May the Better Word Win
Okay, this entry isn’t strictly about an interesting character that I have known. Although Stephen Colbert is an interesting character, I don’t know him - yet I love his character – go figure. Colbert’s word, “truthiness,” received the American Dialect Society’s 2005 Word of the Year award. It’s a great word and reflective of our times and our current leaders and yet, it’s a word that only comes up in discussion about either contemporary events, or about Colbert himself.
But what about a word that comes to mind every single dang time that I type? I have no trouble reading, I have no trouble writing, I have no trouble spelling words – not even ones like pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, or Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg. But typing! Why didn’t anyone ever teach me to type? Nearly every time I intend to type “to” it comes out “ot.” There are so many times I’ve edited something I wrote late at night and added words to the dictionary inadvertently that ”ot“ doesn’t look weird to my spellchecker anymore. “From” is almost always “form.” No respectable spell checker will reject “form.” When I am IM-ing, I can be almost indecipherable. Sure, you know what I’m talking about when I mention my iPid, but how about when I pone my phone – or when “but typing” becomes “butt ping?” Please!
It’s a condition, it’s a syndrome, it’s a disease – it at least deserves its own word. And that word is…”distypic.” Yes, my name is Steve Burgess and I’m distypic. My kids have known this since they were little and tease me about going to Distypics Anonymous – “DA-DA’” they cry.
I don’t get no respect!
So here’s my own little attempt to manipulate the language. Distypic is a far more useful word than truthiness because it applies far more often. It’s not truthy for your fingers to betray you in this way – it’s distypic.
Where can I look for help?
The other day, I posted an article about what happens when hard disks make loud noises, which is posted here. In my real life, I do data recovery and computer forensics.
The spellchecker didn’t like distypic – can you imagine? It wants to substitute “dactylic!” Like that’s a real word anyway…
I went to the web and asked for a definition. Define: distypic – no results. Wikipedia – no results. Webster’s – don’t even get me started. It’s not even in the Funk’n Wagnall’s.
I just posted the article. Lo and behold, a week later, when I Googled “distypic,” there it was! Two entries! It’s a revolution!!!
So I’m making my stand. Distypic. A term for an entire generation of boomers who never learned to type but have to do so anyhow. Distypic.
And that’s The Wrod.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Monday, February 06, 2006
Grumpy (but sweet) Old Lady
Nana Florence
My mother’s adoptive mother. How I loved her, this lady with three teeth, thin grey hair dyed orange, always ready with a laugh or a grumble. She lived on the East coast & we lived on the West. I met her when I was little. I’m Anglo, but was always outdoors and inherited Mediterranean skin from my Spanish grandfather. So when Nana saw me for the first time, she told my mother, “Joan, he’s two shades lighter than a nigger!” She was crass but innocent, big-hearted but grumpy.
After Grandpa Joe died, she lived alone for years in an apartment with her beloved Pekingnese. What a nasty little dog! But she loved it completely. She would cook hamburgers and the occasional steak for the little pug-nosed creature. She would take a licorice whip and have a tug of war with the slobbery little thing. When they were done, she’d eat the (tenderized) licorice!
She came to live with us in California when I was in high school. We picked her up at LAX and we heard about the flight for much of the drive home. She had never flown before, and was not versed in the laws of aerodynamics. The stewardesses (as cabin attendants were known in those days) had been handing out drinks in coach, which she thought was nice. Then they went behind the curtains to first class, which Nana thought was the cockpit. She looked out the window and down at the clouds that just seemed to sit there motionless. She became very indignant as she told the story. “Didn’t they know there were people trying to get to California? How dare those pilots stop the plane to have a drink!”
After a few hours on the road (which has some stories of its own) we arrived home in Goleta, just outside Santa Barbara. Goleta has a LOT of avocado trees, and my mom loved ‘em (still does). Nana had heard of these “alligator pears” (as avos were called in Boston) but had never tried one. We were sitting around the table, and she said she had heard great things about these alligator pears, so we presented her with one. She looked it all over, then took a big bite with those three teeth of hers. Such a face you never saw! “How can you eat one of these? I can barely bite through the skin!”
