Doggerybaw

Lines

November 3rd, 2008 by scott

Tomorrow I’ll stand in line to vote. That got me thinking about what we do in lines, and how that’s still more evidence about how divided we are as a country.

Where I grew up and every place I’ve lived, a person stands in line, but in some parts of the country, one stands on line. Standing on line makes very little sense to me, unless you’re standing on a painted line. Even then, you’re standing on the line or a line, not merely on line.

Then again, why argue about this? We can’t even agree on where the line starts. In my world, the start of the line is the front of the line, or the spot closest to the voting booth or bank teller. The end of the line is the back of the line, the spot farthest from the destination. And yet, some parts of the country turn that around. You can see it in the movie A Christmas Story. To these people, the line starts where you get in line and ends where you get out of line.

That actually makes some sense, I guess. It’s all a matter of perspective. If you are the center of the world, then of course the line starts where you get in it. Everything starts wherever you are. If, however, you’re just part of a bigger whole, then the line starts where the first person got in it to start the line. You can’t start a line at the end of the line. Can you? Apparently, people do in the Northeast.

But then, they’ll tell you there is no line until there are more than one person in it, and I can’t say they’re wrong. If there’s one person in line or on line or whatever, then it’s not a line. It’s just a guy standing around waiting for his turn.  Two people? Well, that still just a couple of people waiting. Even if they are standing around in the order that they arrived, they’re still just standing around, positioned conveniently. Three or more? Now you’re talking about a line.

Once that third person gets there, though, we end up back at the same problem. Where does the line start? Does the line start where it began, with the person who started it? Duh. Of course it starts where it started. It couldn’t start at the end. It’s the only reasonable answer.

My opposition is likely to say something like, “Yeah, but you can’t start standing in line at the end, either.” To that I say, “Bosh and poppycock.” It’s the only logical place to start.

I have evidence on my side. The start of the line has other names. Take the “head” of the line. If you cut in at the head of the line, the teacher is going to send you back to the end of the line. If you have a head of the line and a start of the line at opposite ends, then the line will soon be pulled apart at the ends. “Oh,” you say. “So now you’ah sayin’ that the front of the line is an end. See, look theah, you said ‘pulled apaht at the ends.’”

Shut up. You know what I mean, and you can’t confuse me that easily.

We could make things more clear by talking about the “front” and “back” of the lines. To me, there’s no ambiguity that way. But then, to me, starting at the front and ending at the back is perfectly clear when you look at a line as an organic whole with the end (I told you to stop that!) that people face being the front, the place where the line started, and continues to start, and the spot behind the people in the line, to their backs, at the back or the end is also perfectly clear, and so is that sentence if you really read it from beginning to end.

Good idea. Look at this line of text. Where does it start? Does it start at the place where the last word gets into the line, or with the first word? I hear you Easterners trying to claim I just made your argument for you, trying to say that the sentence, like a line, begins where you get in it and ends where you leave it.

But you’re wrong. Why? Because you just are. You’re trying to twist things around and look at it backwards. Next thing I know, you’re going to tell me the sun rises over the ocean and sets over land. I’ve sat on the beach and watched a lot of sunsets, so you can’t get me with that one.

Look, if I’m goofing off in the middle of the line and the teacher grabs me by the ear and pulls me out of line and orders me to go to the start of the line right this instant, I’m going to love that teacher enough for sending me to the front of the line that I won’t even notice the pain in my ear. And next time I’m in a slow-moving line, you’d better bet I’m going to goof around again so I can go straight to the start of the line again. Who wouldn’t?

It’s like another Northeasternism that my friend Susan, a teacher in Connecticut, pointed out to me, completely unaware that it’s a bit of regional oddness. Apparently, in her neck of the woods, if a kid gets in trouble at recess, he’s told to stand on the wall.

Dewd! That’s so awesome!

