9/13/2010

THE SPICE OF LIFE

I recently read some advice offered to computer users who suffer from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Apparently repeated actions using a mouse can cause various wrist problems and the suggestion was made to get a second mouse and program it to work with the other hand. This way when using the right mouse, for example, causes discomfort, one could just switch to the left mouse.

I have no personal experience with this idea of having two mice but it did make me wonder. If this works for mice would it also work for spice? That is, similar to a mouse user, would having an extra spouse also work the same way. If one had two spice and there was pain associated with one it would then be possible to switch to the other one.

Personally I have been involved with multiple spice, though not thru choice and not at the same time. I firmly believe this experience has contributed to my happiness big time. Perhaps that’s what, “The Spice of Life” really is.

The Old Professor
Carmel, CA
September 13, 2010

9/09/2010

FINISH THE SENTENCE

In all the years that I have been posting these blogs I can't recall ever using a blog to exercise my State-granted rights as a teacher. However, there's something I hear so often that I feel compelled to put on my teacher's cap and suggest an alternative.

My teaching background was in the Technology area and I have little formal training or understanding of the rules of grammar. I actually would not recognize an adverb if it came up and shook my hand. None the less, even though my mother never graduated from high school, she always had a keen ear for the English language and constantly, but gently, corrected us. Eventually, without knowing the rules, I became accustomed to hearing things said a certain way and anything else sounded very odd.

This was brought to my mind this morning as I listened to some radio commentator commenting on clothing styles in France. This person said, “The French really do it better than us.”

The way my mother always corrected us was to make us finish the sentence. In this case, the speaker obviously meant, “The French really do it better than us do.” This, of course, sounds ridiculous. By adding the single word “do” we get the true meaning and it becomes obvious that using “us” sounds ignorant.

So why doesn't everyone play the game of “Finish the Sentence”? The missing word is always implied and even little children are then able to know if the word should be “us” or “we” or "I" or "me".

If everyone would just remember to “finish the sentence”, even if it's only in one's mind, we could save a lot of cringing of the type one does when fingernails scratch the chalkboard.

The other one that was a favorite of my mother's was when I would say, “Billy and me are going to the playground.”

My mother would gently say, “If Billy can't go, is me going alone?” Of course, it then became obvious that I should have said, “I” instead of “me.” And this soon became a habit without my ever knowing what modified what. It's not that hard.

Exceptions might be if a person deliberately wants to sound ignorant. Apparently there are a lot of those people around but how they managed to to become employed as professional announcers and scriptwriters is a mystery to me.

The Old Professor
Carmel, California
September 9, 2010

9/06/2010

LABOR DAY

I finally managed to look up and see that it’s been almost a month since I posted my previous blog. There is only one reason for that time gap. There has been nothing blogable happening in my life. I suppose that ordinarily that might be construed as a good thing. However, in the US today is a holiday.

The first Monday in September is designated as Labor Day, which is rather a strange name because it actually became a holiday so that people who labor, don’t need to do so on this day. It would suggest that No Labor Day would be a better description.

As it is,, it already cheats a good section of the population -- the retired people. I’ll admit that when I retired the only thing I missed were the holidays when I didn’t need to go to work. I always used to look forward to those days and now I never even have one. It hardly seems fair.

But to all of you who do labor (or labour) and have no need to do so today, don’t let my viewpoint spoil your day.

Have a good one.

The Old Professor
Carmel, California
September 6, 2010