Nana was one of those people who classically picked and chose from science, medicine, religion, and whatever else she chose to believe in. She would never accept that we had ever put a man on the Moon. “It’s all a hoax. If God had meant us to live on the Moon, he would have put us there!” She was diabetic and would religiously use those bitter little saccharin pills in her coffee, and eat candy for diabetics, but would tuck into ice cream, cakes, and cookies whenever the opportunity arose.
Nana loved to people-watch. One of her favorite things to do was to go to Solvang, a little Danish tourist village near Santa Barbara, and sit for hours, describing the people we were looking at. I feel she could have spent a happy lifetime, just seeing and commenting on the great variety of humankind for days without end. The one place that was too much for her was Isla Vista, home to many of the most interesting characters I’ve known. But IV’s street people were too much for her – too scary, and some of them talked to me, God forbid! That was just a little too weird and a little too real for her taste. She didn’t like “them dope fiends.” But I remember sitting with her in Boston Square, hearing her descriptions of all the people walking by (including the dope fiends). One guy in particular who had a moustache (no beard) that was combed straight down and hung almost to his chin sent her into paroxysms of laughter.
Her laugh was absolutely infectious. It was somewhere between a cackle and a belly laugh and went on so you could not help laughing yourself. She loved to sit in the old overstuffed rocker and watch the Country comedy-variety show, Hee-Haw. One time, Buck Owens was talking to someone in the Cornfield and cracked a joke. Nana started laughing like crazy, rocking back & forth. “AAHhhhhh-“ as she rocked back, then exploded with “HAHAHahahaha” rocking forward, “AAHhhhhh-“ back again, “HAHAHahahaha” forward. We all laughed so hard with her laugh, we were crying. But we hadn’t heard the joke.
“Nana, what did they say?”
“AAHhhhhh” - (back) – “I”- “HAHAHahahaha” (forward) – “don’t” – “AAHhhhhh” – (back) – “know! – HAHAHahahaha …” (forward)
One of her favorite jokes was one we told her:
“Did you hear the one about the three eggs?”
“No.”
“Too bad!” (two bad)
That would just send her into one of those delightful minute-long laughing fits. And she loved to tell the joke too. But here was her version.
“Did you hear about the three eggs? Two was rotten! Aaahhhhh – hahahahaha…”
For years, if we kids wanted to get a laugh out of each other we’d just say, “2 was rotten.”
Nana had the room right next to mine and I was glad she was a sound sleeper, because her window was right next to mine too. And I used my window to sneak nightly out of my room and up to my girlfriend’s house. Nana loved me, but I didn’t know what she’d think of me sneaking out the window, onto an old tire I had sitting outside for the purpose, and up to Suzie’s. Scandalous! I also didn’t know if she’d think there were burglars and wake up yelling, so I was happy for that sound sleep.
When I was about 20, Nana started into a rapid and steep decline. She was at Goleta Valley Hospital, and I’d ride my bicycle out from where I lived in I.V. to visit her. She was in more and more pain. She barely had the energy to complain. One time, while I was sitting in her room and talking with her, she got to looking more and more uncomfortable. I asked her several times what was wrong and she demurred each time. Finally, with a grimace, she said, “Oh Hell, I’m a dead woman anyway,” and told me, “I can’t move in the bed and I’m getting sores under my tit.” It cost her a lot of pride to say that, so I lifted that long empty bag and put baby powder on her chest. That seemed to be the last barrier between us, and I found we could talk about absolutely anything after that.
I told her stories about my life I wouldn’t have told anyone else. I told her details I wouldn’t tell a priest in Confession, things that might make a madame blush. The only things that would make her laugh at this point were dirty jokes and stories. I told her the absolutely most off-color jokes I knew. If my mother was visiting Nana’s room (which she almost always was), then I had to send her out of the room to tell Nana the stories! She would laugh so hard that it hurt, But she preferred laughing and hurting to just dying and hurting, so she asked for more.
