Happy Bastille Day!
Look it up.
After not having seen Jeopardy! at all in several months (can you say 'cold turkey'?), I watched an episode on Friday and knew three answers none of the contestants knew, namely:
What is Bewitched?
What is Bonanza?
What is (are?) the New York Mets?
The three contestants were all Gen Z'ers, and host Ken Jennings said they made him feel old.
Me too.
Of course, I am old, but that is beside the point.
Or maybe that is the point. At least I know what Bastille Day is.
Seacrest out.
Monday, July 14, 2025
Thursday, July 10, 2025
It drives me crazy
...when place names are mispronounced by news readers on television.
For example, yesterday the small town of Alvarado, Texas, was in the news. This town is very close to Mansfield, Texas, where I was raised or reared or grew up or however you think I should say it. Amost everyone who mentioned the town on television news broadcasts mispronounced it. For the record, even though in Spanish Alvarado rhymes with bravado, and even though the town was named after Alvarado in the Mexican state of Veracruz, the correct pronunciation of the town in Texas rhymes with Play-Doh or Day-Glo or Laredo, take your pick. All day long on the news channel the people were saying 'al-vuh-RAH-doh' until 4 p.m., when Will Cain, a man who actually is from Texas and broadcasts from Texas, said 'al-vuh-RAY-do' and I felt vindicated. At 7 p.m. I heard Laura Ingraham say it correctly too, but everyone else was back to 'al-vuh-RAH-do'.
I have friends from California who become agitated when people say Paso Robles wrong. Robles does not rhyme with 'go blaze' but with the English word 'nobles'.
I guess it depends on whether you aim for Spanish purism or go with the flow of the local populace.
There is Spanish and then there is Spanish.
In Texas, the San Jacinto monument near Houston is pronounced 'san juh-SIN-toh' or even 'san juh-SIN-tuh'. But actress Betty White, who lived in California, referred to it once as 'san hah-CHEEN-to', which I guess is technically correct but made Texans everywhere roll their eyes.
I have the strange feeling we have discussed these things before, but I may be mistaken.
Waxahachie (another town in Texas) is not WACKS-uh-hatch-ee, it's WALKS-uh-hatch-ee.
The G in Nacogdoches is not pronounced. And the word sounds nothing like the town of Natchitoches a few miles away in Louisiana even though they are named for the same Native American tribe (I think). In Texas it's 'nack-uh-DOH-chiz' and in Louisiana it's 'NACK-uh-tish'. I'm not even kidding.
The Brazos River in Texas is 'BRAZZ-us', not 'BRAH-zose'.
People in Illinois do not pronounce the S in the name of their state but a lot of other people do.
In Florida, Boca Raton is not 'boh-ka ruh-TAHN', it's 'boh-ka ruh-TONE'. Trust me, I lived there for six years.
Don't even get me started on Mackinac Island, Michigan, or Sault Ste. Marie (also in Michigan), or Dahlonega, Georgia, or Poughkeepsie, New York, or Puyallup, Washington.
In North Carolina, the town of Beaufort is 'BOH-fort' but the South Carolina town of the same name is 'BEW-fert'.
Call me anything you like (and I've been called a lot of things), just don't call me late for dinner.
What place-name mispronunciations get yourknickers in a twist dander up?
For example, yesterday the small town of Alvarado, Texas, was in the news. This town is very close to Mansfield, Texas, where I was raised or reared or grew up or however you think I should say it. Amost everyone who mentioned the town on television news broadcasts mispronounced it. For the record, even though in Spanish Alvarado rhymes with bravado, and even though the town was named after Alvarado in the Mexican state of Veracruz, the correct pronunciation of the town in Texas rhymes with Play-Doh or Day-Glo or Laredo, take your pick. All day long on the news channel the people were saying 'al-vuh-RAH-doh' until 4 p.m., when Will Cain, a man who actually is from Texas and broadcasts from Texas, said 'al-vuh-RAY-do' and I felt vindicated. At 7 p.m. I heard Laura Ingraham say it correctly too, but everyone else was back to 'al-vuh-RAH-do'.
