Someone once told me that Jews don't need a day called Thanksgiving because we give thanks every day for all the blessings we are given. I won't argue. So let me just add on some things I'm thankful for today in addition to the things I'm thankful for on each day.
I'm thankful to our government for deciding to commemorate a long ago feast held by the Indians and the Pilgrims so that this is an official day off from work. I'm thankful because otherwise there is no way that I would be sitting down to eat a meal with my sister and her family at 4:30 on a Thursday. I'm doubly thankful that my sister is doing the cooking, thus keeping me out of the mad crush of a supermarket in the days before Thanksgiving. I'm thankful that my sister gets to have the leftovers, my family eating Turkey if it's fresh and absolutely refusing to go near it, no matter how it's disguised, if it's left over. There simply aren't enough ways to keep saying how thankful I am that my mother will be there with us, presiding over dismantling that turkey, as she has for decades.
I'm thankful that when I got up this morning and took a nose count, all noses were present. There's more, so much more that I'm thankful for.
So is this a day of Thanksgiving? You betcha! And I hope that my readers, too, will have much to be thankful for today.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
On Being a Girl...Not
Let me make this absolutely crystal clear: I AM NOT A GIRL! Not even the promise of untold riches and fame beyond my imagination could get me to travel back to that time period when I was a girl. I recently corrected someone on another blog and via email who was referring to "young married girls." Contradiction in terms there, an oxymoron of the highest order. That one of the commenters who countered my assertion that girls are not married women laid claim to being an English major merely confirmed to me that today's students aren't getting a well-rounded enough education, particularly in linguistics, philology, diction distinctions and today's commonly acceptable usage.
Let's lay this out fairly briefly. All languages have specific words that refer to the male and female of the species. Some of these words have multiple meanings. Some of these words are age dependent, and some are position dependent, the major position being a particular state as regards marriage.
The word "girl" comes to us from Middle English gurle, girle, circa 1250-1300, derived from the Old English gyrela. Its meaning was female child or young person. As the word made its way through the centuries it also took on the meaning of a young, immature woman or an un married woman. Parents often use the word as a substitute for "daughters" when they say they have two girls.
It is considered offensive today to use the term "girl" to refer to employees of all types (and the EEOC has the clout to punish the offenders); it is also considered slang when you apply the term to a grown woman, and may be considered offensive. Informally some women will refer to a "girls' night out." Note the "some women will refer." When a man refers to an outing in this way, many will take offense. In short, when you have the choice of using girl or woman, choose woman as the safest, least offensive option.
Now, why would some married women use the term "girls" in reference to themselves? One possibility is that woman sounds "too old" to them. However, if age is the stumbling block, English supports calling them young married women or just plain young marrieds. Where the dividing line is between young married women and just plain married women is fuzzy. It can't be the presence of children alone that is the deciding factor. If a 39-year-old woman has one child and has been married one year is she a young married? If a 26-year-old has 5 kids and has been married 8 years is she a young married? And then, of course, there is that "perfect" solution to whether or not they are young married girls or young married women--just call them wives.
There are other words used with varying frequency to describe males and females at various stages both for age and for marital status. The term "maiden" is a general term for an unmarried female. Unfortunately it also gave us "old maid" for one of indeterminate years who is unmarried.
If one is over 21 and either married or not married and objects to being called a woman, I have to ask why. A woman is the mature representative of the female cohort; a girl is the immature representative. Girl-hood lasts for a relatively short time; woman-hood is a much longer time period. Being a woman offers decades of possibilities, of things to do, places to go.
English is not the only language that has these distinctions; all other languages have them as well. What is a "yaldah" in Hebrew if not a girl? But a woman or a married woman is described as an "isha." In Yiddish/German both a young girl and an unmarried female are called a "maidel" or a "maadchen" or if older, a "moidt." Those beyond childhood are a "frau", or a "veib" if they are married.
As I started out, I am quite happy to be a woman. And yes, I see being called a girl as an insult, as an attempt to denigrate my status. My husband may have married a girl in one very specific meaning of that word, but it was a woman who came down that aisle and stood under the chupah. It's a woman who has shared his life for all these years. And yes, frankly, girls titter and twitter and giggle. Not me--I am woman...hear me roar!
Let's lay this out fairly briefly. All languages have specific words that refer to the male and female of the species. Some of these words have multiple meanings. Some of these words are age dependent, and some are position dependent, the major position being a particular state as regards marriage.
