Overheard on The People's Court

I'm practically a lawyer. I didn't go to law school, but I think I have experience that is equivalent to a law degree. Why? Well, over the past few years, I have logged probably a hundred hours watching court TV shows—and if it isn't really a hundred, it just FEELS like that many. I tend to focus on Judge Judy and Marilyn Milian who are, at this point, not only my models but my mentors. These chicks get it DONE with a gavel. Surly old broad and hot-blooded Latina. Both awesome.

Recently, I watched a case where Tyrone was accusing his friend Lashawn of stealing his gun. They'd been friends for fifteen years, and even though they were close, Tyrone said Lashawn was a SNAKE. In fact, Lashawn had a habit of cock-blocking on a very regular basis. He steals females from his buddy, so maybe he steals firearms from him, too.

So, Lashawn drove the two of them to a club, and when they parked, Tyrone left his [registered and legal] gun in the car. But when they came out at the end of the night, even though the car was still locked, Tyrone's gun was missing. Apparently, Lashawn was victimized as well; his hoodie and skullcap had walked. (Gun vs. hoodie. Totally the same. Reminds me of those evil idiots who kill someone, shoot off a half-inch of skin from their own forearm, then claim it was all done by a masked freak during a carjacking gone bad. Whatever.) Anyway, the whole thing is--I am sure you agree--shocking. Quite shocking.

But what was even more shocking was that Lashawn kept insisting that he never took the gun out of the GLOVE DEPARTMENT. There is no lock on the GLOVE DEPARTMENT, and everyone knows that when someone breaks into a car, the first place they look is the GLOVE DEPARTMENT. Besides, he never even saw the gun in the GLOVE DEPARTMENT, but maybe the two other buddies who were riding in the back seat saw it and had opened the GLOVE DEPARTMENT and taken it. He was innocent, obviously.

Of stealing, that is. But of murdering the English language? Verdict: GUILTY.

I don't have a single drop of Latin blood in me to my knowledge, but I know I would have gone loco listening to that guy. I would have held him in contempt. Found him guilty of irritating me. Climbed over the big, high judgy desk thingy and strangled him with his own sloppily-knotted, Walmart necktie. Judges exact justice, not mercy...right?

But the Honorable Judge Marilyn Milian? She kept a straight face and didn't even correct him. Didn't even flinch. That hot-blooded Latina kept it cool, banged that gavel, and let the dude go without sentencing him to mandatory English classes.

Yeah, that was probably the right way to handle it. Never mind. I can't be a judge.

Hot Mess Haiku

tangled pasta thoughts
meatball words call from the sauce
read me first they say


[Haiku On Why I Can't Seem to Write Anything Lately]


Again, obviously I am no poet, but I lust for the genuine efficiency and economy of words that only real poets achieve through their thoughtful and well-crafted verse. My brain feels like "The Mess"--a pasta dish famous in Boston for looking like an accidental and haphazard pile of pastas and eggplant and mysteries that belie its very well-balanced tastiness. If you are daring enough to stick your fork into the ugly pile, whatever comes out is guaranteed to be delicious and decidedly un-ugly. My head is full of ideas that I feel sure would be as tasty as a bite of The Mess if only I could get the nerve to dive into with real gusto and without fear. My literary fork feels timid lately. Maybe it's time for a trip to Comella's for an order of The Mess. If I can tunnel my way through a plate of that, maybe I can tunnel through the writer's block!

Anyways, it's anyway.

If you are a true logophile, every day, on average, you
-> cringe 16.23 times
-> do a double-take 2.1 times, and
-> bite your tongue/lip/inside of your cheek or dig your fingernails into your own palm 5.5 times
...all in an effort to keep from correcting a co-worker, friend, family member or complete stranger on the grievous misuse of the English language.

One of the frequent causes of my linguistics-tics is the increasing use of the word “anyways.” It's become so common that one may believe that it is acceptable--and maybe even interchangeable--with “anyway” based on personal preference or regional dialect, a la to-MAY-to versus to-MAH-to.

And this is tough to say (because some of my very best friends are anywaysers), but I really think it's time we put a stop to this. Any is an adjective that is meant to modify a singular noun. Just because we decided to take out the space between the two words and make it an adverb (which, incidentally, still means basically “in any way or manner”) does not mean we need to continue to take unnecessary liberties with the language. From an economical point of view, we conserve type space by pushing the words together, and then screw it up by adding an extra letter. Why? I say stop it now, in any way or manner possible.

