A Fresh New Ishue

   Recently I was ordered by the powers that be to write a blog on the way people add the suffix like appendage known as "ish" to the end of words. 
   My first mental image is of a teenage girl with lots of insecurity about herself, trying to hedge her bets when it comes to self-description "Whatever, I'm smart-ish." Maybe later, she puts on some tube top, pulls her hair back, and affirms to herself in the mirror that she looks "hottish." But I'm being unfair. I hear this suffix of hesitation everywhere. The church I went to for awhile, before I could no longer stand it, was advertised as starting at "7ish."  A girlfriend relates her boyfriend's penis as "biggish." People who are few minutes late are "lateish" or "latish," which sounds like some Jewish prayer or pastry. In fact, I think this is a Millennial or Generation Y tic along with describing things as "uber" or the verb "chillaxin."

  I know that you know me as the cranky, octogenarian shut-in with a habit of shooting his pellet gun at unknown moving objects, and it seems like I would hate it when people add "ish" to the end of words, but I don't. It's an effective way of modifying words, and it's a few less syllables than "semi" or "relatively" or "moderately."

  I guess it can be used to propel stupidity. If a long limbed 6 foot 6 amazon walks into a nightclub, sits down and crosses her legs a la Sharon Stone it would be ridiculous to hear some 19 year old say, "she looks tallish." Then again, it might be ridiculous for a 19 year old to be in a nightclub, unless he has bad i.d. or lives outside of the United States as a few teenagers are known to do.

It's been some time

So lately, I've been having fun with the distinction between action and non-action verbs, and by fun, I mean attempting to communicate the distinction in a maddening attempt to improve the minds of America's pride, future, and emerging workforce. Why am I teaching those concepts? Let's not go into that. For the uninitiated, action verbs describe the action of a subject, "He moves with anger." Non-action verbs describe the subject itself or simply state that the subject is extant: "He is angry" or "He is around Republicans." First, I emphasize the distinction between non-action and action sentences, and then I have my students attempt to write some  action-verb sentences and non-action verb sentences  Some of my students came up with the following gems for  non-action sentences:
                                                    1 I taste salty.
                                           2 I taste good.
 After the first kid came up with his example, I felt a little embarrassed. After the older, taciturn gentleman came up with the second example, more or less riffing off the first example, I didn't know what to say. These are awkward expressions of sensuality in the classroom.

  I honestly couldn't think of anything to write in this blog until I started writing, but there is another distinction you might enjoy learning about: the difference between sometime
 and some time.  You may already know this, but like that one kid in your elementary school class, I just need some attention. Sometime refers to  an unspecified, perhaps unknown period of time. For example, you could write of the blog "Sometime last year this idiot started writing these pointless rants" or "he'll have to write something worthwhile sometime." Now, some time,  two words, means a lengthy period of time. For example, "It's been quite some time since he wrote anything that hasn't put me to sleep faster than a Quaalude." 

                with just a dash of humor,
                 Ray Ray Montoya

The Angry Pot Beats The Kettle

There is nothing more safe or impersonal to discuss than the weather. Security guards with gravelly Brooklyn accents discuss it; pudgy, round-faced Lieutenant Governors who eat Puppy Chow discuss it. Don't take my word for it; just listen to my unverifiable anecdote. I remember working in the lobby of a governmental building as a receptionist of sorts. The Lieutenant Governor walked in and there was a titter among the employees and appointees of the executive branch. Two lobbyists waiting to be escorted to a meeting heard the Lieutenant Governor make some idle conversation about the weather, and decided to engage him in further conversation about it, "Oh is it a really nice, stiff breeze or just a gentle wind?" He stopped walking for a moment, looked down, contemplating, "It's a pleasant breeze, but not too strong." Yeah, I know, scintillating inside baseball being served up here.


The other topic of conversation that seems equally as pointless (at times anyway) is illness.  No matter if you have a flu, cold, sinus infection, or any other bugs or attacks on your immune system, someone will always say, "oh yeah, it's going around." Of course, some form of rhino-virus or flu is going around. "It," whatever "it" is, has been going around since The Landlord told Adam and Eve to get out. Even so, whether one person has it at the office, or they all have it at the office, someone will insist it's "going around." And if you get a cold during the summer? "Oh, those summer colds are the worst." No, they aren't. They're just frustrating. Wow, this is a rant after Andy Rooney's own heart.


