The White Post

I couldn’t think of anything else to call it, so I am taking a page from the Beatles’ playbook and naming this post after their White Album, (cue Cliff Claven useless trivia alert: the album was actually called The Beatles). My Tuesday got off to a stellar start when I received a text message from a good friend while driving into work. Now before I proceed, let me set the scene for you: I was driving to work and was grumpy because I was driving to work. OK, scene set. Despite the fact that cellphone use while driving is now illegal in California, I stealthily reached down to retrieve my phone, swerved while doing so, opened my phone, swerved while doing so and read the message and swerved while doing so. It stated that my buddy was by himself at Disneyland without his children and his wife. This may seem like an odd text to receive, but for some reason, my friend and I enjoy telling each other when we are at Disneyland. And yes, we are those type of annual pass holders who relish in the giddiness of having said passes.

Now normally I chuckle at the ‘I am at Disneyland’ texts, but not today, not when I am driving into the office in a shirt and tie knowing that in a few hours it will be over 100 degrees and that I will probably be asked to turn in some project I long ago had forgotten about because I was too busy happy dancing in front of the fax machine or doing Ross Perot imitations for everyone who walks by. Plus, it’s summer. Reading the Disneyland text was the moment that I dedicated myself to becoming self employed…again. For the more regular readers of this blog, you know I often try to devise schemes to become self employed. For the semi-regular readers of this blog, may I suggest more bran in your diet? So, if anyone is looking for a great co-ownership opportunity in any type of business, preferably one dealing with food, just give me a holler.

I noticed in the news yesterday that Merriam-Webster has added some new words to the dictionary for this year. And since it’s a weekly publication, I’m sure I’ll be reading about it in Time Magazine next week (for those of you who remember yesterday’s post)! There are a lot of new words about food, which the editors say reflects our fascination and deepening interest in the culinary arts. Fortunately, I can take great delight in telling you that EVOO is not among them, though rather scarily, my best friend sent me a photo this past weekend of an actual bottle of Rachael Ray EVOO. It literally shivered my timbers, which is good in a way because until then I wasn’t really sure where in my body my timbers were located and was too embarrassed to ask.

One of the new words is one I had not heard of. It is ‘mondegreen,’ which stands for a word or phrase mistaken for other words or phrases, especially those in songs. The article I read cited the example of CCR’s ‘there’s a bad moon on the rise,’ which many people thought was ‘bathroom on the right.’ We all have songs we have mondegreened (assuming I am using the past tense of the word correctly) and now we have a name to apply when that happens. And that’s going to happen, what every 3-4 weeks or so? I can offer up another example from my Lucy and Ethel who have begun singing the National Anthem. They sing it as ‘oh say can you see by the darkness daylight…’ We don’t have the heart to correct their mondegreen. Well, that and the fact that we are trying to hide our laughter because they mondegreen it with so much passion.

The word receiving the most attention is one we are all familiar with and either do on a regular basis or make fun of those who do it on a regular basis – ‘airquotes.’ And yes, for the record, I did use real airquotes when typing airquotes, which proved to be really difficult as it required me to take my hands off the keyboard in order to do so. I use airquotes often. I’d give you more examples, but I wouldn’t be able to do so without using air quotes when I type the examples and as I already stated, it’s impossible to both use airquotes and type at the same time…unless you use one hand to make airquotes and the other hand to type, but then those aren’t true airquotes because airquotes require both hands, otherwise they would be called airquote. However, just like me inadvertently having a Christmas song play out loud on my Ipod today at work, none of that is relevant. Heck, was that relevant comparison even relevant? What the hell did I have for breakfast this morning? My internal monologue has become external and that’s never good, especially when Ms. I Want To Go To Mime School asks me what I think of her vacation photos from Aruba. And why does saying Aruba also make me want to say Jamaica, oooh I want to take ya, Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama…and the rest of The Beach Boys’ Kokomo. Blurg, there goes the external monologue again.

I think my favorite use of airquotes though is by famed motivational speaker Matt Foley (played by the late great Chris Farley). He used them to describe all the unflattering things people said about him. Pretty hysterical if you remember what I am talking about. If you don’t remember, please at least chuckle politely. It’ll make me feel better.

I had high hopes that my created word ‘noticement’ would make the dictionary this year, but I guess I didn’t get enough of the academy’s voters to notice. Or was it that I didn’t get enough super delegates to join me? If only I could get Oprah to say ‘noticement.’ Or maybe even Elmo. Or Obama. Or (and I shudder saying this) Rachael Ray. Nope, even better, I’ll get Britney or Lindsey to wear it on a tight t-shirt. I’m sure that would get the noticement of a few folks…

**Remember to email or leave a comment with your questions for the upcoming Q & A Friday Monday.