I am right about this; really, I am. But anyway, any person who has any thought that there is any problem with any piece of logic just presented should feel free to express any disapproval using any method, including leaving any comment desired below.

Let's Talk About Text, Baby: Quidnunc

Prepare for a logorgasm.

Actually, let me stop right there. If you have never had a logorgasm, or you think you've had one but you're not really sure, then, sorry to tell you this: you haven't. Much like the traditional orgasm, when one comes on, it's pretty undeniable. And as long as you're wondering "was that it?"--well, it wasn't.

So, as I was saying, prepare for a logorgasm.

Hold on. Perhaps you don't even know what I am talking about. Well, let me reassure you that you need the exact same skill set to decipher this word as you needed to sort out the bits and pieces of gynonudomania (see previous post).

Log: having to do with words
Orgasm: again, if you're not sure about this, I can't really help you

So, a logorgasm is an intense feeling of pleasure brought on by words. Not just any words though. Certainly not the whispering of sweet, romantic, precoital nothings in one's ear that bring on the pedestrian orgasm of the anyone-with-genitals-can-have-one-if-the-other-person-tries-hard-enough variety. No, no. I am talking about the kind of waves of bliss that come from words. Just words in their purity and all that goes with them: the denotations, connotations, variations, conjugations...ah, THESE are the stuff of logorgasms.

And I had one today, and in fact, I'm still enjoying the aftershocks.

I am home alone and watching a movie that most critics give only one star, and there it is, written on the wall in pink marker: quidnunc (a gasp). And I say it over and over in my head so I won't forget (gasp gives way to stirrings). And then the handsome protagonist in the movie actually goes to a bookstore, finds a dictionary, and looks it up (stirrings become throbbings). And then I look it up online so I can see its many definitions and usages (moan) and I discover that it comes from the Latin quid nunc meaning "what next" (oh yes) and means gossip or busybody (don't stop!). But this is so good, I can't bear for it to stop, so I tell a few fellow logophiles (throbbings approach climax). And just when I think I simply can't take it any more, I share it with you, my growing number of following logophiles for what can only be described as, well, one helluva logorgasm. (If I smoked, this is where the cigarette would come in, but I think I'll have some chocolate instead.)

I can't wait to use it in writing and casual conversation. Its first known use was in 1709, and frankly, I think it is high time we give this little titillator more air time.

And if you found this posting offensive, you probably aren't one of us (a logophile, that is), and therefore, are incapable of experiencing a logorgasm anyway. So spare us your critical comments and your hate mail and go tell someone how inappropriate this post is. You'll be doing what all quidnuncs do; you just won't be enjoying it nearly as much as the rest of us.

Let's Talk About Text, Baby: Gynonudomania

Gynonudomania. I'm not kidding. This is an actual word. Not yet accepted by the Oxford English Dictionary, it is, nevertheless, being used in some circles. At first, one may be overwhelmed by the seven syllables. But break it down the way our high school English teachers asked us to, and see what you can figure out. No need to brush up on your Latin and Greek roots. Trust me.

gyno: Um, something to do with chicks. Got it.
nudo: Sound it out. Sounds like "nude," right? Yep. Got it.
mania: Crazy obsession about something. Got it.

Got it? Gyno-nudo-mania. You're thinking something along the lines of "liking naked chicks." Well, not exactly. You're really only half-way there. It's not the nakedness so much as the method of getting her naked that puts gynonudomania into the category of fetishism. According to my sources (they are plentiful yet dubious), a person who is into gynonudomania is a person who derives sexual pleasure getting the chick naked by quite literally RIPPING her clothes off her body.

Got it. Gynonudomania. Ripping clothes off a woman, presumably (hopefully!) prior to consensual sex. Fine with me. Just warn me ahead of time so I can wear stuff already in the Goodwill bag. And if you do decide to go all gynonudomaniac on me without warning, you'd better be ultra-handy with a needle and thread or ready to hand over your Macy's card afterward. Probably both.

Overheard: Hitlerism

Me: Now, what was happening in the 1960s that had a profound impact on all of America, including and especially the rural South?

Devon: 9-11?

Me: No, that was less than ten years ago, remember? Something important was happening in the 1960s that you have been learning about since elementary and middle school. [attempt to reactivate a topic that is arguably OVER-taught in the early grades]

Brian: The Civil War?