The word "girl" comes to us from Middle English gurle, girle, circa 1250-1300, derived from the Old English gyrela. Its meaning was female child or young person. As the word made its way through the centuries it also took on the meaning of a young, immature woman or an un married woman. Parents often use the word as a substitute for "daughters" when they say they have two girls.
It is considered offensive today to use the term "girl" to refer to employees of all types (and the EEOC has the clout to punish the offenders); it is also considered slang when you apply the term to a grown woman, and may be considered offensive. Informally some women will refer to a "girls' night out." Note the "some women will refer." When a man refers to an outing in this way, many will take offense. In short, when you have the choice of using girl or woman, choose woman as the safest, least offensive option.
Now, why would some married women use the term "girls" in reference to themselves? One possibility is that woman sounds "too old" to them. However, if age is the stumbling block, English supports calling them young married women or just plain young marrieds. Where the dividing line is between young married women and just plain married women is fuzzy. It can't be the presence of children alone that is the deciding factor. If a 39-year-old woman has one child and has been married one year is she a young married? If a 26-year-old has 5 kids and has been married 8 years is she a young married? And then, of course, there is that "perfect" solution to whether or not they are young married girls or young married women--just call them wives.
There are other words used with varying frequency to describe males and females at various stages both for age and for marital status. The term "maiden" is a general term for an unmarried female. Unfortunately it also gave us "old maid" for one of indeterminate years who is unmarried.
If one is over 21 and either married or not married and objects to being called a woman, I have to ask why. A woman is the mature representative of the female cohort; a girl is the immature representative. Girl-hood lasts for a relatively short time; woman-hood is a much longer time period. Being a woman offers decades of possibilities, of things to do, places to go.
English is not the only language that has these distinctions; all other languages have them as well. What is a "yaldah" in Hebrew if not a girl? But a woman or a married woman is described as an "isha." In Yiddish/German both a young girl and an unmarried female are called a "maidel" or a "maadchen" or if older, a "moidt." Those beyond childhood are a "frau", or a "veib" if they are married.
As I started out, I am quite happy to be a woman. And yes, I see being called a girl as an insult, as an attempt to denigrate my status. My husband may have married a girl in one very specific meaning of that word, but it was a woman who came down that aisle and stood under the chupah. It's a woman who has shared his life for all these years. And yes, frankly, girls titter and twitter and giggle. Not me--I am woman...hear me roar!
Where's the Beef?
No one, and I mean NO ONE, has any idea just how much money it takes to support the various institutions, organizations and other parts of the frum infrastructure. Some of this is because many groups have no transparency when it comes to their finances. But I suppose that basically it boils down to nobody having the interest or time or access to undertake such a massive hunt for the money.
So, let's work backwards and see if we can discover anything about the money it takes to support our groups. In 2008 The American Jewish Yearbook published demographic figures for the Jewish population of the US, first state by state, and then broken down by location within the state. http://www.jewishdatabank.org/AJYB/AJY-2008.pdf There is no claim as to the religious affiliation of the population showcased other than it is Jewish. For some communities a new survey of population was not done for 2008 so that data comes from 2002.
Let's look at some figures. The estimated 2008 Jewish population of New York was 1,617,720, 8.4% of the state population. Now, let's look at some figures for specific areas in New York. Unfortunately, the NY figures date back to 2002, but they should be adquate for our purposes. Specifically, let's look at five areas in Brooklyn.
Borough Park: 76,600
Flatbush-Midwood-Kensington: 101,100
Williamsburg: 52,700
Crown Heights-Prospect-Lefferts Gardens: 15,700
Coney Island-Brighton-Sheepshead Bay: 49,700
The total Jewish population for these five areas was 295,800 in 2002. One thing we do know, even if anecdotally, is that these five areas have very large concentrations of religious Jews, of all types and stripes, and that religious Jews represent a far larger percentage of the Jewish population than in other areas of New York.
I'm going to pick a number to represent that religious population. I think that it would be within reason to say that 50% of the Jewish population in these areas is religious--and it could be higher. So, that would be about 147,900 religious Jews. Of course, these Jews are going to be across a number of age groups. Given that this is a religious population we are talking about, there are going to be a large number of children. To balance out the children with either older married couples/widowed singles and never been married singles or couples with no children, I'm going to say that children represent 70,000 of the population, a bit under 50% of the religious population.
