Another note on the way the language works, or

I just passed along some erroneous information

I read this sentence today in Discover magazine:

People who grew up watching black and white television are more likely to dream in black and white than are people who grew up watching color.

Then later when I saw S, I wanted to share my new found knowledge with her, so I said:

Did you know that people who grew up watching black and white TV are more likely to dream in black and white.

Now that may be true, but it isn't what the magazine's sentence said. The magazine said if you put two people side by side, one who whatched black and white TV as a kid and one who watched color TV as a kid, if one of them dreams in black and white, the odds are that it is the one who watched black and white TV.

My sentence said if you asked someone who grew up watching black and white TV whether he dreamed in color, chances are good he'd say no.

If you don't find that difference as fascinating as I do, than either you don't hear the voices in your head, or you haven't exhausted your brain by spending too much time working with words.

Back to business Monday

I promise. I'll get back to posting about words and the way they're used on Monday. But for now...

We won! We beat Michigan for the fifth year in a row! That's never been done before.

We don't go to the Rose Bowl, but it's not that we didn't do what we needed to this week. (Sorry, but all Buckeye fans use the first person when we talk about the team. See I'm talking about the use of words already.) And good for Penn State. The Buckeyes will get a good bowl invitation. Probably a BCS one. Not as good as the Rose Bowl. But Penn State deserves it. They beat the Buckeyes in a close game. So, good for Joe Pa. Hope you get USC, and I hope you beat them.

In the meantime, we just have to wait to see where Ohio State is going. So tonight, we celebrate our win over Michigan and our unprecedented fourth Big Ten title in a row (although it is shared). Go Bucks!

Please watch and then share

I found this video posted by Electric Barbarella at Hooker with a Heart of Guile. It's one way the language should be used. I wanted to share it. I hope you do too.

Just do it

I really like it when people do fun things with words.

I found the following on Gawdess's Viewfinder 365's blog this morning. She was writing about glasses.

when I was a kid
I wore them because I had to
now I wear them because I need them

And here's how Braja at Lost and Found in India headed her post I saw this morning:

If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.

When I taught freshman English so many years ago, I used to start every term with a story about how I learned to dive.

I didn't learn to swim until I went to college, but then I never spent much time at pools after that. Then one year, when my oldest son was about 10, we suddenly found ourselves one summer with enough time and money to afford a family membership at the local pool.

I'd take the kids over two or three times a week in the morning for their swimming lessons and then we'd spend a couple hours just hanging at the pool. Mainly I'd sit in a deck chair at the edge of the pool reading a novel and watch the kids enjoy themselves in the water.

One day I heard my oldest son shouting at me "Hey, Dad! Look at me!" I looked up from the book but didn't see him anywhere. "Up here! I'm on the diving board!" I looked over at the diving board at the end of the pool but didn't see him. "No! Up here! The high dive!"

I looked up. There he was on the back of the high dive. "Watch!" he shouted and ran forward jumping when he got to the end, legs kicking, arms flailing, splash coming.

He bobbed up out of the water and swam to the edge where I was. "That was great," I said.

"Now you do it!"

"Maybe later. I'm kind of busy right now." (Hey, I was an English major in grad school. So it was actually work.)

"Oh c'mon, Dad. What's the matter? Chicken?" Of course, he said it in that quiet ten-year-old voice that turned every head in the pool in our direction.

Well you can't let your kid call you a chicken in public, so I closed the book and stood up. "Okay," I said. "Keep an eye on your brother while I go up there."

I walked to the end of the pool and started up the ladder of the high dive. About half way up, I remembered I've got this fear of heights. So I stopped, looked up, saw there was nothing to hold onto once I'd get there. Then I looked down, and there were both of my sons standing over by my chair beaming up at me and pointing. So, like an idiot, I went on up the ladder.

I walked out very slowly to the end of the board and looked down--a long, long way down. I don't need to do this, I thought. I don't need to prove anything to a couple of little kids. So I turned around and figured the best way down was the way I came up -- on the ladder.

I hadn't noticed before, but some kind of big truck driver who used to play linebacker in college had come up the ladder behind me. There he was at the top of the ladder, waiting his turn. I thought about saying, Excuse me, but I need to go back down. But before I could get the words out, he said, "Go ahead, buddy, jump."

