6 fun words to say and think about

Thong

When I was a kid, everyone wore thongs in the summer: to the beach, to school, even to church sometimes. Mind you, thongs then looked like the picture to the left.

Over time words change in meaning. “We had a gay time on our cruise” had a different meaning in 1950 than it does today. Thong is one of those words. Today, thong means something completely different (no, I’m not putting in a picture) and people under a certain age have never heard the previous meaning. My husband still hasn’t adapted to the new use of thong, and often uses it to refer to flip-flops. This prompts looks of astonishment on the faces of my kids’ friends when he roams around the house looking for his footwear and calling out, “Has anyone seen my thongs?” Hilarious.

Rubberboat

I was an exchange student in Mexico when I was a teenager. One day the Spanish-speaking girls in my class pointed to a picture of an inflatable raft and asked me what the word for it was in English. “Rubberboat,” I said. They burst into laughter. “What?” they said. “Rubberboat,” I repeated. They fell apart all over again. “Say it again,” they said. “Say it again.” Every time I said ”rubberboat,” they could not contain their laughter.

Think about it. Say it out loud to yourself. You can see how it would sound ridiculous to someone unfamiliar with our language. Rubberboat. It’s funny.

Gobsmacked

I love this word. It’s so visual and carries such clear meaning. When someone uses this word, you can visualize the recoil reaction to shocking news. The gob of shocking news hurls through the air and, smack, hits the person. Recoil. Love that.

Lollipop

My daughter offered this one, and I agree. Lollipop is just fun to say. The ”lolli” loiters on the tongue in a rolling ell kind of way, and then you pop the last syllable. You could say lollipop, but why would you when you could say lolliPOP.

Pickle

I read somewhere that comedians use words with a “k” sound, because they are funnier than other words. The word pickle makes me laugh, and maybe the “k” has something to do with it. The pop of the “p” followed by the “k” just sounds funny. Also, when someone is “in a pickle” it usually means a person has put themselves in an awkward situation because of a poor choice. Usually we (a) have made the same mistake ourselves, or (b) we imagine we would make the same mistake under similar circumstances, so we empathize.  ”Oh, that person is in a pickle,” we say, shaking our heads.  We chuckle.

Ruffle

I wonder who the first person was to use the word “ruffle.” What prompted the word, and did he/she immediately realize it was the perfect word? It so aptly suits what it describes. Again, it’s visual. You see the flounciness of whatever it describes. It’s auditory, too. When feathers ruffle, you hear the disturbance.

This word sticks with me, too, because of Margaret Laurence. In her great book, The Stone Angel, she describes a character named Arlene as being ”all ruffles.” Arlene is not a common name, so when I come across a character with it, I take it rather personally. Arlene, all ruffles? I’ll tell you, my feathers ruffled over that.

Those are my fun words. What are yours?

Changing the world with our greetings

This post is dedicated to Ross Armstrong who returned to a place called love on Saturday.

He will be remembered by many as the person who greeted them at Trinity United Church.

I went to see Johnny Reid in concert in Ottawa on Saturday night. I wrote about Johnny in two earlier posts, Today I’m gonna try and change the world,  and A place called love  Since I’m not a diehard country music fan, that’s remarkable. But there’s something about Johnny Reid . . .

On Saturday, mid-concert, he slowed things down. Talking to the audience he said when he dies he wants to leave behind “the best of” himself. For him, the best is the song “Today I’m Gonna Try and Change the World.” According to Reid’s song, changing the world can be as simple as greeting a neighbour with a smile, or shaking the hand of a stranger.

A neighbourly greeting, a smile, or a handshake with a stranger can change the world.

When we greet people with a friendly smile, our core message to them is, “You are valuable.” When we shake the hands of a stranger, our core message is, “I’m curious about you. Tell me, so I can understand.”

When we are on the receiving end of those greetings and handshakes, it affects us. For that moment, we know we are valuable. For that moment, we know we are interesting and worth knowing. When we feel valuable, it’s easier for us, in turn, to greet people with a smile. When we feel interesting and worth knowing, it’s easier for us, in turn, to shake hands with a stranger. It’s easier for us, in turn, to affect others.

And so on, and so on, and so on . . .

When someone shows us our value, we remember them forever.

Thank you, Ross. You were one of my favourite people, and I will never forget that you showed me my value.

2 beauty tips for Mother’s Day

Earlier this week I received a message from Emjayandthem’s Blog. The title: Beauty Tips.

I clicked on it expecting lipstick advice or wrinkle reduction tips. Instead, I read four words:
Smile often. Laugh Hard.