If your eyes haven't turned back into your head, bear with me a bit longer. Even with these hypothetical figures, you have 77,900 religious Jews to support the infrastructure of the community. These are the ones who will need to put out the money for the local yeshivas, for the shuls, for the mikvaot, for the Hatzolah groups, for the Vaadim HaKashrus, for the Chevra Kadisha, for the Bikur Cholims, for the Hachnosas Kallah groups etc., etc., etc..
If each of those people donated $100 per year to the infrastructure groups IN THEIR AREA, that would come to $7,790,000, and I hate to say it, but that is really small potatoes when it comes to supporting Klal. We have an estimate from the principal of BYOB that the school needs about four million dollars a year to run with all the programs it has now. Plenty of other yeshivas which probably have the same or around the same running costs. The money might cover two large yeshivas.
If each of those people donated $1000 per year we'd have $77,900,000. That sounds like more serious money, but will it cover all the infrastructure costs? Again, count up just yeshivas alone and I don't think so, or maybe just close. So what if we had all those people donate $5000 a year? Now we would have $389,500,000 to work with.
Of course, we need to understand that some of those adults will not be able to donate $5000 a year, or maybe not even $100 a year. They may be the elderly on very fixed incomes. There will be some who are unemployed, whether by design or through economic cutbacks. There will be some whose earning levels just won't allow these type of donations. There will be people who are ill. And then there will also be that tzedaka funds may not stay exclusively in the areas mentioned above; they may go to Jewish institutions and programs in other places around the globe. On the other hand, there may well be people who will give more than the $5000 per year, perhaps double or triple or more. In fact, we know that some people are giving a lot more. We know that there are parents who are giving yeshivas anywhere from $10K to $50K or even more in tuition each year. Even if half of the religious Jews couldn't manage that $5k, there would seem to be enough who are giving more so the amount would balance out.
So it would seem to be a possibility that these five areas could be seeing monies donated in the $300,000,000 to $400,000,000 range. So here's my question: does the infrastructure in the religious communities of these five areas take more than $389,500,000 per year to support? If it does, then why? If it's more then why? If the BYOB uses 4 million to educate 2100 students, then the 70,000 kids stated above should take about $134 million. Seems like there is an awful lot of money left to cover the other infrastructure costs of Klal. Maybe.
Granted, my numbers are approximations and suppositions based on some statistics available. But even with approximations and even if my numbers in actuality should prove to be too high (or too low), there is what would seem to be an awful lot of money that is being funneled into these five geographic areas. And that is not even counting that there are Jews who might not strictly fall into the straight "religious" category who also sometimes support some of the infrastructure funding. Or that in the same way that some funds leave these communities in tzedaka donations going outside, there are tzedaka donations from outside funneling into these areas.
Whatever the actual money numbers should turn out to be, they won't be small. When we are talking about this much money (and this is just a part of Brooklyn yet) it's way past time to see just where all that money is going and what it is being used for. Someone needs to do what I've done above, but do it with the real numbers. Yeshivas and all the other institutions of Klal need to give an accounting of what it really costs to keep them up. And then we need to look at what they need and what we have.
So, let's work backwards and see if we can discover anything about the money it takes to support our groups. In 2008 The American Jewish Yearbook published demographic figures for the Jewish population of the US, first state by state, and then broken down by location within the state. http://www.jewishdatabank.org/AJYB/AJY-2008.pdf There is no claim as to the religious affiliation of the population showcased other than it is Jewish. For some communities a new survey of population was not done for 2008 so that data comes from 2002.
Let's look at some figures. The estimated 2008 Jewish population of New York was 1,617,720, 8.4% of the state population. Now, let's look at some figures for specific areas in New York. Unfortunately, the NY figures date back to 2002, but they should be adquate for our purposes. Specifically, let's look at five areas in Brooklyn.
Borough Park: 76,600
Flatbush-Midwood-Kensington: 101,100
Williamsburg: 52,700
Crown Heights-Prospect-Lefferts Gardens: 15,700
Coney Island-Brighton-Sheepshead Bay: 49,700
The total Jewish population for these five areas was 295,800 in 2002. One thing we do know, even if anecdotally, is that these five areas have very large concentrations of religious Jews, of all types and stripes, and that religious Jews represent a far larger percentage of the Jewish population than in other areas of New York.
