Appreciation Day

Christmas, etc., holidays, humor, , ,

Now that November 3rd is behind us, we can move on to more enlightening topics instead of heated ones. The big topic this month is always Thanksgiving. (Every year, Dan asks me when Thanksgiving is, and I have to tell him it’s the third Thursday in November and that it’s always on a Thursday. It’s the closest thing we have to a secular movable feast. But I digress.)

I have lots of memories of Thanksgivings past. When I was a kid, we always drove to Granny’s house, where we would partake of the traditional spread of turkey, etc. Then, while the adults lapsed into food comas, one of the relatives would drop us kids off at the movies where, happily sugared up on pie, we would view G or PG films (although the rating system didn’t exist at the time).

(I don’t remember going around the table and saying what each of us was thankful for. There wasn’t a table large enough, so we simply filled our plates and dispersed throughout the house to find comfortable chairs. It was uber-casual. No one dressed up. The whole procedure was repeated at Christmas. But I digress again.)

Since then, there have been many memorable Thanksgivings. There was the year when we were broke, and the local civic center dropped off a box of turkey and fixings, unaware that Dan’s minimum-wage job provided free turkeys to employees.

Then there was the year my sister shrieked in horror when she learned I was making lasagna instead of turkey. (She was always a bit of a traditionalist. She insisted on reading 16 magazine when she was 16 and 17 magazine at 17, even though their target audiences skewed younger. I suppose, if it existed, she would have read 32 magazine at age 32. But I digress yet again.) Other years we have had takeout sushi for Thanksgiving dinner.

The Thanksgiving dinners I remember best were the ones in later years that were held at my mother’s house. There would be a small gathering, usually consisting of immediate family and sometimes a friend or two. We usually got a turkey and accoutrements from Kroger and followed the tradition of loading up our plates and retiring to the living room to eat off the coffee table and the folding card table.

(One year was particularly memorable because Dan’s friend, my mother, and I gathered, and I prepared a big pot of ratatouille that almost killed our friend John with a bay leaf. (I have written about this occasion before in a post called “The Great Thanksgiving Ratatouille.” ) But I digress some more.)

But that’s not what I came here to write about today. In this time of giving thanks, I want to consider how we express our thanks to others.

The easiest way is also the simplest. Just say, “thanks.” This is appropriate for small courtesies like passing the salt. If someone holds the door open for you when your arms are full, “Thanks so much” seems called for. (Sometimes if I’m really burdened, I’ll add, “You’re a gentleman and a scholar,” which usually gets at least a smile. (I don’t know any equivalent for a woman.) But I digress yet again.) If a child holds the door open, I’ll thank them warmly and acknowledge the parent too.

One phrasing of thanks I’ve heard lately is an alternative to “I appreciate it,” namely “I appreciate you.” I like that a lot, but it doesn’t roll easily off my tongue. Too many years of saying “that” or “it” instead of “you” have conditioned me to find the new formulation sounding odd, especially as thanks for small courtesies.

But however awkward it may feel to me, I think it’s a lovely way of giving thanks, in any month.

I Love Politics!

education, etc., family, food, humor, language, , ,

No, wait!! Actually, I loathe politics. It’s voting I like.

No, wait! That’s not completely true. There was a time when I loved politics. It was when I was teaching English at the college level. When election season rolled around, I had the perfect canvas for illustrating rhetorical fallacies.

It was especially nice because I didn’t have to play favorites. Absolutely everyone, of whatever political persuasion, was putting out ads that nicely demonstrated any fallacy you’d care to choose. Whee! There goes a strawman sliding down a slippery slope! And are those ad hominems I see jumping on the bandwagon? An appeal to an Authority who’s moving the goalposts?

Now that I’m no longer teaching, I just find the rhetoric anywhere from annoying to abhorrent.