What else does grandpa need to get off his withered chest? The use of the word "foodie." Food connoisseurs, gourmets, whatevers,  have taken to calling themselves "foodies."  I suppose it's a symptom of the insane English tendency to abbreviate just about everything. Tonight to tonite. But really, foodies? Do we really have to reduce and infantalize language that much?  The pot may be about to meet the kettle, but when I hear someone use that word, I think of some inarticulate 12 year old girls talking over the phone about restauraunt employees or fat people. 

Mostly Useful

 My layman's understanding of muscle memory is that once your muscles learn certain activities, you can do things like walk, ride a bike, and shoot hoops, naturally, reflexively, as if on auto-pilot. I also use that as an excuse  when I get people's names wrong- "Julie, my tongue muscles are to blame for calling you 'Julia'. Really, I know your name." I think something similar applies to memory. When I consciously decide how to spell words I often misspell them, whereas if I just write and don't reflect, I'll usually spell correctly. Case in point: I had to clarify the difference between "effect" and "affect" some students and suddenly I realized I wasn't entirely certain. In short, "effect" is a noun referring to things like consequences or results and affect is the activity of  influencing. If this seems like a no-brainer to you, then you're right. I would leave a Return of The Living Dead zombie hungry with my ignorance on some days. For a more comprehensive (and interesting treatment of this, look hither:http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/affect-versus-effect.aspx

 Unrelated, and equally as irrelevant,  adverb and adjective confusion can produce some interesting sentences. I explain the difference between adjectives and adverbs so much during the week that I absolutely refuse to do so now. Look them up if you don't know! That's an order! What I will say is that adverbs quite often end with the suffix "ly." He ate hungrily, she walked slowly, Buster snored loudly, etc. This confuses some people learning English because although many adverbs end with an "ly," not all do. An Arabic friend once related that she was uncertain why an acquaintance of hers felt miffed after she called to tell him that he was "mostly welcome to come to my birthday party."

Interjection and Inhalation

  3-2-1: and another round of rambling commences. Before "we" get into  oh so important matters of grammatical terminology, I must share with you a brilliant insight that came to me in the lonely twilight hours: if women choose not to go out on dates with me, it is simply because they are either 1. budding lesbians or 2. about to embark on a career of cat hoarding. Now that I know it truly isn't me, I feel tremendous relief.

      An interesting question bubbled my grey matter the other day: what's the difference between an interjection and an exclamation? Both interjections and exclamations act as outbursts and can signify the sudden release of emotion. The differences seem to be that interjections should be single words ( some people consider them one of the parts of speech) and exclamations can be sentences or phrases. Additionally, interjections can act like distractions or diversions away from the topic at hand. So then, examples of interjections may be: "damn,"  "ouch," "whoa" or even "hey" in some circumstances. A teacher I've worked with describes interjections as the "words you say when you stub your toe." If I then understand it correctly, exclamations could be, "What the hell?"; "Oh my God!" ; or even "Give me a break!" If I need to be corrected on these intricacies or my semi-colon use, then kindly embarrass me in the comments section. If you want a more authoritative presentation on this issue, then check out this link:  http://english-learners.com/2010/03/interjections-exclamations.html

  I don't intend to make this blog about whatever trashy novel or relevant non-fiction I may or may not be reading at any given time, but in my reading I came across something amusing and word/ phrase related.  Right now, I'm reading a book entitled "Taking Charge of My Life: Personal Essays by Today's College Students."http://www.amazon.com/Taking-Charge-My-Life-Personal/dp/B005WE71H4 The book is simply a collection of essays written by college students (primarily middle aged) who are in developmental reading or writing classes. If you find stories of broken or languishing people putting themselves back together again by pursuing an education inspirational, then you might really enjoy this book because that's truthfully all it is. One writer, recalling her past substance abuse problems, talked about coping with her physical pain through marijuana use. She wrote something to the effect that she began to smoke "joints" or "marijuana-cigarettes." Yes, she felt the need to define the term "joint" for her academic readers, who she must have assumed all wear cardigans, spend Saturday night watching Laurence Welk in the rumpus room, and live next to the Beavers. Her usage made me think of high-school debates and freshman essays about legalizing weed where students similarly felt the need to explain to their Martian teachers what the word "joint" meant.

