Always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion

We are bombarded daily by abbreviations in everyday life, abbreviations that are never explained, only assumed to be understood by everyone. Sometimes they are and sometimes they are not. Here are a few of them:

MSRP
GMO
AOC
CIDP
TED
NTSB

For the uninformed, the confused, and yes, even the dazed whose knowledge of abbreviations is limited to the IRS, LBJ, and the wearing of BVDs, I will now tell you what the above six abbreviations stand for:

Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price
Genetically Modified Organisms
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy
Thyroid Eye Disease
National Transportation Safety Board

A portion of the American population are convinced that Anastasia Ocasio-Cortez is herself a genetically modified organism, but I digress.

Moving right along, I saw a commercial on television for a product called Relaxium. Although it sounds like it might be an antidote for an overdose of Viagra, it is actually a sleep aid. The commercial opens with a man saying, "Hello, I'm former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee". In another version of the commercial the man says, "Hello, I'm former governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee". The second version is true but the first version is not. Mke Huckabee is the former governor of Arkansas but he is not now nor has he ever been the governor of former Arkansas. You do see the difference, don't you?

So I pass my days, being literal to a fault. I listen carefully to what is said as opposed to what might have been meant. The stated aim of the Society For Techical Communication back in the 1970s was that every sentence have one meaning, understood at the first reading. It is still my personal goal. In other words, friends, Ambiguity R Not Us.

Finally, some of you may have noticed the snapshot of me in the sidebar at the age of 2 or 3. As part of my ongoing week-long 83rd birthday celebration, here is the full original photograph revealing that it was my mother who was holding my hand:

P.S. - The title of this post is also the title of a song written by Cole Porter (1891-1964).

My new favorite poem

...is the following one, purportedly by Billy Collins:

Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark
that he barks every time they leave the house.
They must switch him on on their way out.

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.
I close all the windows in the house
and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast
but I can still hear him muffled under the music,
barking, barking, barking,

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,
his head raised confidently as if Beethoven
had included a part for barking dog.

When the record finally ends he is still barking,
sitting there in the oboe section barking,
his eyes fixed on the conductor who is
entreating him with his baton

while the other musicians listen in respectful
silence to the famous barking dog solo,
that endless coda that first established
Beethoven as an innovative genius.

(end of poem)

I say purportedly because I could not find that title in a list of the complete poems of Billy Collins at Poetry Foundation. To be fair, however, I do not know when the list was compiled and Billy Collins, who is still alive and kcking, may well have written the poem since the list was put together, in which case the list needs to be updated.

I laughed when I read the poem and thought about the two big dogs, Rebel and Jasper, who live behind my next-door neighbor's fence. They go ballistic every time I take Abby out our back door. They sound ferocious, like they want to eat her if they could just get to her, and maybe me as well. Abby seems to enjoy setting them off but I do grow weary of the scenario.

I said to Mrs. RWP (the lovely Ellie), "Want to hear something crazy?" and read the poem aloud to her. She agreed that it was crazy, and I said, "I know! It's good but it's crazy! I think I'm crazy sometimes but I finally found someone crazier than me!"

Billy Collins and I are practically twins as we were both born in March 1941. Both of us turn 83 next week, me (I?) on Monday and him (he?) on Friday. Both of us write poems, some of them crazy. There is one minor difference between us, though. Billy Collins served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003; I have yet to be asked.

I wonder as I wander

When and why did people start saying 'from here to Timbuktu'? Why don't they say 'from here to Tegucigalpa' or 'from here to Ouagadougou' or 'from here to Ulaanbaatar' or even 'from here to Kealikakua, Hawaii, where the humuhumunukunukuapua'a go swimming by' instead?

Although careful readers of the previous paragraph know that Kealikakua is in Hawaii, how many of them can match the other four places with their countries?

Why do people in the northern states say "I don't know [person's name] from Adam's off ox" but prople in the southern states say "I don't know [person's name] from Adsm's house cat"?