This year we decided to vote early, largely because Election Day falls just one day after Dan’s second cataract surgery. True, we had to go to the county seat to do it, but we were willing to make the sacrifice because a favorite diner is just two miles down the road from it. Our reward for having performed our civic duty was a Hogzilla (pulled pork and cole slaw) sandwich for me and liver and onions for Dan. And caramel apple lime vodka mules for dessert, which were surprisingly refreshing. Plus, we had fun trying to stab apple cubes with our stirrers.

Dan and I vote in every national election and many of the midterms and locals. I have a philosophy about voting that explains why we do it so faithfully. It is simply this: If you don’t vote, you’re not allowed to bitch about the results. We want bitching privileges; therefore, we vote.

The races in Ohio have been particularly nasty, with ad hominem attacks in particular. And based on the ads, there will be a lot to bitch about.

A Brief Guide to the Terms I’ve Used

  • Strawman. Exaggerating, oversimplifying, or misrepresenting someone’s argument to make it easier to attack. (Proposition: We should reduce the amount of homework students have to do. Reply: So you think that fewer students should get into college.)
  • Slippery Slope. Claiming that a minor step will inevitably trigger a dramatic, unstoppable negative cascade of events. (If you allow same-sex marriage, soon you’ll have people marrying sheep and dogs.)
  • Ad Hominem. Discrediting the person rather than addressing the issue. (The candidate is a Communist. Therefore, they shouldn’t be allowed to regulate city parks.)
  • Jumping on the Bandwagon. (50,000 dentists recommend this toothpaste, so you should use it.) (What do the other 150,000 recommend?)
  • Appeal to Authority. Something must be true because an “expert” says it is, even if they’re not qualified. (Thomas Jefferson said society should be entirely farm-based. He was an expert on the economy of his time, not ours.)
  • Moving the Goalposts. Changing the rules after the opponent has already met the challenge. (I asked you to wash the dishes after dinner. (Person does so.) Sure, you washed the dishes. Why didn’t you dry them and put them away?)

There are many more rhetorical fallacies, but that’s enough for today, don’t you think?

What Animal Would You Be?

cats, etc., humor, journalism, , ,

Once some other journalists and I were dining with the Archbishop of Jamaica. We were all reporting on an organization called Food for the Poor which, naturally enough, gave food to the poor of Jamaica and Haiti. (I was originally supposed to go to Haiti when violence erupted. When they began to shoot presidential candidates, I wasn’t worried. There was not much chance I could be mistaken for a presidential candidate. But then they started shooting journalists, which we all could be mistaken for, and the itinerary was changed. But I digress.)

After His Grace had left, we journalists continued talking among ourselves. One guy said he had really wanted to ask the Archbishop this question: “Your Grace, a question and a follow-up. If you could be any animal, what would you be? And why?”

It seemed a splendid question, and I vowed that I would someday use it. (I’ve also vowed that the next time I got caught in one of those round-robin “Say something you like about yourself” ice-breakers, I would say, “I really love my peaches, and I can totally shake my own tree.” But I digress again.)

I dined with some Irish journalists once, but didn’t try it out then. They were already looking askance at me because I asked who they thought would win the Eurovision pop singing contest, when they were more interested in American presidential politics and whether Jesse Jackson had a chance in hell. (He didn’t.)

I interviewed Bob Keeshan (aka Captain Kangaroo), but again chickened out. He was so impassioned about children’s issues. (One of our other writers got to interview Fred (Mr.) Rogers. I think I might have tried it out on him. But I digress yet again.)

When I asked my friends the question(s), they all said they’d be cats—but only if they could be their own pets. All pampered, no strays. (I didn’t get the impression that they wanted to be purebred cats with diamond collars. Just to have full food and water bowls, some toys, a human who would offer snuggles and petting, a warm place to sleep, occasional treats, and all the love and attention they desired. But I digress some more.)

Once when I was teaching English to a group of young adults, I gave them the questions as a writing assignment. The answers were revealing. Half the class wanted to be eagles, falcons, or migratory birds. The other half wanted to be apex predators—lions, tigers, jaguars, sharks, and the like. What I got from their answers was that they wanted either freedom and escape, or power.

