Wordplay is good for the soul

I have enjoyed playing with words since I was a child. It probably began when I saw the following riddle on the last page of Boys' Life magazine:

Q. When is a door not a door?
A. When it is ajar.

A real knee-slapper when you're 11 years old!

A few years later I heard a stand-up comic on television say, "If your nose runs and your feet smell, you're built upside down!" and I was hooked.

Someone else on late-night television quipped, "Did you hear about the guy who was half Black and half Japanese? Every December 7th he arracked Pearl Bailey."

Or how about the Jewish lawyer who moved to Japan and opened an office in Tokyo. The sign on his front door read "Sosumi." (translation for those who don't get it: "So sue me").

Those were all thought up by other people. I have finally reached the stage in life where I can create them on my own. For example, did you hear about the acupuncturist who decided to turn his waiting room into an Italian restaurant? His place is called Pins & Noodles.

I have to set this one up. In French, lunch is déjeuner and breakfast is petit déjeuner. The word petit means little.

My daughter had a friend in college named Bill DeJournett whose surname is pronounced deh-zhur-nay. It occurred to me all of a sudden this morning that his children, if he has any, might be known as petit DeJournett.

I can die happy now. I can do wordplay in two languages, three if you count faux Japanese.

Since I don't want to die just yet, the only place left for me is probably the loony bin.

You don't have to agree so wholeheartedly.

A day that apparently will not live in infamy

We all remember (or should) that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, "a day that will live in infamy" because the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on the island of Oahu in Hawaii on that day, bringing the United States into World War II. The 81st anniversary of that terrible day is two weeks away.

Today -- November 22nd -- is a day that should also live in infamy, but apparently it does not. Today is its 59th anniversary and I have heard no mention of it. I remember it vividly. People can still tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing.

Younger readers, was it:

1. The suicide of Marilyn Monroe,
2. The Challenger explosion in Florida,
3. The assassination of John F. Kennedy,
4. The induction of Elvis Presley into the U.S. Army, or
5. Neal Armstrong taking one giant leap for mankind on the surface of the moon?

This one should be easy-peasy, but you never can tell, given the state of education in the world today.

I just wish this blog had more younger readers. They're probably all on Tik-Tok.

Is it just me?

...or do you also find that news reporting of late is becoming more hysterical with each passing day? By "of late" I mean in the last few years. Perhaps it is only a characteristic of my particular online source of news (an internet service provider) but almost every headline contains words like shocking, horrifying, devastating, and other similarly alarming/provocative adjectives.

Maybe their entire staff consists of highly impressionable teen-agers who have no frame of reference except social media.

It just makes me wonder.

I say they should just report the facts and let me decide for myself how shocking, horrifying, devastating, or alarming it is. They should stop with all their editorializing. Most of all, I want them to stop trying to control my reactions, stop telling me what to think, stop doing their best to replace my conclusions with their conclusions.

America is still a free country and we still have freedom of speech here. I hope we always do. Do not be deceived, though. There are those who would take it away if they could. Some of them are on the left. Some of them are on the right. I hope they never can.

Apple or Google or Blogger or Something Out There doesn’t like me lately

I hope it's only temporary.

First I couldn't leave comments on certain, but only certain, blogs from my phone, but I could on others.

Then I couldn't leave comments on anyone else's blog from my phone but I could reply to comments on my own blog.

Then I could not leave a comment on anyone else's blog or reply to comments on my own blog from my phone.

But I could still do all those things from my desktop computer.

Then the same sequence of events started up on my desktop computer until yesterday I was unable to reply to Emma's comment on the previous post from my desktop computer. Things have come full circle, it seems.

I am flummoxed.

I repeat, Apple or Google or Blogger or Something Out There doesn't like me lately.

Fortunately, I am still able to create and publish posts, but who knows how long that will last?

I am undeterred. I intend to forge ahead, and if worse comes to worst, I will just talk to myself until the cows come home.

Needless to say, any helpful advice would be appreciated.

I repeat this too. I hope it's only temporary.

Word Salad #17,643

I mentioned in the previous post that people who live in Missouri but call it Missoura may have IFNCSCE (Indiana/Florida/North Carolina/South Carolina Envy), a malady I invented.

Today I am asking my many readers (no snickering, please) to chime in regarding the correct way to pronounce IFNCSCE. Here are four options from which to choose:

1. iffen-kiss-key
2. if-nick-sicky
3. eye-fences-see
4. eye-fink-skee

Which do you like best? If you don't like any of those, come up with a pronunciation of your own and share it with us in a comment.

