Much name calling fills our newspapers, newscasts, internet writing and tweets. People are insistent on “calling each other out” for every view or statement they make. I was challenged this week reading an interview in The Sun magazine July, 2019 with a food activist Leah Penniman. (The article “To Free Ourselves We Must Feed Ourselves, Leah Penniman on bringing people of color back to the land is worth reading for those interested in the intersection of social justice and farming.) She stresses the importance of calling people in rather than calling them out.

I quote her since what she said struck me as deeply important: “Yes, people are not disposable. Rather than dismissing, shunning, or shaming those who make mistakes, I believe it’s our responsibility to call them into awareness and support them in their learning journey, so long as they have a desire for healing. We can’t excommunicate one another. We’re all here on this planet. Let’s try to figure it out together.”

What connections might come if we stopped fearing that every opinion out of our mouth might be labeled as one thing or another. What if we stopped shaming each other about our ignorance about religion, gender, race and ethnicity. I remember years ago in rural Oregon a white man saying to an African American friend of mine, with genuine delight, “You are the first ni—-er I have ever met.” My friend had a choice to recoil or to engage. His first response might have been “how can you use that word? ” Instead I remember him extending his hand and shaking the man’s hand. Then some conversation could begin.

When I was in the fourth grade, my friends and I had a great time saying “antidisestablishmentarianism” to each other since it was the longest word any of us had ever heard of. Of course we had no idea what it meant, although it seemed to be “anti” something. When my daughter and her friends were young they enjoyed saying the word from the movie Mary Poppins: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious with the same glee.

Vocabulary skills were stressed throughout school and were seen as a reflection of one’s aptitude for college in the SAT tests. Some students took vocabulary building classes or bought books on increasing your vocabulary. Those practices seemed odd to me since I thought my vocabulary was mainly a reflection of all the reading I had done. The only drawback from learning words by sight alone was that occasionally I would mispronounce a word I had only ever seen but never heard. In a movie yesterday, for instance, a woman pronounced “Persephone” as per-se-phone(as in telephone.) The same mistakes show up as I listen to some audio books.

At some point I stopped acquiring new words except neologisms such as “meme” or “byte.” The words that I never really grasped continue to elude me when I encounter them in crossword puzzles. Avow and aver trip me up continually. I mastered eponym only after many clues about a stadium in Queens, New York.(Ashe) As for apotheosis, I still turn to the dictionary. I am not sure why words never cemented in early life fail to take root now.

And crossword puzzles? While they are supposed to stave off dementia I think they really only develop the ability to do crossword puzzles! A useful skill, for sure, but not essential for most people. Yours truly excepted!

As a retired English professor and lifelong lover of language, I listen carefully to phrases that seem to proliferate at any given time. Recently it has been the phrase “no worries.” It would make sense to me if the context was one where I had been worried. However, in its present usage, I remain frequently baffled.I am driving through Taco Bell, ordering food, thanking the cashier who responds, “No worries.” I order coffee and thank the barista who responds, “No worries.” In both of these cases, whether over a loudspeaker or in person, I would expect the reply to be “You’re welcome.”

Of course, my curiosity of this usage took me to the internet. There I learned that this usage has “infected the American language.” I laughed at the verb “infected” since it implied a disease caught from some other place. My response to the phrase has been somewhat similar. “Who started this misuse anyway? Must be an import!” It appears that I could blame it on the Australian beer drinkers. This seems unlikely, however. Surely Australian beer drinkers can’t have had that much influence.

How far has this usage spread? Does anyone where you live still reply “You’re welcome” when they are thanked?

My parents named me Elizabeth Anne as a compromise. My mother wanted me to be named Elizabeth after a long line of female forebears. My father agreed on the condition that they would call me Betsy. So legally and formally I am Elizabeth. When someone calls and asks for Elizabeth, I know they are probably a telemarketer. I write as Elizabeth because I like the name in writing. Everyone in my off-line life knows me as Betsy. People close to me often shorten it to “Bets” which I also enjoy.