Finally, at long last, I got a proper answer to my questions. It was at a book signing by Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess). After the reading but before the line-up for signed copies and photos, there was indeed a question-and-answer session. Jenny Lawson is quite well-known for being eccentric (not to say peculiar), with a great and idiosyncratic sense of humor. Here was the perfect opportunity to spring my question.

As soon as the Q and A was announced, my hand shot up, and I was promptly called on. “A question and a follow-up. If you could be any animal, what would you be? And why?”

Jenny blinked, obviously taken aback. I felt quite sure that she had never been asked this at a Q and A before. But it didn’t rattle her.

“A tapeworm,” she replied. “ Because I could just lie there and people would throw food down at me. I wouldn’t even have to move.”

I was satisfied. At last I had a reasonable answer to my question. And no doubt a good deal better one than His Grace, the Archbishop of Jamaica, would have come up with!

Out of the Mouths of Youngsters

education, etc., family, food, humor, language

The other day I saw a post telling a story of when a toddler asked his mother for brownies, so she baked a pan of them. But that wasn’t what the boy wanted. He wanted “white brownies,” which is what he called hash browns. (I would have guessed he wanted brownies made with white chocolate, which I don’t even know if it’s possible to do. Also, I don’t know of any style of hash browns that are white. Aren’t they brown too, hence the name? But I digress.)

Kids often invent their own bits of language, for which I don’t blame them, because they’re still learning ours. But along the way, they come up with words and phrases that are useful, cute, or just peculiar. I’ll share some examples.

Two phrases that aren’t related at all, but should be, are go-down and move-down. The first occurred way in the past, when an elderly coworker told me that she was going to buy her daughter a fancy hat for Easter (that used to be a thing). Marguerite insisted that she wanted one with a go-down. Puzzled, Dorothy asked her what she meant by that, but the youngster was unable to come up with a definition. “Well,” said Dorothy, “If you see one, let me know.” Marguerite did, and it turned out to be a ribbon on the bonnet that would go down her back. Mystery solved, perfectly logically.

“Move-down” was coined by a friend of mine when she was young. (Come to think of it, all of these stories are from friends about my age regarding their youth. But I digress again.) One night at dinner, she announced that she was having a move-down. This could have been an alarming statement, but her mother was clever and fairly quickly realized that it meant that Kelly was simply waiting for her food to settle before eating more, a stage which hobbits call “filling up the corners.” Ever since, my husband and I have used this phrase often: “Are you done eating, or just having a move-down?”

My friend Leslie told this one on herself: She was drowsing in the back seat of the car when her mother, who was driving, cried out, “Look at the coyotes!” But by the time Leslie woke up enough to look, there was nothing to be seen but the mile markers. For a long time thereafter, she thought that those signposts were actually called coyotes. (They didn’t live in a place where coyotes were abundant, but eventually she figured it out. But I digress yet again.)

Highways seem to be a fertile place for language invention. My husband was riding in a car with his father when he saw a sign that said “Merging Traffic.” But Dan read it as “Merenging Traffic.” (Possibly a portmanteau of merging and avenging, but something alarming at any rate. But I digress some more.) It has caught on in our household (or car, anyway), and we often say to each other, “Better move over. Those cars want to merenge.”

Another problem with reading signs came from Mary. In fact, it was reading that was the difficulty. Mary’s Mom boasted while on a car trip of how well young Mary could read. “Okay, read that exit sign,” the passenger challenged.

“It says reading,” Mary announced proudly. Unfortunately, she pronounced it “reeding.” They were actually at Reading Road, which was pronounced “redding.” An easy, if embarrassing mistake for a young reader (reeder) to make.

Finally, there was Tom, who couldn’t pronounce the many syllables in “grandmother.” His version came out as “Garboo.” (Not Garbo, as autocorrect insists. Garboo taught Tom racy puns, which I can’t imagine Greta doing. But I digress even more.)

Tom was unlucky, though. He couldn’t manage the syllables in “garbage” either, so that came out “Garboo” as well. (He could, of course, distinguish them visually, if not linguistically. But I digress still more.)

