Somewhat Rhetorical Question of the Week

[Werner]

Here in Appalachia, autumn is definitely a beautiful season! The leaves around here are generally at their peak of color in October (especially early October).

[MichelleCH]

Only a few more weeks Werner!

[Werner]

True, Michelle! At this point, there still hasn't been a whole lot of color change.

[Werner]

Charly, the rivers here have run high, and the Bluestone River even flooded some in the downtown area of Bluefield, VA a few nights ago, though it had subsided well before midnight. And the weather for the past several days has tended to be overcast and intermittently rainy. But it's gloriously sunny and warm today, and we've come through much more easily than many lower-lying communities in other parts of the state and the Carolinas did.

[MichelleCH]

I'm glad you didn't get much Werner. It was quite rainy today for a short period but we really didn't see too much damage from Florence. I am so ready for the humidity to go away!

[Werner]

Thanks, Michelle (and glad you folks escaped the worst of it, too!) and Charly.

[Werner]

Charly wrote: "While this latest discussion has gone a bit afield from the original question this is what I think we were hoping to generate when we started Rhetorical..

Wish more newcomers would join in."

Amen to both thoughts!

[Werner]

Perhaps surprisingly, I don't have any problem with that. While I like window shopping in such venues, I'm actually a very picky book buyer. I have so many piled-up unread physical books that I already own that I tend to be conservative about adding any more to the mountainous piles.

[Werner]

Charly wrote: "You can always pass a book along. At times when I a book, I know I know I am getting a book that will probably get 4 or 5 reads in my family. "

Since our girls are grown and moved away from home, it's just Barb and I in our household; but we sometimes do pass books on to each other, or buy with the idea of reading them together. And I also buy books as gifts for family members. When I do buy books, I'm much more apt to buy from used book venues than to buy brand new ones.

[Reggia]

I would find it very difficult not to buy something at such a sale. I buy very little books brand new, many used and I borrow from the library frequently. But deeply discounted prices at library sales and second-hand shops are deals I can't resist.

[Werner]

I've been showered with so many blessings that it's almost impossible to single out any one that I'm most thankful for!

[Reggia]

I'm so very thankful for everything that worked together that enabled me to make several trips this year. One was to Idaho to visit... by chance all of my siblings happened to be in town... one of my sisters I hadn't seen in 14 yrs, and one of my brothers I hadn't seen in 11 yrs... I just found out last night that he has liver cancer.

[Werner]

Reggia, so sorry to hear the news about your brother! He'll be in my prayers.

[Reggia]

I'm very aware of it... I need my daylight! Also, I lead a late afternoon/early evening hike a couple times a month, so I keep track of the sunset times as I schedule the hikes. That way we can see the sunset as we're descending.

[Werner]

Charly wrote: "Here on the Winter Solstice perhaps we should pose the question. Do you pay attention to the solstice and equinox days."

I wouldn't say that I pay them marked attention, but I am definitely conscious of the lengthening and shortening of the days in the seasonal cycle. In traditional Scandinavian culture, the summer solstice (Midsommardagen) is a major holiday, and still is for the ethnic Swedish community in Minnesota, where I was born. But I was raised in Iowa in a household that didn't observe ethnic traditions; and since my wife Barb was born on the summer solstice, in our family her birthday has always by far elbowed out the solstice itself in significance. :-)

Here's a link to the American Swedish Institute's page about the 2018 observance of Midsommar: https://www.asimn.org/programs-educat... .

[Reggia]

Charly said, Why can't there be a like button in GR. Like.

Like. ;-)

Werner said, ...In traditional Scandinavian culture, the summer solstice (Midsommardagen) is a major holiday, and still is for the ethnic Swedish community in Minnesota, where I was born.

Must be the Swedish in me, too. If I lived in Minnesota or Scandinavia, I would definitely see the necessary appeal to celebrate the summer solstice. (I've been doing a little bit of DNA testing and research, and have found a link to Minnesota -- a paternal grandmother, and probably from her a fair amount of Norwegian and Swedish.)

[Werner]

Glad to hear that you have a Scandinavian connection, too, Reggia!

[Werner]

Charly wrote: "New question. Do you feel that doing a good deed today is a way to repay someone who did a good deed for you at some time in the past?"

