The ABCs ain't what they used to be

A. Which one of the following phrases is not like the others? Give reasons for your answer.

Every Good Boy Does Fine
All Cows Eat Grass
Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally
Good Boys Do Fine Always

B. I have begun carrying a dime and two pennies with me at all times. I carry the dime because John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), who was a multi-billionaire, gave away dimes to people for many years and a popular song during the Great Depression was called "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?" I hope to be able to say, "Why, yes, I can" if anyone ever asks. I carry the pennies in case anyone ever says to me, "You aren't worth two cents" I will be able to reach into my pocket and prove them wrong. Am I losing my mind?

C. I learned a new word today. Acyrologia. It means the inexact, inappropriate or improper use of a word. Malapropisms, which we discussed in other posts, are examples of acyrologia in speech but acyrologia also occurs in writing, often in the form of homonyms (words that sound alike but are spelled differently) of the word intended. Here is a wonderful piece on acyrologia I found on Facebook that is itself an illustration of acyrologia.


acyrologia
"An incorrect use of words -- particularly replacing one word with another word that sounds similar but has a diffident meaning -- possibly fuelled by a deep-seeded desire to sound more educated, witch results in an attempt to pawn off an incorrect word in place of a correct one. In academia, such flaunting of common social morays is seen as almost sorted and might result in the offender becoming a piranha. In the Monday world, after all is set and done, such a miner era will often leave normal people unphased. This is just as well sense people of that elk are unlikely to tow the line irregardless of any attempt to better educate them. A small percentage, however, suffer from severe acyrologiaphobia, and it is their upmost desire to see English used properly. Exposure may cause them symptoms that may resemble post-dramatic stress disorder and, eventually, to descend into whole-scale outrage as they go star-craving mad. Eventually, they will succumb to the stings and arrows of such a barrage, and suffer a complete metal breakdown, leaving them curled up in the feeble position." (author unknown)


I spotted 23 instances of acyrologia in that paragraph and listed them in the first comment. Before peeping, how many instances did you find?

Happy end of January to you. In China, it is now the year of the snake. You have been warned.

One can only hope

I have noticed in news stories lately, whether on radio, on television, on websites, or in print, that every time someone's death is announced, one of three words is invariably used. Everyone, it seems, is iconic, legendary, or beloved nowadays. Some of the announcements manage to work in all three adjectives. Why is that, I wonder? Is anyone with the least-bit recognizable name or who has achieved some measure of popularity in life automatically iconic, legendary, or beloved? I think not, but then I am not part of Generation Alpha, Gen Z, Gen Y, Gen X, or even the Baby Boomers. No, dear reader, I am an official dinosaur, and having been born before World War II began (at least on this side of the pond) I am therefore a member of what is called The Silent Generation.

As you may have noticed, I am anything but silent.

Members of my generation are shuffling off this mortal coil at what seems to me to be an alarming rate. I hope I am going to be around for some time yet. One day last week I realized that my 83rd birthday was exactly 10 months ago and my 84th birthday was exactly two months hence. My mind went into overdrive and I suddenly realized that my age in the decimal system that day was 83.83, which I found satisfyingly symmetrical.

No, I am not weird. Why do you ask?

I further hope that someone, if only here in blogworld, will remember this post and refer to me after my demise as--wait for it--iconic, legendary, and/or beloved.

Maybe I am a little bit weird.

Closed captioning is still cuckoo

We talked in a post not too long ago about the deficiencies of the current state of the art of voice recognition software (VRS) and closed captioning (CC).

This post's title is not strong enough in my opinion. Actually, closed captioning is getting worse with the passage of time. Things I see displayed on my television screen make me want to scream, to pull out what hair I still have, to throw a brick through the set. Fortunately, to date I have managed not to succumb to these urges. My self-control know no bounds.

I will give you three examples from this evening's viewing alone. Two of them are from Donald Trump's remarks at tonight's pre-inaugural candlelight dinner and one is from Sean Hannity's nightly news commentary program.

When Mr. Trump said, "We're going to be so successful. We're going to have so many successes," the closed captioning showed "WE'RE GOING TO BE SO SUCCESSFUL. WE'RE GOING TO HAVE 70 SUCCESSES."

Referring to his plans to issue 200 Executive Orders on his first day in office to undo damage done by the previous administration, Mr. Trump's statement that "By the end of the day a lot of it will be null and void" became "BY THE END OF THE DAY A LOT OF IT WILL BE NOLAN BOYD."

Sean Hannity said that when he began pointing out President Biden's cognitive decline a couple of years ago, "I was excoriated and had the crap kicked out of me by the whole Biden administration" but the closed captioning put it this way: "I WAS EXCORIATED AND HAD THE KOEPKA ACADEMY BY THE WHOLE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION."

Perhaps I shouldn't be so chagrined. Perhaps I should try to look for the silver lining. Perhaps the universe is sending me prompts to write a novel about Nolan Boyd, a student at the Koepka Academy.

Nah.

I just feel sorry for people who have to rely on closed captioning.

Truth is stranger than fiction

What I am about to tell you is true. Or was at the time, as best I remember it. I looked at Google's aerial map of Arlington, Texas, just now and what I'm about to tell you doesn't appear to be true nowadays. Street names have been changed, some streets no longer exist, new streets have been added, and the whole area has been reconfigured due to Arlington's growth. But it was true when I experienced it, so I will forge ahead with this post.

