Stuff that I Have Noticed #22 Words

Dr. Nichols, head of the Theatre Department at Whittier College, taught an appropriately named class called “Oral Interpretation”. I loved Dr. Nichols. He had a fine sense of humor. There was a guy in the class, something of a stuffed shirt, a ‘my shit don’t stink’ sort of character, who exemplified his assholery by beginning his name with a letter; S. Melton Handman. (Not his actual name) Everyone called him Mel. I called him S. This pissed him off no end which, of course, was my intention. One day in class we were discussing some piece of writing and in an attempt to express my idea about it I used “poetryizing”, a word I’d coined on the spot. S was, as expected, outraged stating that poetryizing was not a word. Dr. Nichols asked if he understood what I meant. When S grudgingly admitted that he did Dr. Nichols said, “Then I suppose it is a word.”

Since I was a very young boy I have been fascinated with the words in the American English language. The first book I ever owned other than a bible (at six or seven) was a dictionary and as soon as it was in my hands I sat down to read it. And while I didn’t get very far into the first chapter before realizing that this was not the intended use of this wonder-full tome, I’ve treasured dictionaries, thesauri and all books about words ever since.

“Poetryizing” was my first known coinage and I’ve been doing it ever since. Two recent examples
Ambisinisterous: Equally inept with either hand
Irrationale: Very bad reason for doing something

I have an extensive list and if you’re interested let me know and I’ll send it.

This is not to say that I don’t love the language as it is. All live languages grow and meanings evolve as they should. But I’m deeply offended, even angered, by the dilution and distortion of our beloved Mother Tongue. Neo-spellings such as “qwik” and “lite” for example I find odious. An argument can be made that these should have been the spellings in the first place but they were not.

Then there are the misunderstandings of meaning. When did “third anniversary” become “third year anniversary”? Have even the intellectually superior editorial writers and commentators forgotten the meaning of “anni”? I won’t enumerate them here but there are dozens of such misuses every day in the major newspapers and on TV. I almost forgot “I feel badly.” You mean that you’re not very good at feeling? And “She came to visit my wife and I.” My wife was out so she just saw I. This could go on for a while but me will spare you.

Another exasperation: The wrong answer in dialog comes up frequently in both drama and real life. “Do you mind if I …?” And the answer quite often is “Sure” or “Yes”, which actually means I do mind while intending to mean no I don’t mind. The correct answer is obviously “No” as in it’s okay I do not mind if you … One of the keys to making sense is listening carefully.

This last one, the mother of all mis-locutions, is so prevalent in our common parlance that none other than the Champion of Conversation, that Doctor of Dialog, Aaron Sorkin his own-self, not only put this in writing, he put this line into the mouth of his own eloquent Head Writer, Toby Ziegler in The West Wing. “I could care less.” What?!? Happily, Richard Scher & Anne Godwin got it right when they wrote the song, I Couldn’t Care Less.

I was never all that good at the actual rules of grammar – names of tenses, clauses – that sort of stuff but I have an instinct for meaning and clarity. Even though I do split the occasional infinitive (one of the few rules I do know) when I commit that sin it’s in the service of smoothness and understandableness.

The last word in my previous sentence brings me back to the subject of coinage. When I need a word to fit a situation I simply invent one. On the bike ride home from my office I used to pass two large clocks on a pair of buildings that are less than three blocks apart and they usually had at least one, sometimes a two minute discrepancy. One day I noticed that they were the same so I told my friend Jeff, another word lover, (who knew about the clocks) that I had experienced an unexpected temporal “crepancy”. It took about three seconds then he grinned.

Long before I began writing books or even essays such as this I was an actor. Over the years I mentally accumulated (intentional split infinitive) several lines of dialog that I enjoyed speaking aloud. Some were lines that got laughs but most were just fun to say. They tripped pleasantly off my tongue. Here are two of my favorites.

Luther Billis in South Pacific: “Look at that beach … swarmin’ with eager beavers, ten thousand guys … all jerks.”
Boris Adzinidzinadze in Can-Can: (read out loud with a “Bulgarian” accent.) “Praxiteles vas a sculptor. He had a girul. She didn’t vant to be a dancer!”

Here are a couple of favorite lines that I’ve written.

From chapter six of Three Stages: [On my neighbors loud morning music] “The wall in my bedroom, against which my bed stood, was the opposite side of their living room wall. This infelicitous juxtaposition often caused an abrupt awakening and bodily levitation less than three hours after I had retired.”

From chapter thirty of Waiting for Elizabeth: “She asked me if I would do the job for the same fee as all the master teachers. … I figured I was still okay in the dollars department then she dropped the other shoe. ‘They each get $1,500 for the entire nine days.’ This affront took me aback. (I’ve waited seventy-eight years to write that line.)”

Another writing device I love, although ’tis looked down upon by proper writers, is alliteration. I delight in it when I read it and am proud when I’m able to write it. There are multiple uses in my Memoirs but my favorite and all-time personal best (22 Fs) is in the description of a winter hat my aforementioned pal, Jeff, sent me from Kazakhstan.

Furry Fez

Fabulous, Fantastic, Fancy, Fine, Fluffy, Furry, Fez; Fashioned From Formerly Frighteningly Funky, Fierce, Frozen, Feral, Ferocious, Frisky, Funny-Faced, Feisty Foreign Foxes*

Try topping that terrific term train.

*For my fellow animal lovers, according to Jeff, who taught English there, Kazakhstan is overrun by foxes so I don’t feel too bad about wearing a couple. Warmest hat I’ve ever known.