Save money on expensive makeup and so-called beauty creams. Everyone is beautiful when smiling or laughing. Even the convulsive snort-through-the-nose laughter is beautiful.

May you create lots of beauty on Mother’s Day.

(Click on Emjayandthem’s Blog to see the Josh Turner “Why Don’t We Just Dance” music video included. It’s fun.)

Paying the ferryman and other rituals of comfort

We saw my brother off to sea one last time on Sunday – along with a dime for the ferryman.

Graham was retired from the Canadian Navy, and it was his wish to have his ashes committed at sea. We did so after the annual Battle of Atlantic commemoration ceremony in Halifax harbour on Sunday morning.

When the navy prepared his ashes for the committal, they placed a dime on the corner of the box. It is naval tradition to send the dead off with a coin to pay Charon, the ferryman from Greek mythology, to carry him across the river Styx.  Our Canadian navy uses the coin with the ship on it, of course—our dime, or what they call the “Bluenose coin.”

I hadn’t thought about they ferryman or Greek mythology before the ceremony, but I found the Bluenose coin to be beautiful naval ritual of comfort.

At times of death, humans seem to need rituals of comfort.

My father was a Mason, and when he died, the members of his lodge held a separate small ceremony. I don’t remember all the specifics of what each person did when they stepped up to my father’s coffin, but they all ended their time with him by pointing up. I presume it was their wish that “up” was the direction he would go. If you were to ask me where I believe people go when they die, I wouldn’t say “up.” I might say “around,” or “among.” But it gave my father’s friends comfort to point up, and that’s all that matters.

I’m not Catholic, but I have many close family and friends who are.  I have stood at funeral homes many times while Hail Marys have been said over the coffin. I can see that this small ritual brings comfort to those reciting and to the family present. When I die, I won’t have formal Hail Marys said over my body, but if it brings comfort to my Catholic family and friends to whisper a few, I hope they will.

At a memorial service for my 103-year-old friend a month ago, we released colourful helium balloons printed with the words, “Bon Voyage.” The colourful balloons (again going “up”) were a joyous ritual of comfort for us.

When I die, if I have lived at all well, my service will be filled with Muslims, Christians, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, humanists, and every other faith or non-faith. Each of them will need a different ritual for comfort. May I be sent off with balloons, dimes, Hail Marys, pointing fingers, and a collection of many other small rituals to help each person get through the day.

Catching light and other interesting “wow” stuff

I’ll be flying to Halifax this weekend, so how wonderful to read in Marcus Chown’s The Quantum Zoo: A Tourist’s Guide to the Neverending Universe that the faster I travel, the slimmer I get.

Hallelujah to that. (Although, to be fair, runners have been telling us that for years.)

Chown’s book was full of other intriguing possibilities, too.

Some men (and some women) will be pleased to know that every breath you take could contain an atom breathed out by Marilyn Munroe. People working in the penthouse suites of tall buildings will learn to their chagrin that we age faster at the top of a building than at the bottom. It’s also interesting to know that a cup of coffee weighs more when it is hot than when it is cold.

My favourites, though, are these:

• Atoms are mostly empty space. Without all the empty space, the entire human race would fit in the volume of a sugar cube.

So much for needing personal space.

• If we were able to catch up with a beam of light, we would see a stationary electromagnetic wave. This is impossible. (According to some complex equations worked out by James Maxwell.) Since seeing impossible things is indeed impossible, we could never catch up with a light beam. 

Infinite, elusive light. It reassures me to know that something out there can’t be captured, tied down and made to conform.

It makes me wonder what else might have the same elusive quality?

“As a science writer I am constantly amazed by how much stranger science is than science fiction, how much more incredible the Universe is than anything we could possibly have invented.” —Marcus Chown

When is quitting the right thing to do?

I give you a story from Canadian First Nations storyteller, Albert Dumont.

A man was laying brick one day when he looked up into the sky to see a crow chasing a hawk.

The crow was cawing and trying to peck at the hawk’s tail feathers. The hawk was tormenting the crow, allowing him to get just oh so close and then with a great swoop of his wings he’d soar out of sight. This carried on for some time.

Finally, the man saw the crow spiralling out of the sky in a dead fall. The crow had exhausted himself and died. He hadn’t known when to quit.

In today’s society, a decision to stop doing something is not always looked upon kindly. We call it “quitting,” and we mutter about “letting others down” or “not living up to expectations.”

Sometimes giving up is about saving ourselves, before we exhaust ourselves and die.

“Todos tenemos 2 dilemas: cuando empezar y cuando parar.”

“We all have 2 dilemas: when to begin and when to stop. “  —Paulo Coelho