Throughout my life I have known women with nicknames of Muffy, Winky, and Sissie. I assume they acquired those as kids and kept them as adults. My two closest boy friends when I was little were Skipper and Dude, names they kept into adulthood. I’m not sure why all these people hung onto what might seem like childish names, but they did.

I have given people around me nicknames. My granddaughter was “squirt” until she asked me to stop calling her that. My husband is “CW” because it makes me think of an undercover intelligence operative. A good friend is Tinarooni, because we have fun together and I enjoy playing with her name Tina.

Of course nicknames can be applied maliciously as is done with regularity by the leader of the United States. Ex-partners often have nasty nicknames. Archie Bunker called his son-in-law “Meathead” which managed to convey contempt under the cloak of affection. (Or affection under the cloak of contempt. Hard to know.)

I would love to know either what nicknames you had as kids or ones you have or use now. Please share. Thanks.

I started writing this blog in July of 2016. I didn’t have any particular goals for it, since I had never written for the public before. Armed with just a library book, I started “Saved By Words,” titled after the reality that words had been a lifesaver for me throughout my life. Word Press helped me get started. A terrific blogger named Pete gave me much needed advice when I got stuck. His assistance introduced me to the community that writes in my corner of things.

I began by commenting on posts that I read. I also responded immediately to the first few readers that found me, goodness knows how. I especially appreciate Rachel of Cricket Pages and Arlene for their early consistent attention to my writing.

Never particularly interested in the statistics WordPress makes available, I find that they are a helpful way to reflect back on the three years. My followers have increased very gradually, and many who are listed as followers really aren’t, I think. The biggest growth has been in interactivity, the aspect of this medium I appreciate the most. My comments have tripled, and I now have a pretty consistent group of readers I can count on to comment.

I intentionally keep my posts short. I like the idea that it is easy for a reader to sit down and  read a group at one time. That turns out to be true in many cases. While I try to write most days, many of my followers seem to catch up in batches. I love that.

And most surprisingly of all, I have now had readers in 117 different countries. What an amazing gift for a retired English professor typing away in Connecticut, United States. Thanks to every one of you, whether you follow regularly or you just dropped by. I haven’t run out of things to write, much to my amazement. I look forward to my fourth year.

Something had been eating my sunflowers at about one foot off the ground. They stood as a row of bare stalks, reminiscent of a few years ago when my cosmos had suffered a similar fate. Then, as now, it appeared to be the work of a woodchuck, munching happily along. At that time we bought a Have-a-Heart trap but succeeded in only catching a skunk. The neighbor’s dog caught and dispatched the woodchuck before he was trapped.

Yesterday when driving into the driveway I spotted a fat brown animal waddling quickly away into the raspberry patch. It took me a few minutes to realize that it wasn’t a fat squirrel but a woodchuck. Out came the Have-a-Heart trap, this time baited with broccoli which You Tube assured us was a go-to food for woodchucks. After all, I couldn’t bait the trap with sunflowers.

This afternoon, in the scorching heat, my husband found the fat, happy woodchuck lying contentedly on his back in the trap, the broccoli eaten. To release him near the house was to guarantee his return. Instead my husband decided to take him across the river, hoping he wouldn’t swim back, and release him in the meadow there. In the above picture the brown fat blob is the woodchuck running at record speed away from the Have-a-Heart trap.

The only question remaining is “do woodchucks swim?”

A few days ago my grandson casually commented that I had a song for every occasion. I had never realized this myself, but have now become quite conscious of how accurate he was. Song links come automatically for me when I say or hear something seemingly unrelated but completely apropos. For example, yesterday when I was talking about a belief I was abandoning I quipped, “and another one bites the dust.”(Song by Queen.) When I wrote about the heat I was humming “It’s too darn hot”(Kiss Me Kate.)When I do make a mistake I am likely to state “blame it on the Bossa Nova”(Eydie Gorme). As I commented a few weeks ago, someone not of my generation would certainly be baffled by that remark.