At my school, when we were caught trying to climb the wall to get on the roof, we got in trouble and had to stand against the wall. If you’ve been there, you know how cruel that is, making a guy stand against the very wall he wanted to climb, so close, but yet so far from his goal. If a teacher caught me climbing the wall and ordered me to stand on it, that teacher would get a massive gift basket from me at Christmas for demanding that I do what I was trying to do to begin with. Very few teachers are that cool, and those who are deserve a special place in heaven.

It would be like if I fought a kid to show off in front of a girl and a teacher pulled us apart and said, “Just for that, you have to take an extra ten minutes of recess! Don’t argue with me, or I’ll make you go home a half hour early. With candy!”

Who wouldn’t love that teacher? Especially if the girl you were showing off for was named Candy.

Think about that when you’re standing near the end of a slow-moving line at the polls tomorrow. Just don’t step out of line or they’ll send you back to the end of the line.

Or if you’re lucky, they’ll send you to the start of the line. Then you can go play with Candy sooner.

—————-
Now playing: Kinks - Underneath the Neon Sign
via FoxyTunes

Posted in Words | No Comments »

This morning

October 12th, 2008 by scott

What we woke up to this morning:

—————-
Now playing: Jeff Larson - At The Depot
via FoxyTunes

Posted in Words | No Comments »

Three Years Ago Today

October 11th, 2008 by scott

Three years ago today was my last day in Germany, a day of goodbyes. I feel sad just thinking about it. Three years ago tomorrow I was back in Austria, which was great, but I made so many friends and fell in love with so many places, that the last day in Germany was a tough one. I remember wandering around Nurnberg for the last time, then going in to the office and saying some last goodbyes.

Today is a dark, cold day, the perfect kind of day for looking back and missing people.

—————-
Now playing: THE KINKS - God’s Children
via FoxyTunes

Posted in Words | No Comments »

Apples

September 27th, 2008 by scott

We just picked 145 pounds of apples, plus another 10 pounds or so we gave the neighbor before we weighed them, plus two wheelbarrow loads of apples that the birds and bugs had gotten to.

All from one little tree.

The recipe I want to cook tonight calls for three pounds. I hope we have enough.

Here’s a picture of Cinnamon Oliver Orwell PuddinPop Scut Farkas Scrottle Spooky playing with the bags.

—————-
Now playing: Beatles - If You’ve Got Trouble
via FoxyTunes

Posted in Home & Garden, Cats | No Comments »

Today’s Word: Trousers

September 20th, 2008 by scott

I was watching the news last night. Among the weighty matters being broadcast that should have dominated my brain, some story or commercial or something included the word trousers, and that’s what got my brain engaged.

Now, trousers is not an uncommon word, even here in the U.S., where it has largely been replaced by pants. Everybody knows what it means. But that doesn’t stop it from being a weird word. What does it mean? Where does it come from?

On the surface, it would seem like trousers would be a thing or things that trouse, the same way fingers fing. But that makes no sense. As far as I know, I’ve never troused in my life, and neither has anybody I know. I would be highly suspicious of anybody who trouses, and would expect them to live a life of crime and mayhem, or to run for President of the U.S.

There has to be more to it.

My main sources claim that trousers originated between 1585 and 1595. Apparently trousers is a variation of  trews, defined by Dictionary.com as “close-fitting tartan trousers, worn esp. by certain Scottish regiments.” Trews, in turn, is derived from the Scots-Gaelic word triubhas, pronouced something like troo-us. We don’t say trews in the U.S., much less triubhas, but we do use another variation of the word: drawers.

So there you have it.  Trousers comes from triubhas, and is closely related to drawers. Both Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster say the same thing.

Case closed. Move on. There’s nothing to see here.

Not so fast, bucko.

I found that particular explanation interesting, but insufficient. It says nothing about the origin of triubhas or trews. It might be true and there might actually be nothing more to it, but I wasn’t happy with it. I put my head in my hands and started to think.

Uh-oh.

What words are similar to trousers? OK, what words are similar to trousers and have a meaning that, with a little imagination, could also be similar? Eventually, I landed on trusses.

