Sometimes I can't believe how geeky I really am.
I grew up reading ponderous books, and I'm afraid that I often talk like an Oxford Dictionary.
A few years ago I was discussing Madeleine's unfortunate habit of refusing to be potty trained.
"If she can't get that under control," I mused to Roger, "it bodes ill for her transition into the 3 year old room."
"BODES ILL?," he snorted. "Yes, I guess it does BODE ILL."
The other day Roger returned from football practice. (he is a coach). It was a balmy 110 this day.
"I hope you didn't make your boys run," I commented. "Yep," he replied. It's cut time. We have to see who can take it."
"Well," I said, "I'm surprised, in an increasingly litigious society, that the school will allow y'all to let them run in this heat."
"Litigious society?" he snorted again. (I'm afraid he snorts a lot). "I'm jes a dumb ol' coach--talk plain, willya."
Thursday I was discussing a new certificate (1 year) program with my dean. "I hope that the requirements can be seamlessly integrated into the 2 year existing program," I said.
She was too polite to snort. She just looked at me.
I'm afraid I'm not seamlessly integrated.
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7 comments:
Things like this seperate those who read a lot and those who don't. Also those who write a lot and those who don't. BTW, I love the way you write! I got kidded a lot when I said something about "casting aspersions" at work once. But that probably just says something about how much older I am!
HA! I can relate. Just last week I got laughed at for using the word "circuitous." Also, I am trying to singlehandedly bring back the phrase "I daresay." They still say it in England and it sounds so ironic and retro. God, I guess I am a geek, too.
I love "I daresay!"
I'm such a geek that I sneer back. When I say "That's not the most efficacious tool for the job" and people say "English, please?" I reply, in the accent of my salt-of-the-earth Georgia relative" "Another thang would be GOODER!" And when a co-worker told me to stop using "twenty dollar words," I told him that it was actually EASIER to use a precise four-syllable word as 10 one-syllable ones.
"seamlessly integrated"? Hee! You forgot to add "and functionally encapsulated"!
Heh. Mr Oro and I were listening to the director's commentary for the movie, The Day After Tomorrow, and I broke into hysterical laughter after the director said, 'Yeah, this camera view is like the chorus'.
I mean, come on. Popcorn flick that jumps the shark within minutes of the opening credits and the director's talking about 'the chorus'. What the hell?
I am very proud of myself for introducing the phrase 'pray tell' to all my non-Eng lit friends. It's a good thing.
Hey, have you heard Victoria Beckham (wife of Manchester United/England football star, David Beckham, and Posh Spice from the Spice Girls) has recently said that she's never read a book? Including her own?
Hee, I can completely relate. I'm in my last year of grad school and using every 10 cent word my dorky mind can come up with. (But I've always done that.) Mr.Banshee, however, is a Boston townie blue collar boy, and this interchange has been heard many times:
Mr: grmmrnassi.
Miss: Quoi? What did you say?
Mr. Nothing! Grmmernassi.
Miss: I'm sorry, my precious, I did not catch that last statement, my dove.
Mr: GRAMMAR NAZI! You. Are. A. GRAMMAR NAZI.
Miss: And this is troublesome because?
Good on you. In a world where even the preznit sez "nucular", your ability to speak polysyllabic English is refreshing in its complexity. Feel free to file the various complaints and eye-rolling as the tribute that ignorance pays to literacy.
You might remind your critics how much worse they would feel if you chose to simplify the term "liguistically challenged individual" with the simpler Anglo-Saxon description of them: "moron".
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