I'm going to pick a number to represent that religious population. I think that it would be within reason to say that 50% of the Jewish population in these areas is religious--and it could be higher. So, that would be about 147,900 religious Jews. Of course, these Jews are going to be across a number of age groups. Given that this is a religious population we are talking about, there are going to be a large number of children. To balance out the children with either older married couples/widowed singles and never been married singles or couples with no children, I'm going to say that children represent 70,000 of the population, a bit under 50% of the religious population.
If your eyes haven't turned back into your head, bear with me a bit longer. Even with these hypothetical figures, you have 77,900 religious Jews to support the infrastructure of the community. These are the ones who will need to put out the money for the local yeshivas, for the shuls, for the mikvaot, for the Hatzolah groups, for the Vaadim HaKashrus, for the Chevra Kadisha, for the Bikur Cholims, for the Hachnosas Kallah groups etc., etc., etc..
If each of those people donated $100 per year to the infrastructure groups IN THEIR AREA, that would come to $7,790,000, and I hate to say it, but that is really small potatoes when it comes to supporting Klal. We have an estimate from the principal of BYOB that the school needs about four million dollars a year to run with all the programs it has now. Plenty of other yeshivas which probably have the same or around the same running costs. The money might cover two large yeshivas.
If each of those people donated $1000 per year we'd have $77,900,000. That sounds like more serious money, but will it cover all the infrastructure costs? Again, count up just yeshivas alone and I don't think so, or maybe just close. So what if we had all those people donate $5000 a year? Now we would have $389,500,000 to work with.
Of course, we need to understand that some of those adults will not be able to donate $5000 a year, or maybe not even $100 a year. They may be the elderly on very fixed incomes. There will be some who are unemployed, whether by design or through economic cutbacks. There will be some whose earning levels just won't allow these type of donations. There will be people who are ill. And then there will also be that tzedaka funds may not stay exclusively in the areas mentioned above; they may go to Jewish institutions and programs in other places around the globe. On the other hand, there may well be people who will give more than the $5000 per year, perhaps double or triple or more. In fact, we know that some people are giving a lot more. We know that there are parents who are giving yeshivas anywhere from $10K to $50K or even more in tuition each year. Even if half of the religious Jews couldn't manage that $5k, there would seem to be enough who are giving more so the amount would balance out.
So it would seem to be a possibility that these five areas could be seeing monies donated in the $300,000,000 to $400,000,000 range. So here's my question: does the infrastructure in the religious communities of these five areas take more than $389,500,000 per year to support? If it does, then why? If it's more then why? If the BYOB uses 4 million to educate 2100 students, then the 70,000 kids stated above should take about $134 million. Seems like there is an awful lot of money left to cover the other infrastructure costs of Klal. Maybe.
Granted, my numbers are approximations and suppositions based on some statistics available. But even with approximations and even if my numbers in actuality should prove to be too high (or too low), there is what would seem to be an awful lot of money that is being funneled into these five geographic areas. And that is not even counting that there are Jews who might not strictly fall into the straight "religious" category who also sometimes support some of the infrastructure funding. Or that in the same way that some funds leave these communities in tzedaka donations going outside, there are tzedaka donations from outside funneling into these areas.
Whatever the actual money numbers should turn out to be, they won't be small. When we are talking about this much money (and this is just a part of Brooklyn yet) it's way past time to see just where all that money is going and what it is being used for. Someone needs to do what I've done above, but do it with the real numbers. Yeshivas and all the other institutions of Klal need to give an accounting of what it really costs to keep them up. And then we need to look at what they need and what we have.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Husbands/Wives, Not Marriage
After this many years of living I can say without exaggeration that I've seen/met thousands of married couples. I can also say without exaggeration that the number of married men whom I have met that I, personally, would have considered as "husband" material when I was dating can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and not all the fingers at that. Now don't get me wrong--there is nothing intrinsically wrong with these men. Some of them are quite nice--their wives certainly think so. I can appreciate some of their finer qualities; in fact, I count some of these men as friends. Yet....
If all I had been looking for back in my single days was to get married, then almost any of these men would have been fine candidates. Clearly, from the number of years that many of these couples are married, they did just fine at marriage. I have, over the years, run into some of the boys I dated, all married now. I still mentally shake my head and say, "Nope, he was definitely not for me," while at the exact same time recognizing that these men are in strong marriages, loving marriages.
