Fracking The Ladyparts

              As you know by now, I slum it many ways: I ride the bus, I sleep in opium dens and brothels, and I even drink American beer. However, even after living in any number of bachelor pads with ex-con roommates and associating with cheapskates, predators, and other lowlifes, my least dignified hobby has to be my regular viewing of WWE (professional wrestling) on cable television and pay per views. I, along with millions of others, rarely miss my weekly 4 hours of choreographed and preposterous brawls interspersed with dialog and plotting that shouldn't even hold the interest of an intelligent 5th grader. You're probably correctly thinking that, like my blog, mind, and life in general,  none of this should merit a second thought or mention. You're right, but I use any strange use of language or new word as an excuse to write, so here we go. Twice in the last week,  The Rock, who is probably the biggest celebrity to ever come out of the WWE, has threatened to kick Wrestlemania opponent, John Cena in HIS "ladyparts." At first, it seemed like the typical thoughtless bluster that wrestlers go through in order to hype up their upcoming matches, but then, The Rock, just to make clear that he wasn't merely implying that Cena wasn't very strong , reiterated his threat with a little more detail, "The Rock is going to kick John Cena is his ovulating ladyparts."  Cowardice and weakness, thy names are feminine anatomy, or "ladyparts." Cena and The Rock are both musclebound behemoths, so it's absurd to imply that either one of them aren't physically strong, longsuffering, or masculine. No, The Rock's insulting of John Cena stems from the fact that he's a woman, and women are bad. I don't entirely agree with aforementioned analysis, but either way, great messages being given to the young boys watching the program. Good stuff.

   Let's pick the subject matter's up I.Q. by 20 or 30 points and discuss the word "Fracking." The first time I heard the word "fracking" was when I was watching Battle Star Galactica. The humans of Battle Star Galatica come from worlds like our own, but different. They don't blay basketball; they play "pyramid" ; they don't pray to God; they pray to the gods; their paper is roundish and seems to have wifi, and when they want to talk about crude sexual activity or swear, they say...."frack" or "fracking." Unfortunately, environmentalists and fossil fuel extractors had to ruin the fun by using the word in a more serious and realistic way.  According to Wikipeda, source of all knowledge, fracking also refers to making pressurized cracks deep beneath the surface of the earth in order to extract petroleum and natural gas. I am politically on the left side of the spectrum, so while I don't quite understand the problems with fracking, (nor do I care to) I know that I'm supposed to be angry about it. As with creationism and global warming,  I have only a superficial understanding of the debate, so I'll just watch for familiar faces and pick my side in those fights based on who I do and do not like.

                                                ignorantly,
                                                   Ray Ray Montoya

Grunions of The Portmanteau

 In my last blog, my limited vocabulary failed me once more and the dear dreaded genius handed me the dunce cap once more, along with the definition of the word  "Portmanteau" which, according to Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge, is used to describe a linguistic blend, namely "a word formed by blending sounds from two or more distinct words and combining their sounds and meanings into one word. When I asked my friends, they came up with examples ranging from the vulgar "shart," to the zoological "coydog." Wikipedia, all hail Wikipedia,  has a decent list of them, but I've already covered the funniest in my uninformed, not so humble  opinion.

For all the good it does me as a teacher,  I always train my disciples, er, students, to use context and prior knowledge to better understand what they read. In my own case, brimming with excitement over expanding my vocabulary to include "Portmanteau," I though I had discovered a new one in the word "grunion." Mr Dumbass, (an angrier,stupider version of Mr. PotatoHead) yours truly, thought it meant "Ground Onion" or something to that effect. No, in fact, grunion isn't a portmanteau. A grunion is a fish that lays its eggs on sandy beaches, and burries them under the sand. In a few days, the tide washes the flailing and flopping larvae back into the ocean from whence they ultimately came. Before you forget, get a growl in your throat, find a loved one, and chase them around, saying and growling nothing but the word "grunion."

Compound Fracture of The Mind-Portmanteau

If you take remedial reading classes, and I know all of you do, you may learn that that terms  compound words refers to words like breakfast, launchpad, dustcart, switchblade, or any other single word that combines two words. There may be something insightful or interesting in exploring such words, but I'll  be damned if I can find it.

