Change of intentions

From now on (we’ll see if it actually happens),  I will most likely post things (links, thoughts, etc.) here in lieu of barraging people on Facebook.

As I said, we’ll see…

Uberoverpositivenessiosity

(For starters, I’m a neologist. Questioning my usage of words is futile .)

To the point!

I’ve recently joined a gym. In order to join the gym, you have to speak with a sales rep who gives you the spiel about pricing, get a tour of the premises, etc. I realize that as a sales rep, you’re supposed to talk what you’re selling up; Make it sound amazing.  You should be expressing it so well that I feel like I couldn’t possibly even entertain joining another gym. Their trainers are the BEST. The current deal is the GREATEST and will never be beaten! Invariably, the discount ends by the end of whatever day you walk in.

I get all that (and oh boy, did I get it).

The problem is, if I know from the get-go that you’re going to be one of those “everything is amazing” people, everything you say is taken with a grain of salt. If some of what you say turns out to not be true or exaggerated, even if almost everything you say is ACTUALLY honestly and objectively amazing, your credibility is in question.

I don’t like being sold something. I wanted to join when I walked in. Despite the barrage of constant lauding of the place in leiu of real conversation, I joined anyway.

It aint broke. Don’t fix it. Scrabble adding a hyphen and apostrophe?

I was reading the most recent issue of Scrabble News (members only!) and chanced upon this. Hasbro is considering adding hyphen and apostrophe tiles to the game. First of all, no. Absolutely not. Scrabble is the best selling board game of all time. To imply that you need to change it, let alone add non-letter tiles, is just brutal. Also, more than any other game, Scrabble has been run by its players. Most of the employees of the N.S.A. are actually expert-level players. Additionally, before you could buy a handy dandy word list, you had to use an actual dictionary. When it was decided that a word list was actually going to be created, it was assembled by players who would go through dictionaries and hand-write every word, and submit it. If whoever was going through the dictionary missed a word, it wasn’t allowed. The outrage from players, among whom are mainly purists, is going to be overwhelming.

To address the apostrophe first, it’s complicated. Many people don’t know how to properly use the apostrophe in regular writing, let alone in a board game. Very simply, there are many usages for the apostrophe:

1) to form possessives of nouns (the dog’s fur)
2) to show the omission of letters (don’t, can’t, etc.)
3) time and money references in constructions (one hour’s respite, two weeks’ holiday, a dollar’s worth, five pounds’ worth)
4) in abbreviations (gov’t for government, ‘twas? ’til?)

There are many others, and there is some disagreement about certain usages.

What’s even more maddening is the number of common misuses of apostrophes which would make playing the game near impossible unless it was a gathering of fans of orthography.

1) When the noun is a normal plural, with an added s, no extra s is added in the possessive, so pens’ lids (where there is more than one pen) is correct rather than pens’s lids. If the plural is not one that is formed by adding s, add an s for the possessive, after the apostrophe: children’s hats, women’s hairdresser, some people’s eyes (but compare some peoples’ recent emergence into nationhood, where peoples is meant as the plural of the singular people). These principles are universally accepted.
2) If a singular noun ends with an /s/ or a /z/ sound (spelled with -s, -se, -z, -ce, for example), practice varies as to whether to add ’s or the apostrophe alone. In general, a good practice is to follow whichever spoken form is judged best: the boss’s shoes, Mrs Jones’ hat (or Mrs Jones’s hat, if that spoken form is preferred). In many cases, both spoken and written forms differ between writers.
3) No apostrophe is used in the following possessive pronouns and adjectives: yours, his, hers, ours, its, theirs, and whose. (Many people wrongly use it’s for the possessive of it, but authorities are unanimous that it’s can only be a contraction of it is or it has.)

How would it be decided what’s acceptable? The spelling fo’c’s’le, contracted from the nautical term forecastle, is notable for having three apostrophes. The spelling bo’s’n’s (from boatswain’s), as in Bo’s’n’s Mate, also has three apostrophes, two showing omission and one possession. The fo’c’s’le’s timbers is also possible, and has four apostrophes in one word. The abbreviations would be hard to pick and choose.

The hyphen is a whole different story. Most people don’t use them at all, a large majority of the time.

First, some of the most common rules:

1) Two or more adjectives before a noun that act as one idea (one-thought adjectives) are connected with a hyphen.
Examples:This is a low-budget job. [The sense is not this is a low job and a budget job. The words low and budget are linked into the single concept of "low-budget."]

First-class decisions require clear-headed thinking.
He has a devil-may-care attitude.
He is a typical twelve-year-old.
2) Concepts that become to be known as one (X-ray, mother-in-law, top-notch)
3) Numbers and fractions (twenty-three, twenty-fifth, one-fourth, two-thirds)
4) Clarity (re-sign for resign, re-creation for recreation)
Of course, there are many other rules, most of which come with exceptions.

Common misuses/exceptions:

1) Do not use one with adverbs ending in -ly (a project planned carefully, a virus discovered recently)
2) Do not hyphenate words prefixed by non, un, in, dis, co, anti, hyper, pre, re, post, out, bi, counter, de, semi, mis, mega, micro, inter, over, and under (among others) except when the second element is capitalized, as in Un-American and non-English, a hyphen is used.
Of course, there are many more.