Me: Well, that happened MUCH earlier, but you are right to be thinking about issues connected to slavery and its long-term ramifications. [attempt to let student save face and hoping to push thoughts in the right direction in spite of the fact that I KNOW the student is not thinking about these issues]

Luis: Hitlerism?

Me: Nope. And that's still not a word. [attempt to remind student that he has used this non-word in multiple situations, none of which was remotely related to World War II or Nazi Germany]

[During a classroom conversation with sophomores in preparation to read Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird.]

Yes, I know it's a terribly important piece of literature for multiple historical, cultural, social, and literary reasons. But somehow I get the feeling this class may suck dry what is left of my already anemic enthusiasm for the the novel. It's going to be a war of attrition. Can I chip away at their ignorance, apathy, and general hatred of reading more rapidly than they can drain my resolve to show them why this book is worth their time and effort? I remind myself (as I so often remind them) that I get paid the same no matter what, which means I can surrender at any time--resort to worksheets and SparkNotes and showing of the movie--and no one outside our little disfunctional classroom community will find out or even care.

I do a quick gut check, take a deep breath, and begin. Fake it 'til you make it. That's my motto. We will make it to the end of the novel and find things to love about it. And I will make them embrace one of the novel's important messages--that human love and compassion are powerful and influential forces for good and can defeat hatred and intolerance and violence--and they will learn this...even if I have to beat it into them.

Don't Let Holiday Relacide Happen to You

[Note: I read somewhere that if you have a blog and you are single, separated, divorced, widowed, or part of the GLBT community, it's practically a law or something that you write a post on being alone during the holidays. In accordance with the aforementioned expectation, I give you the requisite it-sucks-being-alone-during-the-holidays-but-let's-pretend-it-doesn't post. Enjoy.]

Single and alone on Thanksgiving? Look on the bright side. Relative-on-relative homocide rates spike 293 percent on this holiday compared to other days of the year. Okay, I can't back that up with any actual data, but I do know I have personally had to channel the strength of Zeus in order not to shove the big turkey fork into the carotid artery of a particularly annoying relative over more than one holiday spread.

So, besides eliminating the inevitable desire to commit relacide, there are lots of other advantages to spending the holidays alone. And this isn't only for single people; you married folks with annoying parents and/or in-laws should feel free to use one of your sick days to call in and miss today's "festivities." Here's just a short list of things to be thankful for if you must (or choose to) spend today alone:

* If you're a chick, you don't have to listen to the endless droning of announcers and crowds as the relentless sounds of football waft through the air with the smell of burnt rolls.

* If you're a dude, you can have the football games on all day long without fighting for the remote, negotiating for time away from the Macy's Day Parade, leaning around well-meaning bearers of Doritos and pork rinds, or missing important game commentary because of the endless droning of Aunt May about your third cousin's newborn who has colic.

* You don't have to answer the question, "When are you going to get married?" or any of the other [frequently more annoying and distasteful] derivatives (e.g., "You DO like men/women, don't you?" or "Do you think it might be time to lower your standards a bit?" or "You do realize, I hope, that at your age, you are more likely to be killed in a terrorist attack/struck by lightning/attacked by a rabid hyena/commit relacide than get married?") .

* You can drink as much as you want without the fear of letting it slip that Cousin Pete is the ONLY person who doesn't think his toupee looks obviously like a toupee and that when he's not around you semi-affectionately refer to him as Squirrel Pelt Pete.

* You can eat as much as you want without apology, without wishing you'd worn looser pants, without the judging eyes of your grandmother who always said it's a good thing you're so smart because your sister/cousin/niece is "the pretty one." In fact, you can unbutton your pants and slide your hand inside the waistband Al Bundy-style and sit that way all day long if you want. Hell, take your pants off. It's your house.

* If you cook a turkey, you get to pull BOTH sides of the wishbone, guaranteeing wish fulfillment (bonus: you don't have to tell anyone what you wished for).

I guess none of these ideas is particularly unique, and perhaps all are inadequate in staving off the achiness that comes with spending a family-ish holiday alone-ish. But when it comes right down to it, Thanksgiving should be more about personal gratitude than a jockeying for position around the sweet potatoes and big screen TV. That's why this Thanksgiving, I'll be spending a few moments writing down a list of things for which I really ought to remember to be more thankful. Right at the top of that list: the fact that I have family members I love enough to miss today, and friends who love me enough to help me miss them a little less.