So there I was, standing at the end of the high dive, looking down -- a long, long way down -- at the pool below, confirming for myself that, yes, I have a fear of heights. I was wondering what makes you stop before you hit your head on the bottom of the pool? And what if a big gust of wind caught me just as I jumped . . ."Jump, Dad!" both boys yelled in unison.

I looked over to where they were standing, and a crowd had started gathering there, some of them shielding their eyes with their hand, and I though I was hearing scattered cries of "Jump, jump." Then I heard somebody laugh.

I looked to the left, and there was the lifeguard sitting on his high chair chuckling at me. The lifeguard was laughing at me. What does that mean when the lifeguard is laughing at you? What's he going to say when you fall into the pool and drown. "Oh I'm sorry. I was laughing so hard I couldn't even get out of my chair." Pretty soon, though, he took pity on me. "Just hold your hands in the air, close your eyes and fall forward," he said.

What? Do I know this guy? Was he in a class I taught? Did I give him a bad grade on a paper? "What?!" I shouted at him.

"Just close your eyes, raise your hands, and fall forward. It won't hurt."

Now when someone tells you it won't hurt, you know they're not telling you the truth. But then I heard the truck driving linebacker behind me muttering. I couldn't tell exactly what he was saying, but it was something like, "Go ahead and jump, buddy, before I come out there and throw you off." I decided it was better to put my fate in the hands of the lifeguard.

So I closed my eyes, raised my hands over my head, and fell forward. For exactly .018 of a second, it felt exhilarating. But then I hit the water. The lifeguard had lied. It hurt. Oh yes.

But at the same time, I felt this wonderful sense of accomplishment. I swam over to the side, pulled myself out of the water and stood facing the beaming face of my son. "That was great, Dad. Do it again!"

Now here's the really stupid part. I thought, Yeah. Why not? Of course by the time I got to the base of the ladder, he'd run off to play with some new found friend. But that was okay. I wasn't doing it for him.

The second time hurt too, but not as much. And the third time hurt a little less. By the fourth falling forward, I kept my eyes open. It's a wonderful feeling to see the world turn upside down like that while you're in free fall. And it didn't hurt, either.

I must have fallen forward another 20 times before we left the pool. Then that evening, I went back over after dinner and fell forward some more. From then on, every chance I got, I would go off the high dive. Of course, I never became an Olympic diver, but I did get to go off the high platform once at the Ohio State varsity pools. (Quite a bit higher than the high dive at the neighborhood pool. We're talking cliff diving in Mexico.) That was a thrill.

Then I'd tell my students, "That's kind of what learning to write is like. You close your eyes and fall forward. Just do it. It may hurt a little at first. But you'll eventually come to actually liking that you can do it."

And that's what I like about the Blogosphere. All these people just falling forward. Just doing it.


And take a look at today's spotlight post (the link's over in the right sidebar) for a nice turn of phrase.

Nightmare along the Olentangy

This is the story of a word -- nightmare.

I'm a Buckeye. I've been one since I was four years old. That was the year my dad took my grandfather to the OSU/Michigan game known as the Snow Bowl.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Buckeyes, the buckeye tree is a tree that grows primarily in Ohio. It's fruit -- the buckeye -- resembles a horse chestnut, only smaller, harder, and shinier. It has absolutely no commercial value, and is actually poisonous. In other words, buckeyes are a bunch of worthless nuts.

Buckeyes is also the nickname for The Ohio State University athletic teams and their fans. (Again, a bunch of useless nuts -- the fans, not the teams.) For the last few years, Ohio State football fans have been living a nightmare.

It started January 8, 2007. That's when Ohio State was supposed to steamroll the University of Florida to win its 8th overall national championship and its second in four years. Instead, the mighty Buckeyes got leveled 41 to 14. Embarrassing but a fluke, we told ourselves. Ohio State was over confident and had simply under estimated the Florida Gators. They had their guard down, failed to prepare properly, and let Florida get in a lucky punch.

Then came January 7, 2008. The Buckeyes are in the National Championship Game again. This time, they prepared. They were set to show the world that they deserved to be the champs:

LSU Routs Ohio State In Championship Game Buckeyes
Stumble Again As Tigers Win 38-24 For Second BCS Crown In Five Seasons

It was a better game, but still embarrassing. The whole nation was screaming in our ears--"Buckeyes over rated. Buckeyes are losers." We got no respect. It was almost too much to bear.