I don’t do this on purpose, and when I was trying to think of examples for this post, I couldn’t come up with many. Instead whatever part of my mind stores  all these lyrics awakens any time it thinks it can get a clip in edgewise. And it does. Sometimes I sing it, sometimes I just repeat the segment. But he is right. I do it all the time.

Just curious. Do any of you throw out snippets of songs at odd times?

Tomorrow through Sunday an “oppressive” heat wave will hit the entire Eastern United States. That includes us. They project temperatures exceeding 100 degrees F(37.7C) for a couple of days with excessive humidity. That makes the temperature feel more like 105 F(40.5C) akin to the heat that hit Europe earlier this summer. The arguments rage on about the cause of the changes in the climate, but we can agree that something unusual is going on. From record flooding on the Mississippi River to a dangerous lack of water in places like South Africa and India, we are all having to adjust to a new “normal.”

I don’t like change, and I especially don’t like an increase in very hot weather. While many of my fellow Connecticut residents flee the state in the winter for warmer climes, I am content with snow and ice. And best of all, for me, are fall and spring with their usually moderate temperatures.

I suspect that my dislike of very hot weather comes from a heat wave when I was eight. I had seven stitches on my right calf and had to keep that leg dry. Our family took refuge in a motel near Mt. Hood to get out of the worst of the heat. There my siblings splashed contentedly in the swimming pool. I, on the other hand, hopped around on my left foot in the wading pool, keeping my right leg out of the water. I grumbled nonstop, making sure everyone knew of my plight.

We have an window air conditioner in three different rooms, and I turn one on when I am in that room. At the moment I am cooled by the study air conditioner. It brings the air down a few degrees as I type, and I am grateful.

Stay cool out there!

When you see a comment I post, the little Gravatar above shows up. I realized that I had never written about this image, so I chose to do so today. I have always loved hawks, whether sitting atop power poles and trees or flying overhead. Occasionally I have even been very close as a hawk devoured her prey–usually a squirrel or a pigeon. Neither of those creatures are endangered, especially not around my house!

Falconry lives in little pocket throughout New England. I learned that it also still reigns in England, as one plucky hawk keeps Wimbledon free of pigeons.

As a gift, my husband took me to Hadley, Massachusetts to the home of New England Falconry for a 45 minute talk and experience with a Harris hawk, pictured above. After donning a thick leather glove, clasping a tiny piece of fresh meat(rabbit I think) I stood stock still while the handler whistled to the hawk in a nearby tree. For a while the hawk was more interested in chasing a nearby bird, but eventually he saw the meat. In a staggeringly fast move he swooped down, landed on my glove and ate the meat. The photo captures the moment he was swallowing it down.

I was about as startled as you would expect as the bird flew straight at me, despite my being told that was what would happen. It took a moment for my heart rate to return to any semblance of normal. But as soon as it did, I was ready to try it again. There is nothing to outdo looking a bird of prey eye to eye and rejoicing that he prefers rabbit!

Mad Magazine has published its last issue. For many of my generation the magazine provided constant amusement throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s. My brother and I would buy one copy and share it back and forth each month. The humor was tame compared to what is available for adolescents today, but it was startling material then. We learned sarcasm, political critique, and product spoofs within its covers. Sometimes the cover could even be folded in such a way as to produce an alternative picture, usually more provocative than the newsstand version had displayed.

I was a child of the Cold War, constantly being warned about Russia. The most subversive feature of Mad Magazine was the wordless feature cartoon each month–Spy vs. Spy. Despite what I was learning in school, it appeared that both sides in the Cold war were equally inept.

A wonderful editorial in today’s New York Times highlights how much Mad influenced many of today’s comedians such as John Stewart formerly of The Daily Show. For Mad lovers, I recommend reading it.