Hello and good morning, one and all. As we near the very end of January, I hope the first twelfth of your 2009 has gone well. "Twelfth," incidentally, is one of a handful of words I can recall off the top of my head that has four consonants in a row. The other two I often go to right away are "length" and "enthrall." You can thank me later.
I was instant messaging with my homey Rockabye recently, and he told me a funny story that reminded me of something else. I'll begin by paraphrasing his tale. (If I mess up some of the less-important details, I hope you'll be fine with that). He was hanging out with his brother, sister-in-law, and parents when the major league baseball team of the Cincinnati Reds came up in conversation. Someone asked if the sister-in-law knew what nickname the Reds had during their dominant stretch in the 70s. Eager to help, her husband mouthed the answer to her: Big Red Machine. She read his lips and then confidently answered, "Pink rabbit shit." (Go ahead, I'll give you a few seconds to mouth both phrases. Wait, the verb "to mouth" looks really weird being spelled the same way as the noun. I'd like to see it employ the breath/breathe method. Then I could say, "Go ahead and mouthe both phrases." Great, now that looks weird too. Forget I mentioned it.)
So that funny story reminded me of something. Back when I was a student working on campus at UC Santa Barbara, I would occasionally give campus tours to prospective students and their parents. (Technically, they were incoming students and not prospective ones since they'd already been accepted, but since you can't spell "prospective" without Peter, that word found its way into the sentence.) One tour in particular focused on the area adjacent to the campus named Isla Vista. The majority of students lived there during their sophomore through senior years, so students/parents wanted to see how cool/frightening it was.
Never being too much of a conformist, I often strayed from the written scripts we were given. This was particularly the case when beginning the tours. We were supposed to launch right into the stats of who lived there and the history of the area, but I did all of that second. Instead, I started with this: "Thank you for selecting the Isla Vista tour. In Spanish, it's pronounced EES-la VEE-sta, which means 'island view.' That's fitting, because you can indeed see at least one of the Channel Islands from Isla Vista. Also interesting is that if you mouth the phrase 'island view,' it looks like 'I love you.' 'Olive juice' yields a similar result, but that's not really relevant." Then I'd launch into the scripted stuff.
Needless to say, a Peter-led tour had other random things thrown in every so often to distinguish it from the other students' versions.
For example, when we'd inevitably see a flyer for an upcoming band performance, I would tell them about a band that frequently advertised that way during my freshman year. They were called "Free Pizza and Beer." On the surface, that seems like a brilliant choice of name. But think about it a little longer, and you'll get a clear vision of a bunch of sober, hungry students pissed off that they were duped into hearing shitty music.
The other highly publicized band from that year probably faced a similar challenge, but in much smaller doses. The were called "50 Cent Honey." While this was years before the rapper 50 Cent hit the scene, people with a sweet tooth but who were short on cash probably weren't too happy when a band showed up instead of a quick fix.
My friend Greg suggested that we start a band and utilize a little truth in advertising when it came to our name. How about, "Cool But Stupid?" he asked. That led (naturally) to a discussion of whether "Cool But Stupid and the Gang" was a better idea. Of course, we didn't play instruments or sing, so we nipped that pesky naming problem in the bud.
I know I'm drastically switching gears here, but please bear with me. I wrote a word recently, and after giving it some thought, I became a little angry. Please follow me for a moment. The verb is "to speak," correct? I speak, you speak, he/she/it speaks, etc. If I speak, I am the speaker. That's all very easy and standard so far, no? Then tell me why, dear readers, is the thing I'm speaking called "a speech" instead of "a speach?" Look, I'm fine with "spoke" as the past tense; it's a completely different construct and I understand that those things happen. There's no reason for the past tense of "take" to be "took," but that's fine. However, when the sound is the same and the spelling changes for really no reason at all that I can see, well then that's what p's me o. You may recall a similar rant from when I realized that "fridge" had a D inserted into it even though it's short for the D-less "refrigerator." Am I being overly picky with a language that clearly makes no sense most of the time? No way, man. Stray from the norm completely and I'll chalk it up to wacky language stuff, but add, delete, or change a letter willy nilly, and my proverbial claws come out.
