My colleague Ted just told me about this site: Hometown Favorites. You can buy candy from your generation! I identify mostly with the 70s candy, but the 80s comes in at a strong second.
Mmmm. Zotz. And Pop Rocks. Watch out! Don’t eat Pop Rocks and Coke together!
This ties in so well with my Sister’s notion that sugar must be re-formed in order to make it palatable.
I have decided to document another of my favorite linguistic affectations: ’s’s. Allow me to explain.
’s’s shows up most often, I have noticed, when someone answers a business telephone. In our American culture, we are trained that it is businesslike to answer our telephones by identifying ourselves. Often, that identification sounds like this:
Hello, this is Bryan
Sometimes, this identification is shortened into
This is Bryan
This shortened form, in particular, seems to be the genesis of ’s’s. In American business, time is money. Normal conversational social protocols are compressed. Telephone calls are interruptions. They must be processed as quickly as possible. Thus, the phrase This is becomes compressed into a quick double-s with a slight slowing in between: ’s’s.
’s’s Bryan
Listen for it the next time you answer your business telephone. It’s there!
I was listening to Fresh Air this afternoon while I drove down Highway 101 in my Ford Explorer SUV. I’m such a bourgouis tool.
Anyway, today, Terry Gross was interviewing Dean Kamen, this century’s Edisonesque übernerd. Dean’s most recent invention is the Segway, which is making news lately because San Francisco has banned its use on public sidewalks. I suppose that’s the occasion for the interview.
During the show, Terry told Dean that she had read that he didn’t sleep much. “I’m not even sure that it’s true,” Dean said. “I just tend to be up all night. But, I don’t get up real early in the morning like a lot of people do. I go to bed at 2 or 3 in the morning unless something exciting is going on.”
I have struggled with my internal clock drifting toward the nocturnal for years. When I heard this, I felt vindicated. I still love the morning, but the next time I look up from my workbench and see the clock showing 2:00 a.m., I’ll think of Dean Kamen and smile. Of course, I’ll probably forget all about that the next morning at 7:00 a.m. when I feel like I’m dead! In any case, if Dean Kamen is a night owl then I don’t feel so bad about being one sometimes.
P.S. — One of my personal goals is to be interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air for some intriguing accomplishment. Stay tuned, you might hear me someday!
We were lying in bed discussing how we anticipate seeing each other at the end of the work day.
“When you come through the door I feel like saying Alas, you’re home!”
I knew she wasn’t joking so I tried not to laugh. “What does alas mean?”.
“It means At last! Finally!”
“No… it means On no!, as in Alas! All is lost!”
“It does? That’s funny! Well, I meant At last!”
“I know. It was one of your Karenisms.”
“I can’t help it! They come out that way sometimes.”
This is how many of our conversations go. Truly.
We were looking for books in the health section of Borders at McCarthy Ranch.
Karen noticed a book: Shiatsu Massage. “Shat-soo massage”, she said. “SHAT soo.”
This was my cue. I responded, “SHIT soo.”
Then it hit me. I said, “Hey, what do you call it when Shih Tzu dogs give Shiatsu massage? It would be Shih Tzu Shiatsu!”
We looked at each other with that sparkly silly look in our eyes and said in unision, “SHIT soo SHAT soo!”
We giggled each time we repeated that to each other the rest of the night. People looked at us like we were crazy.
Tonight we were talking to Sonny and Nora about sharing a table at the De Anza Flea Market.
Karen said, “We could glad-handle all the people and get them to buy stuff!”
I asked her, “Don’t you mean glad-hand all the people? I wonder what glad-handling would be, or if all the people would want us doing that to them…”
She glared at me and said, “Whatever! You know what I meant!”
Thus, a new Karenism: glad-handle.