6 posts tagged “sundry thoughts”
Once when I was in class, sitting there and diligently taking notes about Dostoevsky, I heard the unmistakable sound of a cell phone vibrating in someone's bag. I rolled my eyes as students around me attempted to inconspicuously check their phones without disturbing the professor, who continued to lecture. Grumbling some more, I wondered why it was so difficult for people to simply turn their phones off, or at least put them on silent--vibrating phones are just as loud as ringtones in the average college classroom. When class ended, I reached for my cellphone to see the time, and I noticed that Emma had called me just fifteen minutes ago. Yes, it was my phone that was ringing.
I like to think that I learned a valuable lesson that day, and that I have grown as a person as a result of it. That is, I continue to judge others, but only for mistakes I myself don't make. It's really rather simple.
My suitcase for Thanksgiving break is 40% clothes and toiletries, 60% school books. Hurrah for holidays.
I went to my first "real" concert last night at The Black Cat (I mean "real" because I have been informed that concerts at Carnegie Hall and other music halls don't count because I don't stand in a crowded room for three hours with blaring music). It was interesting, yes, and I still have black X's and stamps all over my hand this morning. But instead of enjoying the music, I began looking around at the people surrounding me, who were all bobbing their heads or swaying from side to side with the beat of the music. And when the lead singer began clapping his hands, everyone followed suit without any more provocation. The raised hands, the uniformity of all of their movement was more than a little disturbing, and as a result I spent half of the night trying to clap to a weird, stacatto unbeat--but most likely I just looked musically challenged. I couldn't rid my mind of a certain image, however--
How does one compose a sentence? There are well over 500,000 English words--of which, I believe I can safely estimate I know at least 15,000. How do I grasp individual words to create meaning, from out of the recesses of my mind where they swim around aimlessly, creating small ripples?
Things That Give One a Sense of Peaceful Happiness
Golden leaves littering the ground as one walks by a splashing fountain
A bell sonorously ringing the hour
Reorganizing one's bookshelf for aesthetically pleasing reasons
After one spends a long day working, one realizes that one has time to enjoy the sounds of the day ending
Writing in a journal with dark blue ink
What are your favorite and least favorite words? Any reasons why?
Question submitted by Byrne.
Let me state, first off, how much I adore this question. I subscribe to Dictionary.com's Word of the Day and Wordsmith Word of the Day in order to learn the most bizarre words which I will most likely never use. But as for my favorite words, they don't necessarily occur in the English language. There is the (somewhat cliché) Japanese word "こもれび komorebi" which conveys the imagery of sunlight filtering through trees. I don't like the way it sounds; I decided when I was studying Japanese that it wasn't very interesting regarding its phonemes and intonations, which is perhaps why I don't regret stopping it. But some of their words are so breathtaking and untranslatable, as I've found with at least sixty percent of Chinese.
Unlike a lot of people (it seems), I think the English language is beautiful because of the ridiculously large (stolen) vocabulary and sibilous sounds that we have. I love to read books about the history of the English language because it's so fascinating and has had so many different influences. But for the most part, I tend to prefer words because of their definitions than how they sound. There are exceptions, of course, such as my ridiculous obsession with alliteration. It is a requirement of most poetry I like that it sound incredible when read out loud, like Paul Verlaine's "Chanson d'automne," whose assonance is breathtaking. But I digress into a topic I already wrote my structuralist paper on for my literature class last semester. One word that has an interesting definition and also describes me frighteningly well is "accismus". Other words I like for one reason or another: sublunary, agog (which I first heard sung by Grantaire--"I am agog; I am aghast"--in Les Misérables and almost died laughing), Schadenfreude and indefatigable.
I absolutely abhor the word "hopefully," because it is never used correctly, and I find myself using it wrongly all the time as well. In fact, I tend to dislike and avoid words that are constantly being abused, such as "moot."
I realize that I have turned a rather simple question into one of my linguistic rants, so I will withdraw with the small amount of composure I have remaining to me.
Being as I have a brother aged just slightly over nineteen months, it is natural that I spend much of my summer vacation babysitting for no money. Generally he is rather easily amused, especially in the game of "Where is Alex?" This game consists of somehow covering his head with such devices as hands, pillow cases or blankets (to name a few of the things he loves to locate and destroy). It never ceases to amuse him, and I admit myself amused as well, jealously watching as he believes simply because of the fact that his eyes cannot see me, he is effectively hidden as I pretend to be startled every time that he reveals himself to me--assuming, of course, that his amusement is infantile glee at tricking me rather than a condescending scoff at my thinking he actually believes he is hidden. Still, I often wish disappearing were a simple case of covering my eyes.
I am going to the beach on Saturday, and I will doubtless return just as pale as before, but for a slight red tint to my cheeks and shoulders.
All my life people have been spelling my name incorrectly. It's not that difficult, really--six letters, A-l-i-s-o-n. It's almost always spelled Allison, but for four years my high school coach spelled it at least three different ways, including Allyson one memorable time on a certificate I still have (if only because I found it both amusing and insulting). He finally decided that if he called me Ali, he could spell that correctly, leading to all of the follow--Ally, Aly, Alli and Allie. According to Freakonomics, which no I haven't actually read but that doesn't keep me from citing it, mothers who name their children Alison are on average more intelligent than those who name their children Allison. I guess this has no bearing on me, but it does give me a vindictive pleasure, if only because I've been trying to explain for my entire life: one L is the correct way to spell it for a first name, two L's is the correct to spell it for a last name. In the end, however, it is futile, especially with the introduction and popularization of substituting Y's for I's. And so I've changed the spelling of my name to Allysyn (that's A-double L-WHY-S-WHY-N) because then people have an easy excuse to misspell it, and it makes it easier for me to tolerate the misspellings. I suppose I need to get my checks changed now.
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What's your favorite drink or cocktail? What's in it?
Question submitted by charm.vox.com
May I simple take this opportunity of the perplexing Question of the Day feature to state that anyone who sends me Smirnoff Malt will automatically gain my affection and approval? Thank you.
