Quirks & Tics

A fellow I dealt with some years ago frequently prefaced his remarks with "the fact of the matter is". I always thought it was a peculiar locution.
My pastor - from the pulpit - often wound up with "and as a consequence therefore".
I had a Latin teacher who ended his lecture with "and thereby hangs a tale (or tail)."
Our Canadian friends often end with the syllable "eh" - The Irish have a tendency to finish on an uptick - and we Philadelphians were once accused of "slurring our dipthongs" - I never knew!
A certain British TV interviewer constantly adds on the word "indeed" for unnecessary emphasis.
Personally, I have battled the word "like" - but it crops back up in f-book.
I have had less luck with "you know" for which I blame the Europeans but at least I am not using it for punctuation. Try stamping out that one!
tjs
Next - Lighter than air.

Protect the Brand

Jere Longman had an amusing column in the NY Times July 25th about the length the Olympic "Brand Police" are going to prevent ambush marketers i.e. non-sponsors from exploiting the five ring Olympic brand. They even swooped down on a butcher shop in Weymouth, England where the butcher hung a sign featuring five rings of sausage. He was told to cease and desist. They are also protecting their sponsors and as Coca Cola is a sponsor they would prefer you not wear your Pepsi Tee shirt on display. It has carried over to the athletes as well. Our Swimmer, Michael Phelps, was told what type of emblems he could feature on his swimming cap. His comment was "SMH" or "shaking my head" which is a new abbreviation for the Twitter set. Apparently you can have all the McDonald's french fries you can eat but go light on the sausage, please.
tjs
Next - Quirks & Tics

Golf Story

This fellow went to confession and told the priest that he had dropped the F bomb. The priest said "Tell me about it". and the following exchange ensued:
G - (golfer) Well, playing golf I drove my drive 250 yards down the middle and my ball rolled into a divot.
P - (priest) - Is that when you said the word?
G - No, not yet. I was able to get out of the divot with a shot heading for the green which hit a tree branch and dropped into the rough.
P - Is that when you dropped the F word?
G - No, not yet. I hit a wedge from the rough on a line to the flag - it landed on the edge of the green and rolled back down into a pond.
P - So that's when you said it?
G - No - just then a strange thing happened - a seagull picked up my ball from the water and dropped it on the green twelve inches from the cup.
P - Don't tell me you missed that F---ing putt!
tjs
Next - Protect the Brand (Mon.)

Modern Marketers

Recently I wrote of my foray into the market seeking butter and eggs in the dairy department of a local store only to be told that the eggs were now over with the bacon. This week I visited Trader Joe's looking for basil with the other herbs. I saw sage, rosemary and thyme but no basil. A courteous crew person enlightened me that the basil was located with the tomatoes. Now the song writer Sammy Cahn told us that "love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage" but these modern marketers are creating their own combinations. We seniors need to get with it I guess. I'm waiting for them to locate the mozzarella with the tomatoes in the event you don't find it with the cheese.
tjs
Next - Golf Story

The Olympic Torch

It is customary for the host nation to circulate the Olympic flame throughout the countryside to be seen by as many people as possible. The current flame was lit on May 10th at the Temple of Hera in Greece and flown to England by British Air on May 17th where it commenced its circuitous journey throughout the British Isles with a side trip to the Republic of Ireland as well. From May 19th to July 27th - for seventy days the flame will be carried by 8000 people over 8000 miles. It will have been moved by ship, ferry and train. This epic trip will culminate with the flame being lowered from a helicopter with the holder being rappelled down to the Tower of London! We hope he or she doesn't trip over any skeletons or ghosts in the Tower as would hate to see the lighting at the ceremonies on July 27th be delayed. Hail Britannia!
tjs
Next- Modern Marketers

Elocution

Over the weekend Penn State removed Joe Paterno's statue from its campus location. In the NY Times Maureen Dowd harshly compared him to Faust selling his soul to the devil. I searched for another analogy. Many years ago when I was in high school a Christian Brother who I respected encouraged me to enter an elocution contest which would be my first attempt at such an endeavor. He rehearsed me one on one as I memorized Mark Antony's funeral oration for Julius Caesar which memory serves me as follows: Friends, Romans and countrymen - lend me your ears. I come to bury Caesar - not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them - the good is oft interred in their bones. So let it be with Caesar.......No doubt Paterno did much good in his early career but he was done in by a serious error in judgement at the end. So let it be with JoePa........
tjs
Next - Olympic Torch

The MEH list

I keep hearing this "syllable" - it is not a word - so I sought out Wikipedia who describe it as "an interjection - an expression of apathy, indifference or boredom." The writer in the Times magazine referred to it as "not HOT - not NOT - just MEH" and listed examples including Tom Cruise's next girlfriend. Of course, Wikipedia is not Noah Webster who might have expanded to include dismissive, passe, overworked, irrelevant or yawn inducing. In any event I would hate to make the "list" and get skewered by this three letter utterance. It sure sounds like something spawned by the Twitter generation. Do we need it?
tjs
Next - Elocution.

