083 Old Politico-speak

Phrases and words
We don't use much . . . and why not?

Reading about clichés (from Glenne's most recent blog) and listening to politicians (too many), prompted me to think of some old words and phrases that I would like to hear more often. I found the history of these interesting enough to share.

Those politicians have been dusting off the old canards. The word comes from mid-19th century French, and literally means duck (the bird); it also meant hoax. 

Earlier in Old French, the word caner meant to quack. That's the one for me. Each time the candidate air the old accusations, I will hear, "Quack, quack, quack!"

Each politican had better watch out or he/she could be hoist with his own petard. I had thought this was a sailing term, thinking of hoisting the sails. Instead, it hails back to the early use of gunpowder in Elizabethan England. It came into wide use after Hamlet uttered the phrase when discussing the fate of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. An early use of gunpowder was to blow open doors or walls. If the guy tasked with attaching the petard to a door and lighting the fuse was too slow in his getaway, he could be hoisted by the explosion!

And, of course, bombastic has nothing to do with bombs!  This term in English dates back to the mid 1500s and comes from bombast, meaning padding, stuffing and has similar sounding words and definitions in many languages, going back to Latin. I saw one discussion that offered an alternate derivation. That is is from the middle name of Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus), who often used an extremely arrogant speaking style. The definition is "high-sounding but with little meaning." Its archaic definition is "inflated, overfilled."

I had a difficult time finding a bipartisan cartoon when I searched "bombastic politician!" Every candidate showed up and some (you can guess) more than others!

Willy Nilly is another great story. The definition of the phase is "without planning or direction, haphazardly." The definition then provided the use of the phrase in a sentence: "Politicians expanding spending programs willy-nilly"  (Now you know why it is in the list!) It is from English in the early 17th century, it came from the phrase, "Will I, Nil I" (or I am willing, I am not willing). 

Well, I had to get to name calling and what better words than scalawag and rapscallion!

Scalawag does not have anything to do with wagging dog tails, but I really liked the cartoon! A scalawag is a rascal, a scoundrel, etc. Scalawag is an American word that seems to have originated in western New York as early as 1832.  An amateur genealogist Nathaniel Sharpe discovered his ancestor was in a list of scalawags (people who left town without paying debts) in an 1836 Batavia, New York newspaper. The fascinating story of his tracking the word is recounted in a Boston Globe story.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/03/10/the-original-scalawag/fuFLccvsn4b1T6t18WFvxL/story.html

Rapscallion is a "disreputable person, a rascal."  Rapscallion lacks the colorful etymology of some of the other terms.  It is merely a fanciful elaboration of rascal. But it makes a great image:

Keeping It Archaic!   Trish

082 Clichés: tried & true

Clichés: Are they really bad?

Hello there, dear readers. It’s cold here and more bad weather predicted. I needed some humor. I thought I had a grand idea: could I write a whole blog of just clichés?

After trying all week to write in all clichés, I almost threw in the towel. I was about to reach the end of my rope after shooting for the stars. I couldn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, and, obviously, time was running out. I needed sleep – to be snug as a bug in a rug--so I could get up and smell the coffee.

I bogged myself down, with little creativity, and my feet were firmly planted on the earth. I decided to just roll with the punches. 

I give up flying by the seat of my pants. I will stay cool as a cucumber and sweet as sugar because I feel like I am swimming against the tide. Maybe I should just go with the flow. 

I am laying it on thick, but I do wonder why these clichés seem so dated? I guess it’s not if you win or lose, but how you play the game. The trouble is I have always thought second place is loser number one. 

I really wanted to achieve this blog goal without being dull as dishwater and driving myself up the wall. With all the clichés from over the years, shouldn’t this be easy as pie, or at least as easy as 1-2-3? But, no, it is easier said than done.

So, really, what is it about clichés that makes editors grimace? I believe it is overuse. Sometimes, however, a cliché really fits the bill, is just the ticket, or is there for comic relief. If you do use clichés it is not the end of the world, but one should try to weed them out of formal writing. 

It seems said a Huffington Post article (10/23/13,) that clichés indicate laziness in writing and many make the writer seem OLD. The article continued by admonishing readers not to get their knickers in a twist but to avoid particularly old clichés that most people – other than baby-boomers and their elders--do not even understand: e.g. more troubles than Carter has liver pills, the cat’s pajamas, it’s the bees’ knees, and you sound like a broken record. 

AND if you want to see a list of clichés, try www.be-a-better-writer.com/cliches. This is a list of 681 clichés to avoid in writing or if you really, really want a lot of clichés, try Steve’s Clichés on www.clicheweb.cambriaresearch.com. Steve has amassed 1600 clichés. Who’d of thought?

If you’ve been watching any sports lately, you have heard their own special brand of clichés. Must be hard to be the color commentator with pithy, NEW, words for every play. To wit: it’s crunch time, they’re playing one game at a time, just shy of the first down, they’re being very physical, well, folks, it is what it is, and they need to put points on the scoreboard. (Oh, really--how astute!) 

It seems every field has its own set of clichés. Legal includes strenuous objections, begs the question, eminently qualified, and inextricably intertwined growing body of evidence. Medical – well, we all know an apple a day, pain and suffering, and apparently soldiers know turn your head and cough.So, as push comes to shove, watch your Ps and Qs, and see how many clichés you can think of on a dark and stormy night!