But you see, it wasn't marriage I was looking for when I was dating--it was a husband. And there is a world of difference between husbands and marriage.
Hang around any single people of marriageable age and you are sure to hear "I just want to get married!" Or you might hear "Why am I still single?!" Well here's the thing: if marriage is all these people really want, that's fairly simple to achieve. Yup, simple. Assuming you aren't carrying an axe dripping blood on a date, anyone can quickly learn to paste a fascinated look on their face. Anyone can learn to make the person they are out with feel incredibly desirable and desired. Anyone can develop a surface relationship. Anyone can find a person out there if all they want is marriage. A husband or wife is a different story.
Yes, someone out there will argue that as soon as you get married the male and female become a husband and wife. Maybe. But for many it is not husbands and wives that result from marriage but spouses, a far more generic term and one that simply indicates the married status of a male and a female. "Spouse" places the state of being married first and the unique relationship of the couple second. Spouses are not as much concerned with the state of their personal relationship with each other as they are with the concerns of a marriage--having and raising children, providing a home for the family, being a part of a community etc..
Here's how I see the order of importance. Those who search for husbands and wives, who are searching for the "other half" of themselves, and who continue the search until they find that husband or wife are automatically going to find themselves having a marriage as well. But it's going to be a marriage built on a diamond and titanium foundation. It's going to be a marriage that will be impervious to the sometimes rocky situations that husbands and wives can find themselves in. It's going to be a lasting marriage because the foundation of that marriage--the husband and wife--are rock solid. Because they complete each other, complement each other, husbands and wives take marriage to its highest level. Finding a husband or wife is the ultimate personal journey. It requires personal examination and answering truthfully the questions "What do I really want/need for myself?" and "What can I give/offer/provide to someone else?"
Those questions asked on Shidduch questionnaires? The ones whose answers people put so much stock in when looking for a shidduch? Those questions are about spouses, not husbands and wives. Like any other job application--and being a spouse is a job--the questions asked are more about revealing a person's fitness for carrying out the job of spouse, of producing a marriage, then they are about husband and wife characteristics. What summer camp someone went to or which seminary or yeshiva or which hechsher of peanut butter someone finds acceptable have nothing to do with being a husband or wife.
Here's the thing--finding a husband or wife is about feelings, not facts. Finding a husband or wife is about how you feel about a person, what emotions are engendered. It's about the deeply personal. A young woman I had redt a shidduch to was debating about going out on a fifth date with the young man. I asked her, "If you never saw this person again would you miss him? Would there be an empty space? Would you cry?" Her honest answer was "No." And the dating stopped. She was looking for a husband, not a spouse.
Sometimes, if you are really lucky, you may take a spouse and find yourself down the road with a husband or wife. Given the state of far too many marriages today, the escalating shalom bayis problems, the escalating divorce rate, there are far too many people choosing marriage and spouses over choosing husbands and wives and then finding they have a marriage.
So, maybe it's time for all those people in the shidduch parsha to do some introspection. Maybe they really need some self-honesty. Are they looking for marriage and a spouse? Or are they searching for a husband or a wife? If the former, then a change of technique and approach will have that marriage happening in short order. If the latter? I wish you the joy and exquisite happiness that will be yours, but patience is necessary, lots of patience. Hatzlocha Raboh.
If all I had been looking for back in my single days was to get married, then almost any of these men would have been fine candidates. Clearly, from the number of years that many of these couples are married, they did just fine at marriage. I have, over the years, run into some of the boys I dated, all married now. I still mentally shake my head and say, "Nope, he was definitely not for me," while at the exact same time recognizing that these men are in strong marriages, loving marriages.
But you see, it wasn't marriage I was looking for when I was dating--it was a husband. And there is a world of difference between husbands and marriage.
Hang around any single people of marriageable age and you are sure to hear "I just want to get married!" Or you might hear "Why am I still single?!" Well here's the thing: if marriage is all these people really want, that's fairly simple to achieve. Yup, simple. Assuming you aren't carrying an axe dripping blood on a date, anyone can quickly learn to paste a fascinated look on their face. Anyone can learn to make the person they are out with feel incredibly desirable and desired. Anyone can develop a surface relationship. Anyone can find a person out there if all they want is marriage. A husband or wife is a different story.
