A-muse-ments

 

A-muse-ments

(A means with, Muse is obvious, ments means presence or situation)

 

God only knows should be Only God knows.

 Why is refused not the repeating of fused?         

 A prisoner is one who imprisons, and escapee is one who escapes from prison. Prisonee and escaper are correct. Strange that we got both prisoner and escapee outside in. English is such a mess. We also use drug when we mean dragged and snuck when we mean sneaked (conjugating snuck would be sneak, snake, snuck, I presume). Head over heels means you are really vertical with your head up and feet down! The expression should be heels over head!

 You have to live on the edge in order to see over the edge. The great poets and other artists lived and live on the edge and, therefore, seem to be much more of life and about life. If you want to have a life with depth, you need to take risks, be adventuresome and reach for the brass ring. 

 Exercise or extra size. I used to say, “even eating makes me hungry,” but now I eat out of a feeding tube.

 Is inspiration the opposite of expiration? Yes and no. Respiration is the process of inspiration (inhaling) and expiration (exhaling). Inspiration also means to take in spirit and expiration also means to share or release spirit, which includes the final breath, or to die. Aren’t words fun?

 Nothing is everything. You can interpret this as being there is nothing that encompasses everything or metaphorically and/or quantum physically and/in Zen that nothing really is everything.  

 One year I sent a Christmas card to my son Dave in Texas from here in Minnesota. I signed it, “Merry Christmas from the land of ten thousand ice holes.”

 One day my friend’s wife was driving us to a meeting, as neither he nor I can drive anymore. She asked me, “Teak, how old are you?” I said, “I’m 78.” She replied, “I’m stunned. I thought you were much younger.” I replied, “I’ve always looked young for my age; when I was born, I looked minus two.” It just blurted out.

 I am a wordsmith and an amateur etymologist (a lover and student of word origins). One day I was at a workshop for personal growth, and, being done early with our project, I went to my friend Ursula’s group, and she looked up at me with this huge grin. I said, “What are you grinning at?” She said, “I can hardly wait to see what you’re going to do next.” Later after the workshop, we were walking out arm in arm, and after some comments I made, she laughed and said, “Boy, are you weird.”

Realizing I was just being willing to be myself, I said, “You know, Ursula, I think being weird is just the art of being yourself.” I had some books at home on etymology, and said, “You know, I’m going to look up the word weird when I get home.” Sure enough, the principle original meaning of the word weird is being yourself, so, be as weird as you can, for by doing so, you are being true to yourself. Screw convention. Society wants us all to be similar and predictable. Take a risk, be yourself. Your self is a marvel!    

 

Tenth                                                               Fifth                           

Ninth                                                               Fourth                         

Eighth                                                             Threeth                       

Seventh                                                           Twoth                          

Sixth                                                                 Oneth                          

The word one should be pronounced the same as it is in the words like tone, lone, cone, stone, phone. Strange that the one word of all words would be mispronounced and never thought about as being a strange way of being pronounced. Therefore, oneth, as in tone-th or lone-th, not as in won-th. Twoth should rhyme with be-troth, not tooth. The i in fifth should be pronounced in the long form as it is in five … and do you know why we use first, second and third? Hint: they are Germanic.

 If Paul Wellstone had married Paula Poundstone (comedienne), they would have been Paul and Paula Poundstone-Wellstone.

 You often hear such as ten thousand dollars is or twenty million dollars is. How many dollars does it take to make a plural? Even two dollars are, not dollars is. We often hear, “It’s these, it’s those.” We singularize predicates that have plural subjects and we do it all over the language. Other examples are: “Jane and Jack is a great couple,” “Cars is my way of life.” That’s and it’s are the most common erroneous zones.  English is such a mess!

 Always remember: perfect is good enough.

"Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that defenses of peace must be constructed" ─ United Nation Charter

 War is proof of failure. It is mass murder in the name of God, country, religion and/or safety. When in reality, it is to make the rich and powerful more rich and more powerful while lives and limbs are lost by those who have been deceived by those rich and powerful people. Love is the only safety, and the peacemakers are the greatest heroes – ones who do not get enough praise, help or certainly not enough news media attention. The violence gets the headlines, gets romanticized and creates heroes of those who, with best intentions, go off to war. Until we do better, we need to care for the wounded soldiers and their families, and the rich should be footing the bill – all of it, and their sons and daughters and those of Congress and the Senate should be required to serve on the front lines. The war profiteers should pay until it costs them more to go to war than they make off the war. We must find a way, or ways, to induce the rich to support peace. If we succeed in this, all of us will be heroes. God is not on your side, God is not on our side, God is on the inside.      

In support of the above, Abraham Lincoln said, "Do I not destroy my enemies if I make them my friends?" Red Skelton wrapped up one of his comedy shows with this quote, "I don't hate my enemies, after all I made them." Emerson said, "But if we could but see the history of our enemies, we would witness such sorrow and suffering that all hostilities would immediately cease." I repeat: "War is proof of failure and love is the only safety."

 God is the space between our thoughts.

 God’s middle name is silence.

 I’m having a short longing over some long shortening – I’m on a tube feeder.

Grief tosses my heart about and taps my soul for growth.

 What we dwell on we dwell in. 

Go within or go without.

 Life is the major cause of death. In fact, it is the only cause of death. All else hastens it or prolongs it. 

 Lament nothing; celebrate everything for each event bears its own gifts.

 An oxymoron is one who has been too long at a high altitude.

 God waits for us in our humility.

The dully adorned goldfish are the koi polloi.

For every pound of creativity there is an ounce of trouble.

Adversity is the costume of opportunity.

Positive expectation and you’re halfway there.

We reward excellence in mediocrity: The status quo is protected by this means and by resisting the new, the creative within every industry and institution. The powerful always protect their turf. According to studies, human's are unique in this trait.

Whenever I have had gristle when eating beef, I have plucked from my mouth and tossed it into the garbage and shouted, “gristle missile”. How in the name of sanity do we pronounce gristle and missile, so they rhyme? Gristle should be pronounced grist le (not pronounced el), and missile should be pronounced miss-ile, as in isle which should be pronounced is-le. English is such a mess.

You don’t get something free, you don’t play free as the ads would have you believe you get them for free or play for free we just get dropping prepositions.  Everything is for speed and laziness we need to slow down, relax and be more conscious. Our brains are mainly developed through words and therefore the more careless we are with them the more careless we are at everything like our politics, our faith, our beliefs about everything. It is important to use the English language in a respectful manner. It used to be a thing of beauty. We should question everything.

Our grammar, our punctuation, our syntax are just chaos. I grew up in the 40’s and 50’s and we were much more vigilant with our speech. The movie Cleopatra was released in 1964 and the language in impeccable. There were two pirate movies that Erroll Flynn made and the language is not only beautiful but challenged one’s vocabulary; something movie producers wouldn’t dare do today.  Recently a hundred year old time capsule was opened and the English language was so beautiful that it warmed one’s heart and soul. For another example of beautiful English in a movie see Beckett with Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole.