2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for my blog. I wanted to share it with you, and thank everyone for reading and supporting my efforts!

All the best for a healthy, wonderful 2013!!

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 3 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

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Weird Word Wednesday!

Tags

culture, editing, grammar, humor, pasquinade, proper grammar, society, strange word, Vanderbilt, weird word, writing

Welcome to Weird Word Wednesday! If you’re headed back to work today, here’s a weird word to brighten things up. It’s pasquinade, which means “a satire or lampoon, especially one posted in a public place.” To learn more, we’re heading back to the Gilded Age, the span of time in the United States from after the Civil War to almost 1900. Back then, high society reigned, made possible if you had money to fling around like there was no tomorrow.

Much of this took place in New York City, and for those of you fortunate enough to have visited this wonderful place, the Empire State Building, at 350 5th Avenue, stands at the site of the former mansion of William Backhouse Astor, Jr. and his socially-mobile wife, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor.

Caroline Astor

Caroline was the gatekeeper of NYC’s high society. You could have all the money you wanted, but if it wasn’t “old” money (wealth that had been in a family for generations) you’d end up standing at her front door, nose pressed against the glass in a futile attempt to get in. Your efforts were watched by many, and social columns buzzed with details of over-the-top balls and soirees given by those with dough. Failed efforts to become a part of all this could get you pasquinaded by a brief mention in the social columns. Ouch.

Enter Alva Erskine Smith Vanderbilt. Smart, determined and forceful, Alva was born in Mobile, Alabama, in 1853. She married William K. Vanderbilt in 1875.

I’m reading “Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt” by Amanda Mackenzie Stuart, a book that shares the relationship between Alva and her daughter, Consuelo. I learned that Alva’s mother, Phoebe, attempted to crash Mobile society and was rebuffed. The book said “Some people ate Mrs. Smith’s suppers; many did not. There was needless and ungracious comment, and one swift writer pasquinaded her social ambitions in a pamphlet for ‘private’ circulation.”

Double ouch! Imagine having your attempts to be socially accepted being publicly slammed in a pamphlet?

Alva at costume ball

All this left Alva with a teensy chip on her shoulder, and after she married William K. in New York, she ran up against the formidable Caroline Schermerhorn Astor. The Mrs. Astor, as she liked to be called, who had no desire to mingle with Alva.

All this changed in 1883, when Alva held a lavish costume ball. Young socialites frothed to be on the guest list, among them The Mrs. Astor’s daughter, also Caroline. Up to that point, The Mrs. Astor hadn’t paid a social call on Alva, and Alva used that as justification for refusing to include the younger Caroline on the guest list.

Forced into a social corner and fearing pasquination, The Mrs. Astor gritted her teeth, climbed into her carriage and paid the call on Alva, ensuring Caroline’s place at the ball. I can almost see Alva smirking with satisfaction as she watched The Mrs. Astor drive away after what surely was a frosty meeting.

Marble House

A few years ago, we went to Newport, Rhode Island, in part to tour the extravagant mansions built by the Astors and the Vanderbilts. We toured Marble House, built for William K. and Alva Vanderbilt. It’s almost too much – with 500,000 cubic feet of marble and a ballroom covered in 22-karat gold leaf, it’s hard to imagine anyone really, truly living here. It’s a monument to avoiding pasquination, to Alva’s desire to retain social power in a very blatant form.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Aristotle (384 – 322 BC):

“The greatest crimes are due to excess rather than want.”

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

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competition, culture, editing, grammar, humor, manners, proper grammar, Super Bowl, weird, weird word, writing

Today’s grammar tidbit is all about competition, and what better example of that than the upcoming Super Bowl XLVII, played in New Orleans, LA, on February 3, 2013.

Walt Disney Corp.

We’ll soon be in the middle of the playoffs; as things heat up, the ensuing frenzy can cause egregious lapses in grammar. These things happen!

Our grammar “oops” today comes courtesy of a reader. It seems this delightful lady was in the company of a man who was quite excited about the December 16th, 2012 football game, when the Green Bay Packers faced their rivals, the Chicago Bears. In a moment of breathless anticipation, this man uttered the fateful line:

“I hope the Packers win the Bears.”

Our friend winced; the grammar goof hung between them like a stinky cloud.

So what, you ask, is the difference between “win” and “beat”?