I've honestly never really thought of it in those terms. But I could understand how some people might, and how that would be a meaningful way of viewing it.

[Reggia]

No, I never think of my good deeds as repaying or paying forward. They're simply a point and place in time when I am in a position to do "good for others".

[Werner]

"Mouse" has acquired a new meaning in the past 25 years or so that it hadn't had before. Back in the early-mid 90s, the BC library still had very little computer technology, and what we did have was UNIX-based, not "point-and-click;" I'd never seen or heard of a "mouse" in the computer-tech sense before. When I had occasion to visit another library and encountered one for the first time, one of their librarians asked me if we didn't have a mouse at our library. (I told her we'd had one a couple of years earlier, but I'd caught it in a wastebasket and released it in the woods.... :-) )

[Werner]

Charly wrote: "Not sure if people, especially young people still "dial" their phones."

No, rotary phones aren't even made any more, and I'm not sure any of the old ones are even still operational. (One of my brothers-in-law and his wife still have their old one on the wall, but the line is no longer connected.) All or virtually all phone calls nowadays are made by punching the number on keys. So "dial" in modern parlance is mostly a noun, not a verb. :-)

[Werner]

Personally, I've never heard anyone use "dial" as a verb for making a call on a keyboard phone. (Though maybe some people still do.)

The old usage of dial, of course, is a perfect example of making verbs out of nouns: the old phones had rotary dials, so when you turned them, you were "dialing." To me, that seems like a fairly straightforward and natural development of the language. A great many of our verbs and nouns are the same word used differently, like "walk" or "fight," for instance. (And the --ing ending for the verb is just the participle form.) When I studied ancient Greek in seminary, I noticed the same tendency in that language.

So I don't necessarily have quite the same negative reaction as you do to most other neologisms that have come up by that process to describe computer-age behaviors. I use "friending" myself to describe that process (it's related to the earlier term "befriending," but they don't mean quite the same thing); and while I don't "text" anybody, since I don't own a cell phone, I know what the term means. (And I consider it a more practical way to express the concept than having to say "typed text onto a phone" each time you referred to it would be.)

Although my co-director at the BC library, Paula, uses "adulting" as a word (and she has a desk plaque that says, "I can't adult today!"), I'm more skeptical of that usage myself. To be sure, her plaque is tongue-in cheek, and that's the way she and most people use the concept. But the existence of the term, IMO, reflects and is dependent on a devolved cultural state in which adults acting like adults isn't necessarily taken for granted as the norm. Historically, most generations saw growing up as normal. Nowadays, too many people want to prolong their childhood. :-(

[Werner]

I hear ya, Charly; I'd say "podiumed" is more than a little "out there." :-)

[Reggia]

For me, it would be harder waiting for someone I did not want to see. All the negative emotion would be rougher on my body, than the eager and excited anticipation of someone I wanted to see.

[Werner]

Reggia wrote: "For me, it would be harder waiting for someone I did not want to see. All the negative emotion would be rougher on my body, than the eager and excited anticipation of someone I wanted to see."

That makes sense to me!

[Reggia]

A couple times the book was so good that I didn't want it to end, and so I put it off until the ideal time at which to finish it.

It's usually in the first 1/4 of a book that I might abandon it (at least for a time).

[Werner]

Charly wrote: "Has anyone else gone through a spell where you have a hard time finishing books. Seems lately when I am down to a portion of a book that would let me complete it in one sitting, I procrastinate som..."

No, Charly, I've never had exactly that reaction to a book. If I'm reading something I'm actually finding that uncongenial, I'd probably have bailed on it long before I got that close to finishing it.

[Werner]

That seems plausible, Charly, but I don't really know enough about climate change to offer an intelligent opinion on the subject.

[Werner]

On reflection, having read over many of my Goodreads reviews, I guess that a word I tend to use a lot, as a compliment, is "serious" (so-and-so is a "serious" scholar, writer, thinker, etc.) By that I mean that he/she takes the time to do a decent job of literary craftsmanship, scholarship, etc., and thinks rigorously about important issues rather than mindlessly imbibing other's opinions and prejudices.

