Use Your Words! - 17 July 2021 - Plague Journal Day 492

Micah 6:8
Daniel 5  John 8:3-11
Yes, your life matters.

We all are still sheltering in place, but I'm here to keep you sane and entertained.
One could hardly ask for much more than that, now could one?


I read recently that a survey of emoji users indicated that a significant majority of them think that using emojis at work is totally appropriate. (I thought of this because for some reason today is World Emoji Day.) I have long railed against the decline of the use of actual words in our society as we move to a post-literate world. (Does anyone think that would be a good thing?)

I mention that I've been against this for a long time simply to emphasize that it's not merely a getting-older-and-therefor-more-curmudgeonly kind of knee-jerk reaction. It's a more heartfelt knee-jerk reaction than that.
I have no doubt that you have heard parents telling their young children to "use your words" many times. I also have no doubt that you have never heard parents tell their children to "use your emojis." Are we going to go back to pictograms for everything? Will we lose the ability to read and write alphabetically? Will Bullwinkle ever be able to read fan mail from some flounder?

This isn't life or death stuff, but it's the next level down. Please - Use Your Words!

Given the terrible flooding going on in the greater Grosse Pointe Metroplex, I doubt I'll be able to celebrate Record Store Day here today, but I do want to acknowledge it. I miss being able to browse through the racks of records (even CDs, tapes, whatever format of recording you prefer) in an actual store, discovering - and buying! - music I might never otherwise have heard. Go shop at a record store if you can.

Keep Calm and Don't Stay Away.
I'll be back tomorrow.
The mental health issues related to our lockdown and the pandemic are especially hard for people with depression. NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has a 24 hour helpline: 800-950-6264.

I Meant What I Said and I Said What I Meant - 21 April 2021 - Plague Journal Day 405

Micah 6:8
Genesis 11:1-9
Matthew 6:7-8
Yes, your life matters.

We all are still sheltering in place, but I'm here to keep you sane and entertained.
One could hardly ask for much more than that, now could one?

While some urge us to write clearly, using only common, easy words, that advice is to be ignored today, as it is Big Word Day.
Today, let us resolve not merely to eschew obfuscation, but rather to elucidate our audience through the employing of a surfeit of sesquipedalian words and oblique, though never obscuring, constructions. Our eleemosynary aim ought to be to elucidate and delight while assigning to any pedestrian locution its due floccinaucinihilipilification.

Keep Calm and Stay Away.
I'll be back tomorrow.
The mental health issues related to our lockdown and the pandemic are especially hard for people with depression. NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has a 24 hour helpline: 800-950-6264.

Coinage du Jour - 27 February 2014

bipolar vortex (n)

A weather pattern originating at one of the poles which causes wild mood swings.

"The bipolar vortex has our kids swinging from Joy over canceled school to Despair over unrelenting winter cold and snow."

that is all

Coinage du Jour - 05 August 13

pregurgitate (v)

The act of swallowing something before one is actually prepared to swallow.

"You ever had a hard candy in your mouth, and you accidentally swallowed it before it was really small enough? Yep, that's pregurgitation, and it can hurt."

that is all

Etymology du Jour - 21 January 2013

Acoustic (adj.)

From:
A, meaning not or without and
cous, meaning grain (witness couscous, the grain dish)

Thus an a-coustic space is one without grain.
Originally this referred to granaries or barns which had been emptied to make space for barn dances (and hootenannies!).
These impromptu musical venues lent their name over the years to the general idea of spaces for music, and the study of the properties thereof.

Now you know.