Friday, December 9, 2016

New Yorker Letters; Veterans' Concerns; Walls; Regional Speech; Name Tricks; Tips for Having a good Day

Cold... 31 degrees.  That's below the freezing point, folks. 

Elaine and I went to the CLV trip to Manhattan.  This was an imaginary trip with music and food.  Elaine ate duck and I ate prime rib.  Lots of good food and cheesecake desert.  A fun time.  We sat with Bob and Carol Nicoll, who originally lived on a farm in upstate New York.  He worked for IBM and knew John Glenn who just died.  A very interesting evening.

Letters to the New Yorker

A couple of letters caught my eye this week.  One was from a retired service man, Doug Bradley::

"Many of us (veterans) are concerned about a Trump presidency, which will directly affect our benefits and our health care...None of (the other Commanders-In-Chief who had not served in the military) ... invoked five draft deferments during a war (Vietnam), when each and every time another young man was drafted to serve in his place.  Nor has a Commander-in-Chief ever publicly insulted a P.O.W. such as Senator John McCain, or bragged about wanting a Purple Heart but didn't want to make the sacrifice necessary to earn one."

Another was from a Canadian, Ami Sands Brodoff:

"Do Trump and his followers realize that when you build a wall you imprison those inside, too?"

Your Speech Clues

Noted linguist, Mario Pei cites lots of ways you can tell the region someone comes from.  The one that surprised me was:

"The plural of you.  This is rendered as you-all in most of the South, as you uns in the Ozarks, mongst ye in Norfolk, and youse in the New York area."

Some other sound triggers that can be used to guess where you come from:

merry, Mary, marry.
greasy, greasy
wash, wush
dog, dawg, dahg
log, lawg, lahg
park, father
ash, ask
horse, hoarse
first, foist

Language Notes

In the Mensa Bulletin for November 1998: Richard Lederer, noted language expert and Mensa member, showed how scooting the "s" across the space separating the first and last name of a celebrity reveals something about the celebrity, for example::

Garry's handling
Sharon's tone
Gloria's wan son
Soupy's ales
Larry's torch
Sylvester's tall one
Loretta's wit
Tom and Dick's mothers
Robert's tack
Arnold's tang

Of course, most of these folks were in the 1998 headlines.

Brighten Your Day

In 1997, Doctor Dean Griffin's wife borrowed some tips from the Woman's Day magazine on how to have some fun and make your life more meaningful. .  She published the tips in the Doctor's newsletter.  Here are some of the tips:

Pick up the phone and renew an old friendship

Take a brisk 30 minute walk, rain or shine.

Reminisce through your old photographs and scrapbooks.

Do something nice and unexpected for someone who's down.

Smile at everyone you see. (Be careful with this one.)

(At Carroll Lutheran Village, you can tell who the new folks are.  They are the ones who have not yet learned to smile and say hello when passing other residents.  But, they learn fast.  However, smiling at strangers on the street can sometimes make people think you are nuts.)

Have lunch with a friend.

Volunteer.

...........................................................................................................................





No comments:

Post a Comment