Messing with the game isn’t worth it. You would have to completely redo all of the Scrabble word lists. Because there are actually two official word lists, OWL/OSPD (for the U.S., Canada and Israel) and OSW (the rest of the world), different lists will have a different usages depending on the country. Fact is, nobody is going to purchase Scrabble because of the new tiles. The game never really had “pizazz” in the traditional sense and that’s the way it should be. To change the game so that a few Scrabble addicts can now score triple-triples twice a game is just absurd. It would also further the gap between coffee-table players and professionals.

Eh. No thanks.

Eddie Izzard – Squirrel

So, because I’m in the mood, I’m just going to share a bit of a comedy routine that I find funny. Today’s entry is Eddie Izzard – Squirrel:

Squirrels always eat nuts with two hands, always two hands, “Raar-ra-ra-yum-yum-yum”. And occasionally they stop and they go [gasps, starts, then pauses and looks around, wide-eyed] As if they’re going, “Did I leave the gas on? [sudden happy realization] No! No, I’m a squirrel!” [munching nuts]

-Eddie Izzard

Here’s the video, but there’s one cuss word I eliminated from the text, but not from the video.

Mother nature, we’ve bested you, apparently…

There’s something I’ve always wondered. As a ballpark figure, dogs have been around for 10-15,000 years in their current form. They may or may not have evolved from wolves, and been tamed, but I’ll leave that part of the discussion to the experts. Dogs have something we humans don’t. It’s called fur. And despite their apparent ability to survive every feasible element that mother nature has thrown their way, people feel the need to dress these animals. Seeing a little canine in a cute coat when it’s 50 degrees boggles my mind. There may have actually been an entire ice age since dogs have been around, but somehow this thick furred creature needs a sweater made by Burberry.

Now, I know the picture above isn’t a dog. The bull is wearing an ad for the Sports Museum of America, which opens today, actually.  When I saw a 7,000 pound bull wearing a sweater advertisement yesterday, I decided that I’d about had enough and needed to comment.

If you aren’t handicapped, keep moving.

Few things irk me more than seeing non-handicapped people parking in the reserved spots. If nobody in the car has difficulty walking, or doesn’t at all look like the stick figure above, avoid the spots. I’m not handicapped, but if I was, I can imagine that my predicament would be bad enough that I don’t need some too-cool-for-regular-parking guy in sunglasses pulling in because he doesn’t want to walk 100 steps. “Just running in?” Run from farther away. Now I’m not not saying that some people might wish that these people become those needing said spots, but those people might not not be exactly right.

I apologize to all sunglasses wearers who may feel like they were unnecessarily dragged into this.

A bull’s shame

We’re all aware of the existence of the famous bronze 7000 pound “Wall Street Bull” near the bottom of Broadway by Arturo Di Modica which happens to be about 40 steps from my office. Since it’s permanent installation in around 1989, it’s become one of the most popular places to take pictures in the city.

Up close it’s a rather impressive piece of art, and one can certainly see why people would want to take a picture near or on top of it. From the time I get to work until the time I leave, I usually see people waiting for their turn for a picture with the bull (No charge!) (“charge” pun not intended).

What’s interesting/creepy/hysterical is that often there are as many people taking pictures of the rear side of the bull as the front. If you google “wall street bull” you will see a decent percentage of the pictures taken focused on the rear, and particularly, the bull’s “equipment”. There is actually a whole webpage full of pictures of people doing things that can only be described as taking away the bull’s innocence. And people see us locals are immature. Turns out, we’re all children.

Bippity, Boppity, PARTY!

Most people would love to have a magic power of some kind. Some would use it expressly for good; causes like ending starvation, world peace, faith healing for all, etc. Other people would use it for evil, or for their own personal gain, like endless money, women, chariots, and so on. Not me. I want a whole host of powers that serve no purpose but for my own amusement. Just something fun to do when I’m bored.

Chiefly among them would be the ability to shoot confetti from my wrists. At the beginning, I’d probably have difficulty controlling it, and it would go off at random, scaring the bejeezus out of me. Although, from a practical standpoint, no matter how unexpectedly it went off, it does qualify as an instant party starter. Arrive early to an event and find a despondent host that has found everything but confetti? Problem solved. I picture being able to shoot any color I want, on call. I imagine I will have multiple buttons on my arm for each different one, like the bartender’s mysterious drink-dispensing devise.

I’ve also given a fair amount of thought to being able to shoot spaghetti from my wrists. I know it sounds silly and absurd, but I think it’d be cool. Sounds pretty impractical as a power, but I could totally see it as an attack defense. Someone comes too close in a back alley, all of a sudden they are flooded with yards and yards of linguini. Feeling a bit peckish but can’t find anywhere to eat? Not a problem. Fresh tortellini at your disposal.

Dear Mr. Paper Cut,

Why do you sting me so? You always appear in the creases of my fingers, making it sting far more than necessary. If people can get over the flu faster than a paper cut, perhaps it’s time to reevaluate your role in our lives and lingering time. Please go away. Now. No offense, of course.

Why did the rapper cross the road?

When many people listen to rap, their heads bop back and forth like a pigeon’s. I know that I am not the first person to point this out, but I saw a number of people doing it on the train and it just looks downright silly.

(I adapted the joke to an NYC style, referencing a pigeon rather than a chicken.)