“You people at the Optic are so-oo negative. Why don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you print something positive for a change?” We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard that many times. So, in an effort to out Pollyanna myself, I herewith attempt some positive stuff. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a wonderful, helpful and expensive message board that lights up Mills Avenue near Robertson High School. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an electronic, digital sign that flashes announcements and gives the time and temperature.<\/p>\n
In the olden days, when analog was the norm, we could say about downtown clocks that hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t operated in years, “Well, on the positive side, at least a stopped clock is correct twice a day.”<\/p>\n
But what about digital clocks? Usually then they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re on the fritz, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more positive to say it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s correct two times a day, once in the evening, once in the morning.<\/p>\n
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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s correct only once a day. Sorry, but I tried to be positive on this one.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Whatever the market will bear. Notice how for years only a few bucks have separated the salaries of Las Vegas\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 two school superintendents. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a version of keeping up with the Joneses.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
So, look for the East Las Vegas School Board to jack up the pay of the (next) superintendent by about $15,000. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the amount the West Las Vegas School Board awarded James Abreu, the newly hired superintendent, up from $100,000.<\/p>\n
He deserves it. But with that accomplished, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re confident the board members will do all in their power to secure 15 percent raises for every custodian, teacher aide, teacher, principal \u00e2\u20ac\u201d every staff member.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll 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.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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 “ni\u00c3\u00b1ito more likely denote affection, not size.<\/p>\n
She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right. So when my dad, at 145 pounds, called his fifth-born, at 220 pounds “hijito,” it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a commentary on size, nor as a smaller version of Dad.<\/p>\n
Alfonso Ortiz, county treasurer, noted that when he grew up, his parents used “comidita,” “cafecito” and other words as an expression of humility.<\/p>\n
“We didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have much,” Ortiz said, “but what we had we appreciated, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why we added \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcito\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 to many Spanish words.” For the Ortiz family, then, the food itself wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t small, but the portions were.<\/p>\n
My son Stan, in Denmark, remarked, “That was a real sweet columnito, Papito.” “Papito”? I hope that kind of diminutive doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get bruited around too much.<\/p>\n
And a Les Martinez e-mailed that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s “\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcsolito\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 en Albuquerque.” He said, “Our language and culture are so unique and I am glad my \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcabuelita\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 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.”<\/p>\n
Martinez might have written more, but ran out of time, as he explained, “Ya esta tardecito.”<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Also from the mailbag:<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Romero writes: “It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n
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.”<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
A previous column dealt with many people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tendency simply to assume they can spell words correctly just by listening to how they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re pronounced.<\/p>\n
My example was the word “Mesopotamia,” which many people misspell as “Mesopotania” because, well, there aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t many words that end in “-amia.”<\/p>\n
One writer, Margaret Vazquez-Geffroy, came up with “macadamia.” That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good, but let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s disqualify the submission from Lee Einer, Optic features editor, who tried to get by with “Mama mia.”<\/p>\n
And on the subject of uncertainty of spellings, Chad Boliek wrote, “I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m reminded that in New Mexico we frequently suffer low relative humility.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“You people at the Optic are so-oo negative. Why don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you print something positive for a change?” We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard that many times. So, in an effort to out Pollyanna myself, I herewith attempt some positive stuff. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a wonderful, helpful and expensive message board that lights up Mills Avenue near Robertson High School. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}