Then came August 30. Opening day. Ohio State with 20 returning starters, the most sought after freshman recruit in the country, and a highly favored Heisman Trophy candidate was a sure bet to make it to the National Championship game for the third year in a row. And because included among those starters was a cadre of seniors who could have turned pro but chose to return, this was the year that Ohio State was going to silence its critics. All it needed to do was get past USC in the third game of the season. And once again, in front of a prime time National audience, OSU was embarrassed.

Thirty-five to three.

But that wasn't what had made the nightmare so horrible. While OSU won the first two games by large margins, their play was sluggish and unimpressive against what was supposed to be significantly inferior teams. Had we been deluding ourselves all along? Are the Buckeyes over rated? Well it wasn't even a debate any more as far as the rest of the country was concerned.

And it didn't stop there. Sluggish, inexplicable play, consecutive games without an offensive touchdown. We knew what lay ahead was nothing but doom, but we couldn't wake up. And then it happened. we walked right into it. All of our hopes were pinned on one game. Penn State came to town. Ranked number 3 in the country. Undefeated. If we beat them, we get respect back. We don't go to the National Championship, but we win the Big 10. We go to the Rose Bowl and get another shot at USC and redemption. It's the 4th quarter, and we're winning -- 6 to 3. And then we fumble. . .

When you are having a nightmare, you are supposed to wake up. Your heart is supposed to be pounding in your chest, but you're awake, and you can calm yourself. You're not supposed to just keep dreaming the same horrible scene over and over. . .

That was October 25. Less than two weeks before the election, part of another bad dream that had started eight years before with a stolen election. A dream we couldn't wake ourselves out of.
A dream that just kept piling calamity on top of calamity. . .

But we did. We woke up. November 4, the real nightmare ended. And for me, and I hope other Buckeyes, it put things in perspective. This was real. This nightmare mattered. That other nightmare, the one about a football game, it's just a game.

You're going to like this.

Maybe they're Not The Rockefellers, but Rene's posts are absolutely rich. If you've never been to her blog, don't waste any more time. Use the link and head on over to her "big bowl of quirky with a side of sass." You're going to be glad you did. I guarantee it.

More Words I Like

My first nominee for words I like is "Kindness Bandit." You should drop by and check it out.

When S and I lived in Birmingham, we joined the only Unitarian Universalist church in town. It wasn't S's but it was my first time living in the south, and finding the UU community was like finding a safe place while learning a new culture. Now Birmingham is a good place to live. The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is a marvelous tribute to the people who struggled and are still struggling for justice and for treating people the way they should be treated. You get a real sense of what happened there throughout the city's history, not just during the fifties and sixties. And there are fabulous (and some not so fabulous) galleries spread throughout the city and multiple arts festivals with some really great artists and juried shows throughout the year.

But there are things that aren't so great. The company that S was going to work for moved us, and the realtor was chosen by the relocation company. We only had a few days to be there and find a house and moving down from New Jersey we were impressed by two things. The first was the size house we could buy for the money we had, and the second was how integrated the neighborhoods are -- at least the neighborhoods in the price range we were exploring. So at lunch on the second day, I asked about how race relations had evolved, given Birminham's history. The realtor's response was there really is no problem and things were never the way they were portrayed by the media. She said things were good and there wasn't any tension now. Then she added, "There are issues. But I don't understand what they have to complain about. They own all of downtown." We let the remark go -- I know, we shouldn't have. We did, though, because we needed to find a house and didn't have time to find another realtor. But we moved off the subject of race. Then the realtor saw a friend whom she invited over to the table and introduced us to. The very first question he asked us was what church we belonged too. And the next thing he did was invite us to attend his church when we came back to town.

There are two questions you hear all the time in certain circles in places like Birmingham: "Who's your mother?" ("mama" actually) and "What church do you belong to?" Now that second question gets asked a lot of different ways, and sometimes kids who don't go to church get targeted by their classmates. It's almost like a contest to see which classmate can get the unchurched kid to join his or her church.

Which brings me to the second set of words I like. We joined the UU church and then were invited to a reception for new members hosted by the church board. At one point we were all out on the patio of a beautiful home of an artist who belonged to the congregation, and the president of the board suggested we take turns introducing ourselves and say something about how we came to be a UU. As we took turns, a board member gave her name and talked very briefly about her religious upbringing and her growing away from the church. Then she explained how she had had happened to join the Birmingham UU community:

"I became a UU," she said, "because I got tired of telling people I home churched my kids."