I’m sure I made some doozies myself, but I’m out of room here and can pretend I’ve forgotten them!

Business Blather

etc., humor, language

I recently read a post or article (can’t remember which) in which the writer invented wholly original business jargon to see how quickly it would come into use with that company. The one I remember was “Let’s triangle back to that” instead of “Let’s circle back to that.” Surprisingly (or not), before long the new terms were being used at team meetings, just as if they actually meant something.

During my unfortunate time in the corporate world, I heard and saw a lot of business sayings and metaphors that were either infuriating or amusing. The infuriating ones were war and sports metaphors. (Once, when the president of the company was giving us all a pep talk, he kept using sports metaphors. The women at the company requested more inclusive ones. The next time he addressed the gang, he was using metaphors like “stick to our knitting,” which is pretty hilarious when you think about it. But I digress.)

Other sports/business metaphors included “Skate to where the puck will be,” “move the goalposts,” “get in an athletic stance,” and “let’s get the blocking and tackling right.” (I suppose you could count “The view only changes for the lead dog,” an “inspirational” poster I saw, if you count the Iditarod as a sporting event (which I do). But I digress again.)

Business jargon also leads to some unique new words, most of which are horrible. The one I found that I actually like is “voluntold,” meaning drafted or otherwise assigned a duty without any actual volunteering occurring.

There were a few aviation metaphors as well. “We’re out of runway” and “Let’s take a 30,000-foot view on this,” and “We’re building the plane while we’re flying it,” which sounds like a bad idea in business and even worse in aviation. {I’m not sure about “break down the silos.” I think they probably mean missile silos, which is sort of like aviation or else war, rather than ones for storing grain. Whichever way they mean it, it refers to getting different departments of an organization to talk to one another. But I digress some more.)

Other business metaphors are just weird. There’s “spread the peanut butter,” which is about allocating resources. (Sometimes, apparently, just “peanut butter” is used as a verb: “Let’s peanut butter this to all the departments.” But I digress yet again.) And there’s the awkward “If you can’t ride two horses at once, get out of the circus!” Apparently they’re saying that the business is a circus, an odd admission to make.

There are obvious clichés: “Think outside the box”; easy-to-interpret ones: “put a pin in it,” “selling bottom-of-the-keg products,” “drinking from a firehose”; and computer jargon: “I want to double-click on your idea.”

Linguist and author Suzette Haden Elgin (The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense; Native Tongue series) often said that there were not enough tactile metaphors in writing to go with all the visual and audio ones. I did find one that I think she would have liked: “Get our arms around a problem.”

(Suzette also said that you could stop any pointless discussion cold by saying, “We’ll, you can’t tell which way the train is going by looking at the tracks.” I’ve never tried it, but I bet it would work. I generally get nothing but confusion when I say, “If my aunt had wheels, she’d be a teacart.” But I digress even more.)

Thankfully, I am out of the business world now, freelancing merrily, if not all the way to the bank, at least to some satisfaction. And any jargon or metaphors I encounter are mine alone.

Fun With Typos and Other Mistakes

etc., , ,

When I was editing magazines, the thing we feared most was typos. I know that autocorrect has introduced as many typos as it has autocorrected (It’s never duck!). But back then, any typo was on us. (I was the proofreader as well as an editor, so usually it was on me. But I digress.)

Since it was also an educational magazine, the typo we feared most was in the words “Public School.” Losing that first L would have been the kiss of death. We were successful in keeping it in the right place. (Once I caught a bilingual mistake made by our senior editor, a lady we all suspected was at least 110. She used to send in manuscripts on scraps of paper and toilet paper rolls. I got to say to her sweetly, “Oh, you do want it to say ‘Mi casa is su casa.’” But I digress again.)

Another kind of word boo-boo involves the sense of hearing. It’s called a “mondegreen” (which I’ll explain if you ask me to, but this post is long enough already) and occurs in the context of misheard song lyrics. The most famous is probably either “There’s a bathroom on the right“ or “‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy,” though I’m partial to “I can see all the popsicles in my way.”

