Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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October Chores

Today’s “most fun chore” was repotting nearly all our houseplants (almost all brought inside last week from their summer vacation), including a pot full of “outdoor plants” (marigolds and onions – yeh, they like each other). They all enjoyed their summer vacation so much, that the 8 inch pots graduated to 12-inchers, and the lone 4-inch pot graduated to an 8-incher. They’ve been sitting near the French doors and under a couple of grow lights for the past week, and seem to already be happy with their larger “rooms.”

We’ll just see if we can keep from “brown-thumbing” ’em over winter. . . *heh*

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Still Waiting. . .

. . .for the swelling in my fingers to go down enough that I can wear my wedding ring. Wearing a silver substitute that’s larger. . . on the little finger of that hand.

Combo: unstable knee + walking a 10-month-old German Shepherd puppy + avoiding traffic + unseen dip off side of road + avoiding falling ON the puppy = bad fall and hyper-extended fingers on left hand. Bruising and swelling in hand almost entirely gone, but fingers still swollen. Can almost make a fist n ow, though, so progress!

I’ll give it another month before I’m concerned enough to seek more help. Checkup a couple of weeks ago, doctor thought it was doing about as well as could be expected. Chores activity limited by lack of grip in that hand, but am still partially able to work task list.

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Fortunate Son

I was blessed (though some seem to think “cursed”) to be raised in a family of literates, and not just “functionally literate,” but liberally-seeded with formally literate adults, and eventually (sometimes) not-too-shabbily-literate sibs. Combine that with the fact that I am an Odd1 and my life has continually been filled with bafflement when confronted with folks who, quite apart from literacy, aren’t even fluent in English, when it’s their native tongue!

So, yeh2, I spend way more time than is probably healthy listening around some folks’ grammar. But. . . about that word. *sigh* I do really tire of folks misusing it to the point that it has now lost a usefully distinctive meaning. Nowadays, it seems to be used primarily either in a pejorative sense in the phrase “grammar Nazi” to mean someone who is picky and offensive about language and who often corrects others’ misusages. And in that vein, “grammar” is generally misused to be a reference to any correctly spoken or orthographical speech or writing.

Nope. Grammar is “A set of rules and examples dealing with the syntax and word structures of a language. . . “3 Oh, it is more than that, and in common usage nowadays it is. . . much, much less. *sigh*

So, I am bothered not by the pesky gnats of syntax alone, but illiterate word misuses, bafflingly stupid punctuation (in writing, of course, although the way some speak weirdly placed commas can also be heard *heh*), and nonsensical neologisms**. Add to that the creation of subcultures with “lects” that are both independent of regional dialects and that seem to be structured specifically to utter nonsense (LitRPG/gamers for example, though not the only example; there is the “Friends” dialect as another example) and call it English, the popularized illiteracy/subliteracy/pseudo-literacy prevalent in the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind, bureaucratese, lying liars who illiterately lie (A.K.A. politicians), and English seems to be in dire straits.

Oh, well. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. *heh*

(Oh, and just a wee lil “BTW,” here: “I’m trying really hard not to correct your grammar,” really should read “I’m trying really hard to not correct your grammar,” even though I really don’t try at all. . . )

Better:

2 Yeh, I find “yeh” to be a better representation of the expression than “yeah.” So sue me. It sounds to my ear more like what folks actually say.

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I Have Never Not Been an Odd.

I didn’t know I was an Odd at age 5, but I went through a phase where I walked around imagining myself touching things with an eleven foot pole that I would NOT touch with a ten foot pole. “Practiced my hammer throw” getting the neighbor’s obnoxious tomcat back over the fence to their back yard. Tried to lure monsters out from under the bed to play with at night. Just normal stuff for me.

Nowadays? On long drives, I have sometimes amused myself by mentally (is there any other way?) converting mph to kph (mph*1.6214 gets close enough). Sure, I could just read the kph off the “wee numbers” on the speedometer, but that’s no fun. “Funner” to check the “big numbers” and do the simple multiplication. I’m sure you do similar things.

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Thanks for the Memories, John.

I’ve enjoyed the Heinlein-esque space opera by John Hindmarsh via Kindle Unlimited, so in memory of John and the pleasure he has afforded me (as well as in very minor support of his wife, Cathy), I’ve begun buying those space operas instead of just giving a wee tip via Kindle Unlimited. It’s a small thing but within my reach.

The next one (started by John and finished by Craig Martelle, with permission) drops on September 20th: You Don’t Know Jack. It’s a little Heinlein mixed with C. S. Forester series. A nice antidote/anodyne to the poisonous pain of Suckitudinous Fiction.

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Makes Me Wonder Why I Authorized Their Easement

Here in America’s Third World County™ the local “Squirrel-run POTS Company” went “all fiber” to our house a decade ago, and still offers dead-bunny-through-a-straw DSL. ‘Cos that’s just the way they roll, I guess. My Cat6 cabling inside – yes, on the POTS line, too – is better than their “fiber” line for data. *shrugs* I’m just glad they do not offer a “service” changing light bulbs.

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Don’t Go There

When someone says, “Take a deep breath” to me, it’s likely that what comes out will just be louder. Better: pay attention so I do not have to speak louder.