Month: July 2007

and they were like, “yeah, whatever, it’s the quotative like”

So here I was, sitting here with my laptop when I should’ve gone to bed. And having just finished a task of actual work, I continued to poke around on my laptop, looking around what other folks have written. And then (dude!), what catches my eye but a post on the quotative like.

As you may know, I’m all over the quotative like. So I couldn’t help but to check it out. And what’s more, I learned that there’s even a recent New York Times Magazine column on the topic. And I was like, “Woohoo! Quotative like is hitting the mainstream!”

The article’s a quick read, and generally fairly accepting of the quotative usage of like. However, I don’t entirely agree with the author’s categorization of the quotative like as a function word:

O.K., the new like is hot and it’s useful, but is it legit? Aren’t some rules of grammar or usage being broken here?

Linguists and lexicographers say no. It’s natural, they say, for words to take on new roles. In this case, a “content word” (one that means something) has become a “function word” (one that has a grammatical function but little actual meaning). Academics call the process “grammaticalization.” It’s one of the ways language changes.

I would tend to categorize the quotative “like” as a content word, not a function word. But it’s a bit tricky. But it does make me ponder the origins of the usage. I wonder if it arose from the hedge-like interjection form of “like.” You know, the one that, like, people toss in that doesn’t, like, add a lot of meaning? I can imagine an origin based on a usage like (such as) “…and then he said, like, ‘no way.'” or “I thought, like, ‘his use of that discourse marker was infelicitous in that context.'” If my hunch is right, then this would be a case of a word becoming more contentful…

breaking the spell of procrastination

I’ve lateley spent some time thinking about procrastination. And not just about procrastination, but about procrastination. The word, that is. Perhaps because I’ve been spending a lot of time procrastinating. Inspired by Sage‘s Word Wise Wednesday tradition, I thought I’d share a bit that I’ve learned about the etymology of procrastination. Remarkably, the meaning of the word has not drifted far, at least according to the Online Etymology Dictionary:

procrastination
1548, from L. procrastinationem “a putting off,” noun of action from procrastinare “put off till tomorrow,” from pro- “forward” + crastinus “belonging to tomorrow,” from cras “tomorrow,” of unknown origin. Procrastinate is recorded from 1588.

It’s terribly unmysterious.

I was quite interested to note, however, the description of the word as a “noun of action.” In my experience, it often seems to be more of a noun of inaction. And what’s more, observe that one can spell the word inaction from a selection of the letters of the word procrastination. Coincidence? I think not.

Because let’s face it, without inaction, procrastination just wouldn’t be the same.¹

You may also be interested to learn that, in addition to inaction, the following words (and many, many more) can be made by using letters of procrastination:

pasta, carrot, onion, poi, toast, pots, coin, top
trap, scrap, ration, nation, station, Patton, stint, coot
tint, print, caption, croon, tiara, stair, star, icon, coop
scoop, poo, poots, crap, strip, carrion

and, you may be happy to learn

stop

And do you want to know what got me a-ponderin’ about procrastination, and the words one can spell from its letters? I realized that one can spell…pants.

Pants!

And of course, realizing that made me want to come up with a full-blown anagram for procrastination with pants. It’s been tricky, but here are my candidates.

Croatian roi pants²

coir pants ration³

I think my best attempt is this one:

Rio pants action: R

————————-
¹ Actually, without inaction, procrastination would end up something like prorast. And where would that get us?

² Using the a French word roi, meaning “king.” Or alternately “Croation iro pants,” using a Japanse word, iro, meaning “color.”

³ Where coir is a fiber that might be a bit rough for pants.

summertime blues

blueberries.jpgWe went blueberry picking yesterday. What was most exciting about this was that we only had to go about 2 miles up the road. This is one of the perks of living out in the boonies.

The farm is actually a tree farm, and this was their first year with blueberries. The farmers said they think the bushes produced some last year, but they think the birds got all of them. This year, they put up a fence and nets. And those little blueberry bushes had lots and lots of berries.
blueberry_rows.jpg
Phoebe picked quite a few berries. She was a bit unclear on the concept of putting the berries into the container, though. When I’d hold the container out to her, she’d reach in to take some out. She had her own ideas for berry storage. One of the farm owners was out in the rows tending to the bushes, and gave us the go-ahead to let Phoebe have her way with the berries. (They don’t spray the bushes with anything, plus the rain of the night before had given the berries a good extra rinse.) The farmer also said she liked it when kids ate the berries right from the bushes, since it let them see where they came from. Phoebe was ever so happy to oblige. Since they charged for the berries by the pound, we thought it would have been fairest to weigh Phoebe going in, and then once more before leaving. But the farmers would have none of it.
phoebe_blueberries1.jpg phoebe_blueberries2.jpg

It was a remarkably pleasant way to spend part of the morning. The farm was picturesque, and not even remotely crowded. The weather was beautiful. Sunny with a nice breeze, so it wasn’t too hot. We even got to meet the dairy farmer who lives up the road from us, who was also there picking blueberries with his wife.

We ended up picking 2 full quarts of blueberries. (Or at least filling 2 quarts. With Phoebe’s help, we picked more.) We headed home, and within a few minutes were snacking on the fruits of our minimal efforts. I’d thought I’d be making a blueberry cobbler, or some such, to deal with all those berries. But well, we didn’t have too much trouble making a dent in our harvest. I hadn’t realized just how good fresh-picked berries could be, still slightly warm from the morning sun. We may well have to head back down the road for seconds before long.

public display of procrastination

Sometimes I feel like that should be the title of my blog. Public Display of Procrastination. Actually, many blogs could fit that bill. Perhaps it could be a blog genre: the PDP.

How did it get to be past 11:00 again? This is the eternal question. At least the nightly question. I’ve been trying to make sleep a priority lately, as sleep can lead to general well-being. And lack of sufficient sleep (which is what I’ve largely been dealing with, or not dealing with, depending on your parse) can lead to the following: memory loss, crankiness, sloth, chocolate cravings, crankiness, low tolerance for the shortcomings of others (“crankiness”), low tolerance for the shortcomings of self (“crankiness”), chocolate consumption, ice cream cravings, chocolate ice cream consumption (which is odd, because I never even used to like chocolate ice cream), reduced productivity, decreased patience (“crankiness”), confusion, speech errors (“each sparers”), muddle-headedness, shorter tempers (“crankiness”), increased stress, distraction, nap envy and memory loss. Also, there is some chance of crankiness.

I was all gung-ho to get some work done tonight, after Phoebe got to bed. And while I’ve been busy since then, actual work has not happened. Here is what has happened. (And I have less than 8 minutes to write it before midnight, at which point my laptop will turn into a pumpkin. And lord knows I’ve got enough vegetables to deal with.)

  • I read a few blogs
  • I read some news
  • I pimped out a minivan with flames
  • I ate some ice cream
  • I wrote and sent a vegetable-related email
  • I wrote a list of bird songs
  • I ate some more ice cream
  • I put in some laundry
  • I wrote this

Time’s up.

tweet, tweet, tweet (and a few other bird songs)

Yesterday’s bird-themed list was remarkably lacking in musical references. Which is a shame, because many birds sing so very musically. And apparently inspire so much singing. So, I offer up a supplemental bird song list.

Bird Songs

Three Little Birds, Bob Marley
The Littlest Birds, The Be Good Tanyas
Wonder of Birds, Innocence Mission
King of Birds, REM
Bird on the Wire, Leonard Cohen
Blackbird on the Wire, The Beautiful South
Blackbird the Beatles
Blue Jay Way, the Beatles
Cuckoo, Kristin Hersh
Kookaburra, Marion Sinclair
Rockin’ Robin, Bobby Day
Mockingbird, by Eminem
Parrot Polynesia, Shonen Knife
The Peacock Song, Bif Naked
Fly Like an Eagle, the Steve Miller Band
Free Bird, Lynard Skynard
And Your Bird Can Sing, the Beatles
Canary in a Coalmine, The Police
Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, Tom Lehrer

And in case you were expecting some more creative song titles, I refer you to this list someone put together a couple of years back, which offers up A whiter shade of quail and Wren drops keep falling on my hen.

for the birds

Chirp, cheep, tweet. This week’s theme for things is birds. The feathers are flying. Suspect fowl play.

  • 10,000 Birds:
    A blog of many birds, though I haven’t counted them. This month’s Carnival of Color, where my green guys have gone to hang out, is graciously being hosted by 10,000 Birds.
  • The Birds (1963)
    Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller of birds on the attack.
  • Eat like a bird:
    An expression that means “eat small amounts.” Of course, actual birds can be seen to eat constantly, and consume large proportions of their body weight each day.
  • Birds of a feather stick together:
    A saying meaning that like-minded people tend to associate with each other. Happily, there’s no actual sticking together, with feathers. Because that would be messy.
  • My little chickadee:
    This is a nickname that my mother had for my sister and me, her little chickadees. Also the title of a 1940 movie. Apparently was a catch phrase of W. C. Field’s.
  • Phoebe:
    Okay, my favorite Phoebe is not actually a bird, but a small person. With no feathers. But phoebes, such as the Eastern Phoebe, are birds. With feathers and everything.
  • The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe
    The famous poem. (Features the name Lenore, too, which is a family name. Most recently in use as a middle name by my own little Phoebe bird.)

    Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!’
    Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.’

  • Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. The Adult Swim cartoon. (Not actually a bird, but a guy who dresses in a bird-like costume. Complete with wings.)

    Once a third-rate superhero, Harvey Birdman is now a third-rate lawyer trying like hell to get by in a fancy law firm. It’s not clear whether Harvey actually went to law school, but he definitely knows the things to say to sound like a lawyer. And he has a suit now, that’s for sure.

  • Woodsy Owl
    A mascot for the United States Forest Service. “Give a hoot. Don’t pollute.”

    • woodstock.gif

  • The Golden Goose:
    A fairy tale about a goose with feathers of gold.

    • We have several yellow birds that bear little resemblance to actual yellow birds:

  • Big Bird, of Sesame Street. Large, yellow, feathered.
  • Woodstock, of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts. Small feathered friend of Snoopy.
  • Tweety Bird, the Looney Tunes bird.
    He tought he taw a putty tat.
  • There are also heaps o’ ducks, chickens and penguins. I could easily make a list about each of those. Maybe I will at some point. But for now, lets say…Daffy, The Little Red Hen and Opus.

    • This bird list could go on and on, but I’ll stop there for now.

    all the right ingredients

    Yesterday was my CSA pick-up day again. The load was a bit more compact this time, without the mega-loads of lettuce. (I won’t be cursing those ninja woodchucks yet, as I still have plenty of lettuce from last week.) We got beets, scallions, baby fennel, more bok choi (the last of it till fall), a bit more kale, baby garlic, and a little bundle of basil.

    I was very excited about the basil, and had the urge to use it right away. And then I realized that, amazingly, I had all the ingredients for a traditional pesto: we had a hunk of parmesan, lots of pine nuts and some decent olive oil. And with the baby garlic fresh out of the ground and that beautiful bunch of basil, we were golden. I am not someone who has a well-stocked pantry in general, so I felt quite pleased with myself for being able to do this. We had the pesto with some rotini. It was pretty tasty.
    justpostjune2007
    And speaking of having the right ingredients for some tasty goodness, the Just Posts are up again. This month, jen of One Plus Two is joined by Jess of Oh, The Joys to serve up this monthly buffet of posts on topics of social justice and activism. I’ve got a post on the table over there, too. Head on over and dig in. (Just click the pretty birdy button.)

    I’m a word freak, don’t you know

    A few weeks back I wrote a post in which I claimed that some posts a few folks wrote (for a meme) had used too much of a thing. Too much, in fact, to fit the name they’d used for that meme. So I wrote a post of my own, played that same game, and stuck to the rule.

    Well, I had fun with that post. I had to choose my words with care. And then I thought it might be hard to write a whole post that way. But I thought I’d give it a try. It’s not as hard as I thought. As I sit here, I can find quite a lot of words to use. (The sad thing is, I can’t name the thing, the rule, since to tell you would break that “one” rule of this post. You’ll have to guess what it is. Or in case it’s not clear, just go back to that old post. )

    Since I may find it hard to write with much depth, as I find that there is a tense or two that I can’t use, I think I’ll tell a tale. Here goes.

    There was once a young girl who loved words. She loved to say them, write them, and play with them like toys. She’d bounce them, flip them, or squish them up. She liked to roll them off her tongue.

    She could talk all day, and use lots and lots of words. But the sad thing was, she did not have much to say. At least not much that was worth while. Most of what she said made no sense at all.”Truck, muck, shoe, socks!” she would say to her dog. “Boo, blue, too, true,” she’d tell her mom. “Dude, prude, dance, pants” she’d shout to the man at the store. All day long, words would pour out of her mouth. Lots of words, short words. But not much sense. Blah, blah, blah, blah, she might as well have said.

    One day as she was on her way home from school, she saw a strange red cat. She stopped to have a look at the way the bright red fur shone in the sun. As was her way, she spat out some words of no sense. “Bird, turd, drop, fraught,” she sang.

    “What do you mean by that?” asked the cat.

    Kate, for that was the girl’s name, paused. She had not known that cats could talk. “Cow, crow, coo, phlegm,” she said, once her first shock had passed.

    “Why do you talk like that? I don’t get it,” The cat said.

    “Hmmpf,” Kate said. “Well, I’m not sure. I know I like to play with words, though,” she told the cat. (For she could make some sense when she chose to.) “It’s fun. Roof, tooth, duck, shale.”

    “Oh,” said the cat. “I see what you mean.” He thought for a bit and said: “Flip, trip, burp, plow.”

    Kate smiled. “Scoop, stoop, tree, sine,” she said right back. And the two of them walked off hand in hand.

    The end.

    “Wait,” you say. “Cats don’t have hands.” Well, that’s true. But I made the rest of it up, too. So there.

    One last thing. Can you give a thought as to how to end this phrase:
    Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their _____.

    the eleven-o’clock salad

    lettuce.jpgIt’s just past 11:00 p.m., and I just ate a big salad. I realized that before you know it, it will be time for my next CSA pick-up, and I still had 3 heads of lettuce, plus lots of other greens, onions, and kohlrabi. You will be proud of me to know that I opted to make and eat salad rather than going right to the freezer to get out the ice cream which we bought earlier this evening. (Note that I have not yet forgotten the ice cream. Its time will come.)

    The salad was good. I do like salad. Especially when it’s been tossed with the dressing in a bowl, so that the dressing is all evenly spread around. An equal distribution of wealth, as it were. (I like to eat a good helping of socialist metaphors.) And by the way: boy-oh-boy has our salad spinner been seeing a lot of action lately.

    I keep feeling like I want to record more of my life, of our life. I’m not sure why, exactly. Part of it is that I like my life, and imagine that some day I’ll look back fondly on this time, and feel a bit sad if I don’t remember what my day to day life was like. My future self will think things like: “Back when I was a new mother, did I eat enough vegetables?” or “Did I get enough sleep when I was a grad student?” or “I wonder what I thought about pants when I was in my 30s?”

    I keep meaning to update the Phoebe Blog more frequently. Phoebe keeps growing and changing, and well, doing things. Again, things that I feel like I’ll want to remember. My memory fades so quickly, and the days blur together. Hell, the weeks and months blur together. I just managed to post a bit to the Phoebe Blog last night, but there are gaps. It’s strange this feeling that I need to record all of it. I don’t think my parents recorded too much about me, or even my sister (the first-born). I wonder if it’s partially my packrat tendencies making me want to store things away. (The packrat in me badgers me to squirrel things away? Can I fit a rabbit into this somewhere?)

    The trip plans are coming along moderately well. I have squared away an apartment in Paris. I have filled out the form from the conference organizers to get a hotel room in Saarbrucken, who seem to have reserved every last hotel room in the town so that you must go through them. (Which means you may not actually get a choice about which hotel you’re going to stay in. Which may lead to some difficulties, as we have special public transportation and crib needs due to travelling with a toddler. I sent an email. I think I’ll be known as a troublemaker to the conference organizers. Because I also questioned their request to have a letter faxed from “the head of my institution” stating that I am a student in order to get the student discount for registration, in addition to sending a scan of the student ID. They claim that such a letter should only take “2 minutes” and is standard procedure. Which is a load of hooey.) I also still have to look more into trains.

    And I keep thinking it would be nice to watch a movie. It’s possibly been weeks since I watched a movie. Oh yeah, and I’m supposed to be doing work. Oh wait. Now I’m supposed to be sleeping. Crap.

    And you know how I felt compelled to write more 7 lists? Well, as I anticipated, I didn’t have much time. Phoebe’s nap ended, followed by needing to get her a meal, and get her dressed, and who knows what all, resulting in a time lapse of two hours. Then we went out a shopping excursion to get a birthday present for John’s aunt. (We’re going to her 80th birthday party tomorrow. Possibly not the 80th such party that she’s had.) We didn’t get home till 8 or so, then it was time for Phoebe to get a bath and get to bed. It was 9 by the time she was in bed. (Way past her bedtime, but she seems to have her parents’ night owl proclivities.) So, no time to work on lists. But since I don’t want to throw them away, or toss them into the compost pile with the beet greens, I’ll lay them on you here.

    So, here are some sevens (and sevenths) I thought about incorporating into some lists.

    More than seven more seven things.

    books:

  • The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. (I haven’t read it, but it seems to have a Phoebe.)
  • The Seven Dials Mystery, by Agatha Christie
  • The 7 habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey (Not that I’ve read it. I have a low tolerance for self-help books)
  • Seven Spiders Spinning, by Gregory Maguire (one of his kids’ books)
  • Seven Daughters and Seven Sons, a young adult novel by Barbara Cohen, based on an Iraqi folktale.

    • music:

  • Seven and the Ragged Tiger, an album by Duran Duran
  • “lucky number 7 passed me by,” a line from Cracker’s “Lonesome Johnny Blues”
  • “Love is the seventh wave,” a song by Sting
  • A line from “Monkey Gone to Heaven” by the Pixies:

    • If man is five (if man is five…)
    and the devil is six (and the devil is six…)
    then god is heaven (then god is heaven…)
    this monkey’s gone to heaven

  • There are also seven days in a week, seven deadly sins and seven wonders of the world. You can be in seventh heaven, you can get seven years of bad luck if you break a mirror, or you can sail the seven seas. Agent 007 is Bond. (James Bond.)

    • If you’ve got more 7s for me, toss them my way. Toss them like a salad.