On My Santa Wish List

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Maybe the Old Boy could deliver a copy of Ed Neuman' s "Strictly Speaking" to every journalist, politician,  and flack in the nation. Then perhaps we wouldn't be subjected to so damn many stupid uses of the English language.

Like this morning.  Headlines all over the place about the worsening housing "crisis." 

Near as I can figure, what's happening is that fewer people are going in hock for houses they can't afford, never could afford, and never will be able to afford.  If that's a "crisis" I'll kiss your butt on the quarterdeck and give you an hour to turn out the watch below. 

Money gurus

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My friend came by recently and the conversation turned to the markets. He had come by  a good deal of money  the hard way and over the past few years placed most of it in the financial markets, losing as of last week,  about two-thirds of it. He spread it around in accord with the advice of a "well regarded investment advisor"  who sold him  a "diversified portfolio" of mutual funds.  Which brings us to the point:

These guys don't know one damned bit more about investing than you do. 

Write that on your hand. 

Like used car peddlers, they work for commissions. 

The B-word

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It isn't quite like Carlin's famous seven, but our northern-plains forecasters are reluctant to use bl****ard. Bad for business. 

So we haven't  had an official governmentally approved (B-word) yet this season. The worst I've seen in print is "whiteout," (code for "Drive and Die") due to heavy snow and high wind. That used to be a (B-word). 

But some of us use the word in conditions of carefully guarded privacy,  and that will sometimes raise the question of where it came from.  As a matter of regional pride, Midwest children hereabouts  are taught that it was invented by an Estherville, Iowa, newspaper writer to describe a spring storm in 1870. 

Which ignores a little bit of doggeral of the kind I've always liked -- an evil-repelling chant from  the early 1800s asking Divine protection against "gizzards and blizzards."

It also ignores one  contribution,  among many,  of the shooting sports to the English language. From the Newark (Ohio) Advocate for October 25. 1867: 

“I and Sam loded and fired as fast as we could, and at every broadside the black rascals fell in showers around us….The crow was keerful to keep as high abuv the rest as possible, but every time he’d lite we’d give him a blast. At length, toward evenin, we kind of hived him, and the last of the blackbirds in a big old tree….Now, Sam, sez I, now for big lodes and a simultuous blizzard!….How it did rain blackbirds….”.

It's sad that Estherville has nothing else to be proud of.

EDIT,  Sat. A.M.: Does NWS read this stuff? Or is Smugistan-on-Lake really in for it? Anyway, the dreaded  B-Word is now in our forecast.

  

 

Hey Al Gore, I got your ice right here

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Yesterday's news held woeful laments for all that recently lost ice and snow  in northern Greenland. Relax Al. I just found it here in Smugistan-on-Lake.

You can have it back for free.  Just pay shipping and handling.