It seems as if we’ll be stuck with it forever. A poll of 1,173 adults, conducted by researchers at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., discovered that the word “whatever,” has — for the fifth straight year — secured the title as the most annoying word in conversation.

But before we hoist the trophy higher than the Seattle Seahawks will raise theirs in two weeks, let me explain that “whatever” has company. Thirty-eight percent of the respondents to the telephone survey chose “whatever” as most annoying, followed by words we hear daily in Las Vegas: “like,” 22 percent; “ya know,” 18 percent. Also getting votes were “just sayin’” and “obviously.”

What inheres in a word that makes our back teeth ache? Well, I’ve spent hours trying to explain that certain words are pretty, others not. “The murmuring of innumerable bees” is pretty; the f-word is not. And we’re not necessarily referring to what the words represent — solely to the sounds they make.

And there’s also a bit of semantics that tempers our like or dislike of words. Continue reading →

What’s so funny? John Adams, a long-time member of the Highlands University English Department, often asked me that between classes at Mortimer Hall.

Unlike several other members of the Humanities faculty of yesteryear, Adams was an 8-to-5-er. If not in class, he was in his office. Therefore, he heard every giggle and chuckle that emanated from my journalism and speech classes down the hall.

His question was honest: What’s so funny? But before parsing the question, let me explain that in my experience, asking “What’s so funny?” is often a prelude to a fight, or at least to a disagreement. I believe my English colleague was sincere; he wanted to be privy to whatever ribald humor emanated from my classroom.

I’d invariably make up some Dallas Cowboy joke; he’d chuckle, and we’d go on. Now, before you accuse me of having wasted countless taxpayer dollars, let me explain that indeed I incorporated humor into my lecture-discussions, but not that much. Some people, I’m convinced, believe that learning takes place only with students’ heads buried in a book and in a silent room. I beg to differ. Continue reading →

You may call me a numismatist or a numismatic. But before you start inquiring as to how it feels, or whether I need to register as a numismatist for life or how many times I’ve had to change my residence because of its proximity to a school or church, or whether there’s a cure for this affliction, let me explain that what I am is fairly innocuous.

So what is this deep secret? Well, I merely consider myself a collector of coins and currency. I’m not like the serious collectors who own coin books, subscribe to journals on the subject and attend conventions. No, I’m merely one who dabbles and likes to play with money, what little I have.

In the really olden days, when I was 11, my dad made sure always to have several coins in his pocket. In those days, coins jingled; nowadays they make a dull thud. Dad told me I could be popular with the girls if they suspected I was flush. I’d carried a quarter in my pocket, the fruits of a week’s worth of selling Optics on the street. But the quarter lacked a companion, something to cling and clang against. Continue reading →

An old-time commercial that advertised a controlled, measured laxative featured a woman asking the rhetorical question about prunes: “Is one enough? Are three too many?”

That question goes right up my alley, but my preference is to think of too few/too many in the context of punctuation marks. Specifically, I believe people are slaves to the notion that “If one is good for you, two are even better.” We can use that analogy when discussing aspirin, Tums, cough syrup, cigarettes and burgers.

In this context, I wonder why people feel the need to sprinkle their prose with profuse punctuation marks. One comment on Facebook included a string of exclamation points strewn across the page, like this: !!!!!!!.

Get the message? If you’re really uncertain about an issue, you punctuate it like this: ??????. And when you feel strongly, try this: !!!!!!!. Continue reading →

The question was: “What do you call those things you put a candle into and line your driveway with?” The answer was: “They’re luminarias, but in some places, they’re called farolitos.”

Alas, but a once-and-for-all answer is not possible. Researching something like the difference between the two terms, which surface each Christmas season, isn’t a question of exhaustive sources; rather, it’s a matter of being selective:

There are reams of articles on these topics.