Yes, someone out there will argue that as soon as you get married the male and female become a husband and wife. Maybe. But for many it is not husbands and wives that result from marriage but spouses, a far more generic term and one that simply indicates the married status of a male and a female. "Spouse" places the state of being married first and the unique relationship of the couple second. Spouses are not as much concerned with the state of their personal relationship with each other as they are with the concerns of a marriage--having and raising children, providing a home for the family, being a part of a community etc..
Here's how I see the order of importance. Those who search for husbands and wives, who are searching for the "other half" of themselves, and who continue the search until they find that husband or wife are automatically going to find themselves having a marriage as well. But it's going to be a marriage built on a diamond and titanium foundation. It's going to be a marriage that will be impervious to the sometimes rocky situations that husbands and wives can find themselves in. It's going to be a lasting marriage because the foundation of that marriage--the husband and wife--are rock solid. Because they complete each other, complement each other, husbands and wives take marriage to its highest level. Finding a husband or wife is the ultimate personal journey. It requires personal examination and answering truthfully the questions "What do I really want/need for myself?" and "What can I give/offer/provide to someone else?"
Those questions asked on Shidduch questionnaires? The ones whose answers people put so much stock in when looking for a shidduch? Those questions are about spouses, not husbands and wives. Like any other job application--and being a spouse is a job--the questions asked are more about revealing a person's fitness for carrying out the job of spouse, of producing a marriage, then they are about husband and wife characteristics. What summer camp someone went to or which seminary or yeshiva or which hechsher of peanut butter someone finds acceptable have nothing to do with being a husband or wife.
Here's the thing--finding a husband or wife is about feelings, not facts. Finding a husband or wife is about how you feel about a person, what emotions are engendered. It's about the deeply personal. A young woman I had redt a shidduch to was debating about going out on a fifth date with the young man. I asked her, "If you never saw this person again would you miss him? Would there be an empty space? Would you cry?" Her honest answer was "No." And the dating stopped. She was looking for a husband, not a spouse.
Sometimes, if you are really lucky, you may take a spouse and find yourself down the road with a husband or wife. Given the state of far too many marriages today, the escalating shalom bayis problems, the escalating divorce rate, there are far too many people choosing marriage and spouses over choosing husbands and wives and then finding they have a marriage.
So, maybe it's time for all those people in the shidduch parsha to do some introspection. Maybe they really need some self-honesty. Are they looking for marriage and a spouse? Or are they searching for a husband or a wife? If the former, then a change of technique and approach will have that marriage happening in short order. If the latter? I wish you the joy and exquisite happiness that will be yours, but patience is necessary, lots of patience. Hatzlocha Raboh.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
To Wit, Twit
Madison Avenue advertising agencies spend thousands of hours and dollars when deciding on just the perfect name for a new product. They know that the wrong name can sink a product, and the right name can help guarantee a long life. They are careful that a product's name should have no negative connotation that might turn off customers. They run consumer opinion panels to judge how "real people" react to the product name and its claims. In short, they heed Shakespeare's question, "What's in a Name?"
And then there is Twitter. Talk about an infelicitous choice of names. Every time I hear the name I laugh and go "No thanks." What does twitter mean? For starters, the verb means "
to utter a succession of small, tremulous sounds, as a bird; to talk lightly and rapidly, especially of trivial matters; chatter; to titter; giggle; to be in a flutter." It's transitive verb form is to twit, meaning "To taunt, ridicule, or tease, especially for embarrassing mistakes or faults; to reproach or gibe." Its family noun? Twit, meaning "an insignificant or bothersome person." In slang a twit is " a foolishly annoying person; a stupid person." Twit/twitter is associated with other tw- words such as twaddle and twerp and through sound rhyme to nitwit-- none of these words having a particularly positive connotation.
What are the synonyms for twit or twitter as a verb? "banter, caricature, cartoon, chaff, deflate, deride, expose, fleer, gibe, haze, humiliate, jape, jeer, jest, jive, jolly, josh, kid, lampoon, laugh, laugh at, make a fool of, make a game of, make a laughing-stock, make fun of, mimic, mock, needle, pan, parody, poke fun at, pooh-pooh, pull one's leg, put down*, quiz, rag, rail at, rally, raz, rib, ride*, roast, run down, satirize, scoff, scorn, scout, send up, show up, sneer, takeoff, taunt, travesty, unmask ." What are the synonyms for twit as a noun? "blockhead, dolt, donkey, dope, dunce, fool, idiot, imbecile, jackass, jerk*, nitwit, numbskull, simpleton."