(Once I thought I heard “Jack of Orkin” in a song and took it to refer to a British nobleman of some kind. It turned out to be “Jack Kevorkian.” (Why was there a song about Kevorkian, you may wonder. The song was really about James A. Moon, a Hoosier who invented a personal guillotine-like device, which, come to think of it, isn’t much better. The song compared him to both Kevorkian and Joseph-Louis Guillotin) But I digress at length.)

Then instead of misheard words, there are misread words. Recently, I saw the word “podcasts” and thought it was “podcats.” This reminded me of a book I read in which kittens grew on trees. Hint: Don’t pick them before they’re ripe.

I also recently thought I heard an ad on TV that I thought said, “No going backpacking,” which I thought was a curious PSA. It was really a political ad sponsored by “No Going Back PAC, Inc.”

Speaking of politics, once an acronym almost got the government in trouble. It was during the Second Gulf War in the early 2000s. (It was also called the Iraq War.) Since every war has to have a name, and every name has an acronym, someone in government suggested Operation Iraqi Liberty, which sounded fine until someone noticed that the acronym would be OIL, which would be too spot on. They quickly changed it to Operation Iraqi Freedom. (I guess they could have named it Operation Arab Freedom, but again the acronym would be appallingly appropriate. But I digress some more.)

Then there are unfortunate web addresses. The one I remember was supposed to say “Ski Mad River,” a local ski slope, at least when it was snowing or their artificial snow machine was working. But their web address came out to skimadriver.com. I inevitably read it as skima-driver. It made me wonder whether a Skima was an Eastern European car that no one in the U.S. bought or an unfortunate successor to Zima, a beverage that no one drinks anymore and probably shouldn’t have in the first place. (I guess you could have a Skima drinker driving a Skima car, but that would present other problems. By the way, I looked up translations of “skima” because of course I did and found that in Icelandic, skima means “glimmer,” which still has nothing to do with skiing. I suppose a glimmer driver would mean someone who has faulty headlights. But I digress even more.)

Do you have any favorite typos, mondegreens, or language fox paws? Feel free to share them in the comments section. Maybe I’ll use them in a future post!

Are All the Good Ones Taken?

etc., humor, social policy, , ,

Recently, I saw a post in a group called Fuck the Patriarchy that asked the poignant, if unoriginal, question: Are all the good men taken? (Actually, it was phrased “Are all the good men coupled?,” a verb I associate more with train cars than with men. But I get the point and digress.)

(There seems to be a fair amount of relationship questions and advice in the group, rather than a strict focus on dismantling systems of oppression. But I digress some more.)

I find it encouraging that the assumption is that there are some men who are not essential parts of the patriarchy, and that they’re considered viable options for coupling with (or whatever).

The real question, I think, though, is not “Are there enough good men to go around?” It’s “Are there enough good enough men to be in a couple with?” (Or a thruple, if that’s your preference. Some kind of committed relationship, anyway. But I digress yet again.)

I say that because a “good man” may be too high a standard. It comes too close to being a perfect man, and that’s an impossible burden. Every man is a Jerk Boy once in a while.

What’s that (I hear you ask)? Well, a Jerk Boy is one who strays from the ideal in some measure. Not one who strays from the relationship, if the comments section is any indication, though.

One definition of a gentleman is one who, when he pees in the sink, at least removes the dishes first. Admittedly, that’s a pretty low standard. I would call him a Jerk Boy and tell him that as long as he’s there, he can wash the damn dishes.

Every woman has had Jerk Boys in her life. That’s a given. Whether that’s a deal breaker largely depends on how Jerky and how Boyish the guy really is.

Take my husband. (Well, no, don’t. I do lend him out for certain occasions, though, such as when one of his women friends (and he does have them) wants to see a movie or play that I don’t. Just have him home by midnight. But I digress some more.) Even Dan is a Jerk Boy at times. Just not the pee in the sink variety.

So, what are the standards for a “good man?” One who openly tries to destroy the patriarchy, or one who supports me when I do? One who actively educates other men about how to behave respectfully with women or one who behaves respectfully himself and thereby leads by example? I’ll take the second one in each of those comparisons. He’s good enough for me.

Not that I think that the first, or truly good, ones don’t exist. I do suspect, however, that, as of yet, there aren’t enough of them to go around. And fighting over them isn’t what you’d call good feminist behavior. (There’s enough debate in the group over what good feminist behavior is, especially in regard to cheating partners and what sisterhood requires one to do about it when the opportunity for a single woman to have a fling with a married man arises. And no, I will not debate that at this time. But I digress, just not that far. That’s a topic for Fuck the Patriarchy to take up, and they have.)

So, I am coupled with Dan for over 40 years, if not always perfectly blissful ones. He’s good enough for me. And only occasionally a Jerk Boy.

Words I’m Not Used To (Yet)

education, etc., humor, language, social policy, writing,

Language evolves over time. I know this and have (mostly) gotten used to it. In fact, I like it. I enjoy neologisms. I’m very fond of “yeet,” for example. (Although I’ve never understood the conjugation of yeet. I think it’s probably yeet/yeeted/yeeted. If I ran the zoo, it would be yeet/yote/yoten. But I digress.) I don’t know if yeet will last. I kind of doubt it, but while it’s still around, I’m going to savor it. (Dan yeets things all the time, so I’ll have plenty of chances to use it. But I digress again.)

Every year the various dictionaries add words that they deem to have made it into the language. This year, Merriam-Webster spotlighted 1,400 new words, some of which I knew (Rickroll, looksmaxxing) and some of which I didn’t (cuffing season, parasocial). There were also new uses of old words, such as “compute” as a noun.

Some new words or usages bother me. I’m still not used to “overwhelm” when it’s used as a noun rather than a verb. It just sounds wrong, even though I don’t know of any other word that fills that particular lexical gap.

I also love changes in language that serve a purpose in society. The best example I can think of is the demise of sex-linked words for occupations. When this change first got going, the new words and phrases sounded awkward, or there didn’t seem to be solutions for firmly entrenched forms of speech.

Some were derided at first, like “Men at Work” signs (though not the band), which sensibly became “Work Zone. Some have been abbreviated, such as “chair” instead of “chairman.” (Although I did once see someone try out “chairhead,” which, as far as I can tell, disappeared after the one use. Good. But I digress some more.)

The use of “male” or “female” (or “lady”) to preface occupations has likewise faded out. “Stewardess” briefly begat “steward,” but quickly both were given up for “flight attendant.” And publications are increasingly less likely to use “woman physicist” or “lady astronaut,” unless they mean the first example, which is also becoming less noteworthy.

(The only occupation for which this is not true is “nurse.” Most people feel compelled to say “male nurse” unless there’s an obvious man’s name attached to it (Nurse Jim Denker, for example). Otherwise, a reminder is due. “I heard the nurse was just here. Did she give you a shot?” “No, he didn’t.” And many of us still expect a nurse practitioner to be a woman and a physician’s assistant to be a man. But I digress even more.)

But the new usage that most often trips me up is actor/actress. Oh, I know what it means when someone refers to “actor Gwyneth Paltrow,” but I find myself stumbling over using the word to apply to both sexes. I just can’t seem to remember to say “beloved actor Carrie Fisher” or “Meryl Streep is a fine actor” or “the film features actors Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.” I know this is a lack of linguistic subtlety and a failure in feminism on my part, but I just haven’t gotten used to saying it. I’ll keep practicing.

The New York Times Magazine published an article this week about the furor over new words entering dictionaries. It proposed that the usual dictionaries aren’t the right place for all these neologisms. Instead, they asked, “Couldn’t some new thing join them, some Oxford Social Reference or Collins Meme Almanac, for the sake of those poor future historians?” These, they suggested, would be “slang dictionaries,” a kind of L.S.P. dictionaries (“language for specific purposes”).