We contacted a few people from northern New Mexico to get their take on luminarias and farolitos, and while there is some agreement on terms, people put their own slant on things.
Rudy Laumbach maintains that the farolito is the item that contains a candle, whereas the luminaria is really a bonfire. And how does a farolito become a luminaria? Well, it happens when the paper bag that encloses the candle ignites and starts a bonfire. Continue reading →

Just when you think you’ve heard it all, there comes a new excuse, a new diagnosis, a new cop-out. Anyone who’s followed the news recently probably has learned a new word: “affluenza.”

Give us a break, your honor! But first let me explain:

A 16-year-old boy, a Texas youth, drunk, with three times the presumed level of intoxication, loses control of his truck and plows into a group of pedestrians. In its wake, the massacre takes the lives of a woman, her daughter and two others.

The driver, Ethan Couch, received an underwhelming sentence of 10 years’ probation after confessing to having been intoxicated. His defense team came up with a term that explains everything. Continue reading →

Pop Quiz: Who can name all 10 reindeer? Yes, 10 of them. I’m sure most people will come up with Dasher and Dancer, Hansel and Gretel, Comet and Cupid, Sleepy and Bashful, but there is a tenth whose name will appear at the end.

Is it just me (or, as my English teacher would say, “Is it just I?”), who becomes giddy this time year, knowing 40 reindeer paws will land on my roof in a couple of weeks? Here are some observations I’ve made over the years:

Sunday night, we spent a couple of hours enjoying an all-female Irish group called the Celtic Woman, who sang Christmas carols. Notice I didn’t write “Holiday Carols.” This group of young women with such beautiful voices used words like “Gentlemen” in “God rest ye merry,” and not “Gentle-persons.” Continue reading →

Here’s a huge admission: Remember that time an incensed seventh- and eighth-grade homeroom teacher at Immaculate Conception School mockingly said, “One student even gave this answer when I asked you students to draw three kinds of angles.”

The nun drew a couple of lines, one of them pointing to the left. She waited for classroom reaction, which in seconds produced the desired collective shaking of students’ heads and a whispered, “What a loser!”

Minutes before that hand-in assignment, I’d heard kids buzzing about obtuse, acute and right angles, but I had no idea what any of them meant, much less how to draw them. Accordingly, I reasoned that if there’s a right angle, there’s a left angle. And that was my answer.

Mercifully, Sister Mary Angle Angel didn’t name the errant student, but my blush probably gave me away. The truth is that I’d missed 10 days of school, with a sneezing condition like I now have — 60 years later. Continue reading →

It was as if the President had been shot and killed in downtown Gallup. The commotion, the panic, the floods of tears, the anger and confusion must have rained on every community in the nation. Yes, it was as if . . .

Let me explain:

Virtually every living U.S. senior citizen can recall precisely where each was and what each was doing the day President Kennedy was assassinated. The just-published Friday edition of the Optic, for example, compiled reactions from people who remember the event clearly.

A local, Bruce Wertz, furnished us his copy of the Optic’s front page for that date.

Let me explain what it was like in 1963, in the pre-Google, pre-Facebook, pre-cell phone, pre-computer era when things moved much slower. One of my duties was to cover the McKinley County courthouse. I’d sit in on trials, pick up daily records such as divorces, marriage licenses, liens and lawsuits and whatever else went on in the county seat. Continue reading →

We were leaving a high school play that I had directed, “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson. It was exactly this time of year, and the weather conditions were identical to what’s happening tonight: chimneys blowing over, fences being uprooted, animals shivering.

As I was leaving the school, I saw the wife of one of my fellow teachers at Cuba High School make a dash that would have been the envy of our football coach at the time. But instead of a pigskin, Ida was carrying a child in her arms. She might also have been carrying a baby the other way, but I noticed only the child, about 2 years old.

She’d made sure her husband prewarmed the car and unlocked it for her 20-yard sprint: she didn’t want the child to inhale one molecule of that beastly cold night air, and she’d insisted that the interior of their car be roasting for her arrival with babe in arms. By the time they got home, minutes later, they went through the same ritual: make sure the home furnace is roaring, and have six dozen blankets at the ready when she enters the house. Continue reading →