Words

Being an author, you would expect that I like words. Actually, I've always loved words. I can't remember a time when I couldn't read and if I came across a word that I didn't know, I definitely had to find out all about it. I enjoy discovering the meaning, the pronunciation, the origin of a new word. Pretty nerdy, huh? So, vocabulary---that's as interesting to me as travel or hobbies or celebrities are to other people.

 

The advice for writers is to not bog your writing down in big words that aren't familiar to most readers.  That makes sense to me, especially because I write fiction about everyday folks.  Unless you hang out with college professors or Sheldon from Big Bang, in your everyday interactions you probably don't toss around a lot of big words.  It's just plain old talk.  For example, in the beginning of  No Normal Day IV, Travelers when Emily wakes up on a cold morning and speaks to her dog, would she say---"Good morning my furry canine companion. Do you need to urinate?" or would she (or if it was you) say, "Gotta pee, Girl? Me, too."  And while below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, blood congealing, heavy with sleet and snow post dawn does describe the morning, for most of us, cold-ass day will get the message across.

 

Having my weird fascination with words, I'm also intrigued with how words and the way we string them together come into general social conversing and then go away, become archaic and odd sounding.  Of course, slang comes and goes.  Jeepers, groovy, far out, cool, hashtag (I've never got that one).  I think most slang and catch phrases fade away after a while because we wear them out, use them ad nauseam.  But, I'm not talking about slang, I'm talking about the way that our basic everyday English language has evolved and changed. 

 

The hubby says that he is amazed with the Civil War letters.  Letters home to friends and family and lovers. He says "they were so eloquent."  And that is true, they wrote in lovely detail of their feelings, their love, so many complimented and described in rich detail that was a beautiful as well as a heart breaking picture of life in those days. Even from a gory battlefield, formal handwritten messages were penned that they prayed would be delivered.  Flowery and rarely pornographic.

 

However, when Amy on Big Bang Theory, with skill and hilarity delivered the quote from Chaucer's The Miller's Tale, it sent me straight to the big ole' web to find out the true "translation".  Sure enough, as she said, it's "dirty".  Just plain ancient English porn.  And Absalon hath kist hir nether ye.

 

Nether means lower, below and though it's not a word you hear very often these days, occasionally someone makes a joke about their "nether regions".  They aren't referring to their feet. So, while I'm still not sure what ye-a, as Amy said with a laugh and raised eyebrow, is exactly---I get that if Absalon kissed it, it was nasty.

 

Words are interesting. Words and the way we use them are complicated and ever changing. Where would we be without our language?  Although, something tells me that just as still can be observed in our times, a cave man that gyrated and pointed to his nether regions got the same message across.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The New Rude



 

It's nothing new for me to rant about people and their cell phones.  I'm just amazed that it has somehow become acceptable for strangers to "share" their private business via cell phone conversations with everybody....anybody that happens to unfortunately be within their vicinity. They talk loud, they are not at all thinking of what they're supposed to be doing (especially driving a car!)

 

Oh-my-goodness...if I'm lucky enough not to have a sudden onset of diarrhea, I absolutely don't want to know about yours.  For christmas sakes, I'm just trying to decide which kind of bread I want to buy. Unless you do have the above mentioned malady, if you excuse yourself more than once to answer a cell call, when out with friends, at dinner etc.---I'm sorry, it's just plain annoying.

 

So, I'm a writer (I know that's a debatable statement) and I'm a big talker (anyone that knows me won't argue that).  I was reading a interesting discussion about what devices that authors use to write. Not that surprised to hear that some writers still begin their creations with pen or pencil and paper. Of course, every gadget from old typewriters to laptops and tablets, etc. are utilized.  I also get that since the day that any kind of voice recorder was available, authors recorded their ideas and musings. In our wonderland of technology these days, there are all kinds of methods to actually make audio notes.

 

When I read about how many present day writers use audio to create their books, once again I thought  Really?  I know that some people have the luxury of spacious living accommodations, however the hubby and I live half time in a small mountain cabin and half time in a travel trailer in our hometown area. If I spent hours of the day mumbling my brilliant fictional ideas into my laptop or tablet or whatever, there would be a brand new best seller out about the murder of the independent author who spouse shot her.

 

And again, I have a scary vision of writers wandering around the grocery store, on the street or bus, reciting their latest certainly to be million seller novel out loud to the world.  It's certainly a matter of method and preference, but I need to see the words on the page.  I write because I so greatly enjoy reading. It's not my business to say how other authors ought to work.  Most certainly though, if some stranger right next to me was muttering into his gadget about...so Hordicktus stabbed Lunetia twelve times with the large horn, note: will decide later how that made him feel...I would inform the clod how I felt.

 

I don't understand, and that's not an unusual feeling for me, why so many today think it's right to talk to any and everybody about any and everything. No matter if they don't want to know or hear.  I believe it's because of our narcissistic society that makes people think they have a right to whatever amount of space or importance they desire, and that they don't have to politely share the public places or have any consideration for others.