Lady Lumps

Okay, I give. Let's change it to "volumptuous." People aren't going to stop saying it that way, and nine times out of ten the word serves as just a thinly veiled euphamism for something between chubby and fat anyway. Women who describe themselves as "volumptuous" OR "voluptuous" usually have plenty of actual lumps under their ill-fitting clothing which, arguably, makes the mispronunciation a more accurate adjective. So I say, let's stop fighting over this one. Let's save our efforts for stamping out "supposably." There will never be a day when society should surrender to that atrocity. But for all the curvy, full-figured, hourglass, healthy, thick, stacked, womanly BBWs with a little boom-pow and some junk in the trunk, I support your bastardization of the English language because, like the guy who stumbled upon Post-Its and made millions, you accidentally invented a word that is better than the original. Long live your volumptuous lady lumps.

Overheard: Cuban Sandwich

Me: Have you ever had a pressed Cuban sandwich?
Students (all aged 16+): What's that?
Me: Doesn't anyone know what a Cuban sandwich is?
Jose: Is that like lasagna?
Beatriz: No, of course not!
Lynette: What's lasagna?
Beatriz: It's cheese.

[During what should have been a discussion about Nora Ephron's essay, "A Sandwich" about what she claims is the best hot pastrami sandwich in the world and which can be bought at Langer's Delicatessen in Los Angeles.]

Cuban sandwich = lasagna = cheese. As if that weren't enough, other points of clarification that needed to be provided to my students included explaining what a bodega is, what you do at a pawnshop, why one might refer to a famous landmark as a "shrine," and why businesses would charge people to use their bathrooms. Suffice it to say that we only got through the first two paragraphs. So much for lesson planning.

Let's Talk About Text, Baby: Differentiate

Education certainly holds no corner market on empty jargon, but we're no slouches either. Schools--especially those designated as underperforming under NCLB (now Race to the Top) after failing to meet AYP for particular subgroups who did not achieve a proficient score in ELA on the MCAS which the Mass DESE says requires implementation of EPPs or IEPs and early intervention through safety nets via the IST which may or may not support the vision of the ILT, RLC, or the PLCs--well, let's just say we are no strangers to jargon. We typically keep a lot of this useless verbiage circulating among the adults, however, preferring to save our valuable time in front of students teaching vocabulary that matters in real life.

So today when I checked the homework of one of my brightest and most diligent students and found that he had used the word "differentiate" in his writing, my English-teacher heart did a quick pitter-patter as I saw a twenty-dollar word gracing the topic sentence. Pitter-patter quickly became palpitations when I realized he had misused the word. Normally, I wouldn't care. Normally, I would just be thrilled that a sophomore spelled it correctly and used it in a context that was in the general universe of its intended meaning.

So, really, it wasn't the misuse that disheartened me, if I'm being honest. It was the particular way he misused it that made my temporal lobe absolutely throb. He had written, "Discipline and abuse must differentiate depending on the situation." Okay, yeah, he's in the ballpark. And when I explained how to use the word correctly, he understood immediately. But in the back of my head, I was remembering how just two days earlier, I had heard a seasoned teacher say something quite similar in one of our [insert acronym] meetings. "The math and science skills will have to differentiate for this to work," he had said, without the least stumble of hesitation. I shuddered with the memory and then did something I usually wouldn't. I said to the kid, "Have you heard this word used a lot lately?" to which he replied, "Yeah." And I said, "Me too. Just be aware that this word is being thrown around a lot, and most people don't know how to use it correctly. Even teachers." And he said, "Uh-huh," and gave me a little grin, and added, "Now that you've explained it, I realize I don't think anyone is saying it right."

"I don't think anyone is saying it right"? Kid, you have no idea how right you are.

So, what does it mean to differentiate? I'll let you pull out your favorite dictionary to get a layperson's definition. But if you want to know what it means within the jargon-rich context of a school like mine, you'll have to ask someone who doesn't work here.

My First Post

Wow...I'm finally a blogger! This is great. Now I can write ad nauseum about everything that no one cares about. I can't wait to send out a mass email to all my friends and family and barely-acquaintances telling them to check this out. I do realize that I am going to have to start misspelling things more frequently, and writing run-on sentences, and generally slaughtering the English language while relating the gorey details of my latest trip to the dentist, or describing the guy I saw picking his nose on the T, or pontificating about the Obama/McCain race. But if these are the sacrifices I must make in order to achieve internet immortality, then so be it. Cyberworld, make room for one more!