You People Are Late

Most of what I like to read is not high art, literature, or "literary fiction." Right now, I'm reading a Michael Connelly novel entitled "Trunk Music."http://www.amazon.com/Trunk-Music-Harry-Michael-Connelly/dp/0312963297 I enjoy his novels about a hard-bitten homicide detective named Harry Bosch.  Bosh usually ends up sleeping with a hot chick, killing or injuring thugs, and piecing together a mystery by the end of the novel. He lives in a very noir world. Why am I telling you this? In "Trunk Music," A minor character, a thug bouncer at a strip club, is known as "Gussy" because he likes to dress up or get all "gussied up." Unrelatedly, I recently met a short, feisty old Jewish woman who liked to gossip conspiratorially and her name was... "Gussy." I have trouble believing in coincidences, although the rationalist in me says I should trust that coincidences are just part of life. Maybe.

 Another observation: 

   There seems to be a perception, in these United States and possibly elsewhere, that certain ethnic groups are habitually late to meetings or obligations.  This generalization is often derogatory. Just think of the term CPT, which stands for Colored People's Time. The implication of CPT is that black people are routinely late for work, appointments, whatever. I've also heard of "island time." I'm not sure if "island time" carries the same baggage, but I can imagine people perceiving a relaxed island culture as overly relaxed when it comes to matters of punctuality.  I've even heard of Mormon Time, the explanation for why large families of Mormons are late to church. All of these examples aside, I recently heard someone refer to her tardy sister as being on "Jewish Time." Jewish Time, really?

For example, "living life to the fullest" is cliche

        Hey kids,

       I'm sorry to have been on hiatus for the last few weeks, but I can only promise you that it will happen again. As you know, my life is a boiling cauldron of resentments and my soul is seething with bitterness. I remember things. I remember an editor and a colleague both trying to correct me on my usage of "for instance" instead of "for example," or vice versa. Guess what, you bean-counting nitpicks? Most writing specialists agree that the two can be used absolutely interchangeably! It really doesn't matter, aside from some poetic or artistic considerations. Okay, now that I've gotten that hair off my chest, I'll go on to my other gripe.

   There are a lot of empty phrases or cliches people use when they want to make a point or dress up their language or otherwise be pretentious in some small way. My friends and Twitter lovers offered a few examples of  empty or annoying words and phrases:

1 Literally: As in "he literally beat the living hell out of him" or "I literally ate a ton of pizza."  When of course, it's obvious that no one has ever beaten the fire and sulfur out of another individual nor eaten a garbage truck full of pizza -at least not in one sitting.

2 Bear with me:  A Twitter lover expressed that idea that if  someone isn't  seriously imposing on you, then this phrase doesn't need to be used. My insight is that ESL speakers must find this phrase confusing, perhaps conjuring up images of large woodland beasts in close proximity to the speaker.

3 At the end of the day: Yeah, this phrase can be trite and inaccurate- "At the end of the day, the United States just isn't the superpower it used to be."

4 Living life to the fullest: I can't stand this one. The idea is fine, but the actual use of the phrase is often ridiculous. Whether it's compulsive women who sleep with anyone who cross their path and neglect their Neverneverland family of adolescents in favor of partying or falling down alcoholics who accuse everyone of judging them for the lifestyle they're not ashamed of, I'm generally not impressed with people who use this this phrase. I remember correcting a lazy illiterate's paper where she said she wanted to remembered as "living life to the fullest" because she hung out with friends and partied a lot; meanwhile, she really was illiterate, probably never read a book in her life, and when asked what she wanted to do for a living would respond that she wanted to be a "physical therapy." 

           I think that's enough bile and bitterness for today. Thanks for reading!
                                 RRM