That might satisfy the lexicographers, but not the people who don’t know what lexicographers are. I, for one, am tired of looking up words in The Urban Dictionary and would like somewhere official to go for info. I like the idea of having a place to find new words and their definitions. Maybe we also need a dictionary listing recent words that have fallen out of use. These would have to be online editions of the dictionaries, of course, publishing and printing being the long, expensive productions that they are. (But I digress linguistically, wishing I had become a lexicographer. Chat, that would have been a flex.)

Stupid Questions for Writers

arts and crafts, books, etc., humor, writing, ,

People in most professions get asked stupid questions all the time. Teachers are asked how they like having their summers “off.” Police officers are asked whether they’ve ever shot anyone. (I suppose that, any day now, people will start asking teachers whether they’ve ever shot anyone. But I digress.)

I’ve had quite a few different jobs in my day, from inventory taker to restaurant cashier to the person who runs the duplicating machine in an office, and more. (The job running the duplicating machine invariably elicits the question, “Do you get high from the fumes of the purple ink?” The answer is yes, at least a little buzz. If you wear clear fingernail polish, your nails will turn purple, too. Now that’s something you know. But I digress again.)

But most of my life, I’ve been a writer and editor. And, boy, do we get stupid questions! Here are a few of my favorites, along with the answers.

Where do you get your ideas?

I wish I could say that I get them from an idea subscription service that’s operated out of a garage in Schenectady. But that would be untrue. Besides, someone already said it. (Maybe Robert Bloch, author of the book Psycho, source material for the famous film. I’m not really sure, and I digress anyway.)

In truth, right now I’m not getting my ideas from anywhere. In general, they simply pop into my head and, lately, my popper has pooped out. Nor has my husband or my cat done anything even remotely amusing. Dan is busy, and Toby is lethargic. I haven’t even done anything amusing lately, unless you count watching multiple episodes of Chopped to fall asleep, which I don’t. Consider it amusing, I mean. I do sometimes fall asleep to Chopped.

Do you make a lot of money?

No. Stephen King makes a lot of money. John Grisham makes a lot of money. J.K. Rowling makes a lot of money. I don’t.

I do get royalties from my books, and I’m saving up for a pizza.

What have you written that I would have heard of?

Probably nothing, unless you’ve ever subscribed to niche educational magazines like Catechist, Technology and Learning, or Early Childhood News. And a few issues of Black Belt. (I think I am right in saying that I am the only person ever to have been published in both Catechist and Black Belt. But I digress some more.)

I have written two books that have been published: Bipolar Me and Bipolar Us. Those are the ones that fund my occasional pizza habit. And I’ve written some crime/mystery novels that have never been published, but obviously you wouldn’t have heard about them either, until just now.

I have an idea for a book. Can you write it, and we’ll split the profits?

No. Just no. Even my husband asks me this one, and I tell him no, though splitting the profits wouldn’t really be an issue, except, I guess, for the pizza money.

Having an idea is the easy part. Writing the book based on it is hard work. You don’t just sit at your computer and bang it out. It takes months at the least and sometimes years. Do you really want to pay for over a year of my time and creative brain power? I thought not.

Have you met anyone famous?

By this, I assume they mean any famous writers. The answer is yes. Not that I have close personal friends who are famous writers, but I have met quite a few at writers’ conferences and science fiction conventions. (At least one of whom invited me back to his hotel room, so I guess I just missed getting a close personal friend that way. But I digress, salaciously, and am not taking any questions on the matter.)

Anyway, I have met Sue Grafton, Jenny Lawson, Larry Niven, Frank McCourt, Sarah Zettel, and Captain Kangaroo, among others. (You will no doubt be relieved to know that The Captain was not the one with the hotel room. That’s an explanation, not a digression. Know how to tell the difference? Because I say so.)

Of course, I also get asked, “How do I get published?” (I don’t know.) And “Do I need an agent?” (Probably, unless you know a lot more about publishing than I do, in which case, why are you asking me? But I digress my last, at last. (At least for this week.))