Truss comes from the 13th Century. That’s older than trousers by some 300 years.

Furthermore, Merriam-Webster defines truss thus, Gus:

“Middle English to pack, load, bind, from Anglo-French trusser, trousser, from Vulgar Latin *torsare, from *torsus twisted”

Pack? Load? Bind? That sounds like what trousers do. It’s definitely what they did back in the 1970’s, although today’s baggy trussers don’t seem to truss much at all.

And what’s this about truss coming from the Anglo-French trousser? That word looks awfully familiar, and the Vulgar Latin word torsare looks more like trousers than triubhas.

Of course, I had to check torsus. It is, indeed, Latin for twisted, and is the root of torsade, a twisted fabric or ribbon worn as a decoration, often on a hat. So now we have the same word turning into something that’s worn on both ends of the body. Oh, and everything in between, because torsus also appears (although I didn’t see definite proof) to be related to torso, which just happens to be the part of the body that twists.

Now I’m happy. I have a word origin that satisfies me, with some interesting derivatives that make the word fun.

Cool.

But wait, there’s more.

Torsus has a common variant, tortus. That’s the root of torture, the binding or twisting of the body.

So trousers, ultimately, are torture. No wonder the Scottish, after having been defeated in their rebellion of 1745 and as a result being banned from wearing kilts, celebrated the return to their kilts 30 years later by inventing the dance known as the Seann Triubhas, a Gaelic phrase meaning “old or unwanted trousers.”

It sounds like I’m making this up, but I’m not.

The Seann Triubhas mimics the shedding of uncomfortable, binding trousers and the return to the much more comfortable kilt, trading a tortuous, binding garment for another that, when worn in true Scottish style, is anything but.

—————-
Now playing: Jan & Dean - The Restless Surfer
via FoxyTunes

Posted in Words | 3 Comments »

The Original Maverick

September 8th, 2008 by scott

John McCain keeps painting himself as “the original maverick.”

He must be really, really old, even older than I thought.

In the sense that it means somebody who goes off on his her own way, the term maverick is an Americanism that dates back to the late 1860s, after Samuel A. Maverick (1803–70), a Texas pioneer who did not brand his calves.

Posted in Words, Politics | 2 Comments »

The paramount paramour

September 7th, 2008 by scott

Kyle asked yesterday whether the similar-looking words paramount and paramour are related. First of all, good for him for noticing the similarity and being curious. This kind of intellectual curiosity bodes well for a young man who just started his first year of university.

The words have very different meanings, but their similarity comes from the shared prefix par (like per), which means of or for.

Paramount can be broken into par a mount, of a mountain, which means “of the highest.” I like the word because it’s based on a metaphor. Something of the highest level of whatever it is paramount,  at the peak.

Paramour, on the other hand, is par amour, of or for love. A paramour is a lover, often (but not always) an illicit lover. It comes from Middle English, where it was borrowed from French. It’s meaning comes from the medieval concept of courtly love. One of the principles of courtly love is that true love is found outside marriage. Sounds foreign or at least highly sinful to us. In fact, it was sinful in the Catholic middle ages as well, where much was made of the fact that amor (love) is the opposite of Roma, Rome, the center of the Church and of all that was held holy.

Keep in mind that among the people of the court, marriage was not about love. It was about political alliance. Marriages were arranged to cement political relationships, so the concept of love in marriage was considered unlikely although, of course, it happened. But when there was love in a courtly marriage, it was almost an accident. So that’s how for love came to stand for illicit lovers. Often, that love was never consummated, causing the pain and anguish that are associated with the poetry of courtly love.
But, among the adherents of courtly love, a paramour was considered the ultimate, or paramount, expression of love, and, so, the way to come closest to God.

So, although there are only two letters separating the two words, their meanings are very different. On the other hand, they share a prefix and are intertwined through context.

