxymoron, but a redundant phrase. I guess that illustrates the difference between denotation (dictionary meaning) and connotation (common meaning). Because "blithe" is such a pleasant little word, and "indifferent" has a coldness to it.

I was thinking about my last blog and wondering if I should have defined blithe.

Blithe—carefree, cheerful, jolly

Therefore I have decided that "insouciant" is good, because "blithe" is good.

Insouciance

The word of the day is “insouciant!”
Carefree! Reckless! (like me)
I don’t think “insouciant” is a negation of “souciant,” but let me look it up and be certain, as I am not sure right now if being insouciant is good or bad. Of course that gets us into deep water with ethics. I don’t want to go there! It’s too early. And who cares, anyway? Not I!

Insouciance n. indifference.
Insouciant adj. blithely indifferent, carefree. From Latin via French.

So that’s why I like that word, it comes from French! Ooo-la-la!

Thingamabob

I like the sound of the word, “doodad.” It’s a very useful and versatile word. A doodad is a useless thing, which is decorative, but I tend to use it sometimes if I can’t think of the correct word. I like it much better than “watch-a-ma-call-it.”

doodad n. 1. a small article whose name is unknown or forgotten : gadget. 2. an ornamental attachment or decoration. Origin unknown

How about that?! I was using it correctly!

I can’t find “watch-a-ma-call-it” or "watchamacallit" in my dictionary. Time for a new one!

This was written Thursday night, Jan 25. I thought I published it, but was surprised today when I refered to thingamabob and thingamajig in my latest post and didn't see it!

Malapropism

A malapropism is a misused word. A spoonerism is a mispronounced word, when you transpose letters or sounds. For example, "noosperism" would be a spoonerism of spoonerism.

So, I'm trying to figure out what is the appropriate term for George Bush saying "nucular" instead of "nuclear." It is not a spoonerism, but it is mispronounced. Where did the extra "u" sound come from in the middle?


Note on last blog: thingamabob and thingamajig are in my dictionary. Watchamacallit is not. I wonder if these are regional expressions?

Languor

After all the depression and languor this week, I think we need some positive affirmations!

languor n. 1. lethargy, sluggishness. 2. oppressive quiet or stillness. 3. an air of melancholy. From Latin, via French.

I am healthy. I am wealthy. I am fabulous. My life is harmonious.

Repeat:

I am healthy. I am wealthy. I am fabulous. My life is harmonious.

Now, with more feeling:

I am healthy! I am wealthy! I am fabulous. My life is harmonious!

Positive expectations

Maybe it’s true. I just read that today is the most depressing day of the year ( in three different articles). Although the weather has been good in Florida, it’s still time for bills and post-holiday letdown, and when we look at a calendar and realize that there are no paid holidays until Memorial Day, and of course we have no excuse for stylish boots or sweaters like the Northerners.

That was the first news article I read today. Then I opened an electronic newsletter that has an article about those moods that seem to come out of nowhere that you have no control of. I think maybe the first one is right. Or am I just influenced by the reading of it? Words do have power over us. I will immediately and persistently replace those negative vibes with positive affirmations applied liberally throughout the day.

Maybe I’ll do a 3-minute self-hypnosis session to get my mood back on track. I always seem to find that the day meets my expectations, so I like to have expectations of a very satisfying day.

Affirmation of the day: Something good will come out of this. This is a very good thing to affirm after meeting some challenges. I heard Sonia Choquette say this on a radio show last week.

Inspirational quote: Thru this door, all my dreams become realities, and some of my realities become dreams! – Willy Wonka in the movie, Willy Wonka

Depression is also called anhedonia, so I guess the opposite is hedonia. Let me check. It’s not in my dictionary, but hedonism and hedonist is. But they are not what I was looking for, so let’s go with euphoria, bliss, ecstasy. These all express extreme joyful conditions, so let’s tone it down a bit and settle for cheerful. If I say “I feel euphoric,” I may raise eyebrows. Whereas, if I say “I feel cheerful,” people are less likely to gossip behind my back or recommend a psychologist.