I was instant messaging with my homey Rockabye recently, and he told me a funny story that reminded me of something else. I'll begin by paraphrasing his tale. (If I mess up some of the less-important details, I hope you'll be fine with that). He was hanging out with his brother, sister-in-law, and parents when the major league baseball team of the Cincinnati Reds came up in conversation. Someone asked if the sister-in-law knew what nickname the Reds had during their dominant stretch in the 70s. Eager to help, her husband mouthed the answer to her: Big Red Machine. She read his lips and then confidently answered, "Pink rabbit shit." (Go ahead, I'll give you a few seconds to mouth both phrases. Wait, the verb "to mouth" looks really weird being spelled the same way as the noun. I'd like to see it employ the breath/breathe method. Then I could say, "Go ahead and mouthe both phrases." Great, now that looks weird too. Forget I mentioned it.)
So that funny story reminded me of something. Back when I was a student working on campus at UC Santa Barbara, I would occasionally give campus tours to prospective students and their parents. (Technically, they were incoming students and not prospective ones since they'd already been accepted, but since you can't spell "prospective" without Peter, that word found its way into the sentence.) One tour in particular focused on the area adjacent to the campus named Isla Vista. The majority of students lived there during their sophomore through senior years, so students/parents wanted to see how cool/frightening it was.
Never being too much of a conformist, I often strayed from the written scripts we were given. This was particularly the case when beginning the tours. We were supposed to launch right into the stats of who lived there and the history of the area, but I did all of that second. Instead, I started with this: "Thank you for selecting the Isla Vista tour. In Spanish, it's pronounced EES-la VEE-sta, which means 'island view.' That's fitting, because you can indeed see at least one of the Channel Islands from Isla Vista. Also interesting is that if you mouth the phrase 'island view,' it looks like 'I love you.' 'Olive juice' yields a similar result, but that's not really relevant." Then I'd launch into the scripted stuff.
Needless to say, a Peter-led tour had other random things thrown in every so often to distinguish it from the other students' versions.
For example, when we'd inevitably see a flyer for an upcoming band performance, I would tell them about a band that frequently advertised that way during my freshman year. They were called "Free Pizza and Beer." On the surface, that seems like a brilliant choice of name. But think about it a little longer, and you'll get a clear vision of a bunch of sober, hungry students pissed off that they were duped into hearing shitty music.
The other highly publicized band from that year probably faced a similar challenge, but in much smaller doses. The were called "50 Cent Honey." While this was years before the rapper 50 Cent hit the scene, people with a sweet tooth but who were short on cash probably weren't too happy when a band showed up instead of a quick fix.
My friend Greg suggested that we start a band and utilize a little truth in advertising when it came to our name. How about, "Cool But Stupid?" he asked. That led (naturally) to a discussion of whether "Cool But Stupid and the Gang" was a better idea. Of course, we didn't play instruments or sing, so we nipped that pesky naming problem in the bud.
I know I'm drastically switching gears here, but please bear with me. I wrote a word recently, and after giving it some thought, I became a little angry. Please follow me for a moment. The verb is "to speak," correct? I speak, you speak, he/she/it speaks, etc. If I speak, I am the speaker. That's all very easy and standard so far, no? Then tell me why, dear readers, is the thing I'm speaking called "a speech" instead of "a speach?" Look, I'm fine with "spoke" as the past tense; it's a completely different construct and I understand that those things happen. There's no reason for the past tense of "take" to be "took," but that's fine. However, when the sound is the same and the spelling changes for really no reason at all that I can see, well then that's what p's me o. You may recall a similar rant from when I realized that "fridge" had a D inserted into it even though it's short for the D-less "refrigerator." Am I being overly picky with a language that clearly makes no sense most of the time? No way, man. Stray from the norm completely and I'll chalk it up to wacky language stuff, but add, delete, or change a letter willy nilly, and my proverbial claws come out.
Ok, I'll try to calm down now. Maybe if I poke fun at someone, I'll feel a little better. My sweet and kind sister-in-law Weezie would have no problem helping me out, right? Cool. A long while ago, my favorite brother told me about a conversation he and Weezie had about the Big Mac. Somehow, it came up that Weezie didn't think that the burger came with cheese on it. My bro said, "What about the Big Mac song that lists its ingredients?" So she started singing: "Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, meat, pick-" "Meat?" Kevin asked. "Yeah. Special sauce, lettuce, meat." Kevin pointed out that the "all-beef patties" part kinda covered the meat aspect, and she reluctantly agreed that it may indeed specify "cheese" in the song.