—————-
Now playing: Laika and The Cosmonauts - Outer Limits
via FoxyTunes

Posted in Words | No Comments »

Free Software: Cataloging Your Books the Easy Way

June 26th, 2008 by scott

Libra (www.getlibra.com) XP and Vista
If you’ve ever tried to catalog you book collection on your computer, chances are you’ve installed a program to help you do it, then quickly got tired of entering the information about each of your books. It takes a lot of time and, although it’s probably as good as any other task at helping you put off doing any actual writing, it’s really pretty boring.

I just discovered a free app that makes it easy. All you do is enter the bar code or ISBN number of a book (or CD, or movie, or game) and Libra scans online databases (mostly various Amazon sites, but you can point it to other sites) and pulls in the book’s cover and whatever information about the book it finds. This is much easier than typing it all in yourself.

To make it even easier, you can use a Web cam to scan the bar code to make entering your books even easier. I haven’t tried it myself, and a few people have reported problems on the Libra forums, but others claim it works great. It apparently depends on the type of Web cam you use. And if you happen to have a bar code scanner, it’ll work too.

If a book isn’t found, you can still enter the information manually. This is especially important for books that are too old to have bar codes or ISBN numbers. You can then scan or take a digital picture of the book’s cover to replace the boring generic book cover Libra uses when it can’t find a cover.

But easy entry is just the beginning.

You can track books that you’ve loaned to others, export your library to a spreadsheet or Web file, and add your own notes to the book’s info. The Web site says you can even create and print an attractive catalog of your collection. Supposedly, you can also set up the program to open a copy of items that are stored on your computer, such as e-books, music, or movies.

Your library is displayed face out on a virtual bookshelf, making it easy to find. This looks pretty cool, but my one wish for this program so far is that I could also display my books in a simple text list. Of course, I can export my database to a spreadsheet, but it would be nice to toggle between the bookshelf view and a list view.

So, if you want an easy way to catalog your media, give Libra a try. Oh, and you can ignore the one comment on the download page that claims that Libra contains spyware. It doesn’t.

—————-
Now playing: Beatles - Carry That Weight
via FoxyTunes

Posted in Free Software, Books | No Comments »

What a Game!

June 18th, 2008 by scott

Last night the family and I celebrated Michael Collins Day by going to the season opener for our local Pioneer League (lowest level of the minor leagues) baseball team. It seems appropriate for Michael Collins Day. All of the kids on these teams have to a very real extent dedicated their lives to becoming professional baseball players, and they made it, but only a few will achieve the ultimate goal of playing in the Major Leagues.

Now, I’ve been to countless baseball games in my lifetime. few things are as much fun as going to a ballpark, whether it’s to see children play, or a minor league game at any level of the system, or one of the Grand Cathedrals of the majors. But I’ve never had as much fun at a game as last night. It was an exciting game, with extras.

First of all, my local team was playing their in-state rivals, who also happen to be my brother’s home team, so the rivalry adds a little more fun. And, like I said, it was the season opener, so that adds a little more excitement, both on the field and in the seats.

But that wasn’t all. Baseball games can be a little dull, but not this one.

I should mention that during the game, fans were encouraged to take pictures of the game and the people watching and send them to the team. The best pictures would be displayed on the scoreboard at the start of the eighth inning. The joys of camera phones. The eighth rolled around, and several of the pictures we had taken of our family were shown, adding a little extra fun and vanity to the game. Here are a couple of them:

The Local Guyz were down 3-0 at one point, despite threating to score all through the game. Then, it was 3-2, and in the eight inning, the Localz tied the game. That put it into extra innings. For those of you who are less familiar with the game, especially my dear international readers, a baseball game is normally nine innings, but goes longer if the score is tied. In the 11th Inning, the vile-enemies-of-all-that-is-good scored two, so things looked dire for the home team. But then the other team’s pitcher hit the first two batters who came up for God’s Team, and the next guy singled. Bases loaded with no outs. In an excruciatingly exciting inning, the Home Team scored two but couldn’t get that last run they needed for the victory. The spirit of Michael Collins was obviously hanging around.