I told her about sneaking up to Suzie’s at night. It turns out that she knew! She just hadn’t let on to anyone. She did finally let it slip to my mom in those final weeks, but it was water under the bridge by that time. She knew the punch line to the three eggs joke, by the way. My mom told me that Nana had said she just told it with the “two was rotten” punch line because that made us kids laugh more than the real joke.
My mom called me to say that she didn’t think Nana had much time left. I jumped on my bicycle and sped down to Nana’s bedside. But when I got there, she had let her last breath go a minute before. I kissed her still-warm forehead and stood by her side as the color drained from her – as she went from pale to waxy – as her body went from human to thing.
I know she knew I got there. Because I still feel her from time to time.
Nana loved me unequivocally. I sense she still does. At a time when I was doubting myself, she showed me a picture. It was me in her arms. She said – “I loved you and you didn’t even have to do anything.”
I still get a happy feeling when I talk to a good-hearted but grumpy old person. It’s like having a little bit of Nana again.
My mother’s adoptive mother. How I loved her, this lady with three teeth, thin grey hair dyed orange, always ready with a laugh or a grumble. She lived on the East coast & we lived on the West. I met her when I was little. I’m Anglo, but was always outdoors and inherited Mediterranean skin from my Spanish grandfather. So when Nana saw me for the first time, she told my mother, “Joan, he’s two shades lighter than a nigger!” She was crass but innocent, big-hearted but grumpy.
After Grandpa Joe died, she lived alone for years in an apartment with her beloved Pekingnese. What a nasty little dog! But she loved it completely. She would cook hamburgers and the occasional steak for the little pug-nosed creature. She would take a licorice whip and have a tug of war with the slobbery little thing. When they were done, she’d eat the (tenderized) licorice!
She came to live with us in California when I was in high school. We picked her up at LAX and we heard about the flight for much of the drive home. She had never flown before, and was not versed in the laws of aerodynamics. The stewardesses (as cabin attendants were known in those days) had been handing out drinks in coach, which she thought was nice. Then they went behind the curtains to first class, which Nana thought was the cockpit. She looked out the window and down at the clouds that just seemed to sit there motionless. She became very indignant as she told the story. “Didn’t they know there were people trying to get to California? How dare those pilots stop the plane to have a drink!”
After a few hours on the road (which has some stories of its own) we arrived home in Goleta, just outside Santa Barbara. Goleta has a LOT of avocado trees, and my mom loved ‘em (still does). Nana had heard of these “alligator pears” (as avos were called in Boston) but had never tried one. We were sitting around the table, and she said she had heard great things about these alligator pears, so we presented her with one. She looked it all over, then took a big bite with those three teeth of hers. Such a face you never saw! “How can you eat one of these? I can barely bite through the skin!”
Nana was one of those people who classically picked and chose from science, medicine, religion, and whatever else she chose to believe in. She would never accept that we had ever put a man on the Moon. “It’s all a hoax. If God had meant us to live on the Moon, he would have put us there!” She was diabetic and would religiously use those bitter little saccharin pills in her coffee, and eat candy for diabetics, but would tuck into ice cream, cakes, and cookies whenever the opportunity arose.
Nana loved to people-watch. One of her favorite things to do was to go to Solvang, a little Danish tourist village near Santa Barbara, and sit for hours, describing the people we were looking at. I feel she could have spent a happy lifetime, just seeing and commenting on the great variety of humankind for days without end. The one place that was too much for her was Isla Vista, home to many of the most interesting characters I’ve known. But IV’s street people were too much for her – too scary, and some of them talked to me, God forbid! That was just a little too weird and a little too real for her taste. She didn’t like “them dope fiends.” But I remember sitting with her in Boston Square, hearing her descriptions of all the people walking by (including the dope fiends). One guy in particular who had a moustache (no beard) that was combed straight down and hung almost to his chin sent her into paroxysms of laughter.