Just to show that I'm not at all above my own fun-making, I'll share my own misunderstanding of that same Big Mac song. You see, I could sing the song my way and no one would know that I was actually being silly. I grew up thinking it was, "To all-beef patties" instead of "two." Yes, I thought it was more of a dedication (or ode) than a specification of the number of said patties. I realize that I made a strange assumption there, but at least I didn't list "meat" twice, right? Right? Hello?
Ok, now it's time to hang our heads in ostracized shame and mope on over to the Car Watch.
Longtime reader and fellow blogger Allergic Diner emailed me with an interesting license plate: "IM GUNK." She had no idea what it meant and said that it was a little old lady driving, which only confuses the matter. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be of much help with this one. The most logical readings of the plate still don't make any sense to me. I can't decide whether she's going for "gunk," defined by Merriam-Webster as, "Filthy, sticky, or greasy matter," or pronouncing it with a soft G to make it "junk." Either way, this little old lady would have to be very self-deprecating to believe that of herself and put it out there for public consumption. The only other option I can see is if the plate is speaking for the car itself (with the soft G), but then we're dealing with self-deprecating anthropomorphism and/or prosopopoeia, which gets a little heavy for a license plate. (Somehow, neither of those literary terms have "Peter" in them. "Deprecating" does though. Whew.)
My homey Rockabye (purveyor of the finest pink rabbit shit this side of the Mississippi) sent me a plate/frame combo that paints a very clear picture to anyone around this person's car. The plate read, "OBI WAAN," and the frame generously wished, "May the force be with you." I'm gonna go way out on a limb and say that the driver is male and more than a little on the dorky side. I just can't decide on the likelihood of him still living with his parents. Is 40% too high? Actually, he could be in the 16-18 age range still, so I'm bumping my figure to 65%. What say you, friends?
Lastly, I saw a license plate frame in my work parking lot that I felt like sharing. "Repossesauto.com" it said on the bottom. Those of you with keen eyesight might notice that there's an S missing from the end of the first word. "That must just be an error on the frame," I thought to myself. Having overestimated the language acuity of the masses before, I should've known better. I went to the site that the frame was advertising, and the banner says, "REPOSSES AUTO SALES INC." So there are only two real explanations. One, the company doesn't know how to spell "repossess" and no one stopped the founders when they named themselves. Or two, someone has the unfortunate last name of Reposses. How would that be pronounced? Would it be like more than one posse...again? So I called to see how they answered the phone. "Repossess Auto Sales," the man seemed to say before I hung up. So I guess it was the former, and either people don't know that it's spelled wrong or simply don't care. I think I'd prefer incorrect to indifferent in this case, but that might just be me.
That's it, folks. We've got a bunch of happies to dish out, so get ready. Happy birthday today to our good friend (and a big fan of anthropomorphism) Melissa, and to Bryan (who used to say "hangaber" instead of "hamburger"). Happy very first birthday tomorrow to my friend Kim's daughter Emma. Happy half-birthday on Sunday to the star of the comments section, my Mom. Monday is the full birthday of our friend Kareem and the half-birthday of our friend Scott M. And then Wednesday is my friend and former colleague Leslie's half-birthday. Wow, that's a whole lotta happy. Enjoy the weekend and week, my friends. If you're watching the trademarked football game on Sunday (which I'll call The Superbowel to avoid paying royalties), I hope it's exciting and memorable. Email me at ptklein@gmail.com with anything at all, and I'll see you again next Friday. Shaloha.
5 comments:
I wonder why you didn't mention mouthing "I want to vacuum" on your tour....
I think it was both inscrutable and unchristian of you to discuss the merits of 4-consonants-in-a-row words.
Why stop at four...create five consecutive consonant letter words:
strenghts
birthplace
backstretch
witchcraft
And I truly hope we don't have a stinky superbowel.
Your homey - Rockabye
While I appreciate the five consecutive consonants, I'm a little snobby with this and don't like to include compound words. That seems to make it much easier - probably too easy.
Finding good 4-bangers (like "hatchling," which I just thought of) is rewarding enough for me.
"self-deprecating anthropomorphism"
Love it. Have a great weekend!
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