Telling someone to tweet you on Twitter doesn't improve things, either. For one thing, tweet is simply a synonym for twitter. For another, the meaning of tweet is "the short, weak cry of a young bird, a chirp; the normal sound of an animal."
So, basically Twitter is inconsequential, uber short sound bites that are insignificant, uttered by and/or to those of limited verbal talent, mostly for the purpose of saying nothing, but saying it in a way that may haze the recipient. Think not? I spent some time wandering through Twitter-ville strictly for the purpose of determining how and with what subject matter people were twittering. There were thousands of permutations of the basic "I'm going to_________ Catch ya later." I now know what hundreds of people had for breakfast/lunch/dinner/snack. I read "Hey Dude" enough times to fill a dictionary. I learned more than I ever wanted to learn about the condition of people's various body parts, particularly their digestive systems. According to the wisdom of Twitter, gas is the number one problem in America, and I don't mean the kind that goes into cars. And yes, a whole lot of the utterances on Twitter were not kindly meant. Honesty requires that I mention that there were a few attempts at serious conversation that I found, if serious conversation and thought is really possible with a 140 character limit on "messages."
Twitter is being sold as a great social networking site. If this is social networking, we are all in deep trouble. Most of what's on Twitter is noise to fill in the silence that so many people seem afraid of. It's a surface flitting about with no way and no intention of allowing real communication and/or real socialization to take place. It's a poofy substitute for the real thing.
Now, don't you feel all warm and fuzzy that you've gone to Twitter and twitted or tweeted someone?
And then there is Twitter. Talk about an infelicitous choice of names. Every time I hear the name I laugh and go "No thanks." What does twitter mean? For starters, the verb means "
to utter a succession of small, tremulous sounds, as a bird; to talk lightly and rapidly, especially of trivial matters; chatter; to titter; giggle; to be in a flutter." It's transitive verb form is to twit, meaning "To taunt, ridicule, or tease, especially for embarrassing mistakes or faults; to reproach or gibe." Its family noun? Twit, meaning "an insignificant or bothersome person." In slang a twit is " a foolishly annoying person; a stupid person." Twit/twitter is associated with other tw- words such as twaddle and twerp and through sound rhyme to nitwit-- none of these words having a particularly positive connotation.
What are the synonyms for twit or twitter as a verb? "banter, caricature, cartoon, chaff, deflate, deride, expose, fleer, gibe, haze, humiliate, jape, jeer, jest, jive, jolly, josh, kid, lampoon, laugh, laugh at, make a fool of, make a game of, make a laughing-stock, make fun of, mimic, mock, needle, pan, parody, poke fun at, pooh-pooh, pull one's leg, put down*, quiz, rag, rail at, rally, raz, rib, ride*, roast, run down, satirize, scoff, scorn, scout, send up, show up, sneer, takeoff, taunt, travesty, unmask ." What are the synonyms for twit as a noun? "blockhead, dolt, donkey, dope, dunce, fool, idiot, imbecile, jackass, jerk*, nitwit, numbskull, simpleton."
Telling someone to tweet you on Twitter doesn't improve things, either. For one thing, tweet is simply a synonym for twitter. For another, the meaning of tweet is "the short, weak cry of a young bird, a chirp; the normal sound of an animal."
So, basically Twitter is inconsequential, uber short sound bites that are insignificant, uttered by and/or to those of limited verbal talent, mostly for the purpose of saying nothing, but saying it in a way that may haze the recipient. Think not? I spent some time wandering through Twitter-ville strictly for the purpose of determining how and with what subject matter people were twittering. There were thousands of permutations of the basic "I'm going to_________ Catch ya later." I now know what hundreds of people had for breakfast/lunch/dinner/snack. I read "Hey Dude" enough times to fill a dictionary. I learned more than I ever wanted to learn about the condition of people's various body parts, particularly their digestive systems. According to the wisdom of Twitter, gas is the number one problem in America, and I don't mean the kind that goes into cars. And yes, a whole lot of the utterances on Twitter were not kindly meant. Honesty requires that I mention that there were a few attempts at serious conversation that I found, if serious conversation and thought is really possible with a 140 character limit on "messages."
Twitter is being sold as a great social networking site. If this is social networking, we are all in deep trouble. Most of what's on Twitter is noise to fill in the silence that so many people seem afraid of. It's a surface flitting about with no way and no intention of allowing real communication and/or real socialization to take place. It's a poofy substitute for the real thing.