Can Cats Learn Human Speech?

cats, etc., humor, language, pets,

If the question is “Can cats learn to speak like humans?” the answer is “obviously not.” Cats have a very limited vocabulary, though they make the most of what they’ve got. Mostly, they say “meow” or some variation thereof, like “mew.” Most cats purr and occasionally hiss.

(I’ve had or known cats that had more extensive vocabularies. One of them could say “now.” Our present cat, Toby, often says “meep,” though it’s unclear what he means by it. Other cats make odd little bleating noises. Then there are cats that are capable of mouthing words, or at least one word. The silent meow happens when a cat moves its lips but doesn’t make an actual sound. But I digress.)

Cats expect their humans to interpret their vocalizations, and for the most part, we do. Generally, whatever they say means “Feed me,” or occasionally, “Pet me.” I say, for the most part. You can get some nasty scratches if you misinterpret a certain meow or purr as “pet me” when it really means “Stay away from me, human.” It’s difficult or impossible to tell the difference unless the cat also has the power of vocal inflection, which most don’t. (I did have one cat who was able to make her needs known by telepathy and another who was able to express the equivalent of “Don’t fight. It stresses me,” using both voice and actions. But I digress again.)

But if you mean, “Can cats understand what human speech means?” the answer is “not always.” Toby understands “Do you wanna eat?” or its variations and pays rapt attention when you say it.

He doesn’t understand “Get down,” or if he does, he simply ignores it. When Toby gets on my desk, which he is absolutely forbidden to do, no amount of “Get down” will work. Neither will “Get off the desk ” or “Get down from there, you horrible, naughty beast!” I can understand why he wouldn’t comprehend “bad kitty.” He deserves it so often that it has lost its meaning.

(Cats are supposedly able to learn a few simple commands like “Get down.” I’m supposed to give the command calmly but firmly, and then point to where I want him to go. If he doesn’t get the idea, I should put my hand on his backside and give a gentle push while saying “Get down.” Finally, if nothing else works, I should physically relocate him and then pretend that it was his idea all along, petting him and saying “good kitty,” which simply isn’t true. He’s been coerced, not cooperative. (I’ve heard of cat agility competitions where cats must navigate an obstacle course and have clearly learned to respond to commands in order to participate. But I digress even more.))

Cats can also learn and respond to their names. They just sometimes choose not to. Humans give their cats nicknames, and sometimes cats’ names are changed when they’re adopted, and the cats adapt accordingly. We once took in a stray and called her Dushenka. Only later did we learn that in her previous life, she had been known as Carmen. The change appeared to bother her not at all, and we kept calling her Dushenka after we found out. (I did know of a cat that would respond immediately to “Hey, you! You with the fur!” It was no doubt clear to the cat that he was the only one in the household who fit that description. But I digress still more.)

I hate to admit it, but understanding human speech is one area where dogs are actually superior to cats. Dogs can learn dozens of commands, even relatively complex ones. They can respond appropriately to voice commands, hand signals, whistles, and other forms of training and communication. Cats are simply no good at performing complex tasks such as being service animals or rescuing lost hikers. It’s all they can do to make it to the food bowl when obviously they’re perishing from hunger.

Dogs even have devices that allow them to press buttons corresponding to messages they want to give their humans. These include “Feed me,” “I need to go potty,” and “Play with me,” of course, but they can also combine two different buttons to indicate their wants or needs, such as the combination of “outside” and “potty” versus “outside” and “play.” (It’s been noted that dogs don’t use the button that corresponds to “I love you” as often as their humans say it to the dogs. Cats would, I suppose, need an “I tolerate you” button. But I digress even more.)

But I am, after all, one of those crazy cat ladies who holds entire one-sided conversations with Toby. I know he doesn’t understand, but I chalk it up as another way that being a pet parent gives me satisfaction. Not that I wouldn’t feel even more satisfaction if he would just stay off my desk!