Didn't he Ramble.

  There will be a funeral in New Orleans this Friday for Uncle Lionel Batiste, the founder of the Treme Brass Band who died at age 80 and it should be a blockbuster of a sendoff if one can use that word. Between death and burial these celebrations can last a week or more with the dancing and swaying in the streets as they honor the life of the deceased. His nephew said "He liked to wake up and dress up and walk" wearing a brown derby and sunglasses and holding a cane. He wore his wristwatch across his knuckles so he would always have time on his hands! And on the way to the cemetery the band will probably play that mournful "Just a closer walk with thee." Old Unc Lionel sounds like he had quite a life.
tjs
Next - The MEH list. (Mon.)

Amnesty

On July 8th Monica Drake wrote in the Sunday NYTimes "Waldorf asks filchers to give it back, please". The famous New York hotel The Waldorf Astoria is trying to recover silverware, ashtrays and linens swiped by guests over the years to bolster its archives and gallery in the lobby. They say give it back and we'll pretend it never happened. So far nothing has been returned - but if they receive any they will appear on the hotel's facebook page. Now, this hotel has housed many celebrity residents i.e. James Farley, Herbert Hoover, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Cole Porter, Marilyn Monroe, Paris Hilton, Bugsy Siegel and even Lucky Luciano. It is a little late to hear from these luminaries - but would they dare to confront Lucky Luciano with such a request to return an ashtray? I once viewed Cole Porter's piano in the Waldorf lobby so we can probably absolve him of any suspicion. Even if it doesn't recover any stolen goods it expects to gain some buzz from a younger generation by using social media.
tjs
Next - Didn't he ramble.

2012 Olympics

The official dates for the London Olympics are 7/27 to 8/12. The Muslim holy season of Ramadan takes place from 7/19 to 8/18 so that the two events overlap for seventeen days when normally Muslim athletes must fast from sunrise to sundown - unless they receive a "traveler's" exemption to delay their fast until later. The London organizers are planning predawn meals to accommodate these athletes - said to number 3000.  From a gender standpoint Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brunei are the last Muslim countries to finally send female athletes to compete. Qatar will have a female flag bearer. It says she is a "shooter".............!! And one of the Saudi females will perform Judo - pity the opponent facing all that coverup. So there you have it - let the games begin!
tjs
P.S. - The gender makeup of the USA team is about 50/50 with a slight edge to the women athletes. Chalk it up to Title IX.
Next - Amnesty

Quiet Places

New Zealand - A friend of mine honeymooned in New Zealand. He described the action on Saturday night as going down to the town square and watching the farmers shear their sheep. Pretty quiet!

St. Croix, U.S.V.I. - It has been many years since I was there so it might be livelier now but back then they used to say there were three places you could go on Saturday night - you could go to Christiansted, you could go to Fredriksted or you could go to bed instead.

Nantucket, Mass. - My wife and I honeymooned there. Local folklore told how the island off Cape Cod was named. It seemed the King of England had three daughters: Martha, Elizabeth and Anne. As he was bequeathing them to these ladies, Martha being the eldest chose the lush Vineyard. Liz selected the nearby Elizabeth Islands and since there was only one left - Nan took it.

Of course, the quietest place is the cemetery which I would like to avoid for now.
tjs
Next -2012 Olympics

And the band played on.

I just returned from two weeks in Cape May N.J. a lovely beach resort at the southern tip of New Jersey. It is said that Wallis Warfield Simpson had her debutante coming out party there and earlier I read that Henry Clay used to frolic on the beach there. Currently they have free band concerts on the park gazebo and last week it was the Congress Street brass band entertaining free of charge. These local community bands are made up of music teachers both active and retired. They began with a Sousa march and ended with the Stars and Stripes Forever. They recruited a retired teacher to play the piccolo solo. This scene could be reenacted across middle America - it was right out of Norman Rockwell. About one hundred years ago my mother would take the trolley car to Willow Grove Park just outside of Philadelphia to hear the real John Philip Sousa in concert there. His music lives on. And you do need that piccolo player to make it all happen.
tjs
Next - TBA