Now, don't you feel all warm and fuzzy that you've gone to Twitter and twitted or tweeted someone?
Friday, November 20, 2009
Permanent Employment
The following was sent to me via email. I'm aware that the intended "lesson" was supposed to be political. Well, you know what they say about intentions. Unlike the writer of the piece, I see this as illustrative of a language problem, or maybe the state of education today. One thing for sure--if this is the state of our spoken language today, English teachers are never going to be unemployed.
CLUELESS in Seattle
In a Seattle , Washington college classroom, they were discussing the qualifications to be President of the United States . It was pretty simple. The candidate must be a natural born citizen of at least 35 years of age.
However, one girl in the class immediately started in on how unfair was the requirement to be a natural born citizen. In short, her opinion was that this requirement prevented many
capable individuals from becoming president. The class was taking it in and letting her rant, but everyone's jaw hit the floor when she wrapped up her argument by stating, “What makes a natural born citizen any more qualified to lead this country than one born by C-section?”
Yep, these are the 18 year olds that just voted for the President of the United States . These are our future leaders. Are we in trouble or what?
CLUELESS in Seattle
In a Seattle , Washington college classroom, they were discussing the qualifications to be President of the United States . It was pretty simple. The candidate must be a natural born citizen of at least 35 years of age.
However, one girl in the class immediately started in on how unfair was the requirement to be a natural born citizen. In short, her opinion was that this requirement prevented many
capable individuals from becoming president. The class was taking it in and letting her rant, but everyone's jaw hit the floor when she wrapped up her argument by stating, “What makes a natural born citizen any more qualified to lead this country than one born by C-section?”
Yep, these are the 18 year olds that just voted for the President of the United States . These are our future leaders. Are we in trouble or what?
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Don't Tell, Like Hell
I was speaking with someone about the sorry state that there are child abusers within our school systems and within the community at large. During our conversation something popped up that I feel I need to share with my readers, and I hope they will share it with others as well.
Children look at their parents as being their protectors. They love their parents and don't want anything to happen to them. They are also protective in turn. It is a ploy of the abusers among us that they tell the children they abuse that they may not/should not tell their parents what is going on. Counselors who deal with the victims of abuse frequently hear from these children that the monsters who abused them sometimes told them that bad things would happen to the parents if the children told them what was going on. Some tell the children that bad things will happen to them and their parents won't like hearing about it. Some, who are in positions of authority over the children, tell the children that this is a private matter and doesn't concern the parents. In short, they prey on the concerns that children have about their parents.
It would be a good idea to make it a "family rule" that if anyone, ever, tells the children that they shouldn't tell their parents something, the first thing the children should do is tell their parents. Without necessarily going into the specifics of what a person wants hidden, children should be told and taught that parents need to know everything, that secrets are not something that children and parents should have. Anyone who tells them not to tell their parents something is not their friend. And parents need to stress to their children that there is nothing that a child could tell them that would cause them to cease loving that child.
Yeah sure, there might be a surprise birthday party that isn't going to be a surprise. Big whoops. It's far more important that children know that "Don't tell your parents" actually means the opposite--run and tell your parents.
Children look at their parents as being their protectors. They love their parents and don't want anything to happen to them. They are also protective in turn. It is a ploy of the abusers among us that they tell the children they abuse that they may not/should not tell their parents what is going on. Counselors who deal with the victims of abuse frequently hear from these children that the monsters who abused them sometimes told them that bad things would happen to the parents if the children told them what was going on. Some tell the children that bad things will happen to them and their parents won't like hearing about it. Some, who are in positions of authority over the children, tell the children that this is a private matter and doesn't concern the parents. In short, they prey on the concerns that children have about their parents.
It would be a good idea to make it a "family rule" that if anyone, ever, tells the children that they shouldn't tell their parents something, the first thing the children should do is tell their parents. Without necessarily going into the specifics of what a person wants hidden, children should be told and taught that parents need to know everything, that secrets are not something that children and parents should have. Anyone who tells them not to tell their parents something is not their friend. And parents need to stress to their children that there is nothing that a child could tell them that would cause them to cease loving that child.
Yeah sure, there might be a surprise birthday party that isn't going to be a surprise. Big whoops. It's far more important that children know that "Don't tell your parents" actually means the opposite--run and tell your parents.
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