Her laugh was absolutely infectious. It was somewhere between a cackle and a belly laugh and went on so you could not help laughing yourself. She loved to sit in the old overstuffed rocker and watch the Country comedy-variety show, Hee-Haw. One time, Buck Owens was talking to someone in the Cornfield and cracked a joke. Nana started laughing like crazy, rocking back & forth. “AAHhhhhh-“ as she rocked back, then exploded with “HAHAHahahaha” rocking forward, “AAHhhhhh-“ back again, “HAHAHahahaha” forward. We all laughed so hard with her laugh, we were crying. But we hadn’t heard the joke.
“Nana, what did they say?”
“AAHhhhhh” - (back) – “I”- “HAHAHahahaha” (forward) – “don’t” – “AAHhhhhh” – (back) – “know! – HAHAHahahaha …” (forward)
One of her favorite jokes was one we told her:
“Did you hear the one about the three eggs?”
“No.”
“Too bad!” (two bad)
That would just send her into one of those delightful minute-long laughing fits. And she loved to tell the joke too. But here was her version.
“Did you hear about the three eggs? Two was rotten! Aaahhhhh – hahahahaha…”
For years, if we kids wanted to get a laugh out of each other we’d just say, “2 was rotten.”
Nana had the room right next to mine and I was glad she was a sound sleeper, because her window was right next to mine too. And I used my window to sneak nightly out of my room and up to my girlfriend’s house. Nana loved me, but I didn’t know what she’d think of me sneaking out the window, onto an old tire I had sitting outside for the purpose, and up to Suzie’s. Scandalous! I also didn’t know if she’d think there were burglars and wake up yelling, so I was happy for that sound sleep.
When I was about 20, Nana started into a rapid and steep decline. She was at Goleta Valley Hospital, and I’d ride my bicycle out from where I lived in I.V. to visit her. She was in more and more pain. She barely had the energy to complain. One time, while I was sitting in her room and talking with her, she got to looking more and more uncomfortable. I asked her several times what was wrong and she demurred each time. Finally, with a grimace, she said, “Oh Hell, I’m a dead woman anyway,” and told me, “I can’t move in the bed and I’m getting sores under my tit.” It cost her a lot of pride to say that, so I lifted that long empty bag and put baby powder on her chest. That seemed to be the last barrier between us, and I found we could talk about absolutely anything after that.
I told her stories about my life I wouldn’t have told anyone else. I told her details I wouldn’t tell a priest in Confession, things that might make a madame blush. The only things that would make her laugh at this point were dirty jokes and stories. I told her the absolutely most off-color jokes I knew. If my mother was visiting Nana’s room (which she almost always was), then I had to send her out of the room to tell Nana the stories! She would laugh so hard that it hurt, But she preferred laughing and hurting to just dying and hurting, so she asked for more.
I told her about sneaking up to Suzie’s at night. It turns out that she knew! She just hadn’t let on to anyone. She did finally let it slip to my mom in those final weeks, but it was water under the bridge by that time. She knew the punch line to the three eggs joke, by the way. My mom told me that Nana had said she just told it with the “two was rotten” punch line because that made us kids laugh more than the real joke.
My mom called me to say that she didn’t think Nana had much time left. I jumped on my bicycle and sped down to Nana’s bedside. But when I got there, she had let her last breath go a minute before. I kissed her still-warm forehead and stood by her side as the color drained from her – as she went from pale to waxy – as her body went from human to thing.
I know she knew I got there. Because I still feel her from time to time.
Nana loved me unequivocally. I sense she still does. At a time when I was doubting myself, she showed me a picture. It was me in her arms. She said – “I loved you and you didn’t even have to do anything.”
I still get a happy feeling when I talk to a good-hearted but grumpy old person. It’s like having a little bit of Nana again.
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