During a recent get-together with our three sons — one brought his family all the way from Denmark, one brought his spouse from Albuquerque, and the third son brought his wife and kids all the way from next door — our conversation turned to what life was like in our youth.

You first, Dad.

Well, I’ve already written a million words about how it seemed that there was a tough guy on every corner, who set the stopwatch he didn’t own, waiting to pounce on a peace-loving kid from the Railroad Avenue barrio.

Early in life I discovered that an adrenaline rush must have provided reason enough for Gibber, Roy, Trigger and others to take liberties with my face and those of some neighbors. But to report bullying is problematic, for the kids being bullied. Here’s why: On the playground, kids are admonished to report instances in which some halitosis-hexed bully plies his skills. Continue reading →

“What are you doing watching that program, Art?”

“It’s strictly for educational purposes, my dear.”

That was the exchange earlier this week when my wife asked me to turn down the volume of my “educational” program, Entertainment Tonight. Not highbrow enough? Well, let me explain:

Purely for education and edification, I left the TV on after the evening news, enjoying a passive education and nodding occasionally, between my own nodding off.

“I’m doing research for my next column,” I told Mdm. Light Sleeper, who usually sacks out at 9. And so it was educational. But let’s back up a bit.

Remember the derriere pose by Jennifer Lopez and Cameron Diaz, photographed together during the Oscars? The pose, which has appeared in several magazines, shows the women facing away from the camera then simultaneously, turning their heads toward the camera to be recognized. Continue reading →

My friend Chad Boliek turned what might have been a criticism into an advantage. Recall my having mentioned in a recent column that I had planned and planted misuses of the English language?

That week I received numerous e-mails, phone calls and hand-delivered responses to these assaults on the language, several people having caught expressions like “a blessing in the skies” and “cut off my nose despite my face.” But others, like Anne Kennedy, went beyond what I said was a deliberate misuse and corrected things I had not intended to be erroneous.

Well, after a lifetime of looking under rocks for comma splices, dangling modifiers and run-on sentences, I’ve almost reached the conclusion that one can justify virtually anything. Remember when beginning a sentence with “and” or “but” was verboten? Now we see it often, especially in advertising copy. Continue reading →

Question: Take a typical Las Vegas cholo with his pants sagging to the point where one inch lower might get him arrested, and with one of the pants cuffs being swallowed by his shoe a bit more than the other. What is the logical answer to his situation?

“Not even.”

Wrong! The words might be correct on paper, but the articulation of these words proves simply that one can’t always give an accurate rendering of certain words merely by looking at the orthographics.

Let me explain:

No self-respecting cholo would ever say, “not even.” Rather, that expression requires a warmup, a running start. Therefore, “not even” ought really be spelled, “hhnnott eee-vun.” Now doesn’t that give a more faithful rendering of this bit of Las Vegas Speak? Continue reading →

The response to last week’s Work of Art, in which I planned and planted misuses of the English language, was great. The reaction ranged from the concern that your resident Language Cop somehow had “lost it” to a let’s-do-it-again attitude.

A half dozen readers either e-mailed or dropped off their responses, and one person went even farther, finding a stray question mark in my column and catching me on my capitalizing a word that shouldn’t have been.

The column was mainly about how people use words and expressions that seem correct but carry a different — sometimes humorous — meaning. It’s like cutting off your nose despite your face or getting knocked over with a fender. Continue reading →

A few weeks back, I told the saga of Heidi, my dachshund whose manners were bad, and in an effort to train the dog, my friend Bob McIntosh suggested we have Heidi meet and live with Bob’s Great Dane, “Duke,” the canine with perfect manners.

There was a doggone education that followed, but I don’t think Bob ever forgave me for owning a dog that passed her bad culinary habits on to Duke.

“I knew just where that was going when I read the first few lines,” said Mayor Alfonso Ortiz. And Travis Reames told me that dog-teaching-dog scenario couldn’t have ended happily. It’s a doggy-dog world. Continue reading →

Except for the fact that more than half of them are Dallas Cowboy fans, it looks like a fairly balanced account of how this Sunday’s Super Bowl will turn out.

At 4:28 p.m., as the world sits down to a big helping of football and meatball stew, the New England Patriots take on the New York Giants. The game features some of the cleverest, new commercials on TV, and that’s the reason at least one person interviewed plans to be watching on Sunday.

And even though some of those randomly interviewed on their Super Bowl predictions are inveterate Dallas Cowboy fans, let’s still respect their opinions. Continue reading →

Remember when status in school meant something? Remember when the more popular kids thought of themselves as royalty?

As a senior today, four times older than when I was the other kind of senior, I look back and wonder why popularity, or lack thereof, mattered.

Let me explain:

The other day my wife told me about the frantic preparations for basketball homecoming at the school where she teaches. She said some of the candidates for king and queen are taking matters quite seriously, going into debt to finance a campaign that might enable them to wear a crown for an hour or so.

Now at our school, Immaculate Conception, back in the ‘50s, we didn’t have homecoming goings-on; we merely had misgivings. We did have something like a prom, in which the biggest fund-raisers were lauded and lorded during their 15 minutes of fame.
Continue reading →

At least we passed out a syllabus. Yes, the course outline that we gave out on the first day of class explained what a student needed to do to pass the class.

So, the students at least had some direction: In order to earn a certain grade in this class, thou shalt accomplish certain things. But that’s only part of the issue in that some students believed that simply by performing various tasks they were guaranteed an “A.” The other part of the equation was how well they performed the work.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I refer to the grades awarded to New Mexico schools, just like the report cards students receive. The Public Education Department of New Mexico just last week released grades, all the way from an “A” to an “F.” No doubt the grades raised a few eyebrows.

But it seems few people fully understand the criteria employed by the PED. As a now-layman, I certainly don’t understand how to negotiate all those hoops and won’t try to explain them here. It seems strange, though, that nearby Mora High School receives an “A,” whereas the local Family Partnership gets an “F.” Does that give the Rangers bragging rights? Continue reading →

Several years ago, I made a trade: a bicycle I hardly used for a dachshund. Heidi (what else does one name a weenie dog?) had acquired bad manners, gulping her food, piddling on the carpet when chided and scratching and chewing on wooden items.

My friend, the trader, who lived next door, bought an expensive, kennel-trained Great Dane to teach Heidi some manners. The trainer promised my friend, Bob, that in no time, the bigger dog would set such a good example that Heidi would soon follow suit by eating only with a napkin around her neck, using knife and fork, wearing a pad, chewing each morsel 17 times and eschewing wooden furniture.

You can imagine where that experiment went. Soon both dogs were behaving like Heidi. They growled for their food, wolfed it down, dog-in-the-manger style, and in short, behaved badly. People often imitate the animals.

Let me explain: Continue reading →