The in crowd

Top of the mornin' to you all. Do you know what I like about Wednesdays? Oh sure, there's the obligatory "hump day" reference, but that's not what I'm going for right now. Yeah, I know it was a character in The Addams Family, but that's not it either. I appreciate your guesses though. I like that it's one of the few words in our language that I can think of that feels British to me. You know, like "Liecester Square" being pronounced "Lester Square." I know back east does that with things like "Worchester" being "Wooster," but they speak all funny without additional help. Quite similarly, "Worcestershire sauce" looses at least a syllable somewhere in there. Wednesday and its "Whensday"or "Whendsday" pronunciation stand out to me for that reason, and I often like things that stand out. Except that one curl on my head. Sit down, already!

Oh yeah, there's one more thing I enjoy about Wednesday. Occasionally, when the planets and stars align in that magical way they sometimes do, I post a Wacky Wordy Wednesday thingamajig. Not a doohicky or thingamabob, mind you; just a thingamajig. Today is one of those sweet, sweet Wednesdays. Buckle up.

Several times throughout my life, I have had the following conversation with someone:

Me: Well, you know that 'flammable' and 'inflammable' mean the same thing, right?

Person Who Has Not Yet Learned To Trust Peter On Such Things: Huh?

Me: Yeah, they mean the same thing. Like 'duh' and 'no duh.'

PWHNYLTTPOST: No, no, 'inflammable' means it can't catch on fire.

Me: No, a lot of people make that mistake. You can look it up if you like, but they actually mean the same thing.

PWHNYLTTPOST: I just don't see how that's possible. Let's look it up.

Me: (smiling, knowing that another will soon realize the foolishness of ignoring my knowledge) Have at it.

Inevitably, this person finds that I was speaking the truth and says something to the effect of, "Wow, that's really weird. Why would they mean the same thing?" I will usually then remind them of the "duh/no duh" correlation from earlier in the conversation, and they begin to feel a wee bit humbled in my presence.

I don't know why those words are defined as they are. "In" is obviously a prefix that makes many words opposites, such as "visible" and "invisible." The thought of those meaning the same thing as each other is preposterous (or post-posterous, if you will), and that's what offends our sensibilities so much with the "inflammable" case.

I found a similar, but not identical situation. If we say something is valuable, it would be reasonable to assume that "invaluable" would mean the opposite. However, that couldn't be farther from accuracy. Somehow, I know not how, it's come to mean even more valuable than "valuable."

So far, we've seen the prefix "in" having three different meanings: the opposite of the word (invisible), even more so (invaluable), and nothing really at all (inflammable). Thanks to the world-class comedy of "The Three Amigos," I thought of one more. Fortunately this one exists, because the movie wouldn't have had any real premise without it.

In a letter, a desperate woman (Carmen) writes to our three heroes to ask for their help in defeating the neighborhood bad guy, El Guapo. She spits out all sorts of heinous adjectives describing him, but then doesn't have enough money to send that length of telegram. Instead of the many descriptors, they go with "infamous." Los Amigos, who are actors, wrongly think that the "in" there has the same meaning as in "invaluable." Ned (Martin Short) says something to the effect of, "He's not just famous, he infamous." They agree that he must be a big star in Mexico, and hilarity ensues. How would we describe the real meaning of the prefix in that word? "In a bad way" doesn't really hit it. Any thoughts?

So that's four very different meanings of the prefix "in." I know I may have lost half of you a while ago, but I'm hoping those of you still with me find this somewhat interesting. I do, at least, but I suppose that's a big part of what makes me me.

Huh, that's interesting. I was just about to start the next line with the word "regardless," which made me think (uh oh). Irregardless means the same thing, right? There's another prefix that can mean the opposite ("irrational," for example) but instead means absolutely nothing. I guess I can now say, "Yep, flammable and inflammable mean the same thing. Just like duh and no duh and regardless and irregardless." Cool. I love expanding my repertoire. And you can't spell "repertoire" without Peter, after all.