More Today's Quotes

There are lots of reasons to not like Georgia governor Sonny Perdue. For instance, one of his main responses to the drought we are experiencing was to schedule a day of prayer and ask all the church leaders in the state to lead prayers for rain. Or during the recent gas shortage, Mr. Perdue saw no reason not to go to Spain and leave the supply issue and public panic to resolve itself. On the op ed page of this morning's Atlanta Journal-Constitution under the headline "The Great Sonny Perdue Gas Debacle of 2008," Luc P. Noiset, an associate economics professor at Kennesaw State, took the good governor to task for one of the actions he did take during the shortage. While Noiset's criticism was not particularly justified or on target, he did turn a nice phrase, which the editor recognized and used as a call out:

"When naive voters vote for naive government leaders, they get naive government policies and suffer the consequences."

(The editor did leave out the comma, though.) And now, here's another one from Pearls Before Swine:

"A man's laugh should not sound like a weasel dying at the gates of hell."

Today's Quotes

Here are a couple of quotes to get us through the day. The first one's in honor of it being a Saturday in October:

"In Wisconsin, a spread offense means eating bread with margarine instead of butter." (Rob Oller, The Columbus Dispatch)

It will be 52 degrees at game time in Madison.

Now on a more serious note (although some people, including S, would tell you I take few things more seriously than Buckeye Football):

"Which amounts to saying that true union (that is spiritual union, or union in synthesis) differentiates the elements it brings together. This is no paradox, but the law of all experience. Two beings never love one another with a more vivid consciousness of themselves than when each is swallowed up in the other." (Piere Teilhard de Chardin)

Think about it.

PANTHERs

Remember Sarah Haskins? She is definitely worth watching. This time she explains what a PANTHER is -- Proud American Needing Token Hillary Estrogen Replacement. Find out whether you're a panther or not at Target Women: Sarah Palin.

Which would you choose?

Here's an entry I made in my poetry journal I don't know how many years ago.

“… for whatsoever the philosopher saith should be done, he [the poet] giveth a perfect picture of it in some one, by whom he presupposeth it was done. So as he coupleth the general notion with the particular example. A perfect picture I say, for he yieldeth to the powers of the mind, an image of that whereof the philosopher bestoweth but a wordish description: which doth neither strike, pierce, nor possess the sight of the soul, so much as the other doth.” (Sir Philip Sidney, “An Apology for Poetry.” )

For Sidney, poetry had two primary functions—to delight and to teach—which made it superior to both philosophy and history. Philosophy presented truths and virtues unadorned, plainly, which made them non memorable. History was restricted by the necessity to show what was done rather than what should be or should have been done. That does not mean that philosophy or history do not have their value. But poetry can do what neither of them can. Sidney uses Christ’s parable of Dives and Lazarus—the one in hell, the other in the bosom of Abraham – to illustrate his point. Christ could have given a straight forward definition of greed or of virtue. But the lecture would not stay in the mind in the same way as the images of the stories he told. Because they delighted, they could also teach. [A particularly interesting phrasing and one that might bear more explication when looking at 20th century poetry is that philosophy teaches those who are already learned. Poetry teaches the innocent.] To illustrate his point about history, he asks where one would look for virtue -- to a historian's representation of Alexander, considering the historian is bound to tell both good things and bad things that happened, or to the poet’s representation of Ulysses or Achilles.

Two contrasting reflections on poetry

Something to think about this morning:

“[G]reat poetry is not inevitable. . . .It seems to result from a providential gift of talent to an individual and to the patient cultivation of that talent by the individual.” (Timothy Steele, Missing Measures.)

“Surely there is good reason to avoid a definition of poetry. The clearer and more concise a definition is, the more poems it leaves out.” (Donald Stauffer, The Nature of Poetry)

Hip Hop and words

There's something interesting happening on You Tube style Web sites. Here's another one exploring the way cultural language shapes the personal world. It's on a site called ill doctrine.

Another interesting word

Actually a phrase. I found it on 45 and Aspiring's blog this morning. (It's well worth the visit, by the way.)

mindful keening

It means a silent but conscious cry of lament.

Interesting word

I just learned the word wordle, and I just wordled Mommy's Nintendo's site. To see it full size, go here.