Debra Chapoton's Blog, page 11

Certain Connotations

I tend to spend a couple of minutes a day standing in front of the microwave and I wonder if some stray rays are zapping my brain cells in various ways. I’m forgetting words and people’s names at a disturbing rate. However, I’m also experiencing an increase in childhood memories popping forth when I hear or read words like “burnt sienna”, “meadow” and “bosom”. Strange, huh? But words have certain connotations; writers are quite aware of how a single word can evoke positive or negative responses in a reader’s mind. I was reminded of this last Sunday night as I took a sunset cruise under the Mackinaw Bridge. I teased a good-looking young man carrying a shoulder bag and said that I liked his “man purse” to which he quickly replied that it was a “satchel”. To me satchel brings to mind the bag a pony express rider used or the leather mail sack that the postman carried to our door when I was little. In great literary works of the past a satchel might hold a wax sealed message from a duke, earl or king. Definitely this is a masculine type word while purse is feminine. Why am I going on about satchels? Because since Sunday I’ve read a couple of books and I’ve come across this word three (!) times. Now that I’ve brought this word to your attention, let me know if you hear or read it this week.

Never Say This Four Letter Word

Each letter in Hebrew has a literal and symbolic meaning. As I’ve been trying to learn a few words in this ancient tongue I’ve been awed at the beauty and complexity of the language and at the same time its simplicity. The two letters that make up the word father symbolically mean leader and house, hence affirming that the father is the leader of the household and the word for son has the same letter for house plus the letter that represents heir. Learning the 22 letters of the alphabet has been an enriching experience, but I was truly astounded when I was studying the four letters that make up God’s name. Transliterated as Yahweh or Yehovah or Jehovah, the Hebrews respectfully refrain from pronouncing it and instead say Ha Shem or Adonai. When read from right to left the first letter is the yod, representing hand, the second letter, he, means Behold! and the third letter, vav, symbolizes a nail. Then the fourth letter is a repeat of the letter he. So God’s name is made up of four letters that shout about Jesus: Hand, Behold!, Nail, Behold!

Stop and Think before using reflexive pronouns

All the time I hear people answer the standard greeting question “Hi, how are you?” with “Good, and yourself?” I want to scream “You! You! It’s ‘how are YOU?’ not ‘yourself!’” What are they going to answer, anyway, ‘myself am fine’? If you are guilty of saying this, please stop. Every foreigner who learns English practices this dialogue: “Hello, how are you?” “I’m fine, thanks. And you?”
Here’s the logic behind reflexive pronouns : they reflect back on the subject. Simply look in the mirror. Who do you see? I see myself. You see yourself. She sees herself. He sees himself (there is no such word as hisself). We see ourselves (yes, it’s plural, never singular). They see themselves (again no such word as theirself, theirselves or themself). You would never say “I see herself” or “He sees myself”.
People have stopped using reflexive pronouns when they should be using them. For example, a certain talk show host might ask, “What are you going to do for YOU?” Because he’s emphasizing the word and trying to make a point we ignore the error, but try saying it without the emphasis and you’ll notice the mistake.
Many people have started using reflexives when they need a subject or object pronoun. Two examples: John and Mary and myself will all be glad to help you. Think, think, think. You wouldn’t say ‘myself will be glad’, it’s ‘I will be glad’. Always check what your sentence would be without the other subjects. This means thinking before you speak . . . hmm, interesting concept. Another type of mistake is substituting the reflexive pronoun for an object pronoun (me, him, her, them, us) in a sentence like “Send those forms to my secretary or myself.” Leave out the secretary and see what you would say.
Quiz:
1. I’m going to buy (me, myself) one of those new cell phones.
2. I’m having a blast. And (you, yourself)?
3. Did you want to know who’s going to the party? Well, just my kids, my spouse and (me, myself, I).
4. Please contact either Janie or (me, myself, I) at this number.
Correct answers are
I’m going to buy myself one of those new cell phones.
I’m having a blast. And you? (Are you having a blast?)
Well, just my kids, my spouse and I (are going to the party).
Please contact either Janie or me at this number. (contact me)

Apostrophes, part 2

I’ve already mentioned my pet peeve about apostrophes. A second annoyance also has to do with apostrophes. I live in a vacation haven of cabins and lake houses where people name their retreats or at least identify them with their last name. The Smith’s Retreat. . . The Jones’ Cabin . . . Chris’ Place. Wrong, wrong, wrong. You show possession with an apostrophe s (and sometimes you drop the s). Whatever is in front of the apostrophe is the possessor: The Smith’s Retreat = the retreat of The Smith, The Jones’ cabin = the cabin of The Jones (hmm, is that a basketball Jones?). Obviously that’s not what they meant. If it’s the retreat of the Smiths then the sign should say The Smiths’ Retreat (dropping the last s) and since the Joneses (plural) are the owners of their cottage their sign should say The Joneses’ Cabin. Chris owns his own resort and should call it Chris’s Place (you pronounce it and don’t need to drop the s here). They can sign their Christmas cards The Smiths, The Joneses or The Jones Family.
Is it the boy’s games or the boys’ games? Both are correct, but the first one means the games belong to one boy. Lady’s room or ladies’ room? Think about it, is the room for lady or ladies?
I recently read a book in which the author kept using phrases such as “Mr. Stevens’s dog” and though correct, other editors may choose to drop the last s. I would drop it for sure if it were the Joneses’ dog (not the Joneses’s dog).
Now I must go to the ladies' room. See ya.

Fail, it's good for you.