This post has led me to three final thoughts that I have:

1. It must be so incredibly difficult to learn English.

2. Why would anyone use "inflammable" or "irregardless" unless they like using meaningless syllables?

3. Does anyone else find this stuff even remotely interesting?

That's that for now, gentle readers. I actually have more word stuff that I was going to write all about, but the "in" thing turned into a post on its own. I'm leaving for a conference in San Diego today through Friday, but I'll make sure you get your daily dose of UOPTA. Fear not. Please remember to write to ptklein@gmail.com with anything about anything, for this week's FUF is still wide open (due to the lack of emails currently gracing my inbox). Irregardless, I hope you have learned invaluable life lessons today.

Creationisn't

I spent a lot of my college time jotting down ideas that popped into my head. Sometimes it was just a phrase that I wanted to work into a poem for one of my classes, other times it would be a larger, thematic note about something I'd like to write. It was either 96 or 97 that two of these larger ideas came to me, and I sat on them until I had the time to act.

My plan was simple: each idea would make a great one-act play that would appear on the surface to simply be a parody, but in actuality, it would be allegorical and full of social commentary. I told my friends about these, and even started coming up with character names and a few lines of dialogue. Then I forgot about them. The "time to act" never presented itself, because I've learned that time doesn't do that on its own.

But then it did. I was working in Sacramento for a year, doing the most menial tasks you can imagine (filing thousands of papers in zip code order, etc.), and I suddenly had time. Most of my day was spent "looking busy," and I could easily accomplish that by writing. I wrote down all of the character names I remembered, cracked my knuckles, and was set to jump back in to the writing game. My final course of action was to do a quick Google search to make sure no one else had already written my masterpieces. Oops. Not only was I too late on both of them, but too late several times over. Here are my ideas and what I found:

1. "Omelet, Prince of Kenmore" In this one act play taking place inside a refrigerator, Omelet's father was just killed. His uncle Benedict has poached his mother (and the throne), and everyone is trying to find out if Omelet is sane or if he has cracked. His ladyfriend Florentine eventually gets so scrambled that she hurls herself into the icemaker and perishes. Line that brings down the house: (Sniff sniff) "There's something rotten in the state of Kenmore."

I had much more laid out, but that's the gist of it. A quick Google search shows me not only Sesame Street's "Omelet, Prince of Dinner" but also "Omelet, Prince of Denny's. A Tragedy in Two Cracks. By Francis Bacon." I don't mind the fact that Sesame Street beat me to the punch on this, but Denny's kinda hurts. So, that one was out. It's a shame too, because despite the bad puns and ridiculous nature of it, I really felt like I could do something with it.

2. "A Pair of Dice Lost" Newlyweds Buzz and Sally are in Las Vegas for their honeymoon. It was a surprise trip furnished by Buzz's dad, who dropped them off and will return at an undisclosed date to pick them up. They're small-town kids who are honest, hard-working people. Strolling through the casino (awesome set design, by the way), the craps dealer named Lou stops them. He explains how to play and offers to help them out on when and how to bet. After a couple of wins, they're riding high on the dangerous combination of victory and apple-tinis. The wheels fall off, and this tragedy ends with the couple penniless, roomless, and waiting for the father to bring them back home.

Here's the problem: a Google search of "pair of dice lost" pulls up 948,000 results. Baby Looney Tunes has an episode called "Pair o' Dice Lost," a retirement convention had a session called that, and many, many others have used that before me. In fact, one brilliantly juxtaposed "Paradise Lost by Milton" with "A Pair of Dice Lost by Milton Bradley." I realize I could abandon the play on words for the title and write it otherwise, but to me that loses too big a part of it.

So, my advice to all (especially to myself) is to do stuff when you think of it. You'd better believe I'll act faster than 7 or 8 years next time.

While we're on the topic of coming up with things, I think this is a good time to mention that my friend Dave says he created the term "No duh." Everyone else was just using "duh," he says, and he introduced the world to putting "no" in front of it but keeping the meaning the same. What can I say, he's a pioneer. And an idiot.

Have a very happy and safe New Year's Eve, gentle readers.