The next inning was scoreless, thanks to a spectacular diving catch by the Enemies third baseman that ended a rally by the Localz and kept the winning run from scoring. That took us to the 13th inning. This is when things got really crazy.

The visitors came up in their half of the inning and were stymied by the locals. During their inning, a wind came up, blowing “cotton” from the local cottonwood trees through the stadium like snow. Considering that it was almost 90 degrees when the game started, seeing something like snow blowing through the ballpark was a surprise and was almost magical. Could have been faeries, for all I know.

Then, almost immediately after the third out, the lights went out in the stadium. I mean, it went completely dark. I don’t know if it was caused by the wind, the faeries, or if the lights were just set to go off at a certain time because the game wasn’t expected to go so long, but the lights were gone.

You can’t play baseball in the dark. Oh, sure, as kids we used to try to keep the game going as long as we could, but at a certain point we had to admit that the night beat us and go home, usually when siblings started showing up at the field to tell us that our moms or dads said we had to get home “this instant.” It was usually “this instant.” Like that’s even possible.

To add to the night’s surprises, sitting there in the dark, we started to feel water. A light rain had come out of nowhere and snuck up on us in the dark. (Yeah, I know the word is “sneaked” but that rain snuck if anything has ever snucked.)

Anyway, being opening night, a fireworks show was planned for the end of the game. Since it was dark anyway and it would take some time to get the lights charged back up, they went ahead with the fireworks show before the game was even over. I’ve never seen that before. Neither have you, I’ll wager.

After a nice fireworks display, the lights were still not on. Most of the remaining spectators (there were over 4200 at the game, but many had already left because it was getting so late) left after the fireworks. Can’t blame them. Midnight was quickly approaching and the stadium announcer said it would be another 15 to 20 minutes before the lights were all the way back up.

But no way were we leaving. The game had been too exciting. We’d sat and cheered through too much to not see how it ended. We’d been there so long by that time the it was no longer a game. It was a lifestyle.

Two quick outs convinced us that the game was probably going to last forever. Then two guys got on. A two-out drive to right-center knocked in the winning run. After more than four and a half hours of exciting baseball that could have gone to either team, the game was over, and the Good Guyz had won.

It was a great night. Today we’re all exhausted and bleary-eyed, but it was worth it. Our first baseball game means summer is officially here.

If that game was any indication, it’s going to be a great summer.

Posted in Baseball | 2 Comments »

Michael Collins Day

June 17th, 2008 by scott

I’ve been watching several shows on TV lately about the space program, and remembering how exciting those days were to this little kid. Like everybody else my age, I wanted to be an astronaut.

But one thing strikes me again and again.

Imagine focusing your whole life on a trip to Disneyland. It’s all you’ve ever wanted to do and all of your life and career choices are built around one day walking through those magical gates. Finally, after years of preparation, you pile your family in the car and drive them all the way across country. Then, when you get there, you have to stay in the car and drive around the outside of the park while your entire family is inside, riding the rides you worked so hard to experience.

Sure, it was your expertise that got them there, and your expertise that will get them home. But all you can do is drive around and look at the Matterhorn from a distance and know the family is out there somewhere. You know you were as important as anyone to the trip, and nobody could have gotten there without you. But still, you are orbiting the park and they are inside, exploring Tomorrowland.

No matter how positive a face Michael Collins has put on it over the years, and no matter how true it is that he was as much a part of the Apollo 11 mission as Armstrong and Aldrin, and no matter how much credit he should get for his part, there have to be moments when he feels like he made it to Disneyland but couldn’t go in.

Major General Collins is a true-life hero and he knows it and everybody knows it. But still.

So I declare today Michael Collins Day, and dedicate it to everybody who has worked hard to achieve their goals and who maybe fell a little short through no fault of their own, but in doing so made it possible for others to expand the limits.

And you know what? I’d give almost everything to have been able to do what he did.

So Happy Michael Collins Day!

—————-
Now playing: Alan Parsons Project - Don’t Answer Me
via FoxyTunes

Posted in Writing, Weirdness | 1 Comment »