I love mistakes. I always told my students that mistakes are good; we always learn more from our errors, faults, and slip-ups than from being right. I tried not to come down hard on anyone who gave a wrong answer. Any confusion, mix-up, misinterpretation or inaccuracy was just another teaching tool. Better to make a goof now than on the test. Don’t we all learn best from our blunders, gaffes and misinterpretations? Remember that embarrassing moment? That time you were humiliated? I’ll bet you learned not to repeat that faux pas.
There’s a reason we have so many words for being wrong, words like imprecision, inexactness, erroneousness, incorrectness, oversight, slip, misunderstanding, misconstruction, fallacy, misapprehension, and miscalculation, not to mention the thirteen or so synonyms I used before I got to this sentence. The reason is . . . we’re not perfect. You’ll find far fewer synonyms for right.
But wait, there’s more. I particularly like blunder, bungle and boo-boo. But my new favorite word for stupid mistake is “howler”.
(Please let me know if you found anything that I messed up in this post. I really didn’t want to botch it up.)

Apostrophes, not apostrophe's

I am not that old English teacher who carries a red pen and corrects bulletins, brochures and menus. However, I have surreptitiously made corrections on restaurant menu boards (like erasing the “e” on “potatoe”) and even used my fingernail to scrape off a few misused apostrophes from metal signs (they had “dog’s must be on a leash in these area’s”). My biggest pet peeve is the misuse of the apostrophe. Apparently teachers have had to drop that lesson from their plans, probably because they’re asked to do so many non-teaching things.
We tried a new restaurant yesterday and I was impressed that the menu only had two apostrophe errors. One was in a category heading: Sandwiches, Pita’s, Salads. Well, someone got sandwiches and salads right, but thought that (maybe because it’s a foreign word) they needed to use an apostrophe to pluralize pita. I’ve noticed that a lot in other restaurants, especially with the word tacos (and they don’t even have an apostrophe in Spanish!) Many years ago I taught eleven rules of plurals and the only rule that includes an apostrophe is for pluralizing numbers, letters, symbols and words (used as words). Examples: The 1990’s were good years. Cross your t’s and dot your i’s. She wrote &’s instead of and’s.
That’s it for using apostrophes for plurals. They are also used for contractions and possession, but I’ll save that for later. Whew! I got this rant down to under 250 words.

A Filly who Farkles

I am a piker. I’ve been playing Farkle on Facebook against unknown “hotdice” fanatics. Some are pikers like me (cautious gamblers) and others outrageously throw the last die and farkle out even when they are behind by thousands. Further research into the word piker, though, brings me the unwanted synonym of cheapskate. I do not think of myself as a cheapskate. I don’t see how these words ever got related. The very idea of gambling seems to imply that one is easy with one’s money. Hold on, I don’t gamble with money. Farkle is just fun and I’m betting imaginary chips that cost me nothing but idle minutes (which do add up). But then if I won’t use real dinero then maybe cheapskate does apply to me after all. Okay, now I want to know where this word came from. Here’s what I found: cheapskate - "miserly person," 1896, from cheap (q.v.), second element perhaps from American English slang skate "worn-out horse" (1894). Hmmm, I like horses.

Hooked on Words

When I was in college I had a professor who wrote a newspaper column on the etymology of words. I was majoring in Spanish and English at the time and I was already hooked on idioms, cognates, word derivations, linguistics, etc. This particular prof inspired me to really think about individual words and pay attention to their families. When I taught my beginning Spanish students that “fácil” meant “easy” and “difícil” meant hard, I would draw their attention to the English counterparts “facilitate” and “difficult”. Unfortunately, not many kids knew that facilitate means “to make easy”. Oh, well, it was then my mission to increase their English vocabularies as well as teach them Spanish. I did some research and found that students that graduated in the 50’s and 60’s had a vocabulary of about 25,000 words. In the 90’s it was down to about 10,000. I have a photo copy of a page from the Detroit News (March 26, 1933) and I scanned for words that high school students would not know and found many, among them “paroxysm”, “biliousness” and “piker” (and these were from letters to the editor!). When I write children’s novels I try to work in good strong vocabulary in a way that will help them unconsciously learn new words. Can that be done? Sure. Example: (For a 4th or 5th grader who didn’t know the meaning of “escapade”) From The Secret in the Hidden Cave: Missy was out of breath more from tension than the short run from the lodge. “Kevin’s trapped in the caves!” she blurted out and then poured out the rest of their escapades. She told him about (spoiler), (spoiler), the explosion, and ended with the fact that Jessica was grounded in her room. Sorry about the spoilers, nevertheless, having written about four adventures / antics / incidents / experiences in the next sentence, the reader learns what an escapade is. Incidentally, escapade is in the “escape” family. Think about it.

Names and their meanings

I’m fascinated with names and their meanings. There’s a lot of symbolism in novels, movies, books, and Spanish soap operas (I’m addicted). Heroes seem to have strong names and nerds, well, you know which names you’d pick if you were writing a story about a geek. I found in my teaching career that my class clowns were usually named Josh - always "joshing" around - and for some reason all three of my all time favorite male students were named Brian or Bryan (The meaning of this name is not known for certain but it is possibly related to the old Celtic element bre meaning "hill", or by extension "high, noble".) My fascination with words and names and their origins got a new boost when I started teaching myself Hebrew. I always check the meanings of Old Testament names of places and people as half the story can be learned from that. My name is Debra. In Hebrew it's Deborah which means "bee". The word for “word” is "dabar" from which comes the name Deborah. Huh? What's the relationship? "The word of the Lord is sweet as honey". I guess it was my destiny to be buzzing around words. What does your name mean and does it fit you?