Have a great day!

Sexist Terms

I received a burning inquiry from one of my students this week:

Gloria,
As a Liberated Woman and Feminist Supporter, can you work your magic on somehow getting our Education System to reword degrees, i.e.:
4 Years of College called "Bachelor's Degree."
How about Bachelorette or some other "unisex" name (which I know you could supply). Sensible Degree would work for me.

Then there's MASTER's Degree, should there be both with MISTRESS Degree, or again some ingenious unisex descriptive name like Debtors Degree (with Student Loans)_________or more seriously...SMART Degree?
Doctor I'm okay with... What can you come up with?
I seriously think this should be corrected; we no longer call CongressWomen CongressMen.
Help, a Sista' out. Wonder if I'm the only one who thinks about this stuff?

Crystal

I don’t think Crystal is alone in thinking about these things. I’m sure I thought about it, too, when I graduated from college more than 20 years ago and received my Bachelor’s degree. That means I became a “bachelor.” The most common definition for this is an unmarried man. Another definition listed is a graduate of a 4 year college program.

I’m also a “Master.” I received my Master’s degree about 10 years ago. This is not really a gender-neutral term, either. There is a feminine equivalent to this, which is Mistress. Of course the most common meaning of this word is very negative in our modern society, and if I said I was a Mistress, no one would think I was referring to an academic accomplishment.

So we need some better terms which are not laden with masculine imagery.

There are 4 academic degrees: associate, bachelor, master, and doctor. Who can think of some good names? Small, medium, large, and extra large? Tall, grande, venti, venti, and superiore?
I’m going to have to consider this, because the best I can come up with are mundane, but accurate and gender-neutral:
Academic Level 1, 2, 3, or 4, or
Undergraduate level 1, or 2, and Graduate level 1 or 2.

Student: Great News, Grandma, I have achieved academic level 3!
Grandma: (yawn).

Not titles to aspire to. Please send me some suggestions and help us out, here!

Rantings (NOT Ranting's)

Apostrophes are appearing everywhere lately. Especially where they don’t belong. I receive electronic mail messages with errors in them all the time. Should we do away with apostrophes? Apostrophe! PH, must be Greek. We can say the book belonging to the boy, instead of the boy’s book. Apostrophes show ownership. The problem is rooted in the difference between its and it’s. Apostrophes are used for contractions (shortened forms). They used to call them "contractions" when I was in school. The educational system thinks it is beneficial to change the names taught to children. The material is the same, but something like "carrying" is now called "regrouping." For parents who had trouble with mathematical concepts in elementary school this only serves to make it impossible for parents to assist their children in doing homework. I don't think it really makes mathematics any easier. And tell me what happened to the word "arithmetic?"

But back to apostrophes. “Its” means belonging to it. "It’s" is a shortened form of it is. And now that acronyms are so popular we want to write the plural of PC as PC’s. Plurals of common capitalized abbreviations are supposed to require an apostrophe. Maybe it should be PCs for several personal computers and PC’s for belonging to the PC. Maybe we should bring back periods. PERIODS, not "dots!" Remember P.C.? Or better yet, forget capitals and punctuation altogether and adopt the style of e. e. cummings. Wonder why he used periods in his name, but not in his poetry? I think chaos would break loose though if we did that. Maybe a few superfluous apostrophes are a small price to pay for world order.

Nevermind. Apostrophes may be overused or incorrectly used, but except for that, all is right with the world.

Goose Bumps

What gives you goose bumps? Do geese have bumps? Or is that only after the feathers are plucked? I don’t know, I never have plucked a goose…

Strange term: “goose bumps.” My dictionary lists goose flesh and goose PIMPLES. I never heard that last one. Goose bumps can be caused by the heebie-jeebies or by a cool breeze. I’m proud to report that my dictionary does list heebie-jeebies! I just checked. The last time I heard this question, though, I interpreted it in a positive way and thought about the things that give me goose bumps:
Good writing ( Not merely “good,” I mean eloquent),
a song vocalized by Mario Frangoulis accompanied by an orchestra,
a phone call from a far away friend (especially after you were just thinking about them),
a standing ovation from my audience,
my husband kissing the back of my neck….

