Tag Archives: conversation

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Fibbing Friday #274

Pensitivity101 said to ‘L’ with it last week……………..
Some may be familiar, so fib away with your definitions or descriptions please.

1. Lunkhead

The new screw/screwdriver combination with the 5-point drive

2. Lugubrious

A loud and obnoxious drunk

3. Lickspittle

Getting old is almost like contracting ALS – Lou Gehrig’s Disease.  My face leaks almost as much as my brain.

4. Lampoon

A short spear, meant to deflate egos

5. Lollywater

That’s what we used to call the fruit flavoured drinks like Freshie, Kool-Aid, Tang and the like.  It tasted like lollies and was pretty much just water, flavour, and sugar, just like them!

6. Lollypopper

Wasn’t that what they called the kids that went on those dance shows in the 50’s & 60’s?  Big skirts, big hair, tight sweaters, fancy shoes and a candy-on-a-stick in their mouth to keep their tongue from sticking to the roof of their mouth.

7. Lumpen

You’re on Santa’s ‘naughty list.’  You’ll have to try a lot harder, to make “natural gas,” or even “Geothermal.”

8. Loofah

That’s what you say when the clumsy, fat guy on the commuter bus elbows you in the gut.

9. Lippy

That’s my female neighbor, on the side away from the rednecks.  She says that she has Italian heritage, and her maiden name is spelled Lippe.  I say – very little.  It’s tough to get a word in edgewise.  Conversation is a contact sport with her.

10. Lughole

Don’t ask – Don’t tell – but use lubricant!

 

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Stolen Words

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  Change is inevitable – except from a vending machine.  Our culture changes our language, and our language changes our culture.

Consider how much the language has changed since Samuel Johnson published his Dictionary of the English Language in 1755. One of the entries was the word “teen.” Today, we think of a teen as a person between the ages of 13 and 19 years. According to Johnson, the word means, “to vex, irritate, annoy, anger, enrage, inflict suffering upon, to afflict, harass, to injure, harm.” OK… Maybe that was a poor example. Essentially, the meaning is the same.

Along with everything else today, words are getting a terrible kicking around. In the attempt to achieve instant comprehension, mass communications have flattened words out so that shades of meaning are lost, categories and pigeonholes have replaced precise descriptions, punch and color have been abandoned… Conversation is edging toward verbal shorthand… Then there are euphemisms… Advertising, with its ever-changing private lingo will twist and adulterate any words it lays pen or tongue to for public consumption… and the politicos have a universal tendency to use words to conceal or confuse thought, to take the juice and flavor of speech and writing.

adolescence: A time of rapid changes between the ages of twelve and seventeen, when a parent can get as much as twenty years older.

amateur: A person who is always willing to give you the benefit of his inexperience.

belgard: A soft glance; a kind regard.

Christmas Eve: The shortest night of the year; from sundown to son-up.

diligence: An old-fashioned vehicle of success.

epitaph: A monumental lie.

free: The price is concealed.

golden rule: Give unto others the advice you can’t use yourself.

hug: A roundabout way of expressing affection.

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TILWROT V

23 Celebrities who don’t use their real name

Once upon a time, a tribe of nomads named the Germanyė, inhabited one of the seven hills of what would become Rome.  Later, they wandered off – or were forced off. They drifted up the peninsula, and through the Alps, to the west, where they finally settled. Now they called themselves Germanotta – an Italian-ish word that meant the Germanyé people who journeyed here.

The main group split up, and various clans spread out.  Some of them took ‘Germanotta’ as a surname.  Later, Diaspora Jews settled in the same areas and some also took the name.  These clans of people, and the territories they occupied, became a group of little principalities which were collectively known as “The Germanies,” until the middle of the 1800s, when they were united into the ‘Empire of Germany.’

From one of them, a family emigrated to America, and a female descendant named Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was born, who grew up to be the singer/performer who called herself Lady Gaga.

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I was reading a science fiction novel about a time traveler in Tyre, in ancient Phoenicia.  To make his conversations seem like formal, upper-class-speak, the author wrote his speech in Middle-English, upper-class-speak, with an overabundance of ‘tis and ‘twas, and thee and thou.