No, as of late, my unwholesome obsessions have been on the combination word-which is hardly an authoritative or official term, (No Merriam Webster backing here, but can't I make a word and give it to the urban dictionary?) but for my purposes it refers to words that combine parts of two words. For example, think of the word liger, which refers to the offspring of a tigers and lions.  This list I've been able to come up with is as follows:
                        1 jorts
                        2 skort
                        3 brunch
                        4 spork

These are ugly words. They sound like the names of northern European men as recalled by American women who want on vacations so many years ago and had summer trysts with enchanting, accented men, but I digress.
 Ahh, I've thought of another one, but it sounds more like an African name to me: "chillaxin," you know,  the pointless word the kids use to indicate that they are either chilling or relaxing? I suppose these words may have the purposes, but I'm dragging my heels while being pulled forward by the inevitable forward progress of Father Time. It is, unfortunately, most difficult to bury your head in the sand while being hauled down the trail.

Addendum: I'm not being modest or self effacing (I'm too insecure for that) when I tell you that most of my friends are more intelligent than I am. I consdier myself slightly more intelligent than the average American, which may not be saying much. Apparently the word I've been awkwardly fumbling for is portmanteau- this is the word refers to combinations of two differen word sounds into one word. I could revise this entry, but this is just goverment work for now.

Burning Your Hubby

  Hey bumlookers,

     I wrote about inflated, excessively long words in the last blog, and since I lack creativity and enjoy being a sponge, I thought I'd blog about a friend's observation. He mentioned that the words "flammable" and "inflammable" have no practical difference in their usage. He's right. The word "inflammable" evolved into "flammable" when  some angry firemen insisted that they didn't want inbreds and illiterates burning themsleves because they thought the word "inflammable" meant "unable to burn." Thus, stateside anyway, we switched the word "flammable." Grammar nerds and Brits be damned!http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/flammable-versus-inflammable.aspx] For once, I'm not just lying or transcribing my kereosene huffing induced hallucinations : you can verify this for yourself at the link I've provided courtesy of "Grammar Girl."

So what other rehashed, repeated ideas will I recycle today? Words I don't like.  Another drop in the bucket of hate. I hate the word "hubby." To me, "hubby" is one of those words middle class women who sell Tupperware and Mary Kay products use to remind you that : 1 They area absolutely normal, perky, and upbeat and 2 They're married. They aren't like those single, unfortunate women with less status. They're married and respectable! They made their bones and took their prize in the game of life. Yeah, I'm a bitter son of biscuit, but I'm not so lazy or lame that I find the word "husband" just too long or formal to use in public.
                                    arbitrarily,
                                                 Ray Ray Montoya

P.S. If you want an alternative to "hubby" check out the Bitches in the Burbs blog-http://bitchesintheburbs.com/-they use the term "WH" which can stand for "wonderful husband" or "worse half"according to how well he's been behaving.

Hot Air Balloons

             Many people, including yours truly, enjoy displaying word power by using a 25 cent word word when a single syllable word would do. Some words just sound good and we represent ourselves with our choices of words, but, sometimes, this principle of using big words where little ones will do is just plain stupid. Many jail-house "scholars," low-end storefront preachers, and uneducated celebrities seem to enjoy using words with just one syllable too many. They use these words when clear alternatives that are less of a mouth full are obvious.  

 The offenders:  1 Resiliency:  If you're talking about the quality of people, creatures, or "whatevers" to keep going no matter what kind of injury they've suffered, then why not just use the word Resilience?  Both words mean exactly the same thing.

                        2 Relevancy: This word shouldn't even be used by prison lawyers standing before judges. "Yo' Honor, I maintain my previous murders have no relevancy....naw that's stupid, relevance..."  Again, there is no difference in meaning between this word and its fraternal twin, Relevance.

                        3 Economical : Before you word enthusiasts attempt to poke my eye with your index finger, I need to state that I am aware that these words, which are both adjective variations on the nouns economics or economy, carry different connotations. Economical often means "thrifty" or "efficient." Economic simply refers to the the financial workings of the world. Nonetheless, many fail to make the distinction, so we see word abominations like "economical factors."

                       4  Irregardless: This word is just stupid. If you mean to say "not regarding," then pray tell me what exactly is wrong with "regardless"? This is the kind of word your redneck co-worker who was listening to Rush and now wants to share the conservative gospel with you uses, " Rush says irregardless of how much plutonium we release into the atmosphere, we couldn't possibly, blah, blah, blah,."

Avoid the false sense of word power that comes with unnecessary syllable and a stupid word.