There are a whole lot of words which are in increasingly common use in modern-day speech that I particularly dislike hearing used; but I can't repeat most of them in polite society! But one that is repeatable is "their," used as a singular pronoun (!) when the speaker or writer means his/her. I'm strongly in favor of using inclusive language; but I'm not so strongly in favor of it as to be okay with butchering the English language in order to do it.

[Werner]

Thanks, Charly!

[Reggia]

I do sometimes say "sincerely" when referring to my own words, because people look at me incredulously as if they think I'm joking or being sarcastic.

[Reggia]

In these instances, I'm adding "sincere" in after the looks I receive. Thankfully I don't have to do this with most, but there are just some people who don't "get" me. It's a bit disheartening.

[Reggia]

I love fall, admittedly more than when I had the privilege of experiencing it annually. A few times I've been to visit back east at just the right time, and I was mesmerized by the color that I once took for granted.. It was fun being able to wear sweaters and boots again.

But here in Arizona, it just means our daytime temps are finally below 100° and nights are below 80°. But that'll be dropping even more within another month. It is a welcome relief!

I'm experiencing a feeling that I use to associate with spring. I want to open windows and doors in the early morning, spring clean, plant outdoors and just feel that wonderful cooler air in the mornings. I feel reborn, and my hope is renewed.

[Werner]

Summer is my favorite season, but I enjoy fall too (I like the leaf colors, which are usually beautiful here in Appalachia). But I don't think of the beginning of fall as the start of the holiday season --that comes later in the autumn.

[Donnally]

I lived all my life in the Northeast. Then I retired, and a year and a half ago I moved to Florida. I enjoy living in Florida, but there is nothing here like Fall as I remember it. It is nice this time of year to get a break from summer. I was starting to get tired of 90 degrees and sunny every single day. Now the temperatures are more in the 80's and there's a rain storm that comes through every afternoon around 4 or 5. I'm getting used to it, but it'll never feel like Fall.

[Reggia]

Summer was always my favorite... before moving to Arizona.

[Reggia]

Perhaps! It's a "good thing" October through February, and pretty miserable the rest of the year.

[Werner]

Personally, I don't have any problem with kids trick-or-treating on Halloween. IMO, it's a harmless folk custom which adds to the fun of the holiday, and gives children something to look forward to. (In general, I tend to be sympathetic towards traditions, unless there are good reasons to scrap them; I simply don't see convincing reasons here, though I'd surely agree that the custom can be become too overly commercialized.) I have good memories of trick-or-treating when I was a kid.

[Werner]

Charly, you raise a good point; and I'd completely agree that there's a difference between observing a tradition and abusing it. The abuses you describe are a symptom of the broader breakdown of any sense of community in our towns and cities, and of the widespread loss of any sense of ethics. I do think communities need to regulate trick or treating to take a stand against the practices you describe (and back it up with a police presence); and I don't think householders should be afraid or embarrassed to tell hordes of teens "No!" when they knock.

[Donnally]

I remember Halloween with great fondness. There was all the fun of deciding on a costume and then creating it (we didn't buy ready made costumes in the stores back in the day). Then going with a group of neighborhood kids and knocking on all the doors in the neighborhood. It was a fun time of year also because it was getting dark earlier and being out after dark added a little frisson.
I know my kids enjoyed Halloween. My eldest son said Halloween was his favorite holiday of the year, more even than Christmas. I live in a community now that is mostly seniors and retired people. There are very few kids of the age to trick or treat. I don't expect any knocks on the door, but I won't be there in any case because the people in my neighborhood are holding a Halloween party at the local community center. It will, of course, given the nature of the community, be all adults. So Halloween has changed for me.
One of the favorite things I enjoyed about Halloween was carving a jack o lantern. I got to be pretty good at it. One Halloween a few years ago I was told by the father accompanying a young girl that she was afraid to come to my door because the jack o lantern was too scary. He had to come in her place. Oh well, I won't be carving any jack o lantern this year.

[Werner]

Charly wrote: "Seasonal question. What with the internet, and the melting of the ice cap and such do you think the Santa Claus legend can survive the conditions of today?"

Only time will tell. I can't hazard any predictions about what the near future might hold; we're dealing with a culture and a world that's very much in a state of flux.