I attended Arlington State College (ASC) in 1959-1960, the year it changed from a two-year junior-college institution to a four-year senior-college institution. It was part of the Texas A&M University system, an arch-rival of the University of Texas (UT) in Austin. So it seems odd that ASC was later absorbed into the University of Texas system and became the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) just as Texas Western University in El Paso became the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and several other schools underwent the same transformation, which is neither here nor there. Well, actually one is here and one is there. I don't want to go down this rabbit trail further.

Downtown Arlington in those days was centered on a town square. It was so long ago (65 years, God help us all) that I cannot remember whether the square held a park or the city hall building. You would think that I would remember a detail like that, but I don't because we mostly stayed on or near campus except to splurge occasionally and eat at a restaurant. That's not important. What is important and what I'm trying to get to as fast as I can (not fast enough, I can hear some of you saying) is the scheme Arlington used for the naming of streets. It was very confusing, at least to me.

The street along the north side of the square was called North Street, the street along the east side of the square was called East Street, the street along the south side of the square was called South Street, and the street along the west side of the square was called West Street. So far so good. No problem, you say. I continue.

If you think about it, you will probably realize (British, realise) that North Street was an east-west thoroughfare, East Street was a north-south thoroughfare, South Street was an east-west thoroughfare, and West Street was another north-south thoroughfare. Things get interesting from there. I will use abbreviations from here on because that's what was on the green and white street signs at corners throughout the city.

The city planners in their wisdom extended these streets so that in addition to the one-block long North Street there was an E. North Street running eastward and a W. North Street running westward. Using all of the gray matter available to you, you can guess that there might be (and there was) a N. East Street and a S. East Street running northward and southward respectively from the one-block long East Street, an E. South Street and a W. South Street running eastward and westward respectively from the one-block long South Street, and a N. West Street and a S. West Street running northward and southward respectively from the one-block long West Street. Thus the whole city of Arlington was divided into four quadrants (how many quadrants were you expecting?). I found four particular intersections particularly mind-blowing:

• The intersection of E. North and N. East
• The intersection of W. North and N. West
• The intersection of E. South and S. East
• The intersection of W. South and S. West

and trying to give directions to people became problematic at times and even downright silly.

In closing, I also need to tell you that Mrs. Ella Willis, the staunch Baptist landlady of the boarding house I chose to live in instead of a dormitory, attended a big Baptist church on the west side of town, and some of my friends attended another big Baptist church on the east side of town. Interestingingly enough, and this is also absolutely true, the pastor of the Baptist church on the west side of town was named Reverend East and the pastor of the Baptist church on the east side of town was named Reverend West.

I swear or affirm that all of the foregoing is true, so help me God.

This post makes one thing perfectly clear.

It is a slow blogging day in Canton, Georgia.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Just what you've been waiting for, a weather report from north Georgia.

Yesterday our specific part of north Georgia experienced the coldest morning of the season so far, 17°F (-8.3°C). This morning, the first significant snow (translation: other than a trace or a few flurries) in five years has been falling. It is, to coin a phrase, a winter wonderland. Local children are ecstatic because all of the schools are closed. Many members of the workforce are ecstatic as well because their places of employment are also closed.

This circumstance contributes to the northern states' continued feelings of superiority over the southern states. If the people of the midwest (Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, etc.) and the northeast (New York, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Boston, etc.) stayed home every time a little snow fell, no work would take place for months on end.

In other news, I have now completed and submitted to Storyworth my responses to the first two of their 52 questions. So far it is a lot of fun as well as a lot of work.

If you have a lot of time on your hands -- maybe you're snowed in and can't get out and about -- take a look at this list of 25 Of the Most Inspiring Books Everyone Should Read that popped up on my computer today. Sad to say, I have read only one of the 25, The Count Of Monte Cristo, #16. How many have you read, or even heard of?

I have concluded that with every passing day I am more and more out of touch with what is going on in the world. It is a startling revelation, to say the least.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day

...to the last syllable of recorded time. A man named William Shakespeare wrote that more than 400 years ago and put it into the mouth of Macbeth, who was thane of Glamis and thane of Cawdor if memory serves. The entire speech is rather depressing, a real downer. The whole play is not exactly a comedy either.

Fast away the old year may indeed have passed, but the new year (2025, if I'm not mistaken) is getting off to a slow start, postwise. It's already January 4th and I haven't written a single thing. Well, I did put a grocery list together, but I don't think that counts.

The young'uns tied the knot on New Year's Eve right on schedule and headed off to Florida the next day. Now that the hoopla has died down, nothing suitable for blogging has presented itself. I refuse to blog about terrorist attacks in New Orleans or cybertruck explosions in Las Vegas or behind-the-scenes arm-twisting that made an almost failed election of a Speaker of the House of Representatives into a rousing victory for truth, justice, and the American way.

Yesterday our younger son brought over a pot of homemade soup for us that contained chicken, kielbasa, carrots, onions, celery, collard greens, and as Andy Griffith used to say, I don't know what all. It turned out to be delicious!

I will have even less time to compose blogposts this year because of the gift I received from our older son at Christmas. He gave me a one-year subscription to Storyworth. I will receive an email asking me a question every week for the next 52 weeks; I am to write a story from my life in response to the question and email it back to Storyworth. At the end of the year, a book containing all of my responses will be created. I am looking fowatd to doing this but am also a bit intimidated.

I think I am afraid it will be a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.