Category Archives: Word Play

Odd words, phrases and jargon from about the world and web

Jerry Springer Strikes Again

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This evening our neighbors upstairs were at it again. And when I say ‘At it again’ I mean one male was screaming at absolutely the top of his lungs, “You stupid, [expletive deleted] piece of,” I interupt to point out that we were watching Master & Commander and the next word out of the neighbor’s mouth sounded similar to a synonym for ‘boat.’ It is at this point that I’d also like to clarify that stomping on the floor not more than 5 minutes earlier would have been appreciated because we were at the climactic battle scene towards the end of the movie. The part where the ship turns itself into a bug and surprises the snot out of a bunch of French folk. Cannon firing with surround sound turned on would have only been enhanced by the deep thunderous stomping of my neighbors upstairs. However, as is so common with them, their timing was off and the loud screaming of expletives was an inconvenience to us.

I’m hoping that they’ll either stop completely or do it again one third (and due to apartment policy, last) time so that we can move on with our lives. They’ve been a real hoot to have above us and I’ve learned a lot of things about being an upstairs neighbor from them. I’ve heard musical scales, river-dance like stomping in the bathroom and seen my daughter run out of my living room afraid. Oh, well. Next year we may try to buy a house anyway, which would mean that our neighbors would have to be really loud to get us this disturbed.

Poop Nazi

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I have been called a poop nazi this morning. This is a name that I take seriously given that I’m German in descent and I married a rather German woman. Therefore Abby is still a mutt, but she’s got a lot of German blood. The reason I’m a poop Nazi? Because I ask Abigail if she needs to go poop when her face falls into what I would call a blank poop stare. A blank poop stare is one in which her focus can be seen shifting to her bowels and the inner workings of her body. It is like she’s doing a system check to make sure everything is as it should be.

However, I ask more often than Abby needs to go, and so Jessica has called me this crappy name. Therefore, I christen her, the Moderate Mommy.

Watch them ‘Subjunct’

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In the English language we have several different moods a verb can convey two critical moods are subjunctive and indicative. It is important that you understand what those two moods reflect on the factual nature of a statement. A subjunctive mood implies a contingent or hypothetical nature for the statement. For example the statement, “I might have said that,” implies uncertainty and is very non-commital. Indicative is very fact based and attempts to state things with a definite feeling. This doesn’t make the sentence true by itself but it does convey some sense of certainty. You might here someone say, “I didn’t say that,” and give a feeling that the statement was not correctly quoted.

Now, why do I care about grammar? Greek class for one, but also because the politicians are heaping great amounts of trash onto the bonfire of American politics trying to use smoke and jeerers to position themselves higher in innacurate polls and public opinion. What I’d suggest, other than attempting to actually listen, even if it’s to the party you don’t favor, is that you diagram sentences, analyze what is being said/spewed and listen for words that are indicative or subjunctive. Not only will this help you here and now with the upcoming election, but if you get selected for a jury you’ll be extra cool and you can wow the other jurors with your slick hair and grammatical pontifications.

Engrish Acronyms

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If you’ve not read engrish.com, one of my personal favorites for a good laugh, then you should go check it out now while I sit here and wait.

[Still waiting]

[Waiting some more]

[Gosh darn you’re a slow reader]

OK, I’m glad you’re back! Funny stuff, huh? This last week in Texas my friend Mike told us a story about a heavy metal concert he went to back in the day and there was a band there from Japan that totally blew the audience away. Not with their music mind you, but with their Engrish. They came out onto the stage and yelled, “LOCK and LOLL!” As Mike tells the story he can’t recall the actual headliner band he went to see, but this band is stuck in his head from now until he dies or the Mannheim Steamroller sets in. So, as I was chatting with another friend tonight I realized that there was a whole area of confusion to exploit: Engrishized acronyms. For example:

ROR
Raughing Out Roud. Use this in place of LOL with your friends to help keep them on their toes (or finger tips if you will)
BLB
Be Light Back. Use this one when you’ve got to go to the potty and need to tell your frenz about it. There’s nothing quite like knowing someone is going to the bathroom at some remote location
LOFR
Lolling On the Froor Raughing. This one is even more intense than ROR and should be reserved for highly funny engrish.
ROTL
Rold Of The Lings, a famous movie reference. You can’t go wrong with Flodo, Aligoln, Gimri, Regoras, and Gandarph set out on an adventure only to be helped by Gorrum in the end. Oh, and Samwise, too, but his name doesn’t Engrishize well.