I have friends from California who become agitated when people say Paso Robles wrong. Robles does not rhyme with 'go blaze' but with the English word 'nobles'.
I guess it depends on whether you aim for Spanish purism or go with the flow of the local populace.
There is Spanish and then there is Spanish.
In Texas, the San Jacinto monument near Houston is pronounced 'san juh-SIN-toh' or even 'san juh-SIN-tuh'. But actress Betty White, who lived in California, referred to it once as 'san hah-CHEEN-to', which I guess is technically correct but made Texans everywhere roll their eyes.
I have the strange feeling we have discussed these things before, but I may be mistaken.
Waxahachie (another town in Texas) is not WACKS-uh-hatch-ee, it's WALKS-uh-hatch-ee.
The G in Nacogdoches is not pronounced. And the word sounds nothing like the town of Natchitoches a few miles away in Louisiana even though they are named for the same Native American tribe (I think). In Texas it's 'nack-uh-DOH-chiz' and in Louisiana it's 'NACK-uh-tish'. I'm not even kidding.
The Brazos River in Texas is 'BRAZZ-us', not 'BRAH-zose'.
People in Illinois do not pronounce the S in the name of their state but a lot of other people do.
In Florida, Boca Raton is not 'boh-ka ruh-TAHN', it's 'boh-ka ruh-TONE'. Trust me, I lived there for six years.
Don't even get me started on Mackinac Island, Michigan, or Sault Ste. Marie (also in Michigan), or Dahlonega, Georgia, or Poughkeepsie, New York, or Puyallup, Washington.
In North Carolina, the town of Beaufort is 'BOH-fort' but the South Carolina town of the same name is 'BEW-fert'.
Call me anything you like (and I've been called a lot of things), just don't call me late for dinner.
What place-name mispronunciations get your
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
It's funny (funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha)
...how some facts stick in the brain and others don't. Take addresses, for example. I know that my aunt lived at 405 West Avenue in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, before moving to 403 Linden St. and I know that her telephone number was TUrner 6-9280 before there was ever such a thing as an area code. She has been dead since 1987.
My grandfather lived at 321 Runnymede Avenue in Jenkintown for many years before moving to my uncle's house at 325 West Avenue, a block from my aunt. My grandfather died in 1970 and my uncle died in 1983.
I remember that after Mama, Daddy, and I moved from 61 Larch St. in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to Fort Worth, Texas, on a train (it took three days) in August 1947 (I was six), we stayed for a few days at the Majestic Hotel, then rented some rooms in the Arlington Heights section of the city, and eventually rented a whole house at 2332 Chandler Drive East. Had we stayed there, I would have eventually graduated from Paschal High School, but we didn't stay there. A few months later my parents bought an old house on three acres of land outside of Mansfield, Texas (population 774). Our address was Route 1, Box 59. A few years later, without ever having moved an inch, the countyside around Mansfield had grown so much that our address was changed to Route 1, Box 92.
Our first telephone in Mansfield was mounted on the wall and did not have a dial. It was equipped with a hand-operated crank on the side to ring the operator, who completed the connection through, I suppose, a switchboard. Our number was 157J-3. The -3 meant that because we were on a "party line" of at least eight families the indication of an incoming call to our house was three short rings. That operator really earned her money. The telephone company eventually replaced the crankbox on the wall with a phone that sat on the desk; it had a handset we picked up to talk through and listen with but it didn't have a dial. The operator came on the line when a person lifted the handset from its cradle and would complete the connection. Eventually we got still another telephone with both a handset AND a rotary dial. Our telephone number was not nearly as long as my aunt's TUrner 6-9280, no sir, it was short and sweet, 4726. As fans of Hee-Haw will remember, that is an even shorter phone number than Junior Samples had (BR549).
