Friday, August 22, 2008

I have received another award

and it’s called (you should pardon the expression) the Kick-ass Blogger award. This is the second time this month I’ve received this particular award. It looks like this:


This time the award came from Ruth Hull Chatlien who lives in Illinois, and who, if her blog’s name means anything at all, is -- by her own admission -- given to having visions and making revisions. I don’t know whether those are separate or related activities. She is, after all, both an Episcopalian (who could fall into a trance unexpectedly whilst attending the monthly meeting of the Altar Guild) and a professional free-lance writer, by which I mean people pay her money for her linguistic prowess). Or perhaps she just has visions and then revises her visions, and then revises the revisions of her visions. I’m a bit unclear on how that works. But I do thank Ruth for the award.

In her presentation address, I mean paragraph, I mean sentence, Ruth allowed as how my posts “are witty and often historical.” I think she meant “hysterical” and just forgot to go back and revise it. You really should go read her blog, Ruth’s Visions and Revisions, because her writing always provides food for thought, and her photographs -- especially of flowers -- are wonderful.

Here are the rules, which I somehow managed to ignore the last time I received the award:

1) Choose five other bloggers that you feel are “Kick Ass Bloggers.”
2) Let them know that they have received an award.
3) Link back to both the person who awarded you and also to www.mammadawg.com
4) Visit the Kick Ass Blogger Club HQ to sign Mr. Linky and leave a comment.

For those who are wondering, Kick-Ass is a compliment and means, roughly, “first-rate.” I’m limiting my nominees to four, and three of them, who really know their way around an English sentence*, live in England, which may be the reason:

1) Daphne, who, even though her Dad is a Communist (I know, I was shocked too), writes a really interesting blog. For example, I learned that her mother still swims in the ocean at the age of 84.

2) Andy, the Yellow Swordfish chap who gave me my first Kick-Ass Blogger award. He maintains that he is English, not British, and we all would benefit from learning the difference. He is married to...

3) Jay, who has JPOCD (Johnny Depp Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder) and is therefore subject to all the horrible symptoms of The Depp Effect. She also takes care of two dogs named Princess and Pirate who, we can only hope, are not similarly afflicted.

4) My fourth nominee is a three-way tie between Pat (an Arkansas stamper), if for nothing else than one very shiny truck and a triple-layer day lily; Jeannelle of Iowa, who is a new mother-in-law and a dairy farmer’s hard-working wife who occasionally channels a cow named Freckles at the end of a long day; and a woman in Oregon named Vonda who not only lives on The Little Egg Farm even though it is one egg short of a real farm, but is also following in the tradition of both F. Scott Fitzgerald, who introduced the world to East Egg and West Egg in The Great Gatsby, and Betty MacDonald, who introduced the world to Ma and Pa Kettle in The Egg and I. All three of these bloggers brighten my day.

I know, I know, that’s six, not four. Shhhhhh. If you don’t tell anybody, I won’t.

*By “really know their way around an English sentence” I mean they write words like favourite and organised and practised and manoeuvered and don’t think the words look even the least bit odd.

Hmmmm. Nothing historical in this post. My apologies, Ruth.

11 comments:

  1. Congratulations, Mr. RWP. If Ruth says you're a Kick A** blogger, that's good enough for me.

    You're too kind (and slightly daft) to pass the award on to me. In my youth, I once rode bareback on a very large donkey and used my heels to urge him down the country lane. Does that count as Kick A**?

    In my old age, I've often had the urge to Kick A**, but with arthritis being what it is, I can't raise my foot that high.
    Whodathunk all it would take is a KA shiny truck and a 3-layer day lily! You are too funny! I cheerfully accept one-third of 4th place.

    I will now manoeuver my mouse to the blogs of your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices. Perhaps their writings will add a little colour to my life.

    By the way, I have never (yet)known a member of an Episcopal Altar Guild to go into a trance. Yes, it is a spiritual and uplifting service that we perform, but perhaps not quite *that* uplifting! :)

    Hugs, Pat - Episcopalian and Altar Guild Coordinator

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  2. Thank you for the nomination, Bob. Silverback kindly organised my favourite blogs into order, and yours is one of them! I shall have to practise these technical things. Now I've manoeuvred all your favourite British spellings into a paragraph I'll go out and enjoy the non-stop British sunshine.

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  3. Wow, Pat, you have both literally and now figuratively kicked a$$! Way to go!

    Daphne, now I know you are dipping into the sauce a bit too often. The whole world knows there is no such thing as non-stop British sunshine, unless you have redefined "non-stop" to mean "a half-hour here, a half-hour there."

    I hope both of you enjoy your well-deserved awards.

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  4. Yes, well, Bob, as I think you've worked out, another thing we're known for in Britain is irony. Probably because it never stops raining.

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  5. Daphne, how ironic that I should forget all about British irony! Something else you Brits are known for, according to my old high-school English teacher, Mr. D. P. Morris back in Texas, is litotes. No small thing, that.

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  6. Wow, Bob, that was a not unimpressive piece of dry wit and irony! In fact, I think I might say that it would not have been unworthy of an Englishman! You have managed to include several of our favourite* figures of speech, although I don't think I noticed a single syllepsis. I won't hold it against you, or even in my memory for long. I'll just take my leave, my amusement and - with many thanks - my award.

    Seriously, many thanks. I very much enjoy your writing, and your visits to my blog. I'll check out those others you mention, too! I already visit Ruth quite often, and Yellow Swordfish, of course.

    *Actually, you'd be surprised at how odd I think that is, but only when I'm talking to Americans.

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  7. rhymsie,

    You demonstrate your Kick-A writing abilities even in an award post! And, you've got Kick-A commentators! (I had to look "syllepis" in the dictionary just now, though.) Hey......maybe an commentator award should be established!

    Thank you for including my blog on your list, though I'm sidling along in the shadows here thinking I don't belong there at all. Your writing and thinking are razor-sharp and just way up there above my head......HOW do you do it?!

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  8. Litotes, eh, Bob? I am a citizen of no mean city, is the example I was given at school - - I used to know all this when I was an English teacher - it's faded a little now, but I can still find it lurking in my head somewhere! You are a blogger of no mean blogosphere.

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  9. Well thank you Bob. We could keep sending this backwards and forwards across the Atlantic for weeks! Now, what was it you said?..

    "...they write words like favourite and organised and practised and manoeuvered and don’t think the words look even the least bit odd."

    As a devotee of history then you, I am sure, know that you would still be spelling these words correctly if it hadn't been for that rabidly anti-British school teacher from Connecticut.

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  10. Oh dear! I certainly am not in the same league as all of you who write so well. I think I really am Ma and Pa Kettles long lost daughter. After all, I have been known to confuse the farmer by my yammering on about how many eggs are in a dozen based on color of the egg. I do thank you for the award of a Kick Arse Blogger. I feel quite humbled. I absolutely love your humor and look forward to reading every day. I never fail to laugh out loud. The farmer just looks at me blankly and then goes on reading his paper.

    Now off I go to look over those other blogs you chose.

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  11. Bob, I smiled my way through your post. You've demonstrated your wit once again.

    But I have to clarify that I'm not in the altar guild. I'm on the communications committee as the editor of parish press releases. (Once an editor, always an editor.)

    And the name of my blog comes from a phrase in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot. It's one of my favorite poems. Do you know it?

    Have a good Sunday.

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<b>Always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion</b>

We are bombarded daily by abbreviations in everyday life, abbreviations that are never explained, only assumed to be understood by everyone...