“Marilyn, what are the positive, comparative and superlative degrees of ‘good’?”

She answered, “Good, better, best.”

“Very good, Marilyn.”

“And Arthur, almost asleep in the corner there: What are the three degrees of ‘high’?”

“Uh, the three degrees of ‘hi’ are ‘hi,’ ‘hello’ and ‘how do you do?’”

So went many lessons in the ‘40s, taught by nuns like Sister Mary Grammatica, our homeroom teacher at Immaculate Conception School. Continue reading →

A recent discovery, which with my luck won’t create even a ripple, deals with added flabbiness in speech and writing.

The culprit has a name: “Like.” We’re not talking about the verb like, which might appear in this sentence: “I really like Katherine Zeta Jones.” That’s a legitimate use of the word.

It’s the flabby part of speech that we make of “like,” when we like overuse it.

My older grandkids have made that word the most popular of all time — but let’s not single them out, as it seems the most over-used word among anyone in school is — like. Being the host parents to two foreign-exchange students, one from Spain, one from Belgium, we’ve socialized, usually in Albuquerque, with dozens of other high schoolers from all over Europe, Asia and South America.

And what do the ones we’ve spoken to have in common? Almost all pepper their speech with “like,” “kinda” and “sorta,” with the zeal that they pepper their fries. And on a short visit to a MacDonald’s restaurant in Prague only last year, we listened in as Czech students succeeded in imitating American teens. Continue reading →

The recent death of Wagon Mound’s admired and beloved basketball coach, Alfred Romero, 93, has caused many folks — especially sports fanatics in New Mexico — to ponder many of his teams’ accomplishments.

This is not intended to duplicate the obituary that appeared in the Optic and other newspapers, nor does it pretend to be an insider’s view of the man’s coaching career.

I never knew — merely knew of — Romero; my job, while still in high school, was to cover high school sports for the Las Vegas Daily Optic, which in those days published every day except Sunday.

That said, as an avid and long-time follower of sports in this part of the state, I marvel at how consistently Romero was able to field hoops teams that went far into tournament play each month of March.

Ben Moffett and Chuck Ferris, who have compiled volumes of information about high school sports in New Mexico, provided some facts for this column.

Obviously, my admiration of Romero started early in life. He’d bring his hard-fighting crew of Wagon Mound Trojans to Las Vegas to battle our local teams, the West Las Vegas Dons, the Las Vegas High School Cardinals and the Immaculate Conception Colts. Continue reading →

Often I appreciate and therefore adopt new words. At a gathering where I ran into a niece, I heard her say, “You’re so avuncular.” The “ular” ending told me the word likely is an adjective, which it is. I’d heard and used the word before, and I’m glad of my specific relationship with Kathy: I’m her uncle, and to her, I’m avuncular, I suppose because I act like an uncle.

But why doesn’t the word have a feminine counterpart? Why can’t a woman who acts like an aunt be considered avauntular? Let’s decide right now to coin that word.

The Medina side of my family, at one time comprising 16 siblings, produced numerous aunts. Even those who married my uncles (some more than once) also became aunts, and therefore avauntular.

I like the Merriam-Webster definition best: “Like an uncle; kind or friendly like an uncle.”

Why doesn’t the English language have the counterpart? It’s true that we can find “avauntular” in a dictionary, but it’ll be there only as a contrast, a word that would have been legitimized had dictionarians gotten around to including it there. Continue reading →

When two languages bump into each other, they borrow stuff.

English: “Hey, Español! I need a word for these flying pests. Can I borrow ‘mosquito’?”

Español: “No problemo. While we are on the topic, I could use ‘boycott’ (though I might spell it ‘boicot’).”

Ahora voy a typiar mi column. Come on now! You had no trouble getting el gisto of that sentence. And in the near future, you’re likely to be seeing much more of this kind of linguistic mélange.

At issue is a recent conference of Royal Spanish Academy, one outcome of which was the fear of English (or slightly modified) words that make it into Spanish. That was one concern of attendees of the parley in Puerto Rico.

Simply, many of the planet’s half-billion speakers of Spanish have noticed a tendency to Spanishize many English words.

A Los Angeles Times article by Caroline A. Miranda provides words like “drone,” which becomes “dron” and even “Botox” and “selfie” as among the newcomers. The tug-of-words over “selfie” could result in a compromise, in which we call it an “auto-foto” instead. Continue reading →

When my siblings and I were younger, the summer highlight was a “picinic” (Mom always added a syllable to that word, assuming that somehow the extra vowel would pique our pleasure) around Mora, Holman Hill or Tres Ritos, where we children waded and climbed.