When it’s used to refer to sports, “beat” focuses on the act of defeating an opponent. It leaves us knowing that one team won, while the other team lost.

“Beat” also needs an object – there must be an opponent to be beaten.

Like this:

metro.co.uk

For the second year in a row, Merwyn beat the competition, handily winning the World Bog Snorkeling Championship with a time of 84 seconds.

“Winning” focuses on the victor; it doesn’t really concern itself with the person or team who lost.

Like this:

Reuben worked on his technique for months, and was ecstatic to learn that he won the freestyle portion of the Mobile Phone Throwing Contest.

I hope that clears the air for our friend and her football fan companion! It helped that the Packers won that game, 21-13. If they’re headed for the Super Bowl, we certainly hope they beat the competition!

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Weird Word Wednesday!

Tags

culture, editing, grammar, humor, manners, proper grammar, strange word, weird, weird word, writing, yex

Welcome to Weird Word Wednesday! It’s time for our midweek dose of drollery, so without further ado, I give you yex.

Yes, yex.

It means to burp, hiccup, or belch.

I wanted a straightforward definition of the cause, so I turned to the experts at Mayo Clinic. They explained that burping is caused by “swallowed air or the breakdown of food through digestion.” For a lighter take on things, I checked with Kids’ Health, who reassured young readers, saying “burping is almost always never anything to worry about.”

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a kid become worried after a burp – quite the opposite, actually. And whether it’s intentional or not, burping and hiccuping, especially during or after meals, are looked at differently depending on the culture you’re in.

momlot.com

In America, I’ve noticed that about the only people who can get away with audible burps after a meal are babies and old people. We teach our children to cover their mouths when they feel a burp rising, and this practice continues into adulthood. I really don’t know when some adults give up on this, but over the years, I’ve heard one or two people who were real chandelier rattlers when it came to a good yex.

In other cultures, burps are celebrated as a postprandial rite of passage. Burps are a sign of appreciation for the cook in some Eskimo cultures and countries like India and Canada. The World Burping Federation, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, celebrates yexers who really let one sail, embracing “burping as a natural part of the human digestive process.”

According to them, the current record for the longest yex is 18.1 seconds. Hmmmm…that might be a competition I’d skip, but have at it if you’re a yexer.

bill watterson

In other countries, a blatant yex will earn you a disdainful scowl from your tablemates. Audible body functions just aren’t amusing in some parts of the world!

On their first date, Neal took Yolanda to The Codfather for a lobster dinner. The atmosphere was marred by a yex from Yolanda that made the china clatter. Needless to say, the evening went downhill after that.

For those who’d rather keep their yexes to themselves, I leave you with practical advice from Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus (1466 – 1536):

“Retain the wind by compressing the belly.”

High-Heeled Bowling Shoes

Tags

Christmas, editing, grammar, holiday, humor, proofreading, proper grammar, shopping, strange word, writing

I stopped at the credit union the other day to withdraw some money for Christmas presents. To entertain customers while they waited, the credit union installed a television behind the tellers’ counter.

Screen after screen displayed fun Christmas facts. One said that if we were to buy the original gifts from “The 12 Days of Christmas,” song today, it would set us back a whopping $107,000. That’s a big holiday budget!

At this time of year, retailers are having a field day – I don’t know about you, but I’ve gotten many emails with subject lines like “The 12 Gifts of Christmas,” all designed to send me dashing back to the credit union for more wads of cash to buy  whatever’s being sold.

It reminded me of a word I came across recently: emacity. This obscure word relates to a fondness for buying things. Thanks to my handy dandy Latin dictionary, I learned that emacity has Latin roots, from “emo” meaning “to buy or purchase.”

Emacity isn’t a word we use often; despite that, we act as if we know just what it means. According to one source, 2012 holiday spending in the United States has already reached $27 billion! Yowza!

And with the media showing clips of shoppers camped out for days in front of Target and Best Buy, waiting for the doors to open on great markdowns inside, it’s really no wonder we’ve attained such crazed levels of emacity.

Nellie’s emacity reached a fevered pitch at the Spare Me Bowling Shop. She mowed over store signs and plowed past shoppers in her zeal to buy nine pairs of high-heeled bowling shoes.