How droll!

I left out a very amusing word on my list of monosyllables: droll. I came across this word in one of my son’s chapter books recently. I had to look it up to make sure I knew what it meant. I seem to remember hearing it in some old black and white movies, usually spoken by some sophisticated snob. It’s just a cute little word, which means comical or amusingly odd. I think it should be brought back into current usage.

Droll comes from an Old Dutch word, drol, meaning little man. I thought it might be related to troll, but my dictionary says that comes from an Old Norse word. Nonetheless, I think they share a common ancestor.

I think some of my articles are droll. If not humorous, they are certainly odd.

Epiphany

Epiphany was celebrated in Tarpon Springs, also known as “Epiphany City,” last Saturday. It has earned this epithet because every year, thousands of people gather to observe the Greek Orthodox tradition of retrieving a cross from a body of water. The teenage boy who retrieves the cross, is given many blessings for the coming year. This was the 101st year this has been performed in Tarpon Springs, and the warmest one in the last 100 years, lucky for the 30 young men who dived into Spring Bayou this year.

Epiphany n. Christian festival held on January 6.
epiphany n. revelation, spiritual event. From Greek, to reveal.
epitaph n. inscription on a tombstone. From Greek, over a tomb.
epithet n. adjective or descriptive phrase; abusive or contemptuous phrase used to describe a person. From Greek, to add on

Note: an epithet is not always negative. It is synonymous with "label."

Monosyllablic Words

Bane, daft, dolt, hurl, irk, squelch, words don’t have to be big, to be interesting!

Eloquence

Words are sooooo important. That’s why the word of the day is eloquence.

Does anyone look up words in dictionary anymore? Even I rarely do anymore and I used to study the dictionary when I was in grammar school. Now I just use the thesaurus option in MS Word.

An eloquent and loquacious speaker once told me,
“Eloquence is Silver. Silence is Golden.”

Loquacious--talkative, from Latin, loqui, to speak, which is also the root of
Eloquent--well spoken, expressive

Aphorisms

My father had some good sayings. I don’t think I ever heard this one from anyone else:

"A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”

And he was the first to tell me the second part of this one:

“Time heals all wounds, and wounds all heels.”

Oh, I forgot to say, "Happy New Year, Dear Reader!"

New Year's Resolutions

I once made a resolution not to ever make New Year's resolutions. I kept this resolution for probably 20 years. I just couldn't understand what was so special about New Year's Day for a new beginning. I mean besides hanging up a new calendar, New Year's Day is just another day. And not a particularly good one if you are starting a weight loss program. The fitness club is closed and after devouring all the Christmas cookies (and pies), you're likely to go through sugar withdrawal.

I always thought one should make resolutions as they become necessary, but I've always been into self-improvement. I guess after almost 30 years, I should be perfect by now! Far from it! There's always room for improvement.

The Sunday paper yesterday had an article yesterday about How to Make New Year's Resolutions, by Ellen Degeneres. It was meant to be funny, but did contain some excellent points. She advised that you make a short list, only 4 or 5 resolutions and you should consult your list from prior years before you compile this one. If you had a resolution on your previous list like "I resolve never to eat another Christmas Cookie," and it didn't work out, this year put "I resolve to eat Christmas Cookies at every opportunity." That way you get a little head start. And if you did quit smoking or some other bad habit in the past, include that this year as well, like this, "Continue not smoking." That is another one with guaranteed success. You want to build on your successes!

But you can read the article for yourself. The point is to KEEP your resolutions, to avoid the trap that many people fall into. In a few weeks, I'll see all kinds of articles about what to do after you've broken all your resolutions! My advice would be to see a hypnotist or hypnotherapist, but I am biased.

Resolute n. determined, bold, firm of purpose.

Resolution n. process by which discord is made to pass into concord; the solving of a problem; boldness and firmness of purpose; decision, goal statement.

Regret n. what happens after you break all your New Year's resolutions.