He addressed a nosy gate-guard as a “gossoon,” and the search was on!  Gossoon means lad, or boy.  It came to English 1675/1685, from the Irish Gaelic, garsun, also meaning boy, or lad – which, in turn came from Old French, Garçon, which surprisingly, also means boy, or young, unmarried man.  That word has grown up in English when we pretentiously use it to refer to a waiter – young, old, married, or single.

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Once upon a time – Snake Oil was real
I was viewing an article titled Un-noticed Movie Mistakes.  In Django Unchained, Django and his white mentor blow up something with red sticks of dynamite – decades before Alfred Nobel got around to developing it.

In those days, if you wanted to blow shit up, you used black powder – because the more powerful smokeless powder had also not been developed.  For large, or special, explosions, unsafe, unstable, nitroglycerine was used.  That’s why Nobel soaked it into guncotton, to make it safe and reliable.

In both the US, and Canada, when the railways were being extended to the west coast, large numbers of coolies, expendable Chinese workers, were imported to do the dangerous work.  A report said that taking the rails through the Canadian Rockies cost one Chinaman per mile.  A Canadian Minute PSA showed one Chinaman being handed a glass vial of nitro, and told to go into a cavern, and tamp it into a bored hole.  There was a muffled explosion, and a huge cloud of smoke and dust.  The foreman just assumed that the payroll had been reduced by one more, when the coughing, but smiling, man emerged.

Rail crews work hard, and the Chinese were probably made to work harder than white men.  At the end of a hard day, they were stiff and sore.  Many of the Chinese rubbed an unguent on their joints that seemed to reduce pain, and aid flexibility.  They told inquiring whites that it was Chinese snake oil.  Much later investigation revealed that the “snakes” were actually aquatic, freshwater eels, whose bodies contained Omega3 fatty acids.

With the white guys sharing it, buying it, and stealing it, the supply eventually disappeared – but not the demand – that remained as hot as ever.  The Chinese caught garter snakes, grass snakes, milk snakes, even rattlesnakes, and rendered them down.  Being land animals the results were not the same, but sometimes at gunpoint, they were forced to supply the now nonexistent magic elixir.  Of course it didn’t work – and another urban myth was born.

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Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed Fibbing Friday

Pensitivity101 had a mix of old and new questions last week:

What did the quick brown fox jump over?

Fourteen old manual typewriters in a row, all just to correct a pangram which described him as ‘brown,’ rather than red.
I’m Scottish, damn it, and I manage a haggis restaurant, not a bloody curry shop!  🙄

What were the Window Cleaner’s confessions?

That he was so busy checking his status on all the social media platforms, that he never thought to look into the offices, to see who was doing what…. or whom.  😳

What was The Mad Hatter’s true occupation?

Starbucks barista/social influencer

Why did Cinderella lose her glass slipper?

So that she wouldn’t end up like the female college student, still living at home.  When she returned from a date one night, her Father asked her why her shoe was all wet and muddy.  She said her Tinder match-up drove her WAAAYYY out into the country, in a deluge, and told her to come across, or walk home.  Dad asked why only one shoe was muddy.  She replied that she changed her mind.
I do not believe the myth that rape is impossible because a female with her skirt up can run faster than a man with his trousers down.

Why do people in old TV shows and movies spend so much time sitting on their front porch?

Because they’ve been sitting on their back porches for so long, that they’re welded to the couch – the chair – the porch swing.

What happened to the three little pigs?

Souvlaki!  😉  Gotta go.  Time for supper.

What is Air Force One?


Help, I’ve been elected, and I can’t get up.

The most powerful man on Earth!  The leader of the Free World – right after he’s had his Alzheimer’s treatment.

Stair-lifts drive me up the wall!  🙄

 

Who brings the Easter Eggs?

What goes Hippity-Hop through the mud??
The Easter Pig!

Who was Harvey?

Yesterday, upon the stair
I met a giant rabbit who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today.
I wish that giant, imaginary bunny would go away.

What is quick silver?

That’s what The Lone Ranger said to his horse when he needed to visit the powder room.  Apparently the mesas in the American west were formed by erosion from Indian tribes who didn’t have Porta-Potties.  😳

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Flash Fiction #254

PHOTO PROMPT © David Stewart

DREAMS UP IN SMOKE

Cheryl offered to help him with his writing.  A couple who worked at the newspaper dropped by each Friday, and they often discussed the craft.  “Join us.”

