Words words words Part II

I'm a big fan of a Canadian band called Sloan, and I don't know anybody else who is. The thing is, they're huge in Canada and pretty big in some cities in the northeast US, but no one's really heard of them here. My wife thinks they're ok, but after going to a show that they had in L.A. with me (they come once every couple years), she's vowed never to return. Chris from the band bugged her so much with his constant mugging and what I guess he thinks is showmanship that both of us spent the majority of the concert trying to ignore him. Not a good sign. All four band members write and sing songs on the albums, but the one with the most songs is Chris, so he was in the forefront quite often. I really like their music though (and have all 9 of their studio cds, their live double disc set, and a single cd with some great B sides), so when they come to town again, I'll be there...I just might be alone.

Anyway, I was craving some older Sloan over the past few days and have been going through the cds on my commute home. This morning, I chose one and popped it in for the 40 minute commute. Lo and behold, a song called "I Can Feel It" came on and I smiled widely because I remembered a certain lyric was coming up: "Happy birthday to the best brother in the world." Today is, in fact, my brother Kevin's birthday and I get to see him for lunch. This might not seem like the biggest coincidence in the world, but there were several factors at play. First, I chose the cd with that song on it. Second, the KROQ show I listen to every morning was doing an interview with Radiohead that I didn't feel like listening to, which prompted the rare a.m. cd-listening. Lastly, the half hour span that the cd was on happened to cover that song. So everything lined up just right for me to hear the most pertinent line for December 20th in my entire music collection.

Oh yeah, and it's my friend Jon's birthday too. Happy birthday, dude.

Back to being angry: Just before I got home from Vegas, my mom called me to tell about the Sunday crossword in West Magazine of the LA Times. Each Sunday, I take stabs at the one in the regular part of the paper and the one in that magazine. They're always clever and make me say aloud, "Man I hate those bastards" in a very admiring way. Kinda like how Wes Mantooth feels about Ron Burgundy. Anyway, my mom called to say that this particular puzzle was about...auto-followers. They call them "cliché combos" or "idiomatic married couples", but they're the same thing. In fact, the example they give is this:

"For example, a woman with very little on is never 'minimally clad' or 'skimpily clad' or 'barely clad,' but always 'scantily clad.'"

That's right, they used my number one example of a Class 1 AF as their example. Son a bitch stole my line. I've only had a few minutes to look at the puzzle so far, and I've only found one of the eleven special clues so far. It's pretty good though: "breakneck." Yeah, that's a Class 1 alright, and it pisses me off. I'm very, very tempted to look at the answers so I can start critiquing the "cliché combos," but I have to try to get more on my own first. I'm having a hard time, because "Belgian violinist Eugene" doesn't really help me fill in the boxes.

So this pisses me off on two levels. One, this was my thing. Two, since it's my thing, I should be better at getting the answers. Stupid puzzle makers. What's next, a puzzle on the power of Ralph and FB2K4? I'm watching you, West Magazine. With my furrowed brow.

Auto-followers

I admit that I'm somewhat of a word nerd (have ya heard?), which will come as no surprise to those who know me. I dabble in puns and have a hard time holding them back, regardless of how cringe-inducing they may be. I'm also fascinated by language and its oddities. I think about things, get stuck thinking about them, then subject my friends and relatives to these (usually completely unimportant) ruminations.

There is one language train of thought though that has captured people's interest much more than any other: Auto-followers. I don't remember exactly how or when this started, but the basic premise is that there are certain words that are only used to preceed other specific words. That is, they have "auto-followers" after being uttered. (Sidenote: Somewhere along the process, we incorrectly started referring to the first words as "auto-followers", and even though that doesn't make sense, tradition trumps accuracy in this case. I don't say that often, trust me.) Every once in a while, a friend will ask me to call upon the list of auto-followers (AFs from here on out) and I have a hard time remembering more than two or three. It's been a group effort from the onset, but I'm taking the lead and using this space to officially get the AFs down somewhere for future reference.

One of the best examples, and possibly the one that started the whole trend, is "scantily." The beauty of true AFs is that I don't need to tell you what word comes after it. I can't even think of an example of how else is could be used, even though it never is. "The hole in the ground was scantily covered by leaves" is the closest I can come up with right now, but even that sounds pretty off to me.

I will call "scantily" a Class 1 AF, meaning the truest of the true to me and those who have discussed this lingual phenomenon with me. Class 2 AFs would be ones that definitely lead you to a thematic answer, but the actual word could change. For example, I normally think of "torrential" as a Class 1 AF, but I've had people reply with both "downpour" and simply "rain." Even though it's clearly "downpour" to me, my family, and several friends, since not everyone replies with that, I'm making it a Class 2. Same family of response, but not the same exact word.

Another Class 2 AF is "noxious." Again, I thought this was a Class 1 until a few people replied with "odors" instead of my automatic "fumes" response. Definitely the same idea, but not universal enough for the lofty Class 1 status.

Here is a short list of AFs that I believe to be Class 1:

Scantily
Furtive
Hermetically
Crotchless
Furrowed
Corrugated

(Another sidenote: My friend Dave likes to be the contrarian of the group at times, so when asked about "crotchless" years ago in college, he replied, "Roommate!" and pointed to our roommate Greg. I don't think that's enough evidence to warrant a Class 2 ranking.)

AFs are hard to come by. People often think they've found one, only to be rebuffed at their first attempt to elicit a response. For example, "pearly" seems good on the surface. People usually think of a word immediately, but that word could be either "white" or "gates." Since those words aren't related, I think that takes "pearly" out of the discussion completely.

The rest of the ones accumulated over the years are not yet classified. Some I believe to be quite true, but I need more input before being more certain. If anyone's reading this, please comment on what you think about the listed ones, add your own if you think of any, and let the fun with words begin.

Categorically
Supple (if not for "Pinball Wizard" by The Who, I think we'd have a Class 1 here)
Vehicular (I'm sure in legalese there are several uses for that word, but I think of one)
Mitigating
Irreparable
Duly

Have at it, gentle readers.