Please approve: “God”

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In what was a funny subject for an email message WordPress sent me an email asking me to approve God. No, not literally. An comment with key words in it triggered WordPress’ filter to ask me to approve the message rather than just publishing the garbage online. In this case it was good because someone had tried to leave a nasty comment on my post about God.

I am glad I don’t have the authority to approve God 🙂

Why I Sing So Well

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I get asked all the time (read: never) why I sing so well. I have to confess that a majority of the singing I do during the week is around 7:45-8:15 PM while I brush Abigails teeth. I don’t brush her teeth for thirty minutes, but the brushing usually happens within that range of time. Before you panic and think of our dental bills, Jessica brushes her teeth in the morning. I brush my teeth at lunch so that our lone toothbrush is usually dry by the time each family member uses it. That way whatever we spend on dental bills we more than make up for by saving on toothbrushes.

Abigail enjoys brushing her teeth because her Grandma Forland whilst working at the poshe dental supply company, J.B. Dental, purchased her a Mickey Mouse, song playing, electric, rechargeable tooth brush. After each minute of brushing (assuming that being on is equal to brushing time) it plays a little encouraging song. The song is helpful because it lets me know when one minute is over and then it also makes children wish that everything else in life played little songs every minute. Fortunately the toy companies are onto this and so our apartment is a constant cacophony of beeping, laughing Barney sounds, giggling Abby sounds and bleep-bloop-bloop sounds of various edutainment contraptions.

Of course many of these toys play songs that Abby wants me to sing with her. These songs, singing times and repetetive melodies keep my voice in tip-top shape ready to break out into the A-B-C’s, Old MacDonald Was Quite Alarmed, Twinkle, Twinkle Kenneth Star, and my personal favorite: B-I-N-G-O. I can clap that song like a pro, I’m a clapping fool when that song comes on. That song is particularly dangerous during teeth brushing time, I’d sure hate to be holding Abby’s toothbrush in her mouth and accidentally try to clap at the wrong time 😉

Rutabaga

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Last night we went to our friends, the Kaes, house and had a blast. We (as in not me, but my wife and Krystal) made lots of Mexican food and then ate it (which is good) and it was quite tasty especially since not one thing on the table had wheat in it! Yummy.

However, I must say that I prefer our toilet paper over theirs. And Craig, since I know you read this… thank you for having toilet paper since while climbing Mt. Bierstadt I thought, “I hope I don’t have to go potty.” We have the nice soft Cottonelle toilet paper which we enjoy as much as one can enjoy a piece of semi-abrasive material on ones skin. I don’t know why I had to write about this other than it was a distinct thought I remember from last night. You see my allergies were bad. The ragweed plant, which I think is misnamed, is polinating right now, which means the air is filled with little tiny bits of nasty stuff designed to wipe me out [and thus we’ve come full circle with the wiping].

We played a game called, “Hear Me Out!” which could be fun, and had some funny moments, but the problem was that we kept landing on one of two mini-games that made it too much of the same thing. However, at one point in time Krystal compared herself to a white tiger and Craig proudly proclaimed, “I love vegetables because without them I couldn’t say Rutabaga with a straight face.” He then followed it by talking about how legumes make you gaseous. We all were busting up (including Brian, who was hanging out with us) outrageously at that point and so we ended that round and called it quits lest we have to play the ‘brainstorm’ mini-game again.

Oh, and for the record, Jon Doyle and I leading some of the music Sunday morning went quite well and the congregation seemed to like it. Or, at the very least no one ran out screaming 🙂

List of Company Name Etymologies

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Since I know most of my readers really get a kick out of words here’s a great link about business names and where they came from: List of company name etymologies – Wikipedia.

Props to Dave O’Hara, Mad Scientist, Programmer, Husband and Dad. Oh, and my friend, too 😉

And if you don’t get a kick out of words, shame on you, there are starving kids in China. And lastly Etymology is the study of the root of words and languages. entomology (commonly confused with etymology when pronounced) is the study of insects.

Project Gutenberg – Free Sheet Music

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Project Gutenberg – Bibliographic Record – Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp Minor, Opus 131 for download in several formats, including the easy to print PDF. They’ve got other songs on here, too. I’m hardly skilled enough to play these, though my sister-in-law Becca could probably ‘pound these out.’ [not really what you want to do with a piece like this – but I was going for the idiom].