The husband said the first thing they did, was smoke dope.  “It frees the creativity.”  He silently demurred, not for moral or legal reasons, but from skepticism.  He’d be the abstaining benchmark.  “I’ll get a beer and catch up.”

A Cheech and Chong blunt got passed around…. around…. and around.  Potatoes, motorcycles, redhead in sales, socks with sandals…. Bright topics bubbled into the conversation – and were immediately forgotten.

There was no creativity here.

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Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

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The Joke Is In The Mail

One day, a man put an ad in the classifieds –“Wife wanted”
The next day he got a hundred emails.  They all said the same thing.  “You can have mine.”

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What did the patent office employee say about Edison’s new light bulb?
“Whose bright idea is this?”

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Job interviewer; To start, you’ll be making $20,000.  Later, that will rise to $40,000
Me; OK, I’ll come back later then.

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If you had to choose eating tacos every day of your life, or being skinny….
Would you pick hard or soft tacos??

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I don’t trust journalists.  Sometimes they wear badges that say “Press”, but if you press them, they just fall over, all surprised.

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A baby can drink a bottle and fall asleep, and people say that it’s cute.  But when I do it, I’m an alcoholic.

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People tell me that I should stop using F-bombs.
What the Fuck is an F-bomb?

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My daughter screeched, “Daaaddd, you haven’t listened to a word I’ve said, have you?”
What a strange way to begin a conversation.

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Joe: “My girlfriend and I often laugh about how competitive we are.”
Pete: “Glad you can laugh about it.”
Joe: “But I laugh more.”

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Joe: “When I was a kid, my parents always said, “Excuse my French” after a swear word.”

Pete: “My parents said the same thing to me.”

Joe: “I’ll never forget that day at school when the teacher asked me if I knew any French.”

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The Grandson works as a barista at Starbucks.  The other day, he had two young females in.  Suddenly, one of them gushed, “Wouldn’t it be great to have hot, all-vegetable smoothies?”
He said, “I didn’t have the heart to tell them that soup already exists.”

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Joe: “I asked my wife, ‘If I die, will you remarry?”
Pete: “What did she say?”
Joe: “She said she will live with her sister. Then she asked me if she died would I remarry?”
Pete: “What did you say?”
Joe: “I said, no, I will also live with your sister.”

***

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’20 A To Z Challenge – I

A To Z ChallengeLetter I

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been an inept, indolent idiot, about the A To Z Challenge, for the letter I.  I have not had an iota of inspiration, so I have decided to insert a travelogue.

20 Fun Facts About Estonia

Esto Man

Esto-Man

Careful!  You may end up unintentionally learning something.

You may be wondering why I chose Estonia for this blog.  Since rheumatoid-arthritis prematurely retired Cookie Monster, our Estonian-heritage, ex-chiropractor, he and I and my son have got together about every six months, to sample the various road-house restaurants in the area.  We enjoy deep, socially-significant conversation, lack of female supervision, and delicious, but questionable, menu choices.

Mr. COVID19 has put a kink in our calendar.  We are almost a meeting behind.  I publish this so that he will have something to read in self-isolation.  If it influences him to offer to buy me an extra beer when we are paroled and next visit Montana’s, that’s purely coincidental.  😉  So, here are some non-evaluation related facts you may enjoy about this country in northeastern Europe.

Let’s get started with “tere” which means Hello in Estonian!

Fact 1:
While the official capital of Estonia is Tallinn, the country is unique because it has more than one recognized capital. In fact, it has several capitals that change throughout the year. Tartu is established as the “cultural capital of Estonia”, while Parnu is known as the “summer capital”.

Fact 2:
Estonia was the first country in the world to use online political voting.

Fact 3:
Estonia has two Independence Days. It first achieved independence from the Soviet Union on February 24, 1918 and again on August 20, 1991 after 51 years of occupation. The second date is known as the “Restoration of Independence Day.”

Fact 4:
Estonian is the official language. Russian is also widely spoken.

Fact 5:
The Estonian currency was the Kroon, but they have joined the Euro-zone and Euro is their official currency now.