Why do fools fall in love?

Oh where, oh where has my little dog gone? Oh where, oh where can he be? With his ears cut short and his tail cut long, oh where, oh where can he be?

Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?

Who is Sylvia?

The Flowers That Bloom in the Spring, Tra La

...will just have to wait another few days because Spring has not yet sprung and will not for another week or so. My apologies to the Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan and lovers of The Mikado all over the world (you know who you are).

What if today were proclaimed International Don't Hold Back, Say What You Really Think Day?

One thing I would say is that when U.S.President Joseph Biden said recently that he and Israel's Prime Mnister Benjamin Netanyahu, a Jew, were going to have a 'come-to-Jesus meeting' it revealed an obtuseness, a mental denseness, a complete disregard for what is lnguistically appropriate so great as to be beyond belief. It further indicates, as Anna Russell once remarked about coloratura sopranos, that President Biden has resonance where his brains ought to be. This is just one person's opinion. of course, and you are certainly free to have another, but you would be wrong.

Another thing I would say on IDHB,SWYRT Day is that while I am aware that language is an ever-changing, flowing stream, Americans who believe the principal parts of the verb 'sneak' are 'sneak, snuck, snuck' instead of 'sneak, sneaked, sneaked' and that the principal parts of the verb 'drag' are 'drag, drug, drug' instead of 'drag, dragged, dragged' and demonstrate their beliefs daily through their speech patterns are far more numerous than any resident of the UK could possibly imagine.

If you are of a mathematical bent, and even if you are not, I recommend for your reading pleasure two fascinating posts by Mr.Tasker Dunham of Yorkshire, England (speaking of residents of the UK). In one of them, he even mentions me. Here are the links:

Tasker Dunham's post 'Proof of the Pi'

Tasker Dunham's post 'Pythagoras'

I now end today's post by telling you that the Germans have a word for a sense of what is linguistically appropriate and that word is sprachgefühl.

I’ must be slipping

...because the person I was a few years ago would have told you last Saturday that March 2nd is Alamo Day---all together now, 'Davy, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier!'--and that today, March 6th, is Texas Independence Day. Texas declared itself independent from Mexico in 1836 and was an independent country for nine years. As part of its annexation agreement with the U.S. (it was never a territory), Texas can split into as many as five states any time it decides to. The powers that be will probably come after my Lone Star State Nembership Card if anybody turns me in to the authorities.

The days are getting longer; in 15 days the equinox will be here and Spring will have sprung once again. Before that happens, however, it is important to remember to turn your clocks forward one hour this Saturday, March 9th, before you retire for the night, as Daylight Saving Time returns Sunday at 2:00 a.m. after a four-month hiatus.

A short post this time.

Telling it like it is

If there were a movement advocating truth in song lyrics, "Home On The Range" might go like this:

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam,
Where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,
'Cause how much can an antelope say?

Truer words were never spoken. I mean, think about it. Skies that are not cloudy all day are rarer than hen's teeth talking antelopes. I wish I could say I wrote that new last line of "Home On The Range" but alas, I cannot. Actually, I could but it would not be true.

In my last post, I shared with you the moment of silence that I found most surprising during several recent Jeopardy! episodes. You may remember that it involved the four words "it might have been" that appear in the last line of a poem by John Grenleaf Whittier, "Maud Muller" to be exact, which I mentioned in the comments section but not in the post itself. Little did I know there would be an even greater shocker of a stumper on Friday evening's program. Read on.

In a category called Novel Endings the clue was "This 1922 work ended with the words 'yes I said yes I will Yes'." and there was a deafening silence onstage during which I yelled 'Ulysses' at the screen at least three times.

According to an article entitled "The 10 best closing lines in books" by Robert McKrum in The Guardian in July 2012, James Joyce's Ulysses is number two on the list, right behind The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

It seems to be a losing battle and the dumbing down of America side seems to be winning. What can we do? I will tell you what we can do, the only thing we can do. We can beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

I didn't write that line either.