Tag: Blithely
Lighter fare, emphasis on books and movies, but also meaty stuff
Treating civil unions
To prevent or avoid, that is the question. At Debatepedia, in re; civil unions vs. gay marriage, we find
Discrimination: Can civil-unions avoid second-class treatment and discrimination?
No. Can they prevent it. Being things, not people, civil-unions [sic] are not in danger of second, third, or any other -class treatment.
Oh to be in Trinidad
Have a look at life in Trinidad from my man Nicholas Stix, visiting his wife’s family there from Queens, a la R.K. Narayan.
Take this opener, from Somewhere in South Trinidad, picking up on an earlier item’s reference to Hindu-prescribed prayers for the dead 11 months after the funeral, in this case for his father-in-law:
We got through prayers for Pa without a hitch, except that hardly anyone showed. Over 150 people had showed for his funeral, in spite of the fact that it was held on a work day, but fewer than 30 for his prayers. Although The Boss [Nicholas’s wife] and her sister from Long Island traveled over 2,000 miles to come, only two of his four daughters living in Trinidad were present for prayers.
Water is a problem:
I’ve been coming since 1999, and the federal water authority, WASA, has locked off the water for hours (i.e., all day, until most people are in bed asleep) and days at a time, since long before that. That’s why everyone on the countryside has to have huge tanks holding up to 500 gallons of water. Most such tanks today are made of heavy-duty plastic, but Pa has two made of steel and concrete, weighing at least 300 pounds empty, in back of the house, and in front, facing the road. When the water locks off, you fill big, plastic paint barrels full of water, and schlep them in the house for bathing and washing dishes. We fill dozens of empty, two-liter Coke bottles with water for washing hands and drinking water.
He has more about the island here, including this:
Trinidad & Tobago [full name] really is a lush, island paradise. It is hot (86-95 degrees) year-round, mosquitoes, flies, and ants are plentiful, the soil is fertile, and most people are poor, by American standards. But though it produces bananas (called figs by the locals) that are sweeter than most youll find in the States, T & T is no banana republic.
Adventures in worship
This morning at mass, I was miles away and completely unaware — 8:30 mass and not at all crowded — when I came to and stood and saw a hand reaching out for mine from my left, in the pew in front of me. It was Our Father time.
I took the hand with my left, holding on to the pew with my right. This matters. I don’t fall down a lot, in fact not at all lately, in part because I do not ask too much of my balance. But the guy two rows up, having grasped his friend’s hand with his left, was leaning back, looking at me and extending his right — across an entire pew.
I tried to shake him off, but he persisted, and I finally had to stage-whisper, “Too far!” He pulled back, but by then I was not saying The Lord’s Prayer very well, in fact not at all, having narrowly missed a dangerous balancing act.
The prayer was over in a few more seconds, I dropped the hand to my left and put both hands on the pew in front, breathing a sigh. In a minute, the handclasp of peace. The woman whose hand I’d held, having witnessed my shaking off the man’s hand, put hers out tentatively. I grasped it gingerly, fingers to fingers, having incipient arthritic issues and being in general not the hand-shaker I used to be.
And of course I had to do the same for the guy two rows in front, including a wink and a nod as salve to whatever feelings I had hurt (none, I decided), and that was that for my going-the-extra-mile worship procedures for the day.
Oh yes, I’m afraid I didn’t meet the searching eyes of the woman giving communion as she seemed to expect, so that our souls might if ever so briefly coincide and commune, because, I must confess, my chief interest was in Jesus, with whom I was trying desperately to make contact. In any case, I got in my “Amen” for her, I think before she said her piece, and she placed the host on my palm.
Back I went to my pew, hands not folded but at my sides, for balance’ sake. It’s better that way, you know. I mean the high-wire man does not hold his hands folded in front, and neither do I returning from communion.
Touting tout le monde
Is it time to retire “tout”? So-and-So touts this, touts that, we read and hear it all the time. But does it always mean “recommend,” as the guy hanging around the race track recommends a pony, and with the seamy side of life, if not sleaze, that this usage implies?
Maybe ironically. We do live in an Age of Irony, where double entendre has become the lingua franca and you have to be on your toes whenever anyone says anything. (Not anyone. Transparent and forthright people we still have among us.)
But “tout”? TheFreeDictionary.com has this:
v. intr. 1. To solicit customers, votes, or patronage, especially in a brazen way. 2. To obtain and deal in information on racehorses.
Brazen. That’s good. And racehorses, yes. In the last half of the 14th century, before my time, there was the middle English tuten, to look out, peer, probably akin to the Old English tōtian to peep out, says Dictionary.com, which has the current meaning, “to provide information on (a horse) running in a particular race, especially for a fee,” and close to that, “to spy on (a horse in training) in order to gain information for the purpose of betting.” Also simply “to watch or spy on.”