 

Calls can be returned later, private business should still be private, you're not the only person allowed a bit of space on this earth. If you're not speaking to me, please don't talk out loud, laugh, cry and curse right in my ear.  Excuse my old fashioned ways, but you're just rude.

What Color is Evil?

Less than five minutes of the evening news lead-ins will convince even the most determined optimist of the evil that is out there in the world.  As I've reached this mellow age, I've become a very skillful avoider of the bad and disturbing realities of our lives. I despise movies or books or news of serial killers, terrorist, various kinds of torturers and child and animal abusers and killers.  I close my ears and eyes in a stubborn ignorance of the fact that all the true evil does exist.

I'm not saying that this is an admirable strategy for dealing with nastiness. Obviously, we all need to fight against, combat evil in any way that we can. Like Einstein said, The world is a dangerous place, not because of those that do evil, but because of those that look on and do nothing.

It's a fact that humans have evil around and within them. And, the easy way to cope with the unspeakable is to put some kind of tag or name or face on it that gives you a false security of not being touched by it.  We convince ourselves that this is what true evil looks like and if we stay away from it, we'll be safe.  Aren't human beings so totally self delusional?

I believe that evil is a bad gene, it has survived in some people, defying the evolution of people from primitive to civil compassionate human beings.  It does not live in one race or culture, is not one color. Evil is not inherent in one religion---as far as I'm concerned, if you abide by what you call your religion and it is a belief in the death or harm of other human beings---that does not fit the definition of what I call religion. 

Even the Christian religion is based on there will be "hell to pay" for sinners, that you will literally burn in Hades.  However, the ultimate punishment for bad is left to their God. Human believers are not to be making the judgement and doling out the damnation. 

What I'm talking about is true evil with no conscience or compassion. It is totally human and a necessity for survival that we wish our enemies to be dead.  Eliminating your enemies, removing a threat to your family, your people or yourself is a million miles away from inflicting as much pain as you can on your enemy and causing a slow death. Though many will disagree, the American punishment of death is not intended to be torture, it is intended to be a removal of a dangerous human from the rest of society.

Chopping off someones' head, blowing up people, nailing a person to a cross, stoning, burying someone in an anthill, starving and torturing for the pure pleasure of it, that is not religion, that is not a belief or a culture. I do not believe that EVERY single person of a certain color or religion or culture wished to participate in horrendous rites or rituals or actions of their chosen or possibly inherited society.  Untold numbers have paid the ultimate price of their lives for saying, Wait, that's not right. Though fear and the influence of other people can make many follow, I do still believe in the humans that have good in them---good that can kill the evil.

The horrific events in our world are the evil gene in some humans revealing itself in the most destructive way. If that defective genetic flaw gave everyone that carries it a big red dot on their forehead, it would be easy to eliminate them. We would see that evil is a unique race of it's own, it's just part of it's instinct to try to blend in with real human beings.   Do not think that you know what evil looks or sounds like. Standing next to you in the check-out line may be the carrier, smiling and looking like your familiar neighbor.



Corn Should Be On the Cob

Lor-dee! I hate corny stuff.  Some of you might not even know what corny means.  Well, I looked up the definition and ended up looking up the definition of the definition---Sickly, mawkish (puerile-juvenile, childish, silly) outdated, simple sentimental, to the point of annoying.

Okay, I'm very sentimental, so I'm not sure that I agree with that part. Corn-ball and cornpone has just never tickled my funny bone. Perhaps my funny bone is broken or deformed?  The hubby, to this day, can sit down in front of the television and watch an hour of Hee Haw and laugh.  In his defense, he does love old country music and there was talent on that show---somewhere, buried under the piles of pure-d bull dookey.  Even as a child, the nice old relative who pinched your cheek and said, "Ooo-whee, what a pretty girl.  How many boyfriends you got, honey?" just made me want to slap the grinning face that was bent down to my level.  Spouse still says that to my pretty little grand-daughters and makes me cringe right down to my old toes.

I respect that people's taste is vastly diverse. Music, humor, literature, movies, television and much more is strictly a matter of individual taste. I understand.  Some of the things that to me are so corny, I can hardly hold down my raisin bran.

*Politicians, either sticking on their I'm serious as a heart attack face and voice, or screaming over their hordes of supposed fanatical followers.  Annoying lies

*Television commercials and reality programming that is the fartherest from reality that you can get. Fake tears, fake drama,  corny fake

*Banjos.  Fingernails on the blackboard music

*Rap. Trash talk, not music

*Shorts and dark high socks.  No explanation

*Old dirty jokes from dirty old men.  Don't know that THEY are the joke

*It's my body---Think I'll let somebody drill ink into every inch of it, stretch my ear-lobes about down to my shoulders, pierce my face like a colander and see how many rings and posts and balls I can poke into the holes.   Mawkish, puerile behavior at it's best.

Drum roll, please.
   The tattooed person of unknown gender in the double-knit suit will now tap dance and strum the theme song from Deliverance on the light up banjo.  Call S-T-U-P-I-D now on your device to vote.