Glenne 

         

081 Snow too much

Snow too much

When snow reaches two feet deep, it loses its beautiful ranking. It becomes a nuisance and hard to shovel and stack. Piles get so high it is often hard to see oncoming traffic.

Pete shoveling

After a day or two, it becomes an eye-sore—freezing, melting, dirt mixing in—you get the picture and it is not a pretty one. You can imagine after a week the gray color it becomes rather than the snowy white.

Schoolchildren love it at first but after six, eight, ten days out of school, they start to get rather contentious, wanting to see their friends and needing a change of scenery. It is hard to believe but they begin to miss school!

John Handley High School grounds--
from our front porch

And don’t even mention the parents. There are not words to describe the overwhelming frustration and futile attempts to keep their children entertained while trying to stay sane.

Simple activities such as driving, which is taken for granted, is treacherous at first but as days pass, the melting makes it a little easier. Finding parking places is almost impossible as snow piles take up residence in the spots and will be there for weeks.

So why do we like snow—actually many of us don’t! I guess it is better than an ice storm and torrential rains that cause flooding.

Surviving is a skill I have worked on diligently for decades. One thing is to have plenty of a melting agent to get rid of the snow and ice as fast as possible. I get out as soon as I can to shovel or sweep the steps and then I spread the miracle mix. Some people say it will damage the concrete, but I say better the concrete than me!

Other tips for helping with cabin fever include having plenty of sweets including chocolate cake and ice cream and gallons of wine. Books, IPad, and movies also help pass the time. Those projects you put off can be finished in no time when you are stuck in the house.

It’s like camping out but inside the house. No businesses are open so it doesn’t matter because you couldn’t get there anyway. So think about being dropped in the woods or on a mountain top and rescue is days away.

When we do make it out, we survey the damage to see how much has been done or not done in our fair city. It is always a mystery until we can venture out past our street. Facebook has helped with friends posting photos of the snow around them, documenting the accumulation.


The extreme snow of January 2016—about 36 inches—melted at a steady pace but with that much snow it takes weeks.

But what is especially frustrating are the family and friends who live in warmer climates and the brilliant comments they text:  “That’s a lot of snow,” “How pretty,” “We didn’t get any.” The urge to kill surfaces but then rational thought takes over and I realize these people have no idea!

Oh well, hopefully the worst is over for the year—not really—we still have weeks and weeks of winter! 

Frances      

080 typewriter adventures

Typewriter Memories

In my last blog posting that was devoted to spacing after periods, I mentioned the non-proportional spacing of typewriters. That thought brought forth reminiscences of my typewriting adventures. 



I took a high school typewriting class in 1963.  The room was crammed with gigantic manual typewriters.

Thirty manual typewriters all clacking, clattering and ringing at each carriage return--what a din!

I came from Phys. Ed. to typing, was usually one of the last to arrive, and so was left with the oldest and crankiest machine. I remember a hot topic in class was where to place those brand new zip codes when typing the address line!

I was a very good student but not a very good typist. I came in early each day before school to practice.  It was difficult to press the keys with my pinkie fingers hard enough to move the type hammer lever to strike and make a dark impression. 

The qwerty keyboard came about because the first typewriter keyboards had the most common letters in the center and constantly jammed together when r and e and a, etc., were typed in close succession.

Jam still happened--how aggravating when you were typing at a good rhythm!

I eventually became a slower and more accurate typist. I went off to college with my own portable typewriter. (I was so proud!) Being an English/journalism major, I had many papers to type.

I used erasable bond, and would stop every few lines to check my work, and then get out the typewriter eraser. It had a brush on one end to brush the eraser crumbs off the paper and often right into the typewriter works!  I ended up with some convoluted sentences in my attempts to correct the error in the newly erased space. The erasable bond that corrected most cleanly also came with a bonus--very easily smeared text--when even lightly touched. I carefully removed each typed page and then sprayed it with hairspray. No smears but the page was slightly perfumed--what message was I sending to my professors?

How I hated typewriter ribbons!  I would type several lines only to discover the ribbon had fallen below the strike plate, and there was no text to be seen. I was cheap and did not change ribbons often. I also flipped over the top part of the ribbon to the bottom in an attempt prolong its life, which worked for a brief period.

After college I started using an electric typewriter--those wonderful IBM Selectrics! My work compatriots and I were delighted when new typeballs became available.  No more 
Courier!


The selectrics also eventually added a correction feature although I never achieved the perfect corrections that the company promised.  I might back up to the wrong letter or the correction tape did not completely cover.

The other typewriter task I never completely managed was centering a line.  Count the number of characters in the line to be centered, move the carriage return so that it is ready to type at the center of the line, than backspace half the number of characters in the line to be centered.  I did but somehow it never looked exactly right. Being somewhat obsessive compulsive, I hated when the line to be centered had an uneven number of characters. Yes, I obsessed--do I backspace the higher number or the amount that was one less?

In conclusion, I looked for a picture of a high school typing class by searching typewriting lab:

I bet his typing was as good as mine!

Trish