Whoa, Nellie! She might want to check out “One Cent at a Time,” a neat blog that discusses a different definition of what it means to be rich. You don’t need to sell your belongings and live in a pup tent along the highway to achieve this; rather, ask yourself how you’re already rich and what you’re thankful for. I’ll bet it isn’t anything that money can buy, and if that’s the case, I’m really happy for you.

retrothing.com

So…whether you simply must have another pair of stylin’ bowling shoes, or feel the need to go on a shopping frenzy of another kind, keep a quote from Ben Franklin in mind:

“Rather go to bed without dinner than rise to debt.”

Weird Word Wednesday!

Tags

copywriting, filling station, gas station, grammar, history, humor, lubitorium, pagoda, strange word, Wadham's Oil & Grease, weird word, writing

Hard to believe we’re almost halfway through the month of December already! Things are gearing up for Christmas – items checked off lists, cookies are baked, and travel plans arranged.

Raise your hand if you’re driving any distance to visit family or friends this holiday season!

If so, you’ll appreciate the nostalgia of this week’s Weird Word. It’s lubitorium and chances are, you’ll need a modern variation of one somewhere during your trip.

A lubitorium is a service station. For today’s purposes, I’m not talking about the mini-marts sprinkled along America’s highways, convenience stores where you can fill up your gas tank, then head inside for bakery, coffee, a gallon of milk or even rent a movie if your heart desires.

No, the lubitorium I’m talking about is the kind I remember from childhood, the one where a bell sounded inside the shop when your car pulled alongside the gas pump. A uniformed attendant would trot out, ask how much gas you wanted, then proceed to clean the windshield while the gas was being pumped. There was often a service bay on the side of the building, where mechanics worked on cars.

Wadham’s Oil & Grease

And boy, oh, boy, did companies outdo themselves trying to make their lubitoriums stand out from the competition. Wadham’s Filling Station built pagoda-style stations, and other companies developed themed buildings, all designed to bring in business.

American’s highway system spread after President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, which authorized construction of a network of highways across the country. That expansion allowed people to travel farther, faster; this, coupled with the gas crises of the 1970s, signaled the decline of lubitoriums as we knew them.

But we can still have fun saying lubitorium! You can even bewilder your traveling companions by using the word in a sentence as you’re driving along:

“Honey, I’d like to stop at a lubitorium before we reach Aunt Myrtle’s house.”

Get ready for the weird looks and have safe travels!

Weird Word Wednesday!

Tags

copywriting, editing, grammar, humor, ironing, miscomfrumple, proper grammar, strange word, weird word, writing

Welcome to Weird Word Wednesday!

Here’s a word you may not have heard of, but you’ve certainly experienced its effects. Perhaps you dashed out of the house in a panic after yanking on yesterday’s khakis, or found that, overnight, your dog slept on the papers you needed for this morning’s meeting.

In both cases, things got miscomfrumpled. Isn’t that fun to say? When things get miscomfrumpled, they’re excessively creased or rumpled.

But let’s back up a second – why must we have everything crease-free and smooth? Ironing certainly isn’t one of my favorite household chores, and if it were socially acceptable to parade around looking like I slept in my clothes, I might just try it.

I used to work with a guy who didn’t pay much attention to the little things. This was evident when he bought clothes. Gary (not his real name) would show up having only just removed his new shirt from its cardboard-lined package. He’d button it up and head for work, where we noticed the packaging creases and strange whiff of “new clothes” as he passed by.

This sartorial bad habit of Gary’s unknowingly got him a few eye rolls, but after a while, we all got used to this quirk.

From what I could find, the practice of ironing cloth has been around for centuries. Back in the B.C. days, the Chinese used pans filled with hot water to smooth fabric. My great-grandma used an old-fashioned iron that she set back on the stove to heat up between shirts. What a load of work that was! Maybe that early experience gave me my current dislike for ironing…

We generally don’t like to be miscomfrumpled. And it shows:

For years, Mrs. Twinkenwiffel refused to keep Mitzy, her biting Chihuahua, on a leash when the mail was delivered. Edna, the mail carrier, retaliated by miscomfrumpling the covers of Mrs. Twinkenwiffel’s catalogs ever so slightly.

So whether it’s clothes, catalogs, or khakis, we have issues with things being miscomfrumpled. Do we need a National Miscomfrumpled Day to just let it all hang out? At least we’d have an excuse to run around wrinkled!