So it goes with thousands of words. Poke around in their genealogies and you find history. Long time ago as a teacher, I had my high school frosh buy 30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary or another such vocabulary-helper in paperback and instituted a daily quiz on its contents. I have since thought that whole subjects could be taught entirely with vocabulary lessons, that is, definitions. Define the world and you own it, at least conceptually, which is all you can expect from classroom learning.
As for our daily, over-exposed meaning of “tout,” Dictionary.com has “to describe or advertise boastfully; publicize or promote; praise extravagantly: [as in] ‘a highly touted nightclub.'”
Is it used a lot?
Search Chi Trib online on this day, and you get 262 occurrences (since 1999), from an eye cream in yesterday’s paper that “slips on smoothly and absorbs immediately. . .” and “touts the ingredient VitaNiacin” — wrong: the advertiser does the touting, not the eye cream, which can’t tout anything, no matter how smoothly it slips on and how immediately it is absorbed. Nor does it do the absorbing, unless you mean your epidermis is pulled up by this skin-eating salve. As for the advertiser, he touts on the basis of inside information gotten by spying on the manufacturing process . . .
to
a travel book chapter on Los Angeles, in the paper three days ago, that “touts not its fly-by-night, forever-young culture but rather its historic buildings and the revitalization of its old and formerly abandoned neighborhoods” — a now-standard editorial use that denudes the word of nuance and history and color. . . .
and on and on 260 instances later, to
an April, 1999 feature about finding a real estate agent: “While some agents tout their extra training, others say it’s not that important.”
Newspaper and copy writers work under the gun and search for the word that comes quickest to mind. They find “tout,” ready and willing to serve. But he’s tired. Give him a rest. Retire him (or her, if you insist: anything but the unutterably squeamish “them.”) Please.
Words to the wise
Vegetarians, read this. (Link dead, sorry. It’s two guys talking what’s for dinner in the kitchen. Funny. At vegetarians’ expense. So look at this beautiful picture instead. )
Go ahead, feel good, it won’t hurt you
Wanna look at something wonderful? Random Act of Culture at Macy’s in Philadelphia.
The end of Indian innocence
TelePrompter tales from New Delhi:
Obama will make history for more than one reason during the Nov 6-9 visit. This will be the first time a teleprompter will be used in the nearly 100-feet high dome-shaped hall that has portraits of eminent national leaders adorning its walls.
Indian politicians are known for making impromptu long speeches and perhaps that is why some parliament officials, who did not wish to be named, sounded rather surprised with the idea of a teleprompter for Obama.
“We thought Obama is a trained orator and skilled in the art of mass address with his continuous eye contact,” an official, who did not wish to be identified because of security restrictions, said.
Obama is known to captivate audiences with his one-liners that sound like extempore and his deep gaze. But few in India know that the US president always carries the teleprompter with him wherever he speaks.
Teleprompters, also called autocue or telescript, are mostly used by TV anchors to read out texts scrolling on a screen and attached to a camera in front of them.
A modern-day emperor with no clothes.
Flying off to Cambodia
From Jim Geraghty at NRO-Morning Jolt:
Moe Lane, examining Democrat divisions: “Congressional Democrats are only going to be united by one person — the President — and just in case there’s still somebody who hasn’t noticed by now: the President is incompetent at leading people in directions that they don’t already want to go.
Which is not what the Democrats need right now. So there’s no solution in sight, unless of course the President wants to start learning all of those boring, practical political skills that he should have started picking up a couple of decades ago.”
But Cocky Locky doesn’t do boring. So that won’t happen.
Earmarks, passing lunch, street talk, shifting
* Sen. Jim Demint (R-SC) against earmarks (a) because they are used to sell bills that wldn’t pass otherwise (true: he cites La. [Purchase] and Neb. [Cornhusker goodie] in health-overhall passing) and (b) they distract senators from their national responsibilities, making them hostage to new bridges and playgrounds. Thus on Don & Roma on WLS-AM this morning. [Earlier, on CBS, quotes]
* Mike Huckabee on Dem’s saying we will know what’s in the overhaul bill when we have passed it: Like knowing what I had for lunch after I passed it. !
* WLS-AM news reader Wendy Snyder, raspy of voice and superior (above-it-all) of tone: Something happened on “Madison Avenue.” What a winner is this Wendy, pride of Brookfield IL, who should get to know the city.
* Chi Trib head about election results: “Titanic shift.” Tectonic. Yes, titanic is of great force or power, synonyms are big and large: above average in size or number or quantity or magnitude or extent.
But rapid reader of headline thinks shift as tectonic: pertaining to the structure or movement of the earth’s crust, as in “tectonic plates” and “tectonic valleys” or of or pertaining to construction or architecture, synonym is architectonic
Which would be figurative in this context, yes. But called for by the rapid reader, the kind who reads headlines. If you’re going to use shift, I am arguing, don’t break ground with new idiom. Am I alone in this?
Blithe Spirit 