Nowadays we enter numbers into our smartphone's directory and just press the name of the person we want to reach. Or we can simply say, "Siri, call Grandma." As a result, I don't know anyone's telephone number any more.
We've come a long way, baby.
I think.
In the U.S., people say "Hello?" but in the U.K. they say "Are you there?" (or used to). Someone I know used to say "It's your nickel, start talking" and someone else said simply "Speak." It takes all kinds.
I will now close this fascinating post (I can hear you yawning) by telling you the first words spoken into a telephone mouthpiece, according to what I read. In a demonstration to others of his new invention, Alexander Graham Bell said to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, who was in another room, "Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you." It happened in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 10, 1876.
My grandfather lived at 321 Runnymede Avenue in Jenkintown for many years before moving to my uncle's house at 325 West Avenue, a block from my aunt. My grandfather died in 1970 and my uncle died in 1983.
I remember that after Mama, Daddy, and I moved from 61 Larch St. in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to Fort Worth, Texas, on a train (it took three days) in August 1947 (I was six), we stayed for a few days at the Majestic Hotel, then rented some rooms in the Arlington Heights section of the city, and eventually rented a whole house at 2332 Chandler Drive East. Had we stayed there, I would have eventually graduated from Paschal High School, but we didn't stay there. A few months later my parents bought an old house on three acres of land outside of Mansfield, Texas (population 774). Our address was Route 1, Box 59. A few years later, without ever having moved an inch, the countyside around Mansfield had grown so much that our address was changed to Route 1, Box 92.
Our first telephone in Mansfield was mounted on the wall and did not have a dial. It was equipped with a hand-operated crank on the side to ring the operator, who completed the connection through, I suppose, a switchboard. Our number was 157J-3. The -3 meant that because we were on a "party line" of at least eight families the indication of an incoming call to our house was three short rings. That operator really earned her money. The telephone company eventually replaced the crankbox on the wall with a phone that sat on the desk; it had a handset we picked up to talk through and listen with but it didn't have a dial. The operator came on the line when a person lifted the handset from its cradle and would complete the connection. Eventually we got still another telephone with both a handset AND a rotary dial. Our telephone number was not nearly as long as my aunt's TUrner 6-9280, no sir, it was short and sweet, 4726. As fans of Hee-Haw will remember, that is an even shorter phone number than Junior Samples had (BR549).
Nowadays we enter numbers into our smartphone's directory and just press the name of the person we want to reach. Or we can simply say, "Siri, call Grandma." As a result, I don't know anyone's telephone number any more.
We've come a long way, baby.
I think.
In the U.S., people say "Hello?" but in the U.K. they say "Are you there?" (or used to). Someone I know used to say "It's your nickel, start talking" and someone else said simply "Speak." It takes all kinds.
I will now close this fascinating post (I can hear you yawning) by telling you the first words spoken into a telephone mouthpiece, according to what I read. In a demonstration to others of his new invention, Alexander Graham Bell said to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, who was in another room, "Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you." It happened in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 10, 1876.
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
You may also learn something about vegetables
In a comment on the preceding post, kylie (a longtime reader who lives in Australia) asked, "How on earth does one diagram a sentence?"
Two things about kylie became immediately obvious to me:
1. She is much younger than me.
2. She never studied English grammar under Mr. D.P. Morris in Mansfield, Texas, USA.
i did a little searching online, and out of all the tutorials I found I like the following article best:
Diagramming Sentences 101: Step-by-Step Guide
If anyone out there is wondering, like kylie, how on earth one diagrams a sentence, click on that link and you will find out.
You may also learn something about vegetables.
Two things about kylie became immediately obvious to me:
1. She is much younger than me.
2. She never studied English grammar under Mr. D.P. Morris in Mansfield, Texas, USA.
i did a little searching online, and out of all the tutorials I found I like the following article best:
Diagramming Sentences 101: Step-by-Step Guide
If anyone out there is wondering, like kylie, how on earth one diagrams a sentence, click on that link and you will find out.
You may also learn something about vegetables.
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