Close to where Mom spread out her picinic blanket, my brother Severino, sister Evangeline and I got our fill of thrills as we tested our climbing skills in the hills.

But Mom hovered over us, warning us of loose rocks, poison ivy, wild bears and rattlers, but we were fearless. Severino would dance atop a loose rock, imitating Tarzan, then jumping off as the rock began to slip. That did not amuse our parents.

What gave us that derring-do? Simply, it was our youth. Most kids can’t fathom breaking a limb after tumbling down Holman Hill. The oldest siblings, Dolores and Dorothy, weren’t interested in meeting their Maker — not yet, and that left the three youngest to attempt incredible feats.

Once, possibly in preparation for a mini-Everest trek, I climbed atop our backyard “casita,” a coal shed for our Railroad Avenue home. I jumped off the highest point. No problem. Climbed back up but this time with a dozen stacked asbestos shingles. Still no appreciable difference. After several trips, I’d added almost two feet of height, but the darn roof extension I’d contrived slid off, sending me downward, with my using entirely different body parts to break the fall. Continue reading →

As I answered the phone three evenings ago, I detected a bit of hesitation on the caller’s part.

She and I had worked in the same building at Highlands for years, until my retirement in 2000. The message came haltingly: “I hope you don’t resent me for this, but I disagree with you and need to get this off my mind.”

Of course there was no getting mad; I welcome calls, even those from people telling me to grow a brain. In this case, the woman (who asked me not to identify her) was referring to the column I wrote last week about panhandlers in Las Vegas. Her point was that I somehow aggravate the panhandling situation by throwing money at the problem.

It’s true that I don’t vet each mendicant who recognizes me and asks for a handout. I don’t question the veracity of their request or situation. However, I believe that people’s current lot in life can’t be too good if they need to beg. Continue reading →

Somebody needs to stop me. My modest generosity is going to get me into trouble.

If “modest generosity” seems like a contradiction of terms, I apologize. What I’m trying to get across is that I’m an easy touch, but apparently my touching doesn’t do a whale of a lot of good.

Let me explain:

There’s an army of people in Las Vegas who get their sustenance by putting a hand out. They’re inescapable and unavoidable, at almost every Allsup’s convenience store in town; Better Stop generally has a few chronic beggars at the ready; some stand guard in front of Charlie’s Restaurant, Traveler’s Cafe, and other places with walking traffic.

Two nights ago, I went to gas up our car, in preparation for an early-morning trip to Santa Fe. Yes, I could have waited until morning but I realized something would prevent us from getting our foreign exchange students to the Santa Fe Railrunner station on time. Continue reading →

Let’s prepare for several months of lasting daylight, a time for enjoyment. Even at my age, I plan to find out how far I can knock a ball.

I’ve been practicing with our foreign exchange students, Phaedra Wouters and Ana Granado, now members of the West Las Vegas softball team. And though it’s fun, chasing fly balls that sail over my head gets a bit exhausting.

But back to Daylight Saving Time. It’s been with us for decades, and I wonder whether I’m the only person on the planet who welcomes it. But don’t get me wrong: I’m just as happy when New Mexico returns to Mountain Standard Time. That too has its advantages.

For about six weeks, I’ll be hearing my wife’s diurnal question: “What time is it?” I’ll say something like, “It’s 7:30, My Delight.” “No, I mean ‘What time is it really?’” And that leaves me the option of giving her the time it was before 2 a.m. Sunday and the time it is now. Continue reading →

It looks like an antique. By some people’s definition, an antique needs to be more than 100 years old.

What I’m looking at is a vintage photo from the New York Times that shows the newsroom of a metropolitan daily newspaper, possibly the Times newsroom itself.

There are a number of manual Royal typewriters, reams of paper, wadded up sheets on the floor, wastebaskets every five feet apart, massive filing cabinets, a generous number of ashtrays, a radio-like object that’s probably a police-and-fire department scanner, and a battery of Teletype machines.

There are no people in this crowded newsroom — possibly everyone’s on a break, but more likely the photo was taken on a day the paper didn’t publish.

At all the newspapers I worked for, the copy paper we typed on was not the precisely cut 8-1/2-by-11 sheets but actual newsprint, left over from a roll of paper and cut in the back shop to resemble what gets fed into the typewriter. Continue reading →