Fact 6:
Even though Estonia is considered to be a part of the Baltic countries; along with Latvia and Lithuania, there is no real political alliance.

Fact 7:
Estonia is named after the “Ests” who inhabited the region in the 1st Century AD.

Fact 8:
Estonia is the least religious country in the world with only 14% of the population claiming any religious beliefs.

Fact 9:
Almost 50% of Estonia is covered by forest.

Fact 10:
Estonia has a population of 1.3 million and one of the most sparsely populated countries in Europe.

Fact 11:
Estonia has the highest number of meteorite craters per land area in the world.

Fact 12:
Estonia is the homeland of Skype, Hotmail and KaZaA.

Fact 13:
All Estonian schools are connected to the Internet.

Fact 14:
Chess Grandmaster Paul Keres was born in Estonia. When he died in 1975, over 100,000 people attended his funeral (10% of the country’s entire population).

Fact 15:
Out of the nearly 200 countries in the world, Estonia ranks in the second place with a literacy rate of 99.8%.

Fact 16:
In 1994, Estonia became the first country to institute the flat income tax.

Fact 17:
They have the biggest collection of folk songs in the world with written records of 133,000 folk songs.

Fact 18:
The Estonians invented Kiiking, which is considered a sport. It involves fastening yourself to an enormous standing steel swing (kiik means swing in Estonian) which has a full 360 degrees of rotation to it. To swing a kiiker, the contestant must pump by squatting and standing up on the swing. The swing gains momentum taking the person in full circle by his skillful pumping.

Fact 19:
Estonia produces quality vodka and boasts Viru Valge and Saaremaa as its most popular brands.

Fact 20:
And, in case you are thinking of relocating, Estonia doesn’t accept dual citizenship.

Hope you enjoyed this. Head aega! (That’s “goodbye” in Estonian.)

 

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Flash Fiction #186

Conversation Thread

PHOTO PROMPT© Sandra Crook

FEELIN’ CREATIVE GROOVY

Bob didn’t object to Canada finally legalizing marijuana. Many of his friends had indulged in weed without legal approval for years. He didn’t, and couldn’t understand some of their justifications. “It improves your creative abilities, man.”

Once, he’d thought that his dreams contained epic ideas. A counsellor had taught him how to wake and write them down. The next morning’s notes had read

FREEM DOESN’T CLAVITZ
PROBLY SHOULD QUEES

His friends’ 4:20 “creative” sessions reminded him of those attempts. Eight stoners, loudly holding forth on 13 subjects, all at once! 😯 There wasn’t a single coherent conversational thread to be grasped.

***

Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.

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Click on the title to hear Harper’s Bizarre tell you how groovy it was, back in the Hippie days.

Friday Fictioneers

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WOW #29

Fuck It

I was going to publish this post earlier, but I didn’t remember to.   😳  A previous A To Z was about the word “Forgettery.”  This one’s about the same thing, just with the slightly more upscale name of

OBLIVESCENCE

The act of forgetting Oblivescence dates from the late 19th century and is a later spelling of obliviscence, which dates from the late 18th century. The spelling oblivescence arose by influence of the far more common suffix -escence. The English noun is a derivative of the Latin verb oblīviscī “to forget,” literally “to wipe away, smooth over.” The Latin verb is composed of the prefix ob- “away, against” and the same root as the adjective lēvis “smooth.”

Oblivescence has such a rich, round, regal sound to it. Today’s modern society is so chock-full of need-to-know technical knowledge, that the history, pride and good manners of our more elegant past are being forgotten.  There was a time when you could call another man a liar without calling him a liar, by saying that his claim was ‘mendacity, Sir.’

Today’s schoolchildren are not taught to add, subtract, multiply or divide. Rather, they are trained to use a calculator.  There’s one inside every computer and Smart phone. “Siri, how much is 12 times 17?” They are not taught cursive writing, but rather how to use a keyboard, or even a little touchscreen.  Kids have forgotten how to pick up and use pencils, pens and crayons, but will soon evolve powerful thumbs from texting.

