“You people at the Optic are so-oo negative. Why don’t you print something positive for a change?” We’ve heard that many times. So, in an effort to out Pollyanna myself, I herewith attempt some positive stuff. It’s a wonderful, helpful and expensive message board that lights up Mills Avenue near Robertson High School. It’s an electronic, digital sign that flashes announcements and gives the time and temperature.

In the olden days, when analog was the norm, we could say about downtown clocks that hadn’t operated in years, “Well, on the positive side, at least a stopped clock is correct twice a day.”

But what about digital clocks? Usually then they’re on the fritz, they’re simply turned off. But the digital clock on Mills has been locked at 8:27 for days, possibly not able to adapt to Daylight Savings Time. So, in a negative vein, we could say the clock is wrong 1,438 times a day, but it’s more positive to say it’s correct two times a day, once in the evening, once in the morning.

But wait. My clock-watching task force just informed me that, unlike the analog counterpart, the stalled digital clock also shows “p.m.” So that means it’s correct only once a day. Sorry, but I tried to be positive on this one.

• • •

Whatever the market will bear. Notice how for years only a few bucks have separated the salaries of Las Vegas’ two school superintendents. It’s a version of keeping up with the Joneses.

A raise given to the super on one side of the bridge bodes well for his/her counterpart, as that school board is likely to follow suit.

So, look for the East Las Vegas School Board to jack up the pay of the (next) superintendent by about $15,000. That’s the amount the West Las Vegas School Board awarded James Abreu, the newly hired superintendent, up from $100,000.

He deserves it. But with that accomplished, we’re confident the board members will do all in their power to secure 15 percent raises for every custodian, teacher aide, teacher, principal — every staff member.

It’ll take big bucks to do it, but we have confidence that our elected boards will find ways to reward all staff members for their work.

• • •

Last week’s column, which explored “-ito” and “-ita” as Spanish diminutives, drew some reaction. My sister and biggest critic, Dorothy Maestas, said I needed to have stressed that the suffixes in words like “hijito” and “niñito more likely denote affection, not size.

She’s right. So when my dad, at 145 pounds, called his fifth-born, at 220 pounds “hijito,” it wasn’t a commentary on size, nor as a smaller version of Dad.

Alfonso Ortiz, county treasurer, noted that when he grew up, his parents used “comidita,” “cafecito” and other words as an expression of humility.

“We didn’t have much,” Ortiz said, “but what we had we appreciated, and that’s why we added ‘ito’ and ‘ita’ to many Spanish words.” For the Ortiz family, then, the food itself wasn’t small, but the portions were.

My son Stan, in Denmark, remarked, “That was a real sweet columnito, Papito.” “Papito”? I hope that kind of diminutive doesn’t get bruited around too much.

And a Les Martinez e-mailed that he’s “‘solito’ en Albuquerque.” He said, “Our language and culture are so unique and I am glad my ‘abuelita’ engaged me to learn it.” Martinez wrote that his grandmother “gave … a great gift of laughter and joy as I read an article such as yours.”

Martinez might have written more, but ran out of time, as he explained, “Ya esta tardecito.”

• • •

Also from the mailbag:

Steve Romero, a native of Las Vegas and an English major at Highlands, did interesting research on “kemotherapy,” the subject of a previous column, in which I identified three people in town nicknamed “Chemo,” their names having the same letters as in “chemotherapy” but different sounds.

Romero writes: “It’s interesting how the variant “kemotherapy” is found here in Las Vegas, considering “kemo” is rooted in Croatian and Indonesian languages. It makes me wonder about who we really are as peoples. Hmm.

Perhaps it could just be a simple spelling error or the need to spell the term phonologically as one would expect in Spanish: quimioterapia. All these complications make my head hurt.”

• • •

A previous column dealt with many people’s tendency simply to assume they can spell words correctly just by listening to how they’re pronounced.

My example was the word “Mesopotamia,” which many people misspell as “Mesopotania” because, well, there aren’t many words that end in “-amia.”

One writer, Margaret Vazquez-Geffroy, came up with “macadamia.” That’s good, but let’s disqualify the submission from Lee Einer, Optic features editor, who tried to get by with “Mama mia.”

And on the subject of uncertainty of spellings, Chad Boliek wrote, “I’m reminded that in New Mexico we frequently suffer low relative humility.”

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