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I’m trying to get faster at arranging a little pile of Hebrew Strong Verbs into a chart. I give myself bonus points when the kitten is involved.
Fowler’s Modern English Usage is Still Super-Duper
Two weeks ago, I got a copy of the amazing Garner’s Modern English Usage. I thought it might replace my second edition of Fowler’s Modern English Usage. But there’s is too much fiddle-fiddle in Fowler to give it away. Like this, from the entry on “reduplicated words”:
Many—perhaps most—of these words have a disparaging or contemptuous flavour. A few examples of those that are, on the contrary, colourless, though some of them onomatopoeic, are boogie-woogie, chiff-chaff, crinkum-crankum, criss-cross, flip-flap, hokey-pokey (in one of its senses), hurdy-gurdy, ping-pong, roly-poly, rub-a-dub, pitter-patter, see-saw, tick-tack, walkie-talkie, and zig-zag.
And this is only about a twelfth of the whole essay!
Tucson loves her murals. This one is at the Spay Neuter Clinic (Grant/Stone).
📷 from my study. This honeycomb party-ball hangs over my desk. Someday, I might replace it with a plant or a used chandelier.
Cloudy With a Chance of Wisdom
Proverbs tells us that fools ignore the world God has made. They live their lives against the grain and then suffer for it. Wise people, on the other hand, reflect on the world, learn from it, and tend to succeed.
But you can’t reflect on something you haven’t observed. Wisdom starts with paying attention. You have to look around and spend time noticing things.
If that makes sense to you but you’re not sure what to look at, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, a U.K. graphic designer who founded the Cloud Appreciation Society, suggests in his TED talk that you look at—you guessed it—the clouds.
Most of us, he says, ignore the clouds until they block the sun. And then we notice them only as “annoying, frustrating obstructions,” before we “rush off and do some blue-sky thinking.”
That being said…
most people, when you stop to ask them, will admit to harboring a strange sort of fondness for clouds. It’s like a nostalgic fondness, and they make them think of their youth.
Who here can’t remember thinking of looking and finding shapes in the clouds when they were kids? You know, when you were masters of daydreaming.
It’s just that these days, us adults seem reluctant to allow ourselves the indulgence of just allowing our imaginations to drift along in the breeze. And I think that’s a pity. I think we should perhaps do a bit more of it.
I think we should be a bit more willing, perhaps, to look at the beautiful sight of the sunlight bursting out from behind the clouds. And go wait a minute - there’s two cats dancing the salsa, or seeing the big - the big, white, puffy one up there over the shopping center looks like the abominable snowman going to rob a bank.”
These were the clouds outside my study window tonight.
📚 I loved Duane Litfin’s big-picture intro to Greco-Roman rhetoric in part one of this book. I’ve read a lot of other books on both ancient and modern rhetoric; I wished had read this one first. Oh well, now to part two: preaching and rhetoric according to Paul.
My wife just turned a big dream into a reality and finished painting the first of THREE large murals at Tucson Dance Academy. So proud of her! See the progress shots at Della Chelpka Arts. She’s amazing! 🤩
My son and I looked up what family the badger is in. It’s in the mustelid family, which includes weasels, ferrets, and wolervines. They are characterized by having short legs and a long body.
Our lab mix and dachshund had themselves a real good time cornering this guy tonight. Thankfully, we were able to stop it before anyone got hurt.
