I have this tendency to take things people say or write very seriously, mostly because words have such a power over me and I tend to dissect them and examine them like precious jewels. I’ve been like this all my life, to the point where I cannot tell you if this is a side effect of my keen interest in language or if it could be an actual cause of my obsession.  So, misuses make me bat shit crazy, poetry spins my head in all kinds of confusing directions, and sometimes I just mentally ingest things people say or write too literally. 

For example, I remember when I was around six years old, hanging on the step with my mom and some of her lady friends. I noticed they started talking in softer tones, which naturally made me prick up my ears. Then I overheard them say something about the colored people who moved into the neighborhood. That made me go wild. I got so excited and immediately started begging my mother to take me to see the colored people. My mother was mortified, trying to shush me up and calm me down. But, really, how could I remain calm? I just kept pleading with her, because I was beside myself with this amazing news that we had colored people right around the corner. My mind was racing. Were there any purple people? Green? Blue? Were they all one color, or did they have stripes or polka dots in a rainbow of fancy colors? It was all just too exciting!

Well, you can imagine my disappointment when my mom eventually explained to me what my neighbor meant, and these so called “colored people” ended up being just the normal folks I see everyday, our friends even. Still, seems an easy misunderstanding a small child could make, right?

Well, not so long ago my co-worker came into work and started complaining how her neighbor made her late that day. How this neighbor is such a mess, always causing trouble, constantly making a scene, good for nothing, etc. Then she says, “So, this morning she comes out of her house. She was completely stoned to death. She was so…” I never heard what came after this, for I was immediately sick to my stomach. I must have gotten pale or something, because my co-worker asked me if I was alright. All I could say to her was, “OH MY GOD! I didn’t think people still did that sort of thing!”

Ok. So, I felt like a complete idiot when she explained to me that when she said “stoned to death” she meant her neighbor was high on drugs, and not pulverized with stones by an angry mob. I am sure if I had been given another three seconds, I would have realized the figurative meaning behind the phrase. (I can, in part, blame that one on having been traumatized by reading The Lottery at an impressionable age.)

And, let’s not forget my most recent disappointment as a result of misinterpreting a simple sentence.

Anyway, the reason I am telling you these things is because I want you truly understand where I am coming from when I get on my soapbox here. I am extremely sensitive to this sort of stuff and take words very seriously. Therefore, I hope you can forgive me for what I am about to say.  I am very patriotic and love this country. Please do not send me hate mail for criticising one of the most revered documents in our entire history! This is actually a matter of distress for me, not to be taken lightly at all.

I know people play with the English language, getting all fancy smancy with figurative uses, play on words, poetic license and all. But, because of this flaw in me, I just cannot wrap my mind around what I consider to be the biggest collective brain fart of all written history. I simply cannot let this one go. Believe me, I wish I could. Or, better yet, I wish I could travel back in time, dictionary in hand, and just bonk each one of our founding fathers on the head, knocking some sense into them. Because maybe, just maybe I wouldn’t have to cringe and shudder every time I hear this sentence over and over again:

We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union…

UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Please tell me I am not the only person that is struggling with the use of “more perfect” here?  Or tell me that I am just taking this too literally, and I should put my red pen away and get the hell over it already.  Because, for the life of me, I cannot begin to understand how something can be better than perfect.  Unless, of course, perfect does not mean perfect in its literal sense, but instead means almost perfect with some room for improvement. Then, yes, I can see where one would hope to make a more perfect union. If perfect means not perfect after all.

/soapbox

Here in South Philly, just like any regional area, we have many words and phrases that are only locally known. Perhaps one of our best-known semantic secrets is the word skeeve. It is one of those fabulous catch-all words that sum things up brilliantly.

To skeeve something is find it repulsive or, in valley girl lingo, it like, totally grosses you out.

I get the heebie jeebies fairly easily and have somewhat of a weak disposition when it comes to all things disgusting. Take for example, some cringe worthy things like roaches, bleeding scabs, hairballs mixed in with regurgitated cat food, the soggy scummy food remains in the kitchen drain, or that slimy white thing that dangles from an egg yoke?

Ew! Ew! Ew! I skeeve! Skeeve! Skeeve!

Let’s just say that it doesn’t take much to get my gag reflex going. (the Birthday Magic post  is an excellant example of my fragile nature...) Well, as you can imagine, having a child has opened up a whole new dimension of skeeve for me.

