by
Robert LaFrance
I know that everyone is totally
bored, nothing to do, just sitting around, so this column will just be some
short blurbs designed to relax you even more and let you doze off in your easy
chair.
Wrong. Even as I wrote those words,
I got email letters from 47 people who all said pretty much the same thing:
“You’re an idiot, Bob! Why did you write that?” I had just finished typing the
previous paragraph and hadn’t even sent it to the paper, so that’s weird. Can
someone be watching me? It’s not that I’m paranoid, it’s just that everyone
thinks I am. They’re out to get me if I even relax for a second.
Indeed, summer is a busy time. The
front and back lawns are growing much more quickly than they do in January. It
seems as if the minute I get up, there’s a list of things to do, usually
duct-taped to the kitchen cupboard near the fridge. “Pile that millwood you
just got…put the other wood in the shed and pile it…the red mower’s not
working, fix it or pack a suitcase (it’s nice in Flin Flon in July)…paint the
porch floor…take the dog for a LONG walk, like to Minto…finish your 12
newspaper stories and then wash the dishes…” and like that.
Here are some summer notes anyway,
and then I’m off to Minto:
It is the source of some
consternation that for many years (not quite so bad now) the word ‘impact’ has
been used as a general verb. I realize that it can be used thusly, as in ‘an
impacted wisdom tooth’, but that’s really about the extent of it. On the other
hand, I have often used the word ‘stomach’ as a verb and didn’t get sent to
grammar prison. I can’t stomach people who are intolerant about others’ use of
words. It impacts my annoyance threshold.
Someone said a few years ago that
the CD or DvD tray in his computer made a great place to set his coffee while
he checked his emails in the mornings. The way my computer has been acting, I
can think of many other uses for it. How about as filler in a compost pile? In
an experiment to see how many elephants can balance on one hard drive? The 21”
monitor in a horizontal position would work nicely as a food tray. The speakers
could be used to throw at stray cats. Tear out the insides of a CPU (we nerds
know that’s really a computer) and you have a nice cupboard for holding short
bottles of lemonade.
Speaking of computers, I, and a
certain Gleaner editor who used to be the Star editor but I’m not naming names,
are still of the opinion that those who own computers and use them, but don’t
understand a thing about them should be sent to computer prison. Their sentence
should continue until they understand the computer’s filing system, how to
attach a file to an email, etc. There are names that some computer repair
persons have for the difficulties caused by such people. One is PEBCAK and it
means “Problem exists between chair and keyboard.” Or ‘HKI’: “Human-keyboard
interface.”
I didn’t mean what I said a few
paragraphs back about cats. There are cat lovers all around who would rip my
face right off if they read that. I remember the time that I said a mean word
or two about cats (nasty creatures that they are) and the late Myrna Tomlinson
gave me 24 hours to get out of town. I apologized and mowed her lawn for a
month. Her car’s licence plate number was CATSRGRT; that will give you a clue.
Like malfunctioning computers (a pox
on Windows Vista), the use of redundant speech continues to annoy. Why can’t
people talk rite? I ain’t in favour of being redundant. Probably the most
common one is the use of the phrase ‘first started’. “Yeah, I first started
reading Ayn Rand books back about 1990.” I am always tempted to ask, in a case
like that: “So how many times did you start?” And then I remind myself that I
started ‘War and Peace’ about 12 times and still never finished it. I believe
it involves Russia.
After all that, I have recently come across a usage
of ‘first started’ that is correct. A soccer announcer was saying that a
certain player ‘first started’ for England in 2011. That refers to the first
game in which he was in the starting lineup. Exciting, huh?
I don’t
know how a door can be a jar, but if a Cat can be a bulldozer why not?
-end-
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