Malapropism Of The Week (said twice during a single nationally televised newscast): "That really resignated with me."

Today is supposed to be very windy around here, and tomorrow we may be getting the rainy remnants of Nicole, the storm that made landfall near Vero Beach, Florida, this morning as a Category 1 hurricane. Category 1 means that its maximum wind speeds had reached 75 miles per hour. Nicole made landfall in combination with what meteorologists were calling a "king high tide" even though a king tide is defined as a spring tide when the moon is at perigee, and the recent full moon on November 8th occurred at apogee and during autumn in the northern hemisphere, which is, after all, where Florida is.

Finally (even though few things are ever final), your assignment today is to learn the difference between perigee, apogee, perihelion, and aphelion, and to explain to me if you can why apogee contains an o but aphelion does not.

Why did Billy Joel take a Greyhound on the Hudson River Line? .

The answer is at the end of the post.

Since North Georgia had November weather in October, it follows as the night the day (as Polonius once said to Laertes) that we are now having October weather in November. Today's high was 75°F (23.8889°C), and 80°F (26.6667°C) is not out of the question for Election Day on Tuesday. The sun is shining brightly; the red and gold leaves continue to fall. Meanwhile, Keith "Red" Kline in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada has reported the first blizzard of the season in his area.

Moving right along, class, we shall now learn how to pronounce correctly the names of certain states in the U.S. that many people do not pronounce correctly. You may think that you have no problems in this area. Read on.

Two of the most frequently mispronounced state names are the western states of Nevada and Colorado. You might be surprised to learn that accoording to natives of those places, the a in both words is not like the a in father. It is like the a in gather.

People from Missouri often pronounce the name of their state as though it were spelled Missoura. I don't know why. Maybe they have IFNCSCE (Indiana/Florida/North Carolina/South Carolina Envy).

Iowa is eye-oh-wuh, but one online source says that people in Iowa who are older or live in rural areas often say eye-oh-way. I hope Emma will let us know her thoughts on the subject.

Is Hawaii pronounced huh-wah-ya or huh-wah-ee or huh-wye-ee or huh-vie-ee or huh-vah-ee? Whichever one you choose, remember that the experts say a glottal stop is required and the spelling should include an apostrophe (Hawai'i). I know a woman who calls the state hah-wore-ya (she isn't trying to be funny) and my son-in-law always says "Fine, thank you, and you?" under his breath.

Louisiana is tricky and a lot of people get it wrong. I knew a woman, Marge Smith, back in Poughkeepsie, New York, 55 years who had grown up in Louisiana. She would get apoplectic whenever someone said Louise-iana. "It's named after Louis, not Louise," she would say, usually while clenching her teeth. The nearest I can come to Marge's own pronunciation is Looz-iana or Loo-iss-iana. This one might be a losing battle.

Massachusetts seems to be particularly difficult for many. I can't tell you how many times I have heard someone say Matchatoochits or Matchatooshits. I wonder sometimes if such people have a reading problem or a hearing problem.

I'm not trying to come across as judgemental. The state in which I find myself is one of bewilderment.

The answer to the question in the post title is because he was in a New York state of mind.

The Trinity explained through simple math

...and without the use of strange, multisyllabic Greek words. First, a little background.

St. Patrick tried to explain the Trinity with a shamrock (three leaves, one stem). Others have cited the three forms of H₂O (water, ice, steam), the three main parts of an egg (shell, yolk, white), or three relationships a person can have simultaneously (someone's son, someone's husband, someone's father, or to change genders, someone's daughter, someone's wife, someone's mother).

Many people accept these illustrations as valid but people with a longer view of Christianity and its history know and recognize the heresy of Modalism.

How can three be one? How can one be three? It can't, you say. Through simple mathematics, I will now prove that it can.

Not addition, though. Addition proves nothing, because where 1 represents a person of the Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit):

1 + 1 + 1 = 3

That is not the Trinity. It is polytheism, the opposite of the Trinity.

Therefore, friends, let us turn to another part of mathematics. And because the God described in the Book of Genesis said, "I will multiply thee" on many occasions, let us turn to multiplication. Lo and behold, multiplication provides the answer:

1 × 1 × 1 = 1

Think about it.

You may not believe in Christianity or the doctrine of the Trinity or even In God, but you can't deny my math.