We have forgotten how to debate, or even how to have a polite conversation with those who don’t totally agree with us. Society has forgotten good manners and tolerance.  We, as writers, should attempt to help others recall kind acceptance.  Remember what your Mother taught you; “Play nice with others!”   😀

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Cat Blog – AKA: Views And Likes, Come To Daddy

They say that, after a while, people and their pets begin to look alike. I don’t know about looking like my pets, but I know that I/we have begun to act like our cats, and the cats, sadly, have become like humans.

Experts say that cats don’t talk to each other the way people do. They have many different meows and other sounds to express wants, needs and feelings.  Two or more cats may make sequential sounds, but it’s not conversation.

I can make a low-pitched rumble in the back of my throat that sounds very much like purring. For reasons not known to me, it is called ‘vocal fry.’  About 30% of people do it at the end of words in normal speech.  The Kardashian females are especially noted for it.  When a cat purrs at me, I can purr back, and we’re both contented.

Cat Blog

When the son comes home in the morning, Mica jumps into his lap, digs his claws into tough denim pants, and demands his whapping and scratching. If son is distracted by food, drink or newspaper, Mica soon yowls to remind him that attention is missing.  The son says he’s learned to read and time these outbursts.  Just as the cat opens his mouth, the son meows loudly at him.  He says the look of confusion is precious.  Wait, what??! I was gonna say that.

I have some mild allergies that sometimes make me sneeze – never once, always at least twice, usually three, occasionally four, at least twice, five in a row. If Mica is in the room, or awake and able to hear me, after each and every sneeze, he lightly meows.  The recovering Catholic wife insists that he is blessing me.  As if I needed blessing, or the cat is authorized to do it.  I think he’s just telling me to keep the noise down, to protect his sensitive ears.

Each of our cats has a different time and place where they demand attention. With Tonka, it’s often as I recline my easy chair for my afternoon nap.  Suddenly I have the equivalent of an 18-pound building block on my chest, wanting to snuggle in – try to breathe, try to breathe.  No wonder superstitious mediaeval peasants thought that cats ‘sucked the life out of babies.’  It’s known as positional asphyxia.

Cat Day

In the winter, the air in the house is so dry that we got half-inch-long sparks off doorknobs, so we installed a humidifier in the hall, outside the bedrooms. It had push-button controls on the upper surface.

As we accumulated cats, we found that they will jump up, and pad around on a humidifier, even when it’s running.  Waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of a cat-induced, speed #10, oncoming tornado is a real adventure.

We eventually bought a new humidifier, with touch-screen controls at a 45° angle on the front edge. When cats jump down from something, they slide their front paws over the front edge….  And here comes the tornado again!  We’ve gone two winters now without running it.  A few electric sparks are not as much of a shock as that.

Cat Scratch Fever

All of my cats demand attention at certain times, but Contessa (my little ‘Missy’), is the one who hangs out in the computer room with me while I’m working, or trying to.  She’s also the one with the sharpest claws.  My arms finally reached the point shown above, before I learned to use peripheral vision to notice her coming.  I saw a blog-post the other day.  All it was, was a photo of an arm, scratched worse than mine, with the caption, “Why yes, I do own a cat.  Why do you ask?”

Now, a gentle paw slap as she tries to grab, my attention and my arm, is enough to make her sit back on the floor. Most females don’t want my hands anywhere near them, but when she’s in a ‘pet me’ mood, she demands them all over her.  After 5 long years, she’s even finally taken to lying on her side on the floor at my feet, so that I can rub her tummy – a sign of trust.

Other trust signs are the long, slow, two-eyed blink, and lifting their tail and showing you their butt. They have to trust you enough to take their eyes off you, and the exposed rump not only means that they’re temporarily defenceless, but there are scent glands, which we can’t smell, but which they use to identify themselves to others.

Cat Decision

catacomb – beauty salon for felines
catalyst – cat’s inclination after too much catnip
or – a feline who really makes things happen
catatonic – party fare for cats substituting milk for gin
catechism – manual for turning your doubting tomcat into a true believer
catsup – dinner party for fat cats (catered, of course)
catamaran – a cruise boat for kitties
catastrophe – four felines and a decorated Christmas tree
catapult – what felines apparently use to get into your lap….when you least expect it
Catalan – a Spanish gato
catamount – wherever your kitty climbs up, to sleep
catfish – be sure to put the lid back on the aquarium

yin_yang_cats