• There was the yellow seedy breast fed poo… blaahct! that skeeved me out big time, especially when it was spewed on my hand in mid changing!
• There’s also the ever-popular snot encrusted nose that oozes endless green gunk… skeevy to the n^th degree!
• Then you have your regular mealtime adventures of half chewed food globs which end up in the strangest places…they can range anywhere from minor to major on the skeeve scale.

But, coming to the realization that your toddler isn't exactly playing nicely by herself over there? That upon closer inspection, you discover that she is, in fact, picking up ants and squishing them between her fingers?

That, my friends, is what we in South Philly call a MEGA SKEEVOTS!

Playing Outside
Originally uploaded by Momish.

Lolly, Lolly, Lolly get your adverbs here… because apparently they are absolutely free!

I have been seeing this offensive piece of bullshit crap advertising trend a lot lately. It’s annoying as all hell and has just got to stop, I tell you. Must stop!

Not that this is incorrect or inconsistent, mind you. No, that is not the beef I have pick today. No, this particular rant is about mishandling adverbs. Especially absolute adverbs like absolutely. Free is an absolute, people! Saying ‘absolutely free’ is both redundant and rather confusing. I just don’t quite get the gist of something being absolutely free. AS OPPOSED TO WHAT, PREY TELL? Somewhat free? Partly free? Mostly free? There are no degrees of free in the free world. It either costs you a pretty penny or not a cent at all. You are either behind bars or out hooking up in bars. It’s either free of harmful chemicals or it’ll kill ya. This is not a word that can be used in wishy-washy, measured ways.

(inhale pink, exhale blue)

Personally, the careless disregard for the proper usage of the English Language gets my goat, I admit that. But, it can also create confusion, eventually leading to complete chaos and the destruction of the universe as we know it today. And, it is this concern for the human race that makes me even bring this up at all. Naturally, I would put my own personal angst aside and not trouble you if this wasn’t such a serious matter. Should people continue to go around paying no attention to the structure and inherent rules of language, then communication will simply break down. Like I say, we're not in the business of just making sentences here, slapping together a bunch of nouns, predicates and adverbs for shits and giggles. This is serious business constructing coherant thoughts that actually convey something…hopefully something meaningful and representative of our reality. “Absolutely free” does not fit into this category. It is sentence making at its best. So, for the love of the free word world, can we please stop abusing perfectly innocent adverbs already? ‘Nuff said. Rant over. Go stretch your sore bums!

A while back, I thought it extremely important that I know what the names were for groups of animals. Just about everyone knows that a group of lions is called a pride and three or more dogs are referred to as a pack. But, for some reason, it seemed imperative that I knew what the more obscure groups were, probably since at the time I was on a weekly bar trivia team. This was just the sort of question that might come up (it never did).

Anyway, every time I point out the various animals to Piper, I have to hold back mentioning their group names as well. (I’m not totally clueless. I do fully realize she is just not ready for this yet.)  Still, it gets me to thinking about them over and over again since every other toy we have is chock full of cute animal pictures and their annoying sounds. And this is what got me to thinking in the shower the other morning about a murder of crows. For one thing, who thought to call a group of crows a murder? Good ole Poe? Which led me to wonder just how am I going to explain this to my toddler without giving her nightmares? (I am compelled to teach it to her; she just might be asked such a question during a trivia match in kindergarten one day). Which then led me to worrying about just how ambiguous this term is. Which then challenged me to come up with a perfect example of this ambiguity. Bear with me here - you are dealing with the stream of consciousness early in the morning before coffee. I eventually came up with a scenario where things could get ugly. Suppose, just suppose, I was walking down the street talking to someone on a really crappy cell phone (exactly like the one I have, no stretch of the imagination there) with an equally unreliable network (ditto). Suddenly, I see a bunch of crows take off and fly away. So, I casually tell the person on the other end, “I just saw a murder of crows.” And WHAM! The call is dropped. Wouldn't it be just horrible if they mistook the meaning of those words to mean that I saw innocent birds slaughtered, when all I wanted to relay was how I witnessed three or more crows in flight? Or, what if I had said, “I have a memory of elephants,” just before my battery went dead. I shudder to think they might incorrectly assume that I am somehow hiding three or more elephants in my tiny row home as opposed to fondly recalling my childhood days at the zoo. When you take the time to really think about it (should you too have an overactive twisted mind), this kind of dangerous ambiguity can really rock you to the core.

Needless to say, it wasn’t the most relaxing shower I ever took.