{"id":1200,"date":"2014-04-02T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2014-04-02T06:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/?p=1200"},"modified":"2014-04-13T01:23:13","modified_gmt":"2014-04-12T19:23:13","slug":"is-it-a-couch-divan-sofa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/?p=1200","title":{"rendered":"Is it a couch, divan, sofa?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.714285714; font-size: 1rem;\">\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Moooonnn River, wider than 1) a mile, 2) the Nile. Well, thanks to my listening to trivia on Martha Johnson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s early show on KFUN, I know the answer: It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s No. 1 above, and my miss was wider than a mile.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In my medieval torpor upon waking a few days ago, I heard a radio conversation with a caller about how easily we misunderstand lyrics to songs, in this case Nile and mile, but I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t awake enough to let it register.<\/p>\n<p>The English language fascinates me on several counts. First, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the largest language with about 700,000 words, while other popular languages such as French, German and Spanish, having perhaps half that number. One of the points of fascination is the number of words we have for similar things. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a couch, a sofa, a divan, a davenport and a futon. True, there are people who can cite subtle differences in the furniture itself to give it a different name, but when unexpected company arrives, we let them sleep on the couch and we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t parse any further.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Similarly, the language has a host of identical words with widely disparate meanings. For example, at Immaculate Conception School, Sister Mary Grammatica Difficulta spent hours on the apostrophe, that funny little punctuation mark that too many people attach to plural\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s (like this). Apostrophe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s serve several functions, the most common of which shows that a letter is missing from a construction. Thus, instead of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153should not,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d we say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Does the word apostrophe mean anything else? Glad you asked. The apostrophe is also an exclamatory passage in a speech or poem addressed to a person (typically one who is dead or absent) or thing (typically one that is personified). How could two identical words have such disparate meanings?<\/p>\n<p>Here are a few disclosures, confessions about words and expressions I learned in my childhood and carried into adulthood:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Then and than \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I pronounced both words as if they had an e, not an a.<\/li>\n<li>Cease and seize \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I would say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That behavior must seize,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as if cease had a z.<\/li>\n<li>I would rhyme fifth with gift, omitting the h.<\/li>\n<li>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d omit the final s in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153asterisk,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d pronouncing it \u00e2\u20ac\u0153asterik.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I did that until I read an item in\u00c2\u00a0Reader\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Digest about a maid who called her employer at work, explaining there was a strange, angry dog in the front yard. The employer asked her to kick the dog out of the yard. She refused, and before she left the house, she wrote this note: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even go near the dog as I have only one *.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Being a comma chaser for most of my life, both in the classroom and in the newsroom, I try to discover why people misuse such words and expressions. Many of us are familiar with them \u00e2\u20ac\u201d imply and infer, flout and flaunt, regardless and irregardless, founder and flounder and the all-time champion: I could care less.<\/p>\n<p>One source, Bill Bryson, the author of The Mother Tongue, posits that if people read more, they wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t misuse words and expressions so often.<\/p>\n<p>Readers often remark on the ways I use words and expressions in my columns. Whether their message is a mere correction or a tongue-lashing, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gratifying, nevertheless. At least that shows they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve read the column.<\/p>\n<p>And the biggest complement usually comes from Mayor Alfonso Ortiz, who invariably refers to something I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written that same day, or week.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u201a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u201a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n<p>Rather than merely providing a list of words and expressions we butcher, here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a sample, based on a confrontation I had with a boy I remember as Carlos. He lived a block above me in the Railroad Avenue barrio, and we worked as pinsetters at the bowling alley on Grand. There are at least a dozen butchered words. Can you find them?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u201a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n<p>On League Nights, all eight lanes at the bowling alley were in use, but we were short two pin boys, so Carlos and I agreed to service two lanes apace.<\/p>\n<p>Our chores ran the gauntlet, from setting pins to mopping floors to shining bowling balls. In those days, lots of people smoked; Carlos brought a cigar with him to the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pits,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and after placing it down, he mistakenly put the lighted end to his lips and let out a howl.<\/p>\n<p>Several in the pit crew saw that and found it funny. I believe some of them wished to ferment dysentery among the pin boys.<\/p>\n<p>Later, as we were walking home, he brooched the subject, asking me, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Did you laugh at me when I burned myself?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I most certainly had not, and said so, but he went for the juggler. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I saw you laughing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>I almost coward as I thought he was about to hit me, but I stood firm. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to become his enemy. In fact, I got along fine with his family, especially his older brother, who was a corpuscle in the National Guard.<\/p>\n<p>But Carlos was ready for a dual. He refused to speak to me all the way home. The next morning, his brother, the NCO, showed up at my house advising me that Carlos wished to fight me. I feared a physical confrontation was eminent, but I protested that I certainly didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t carry a garage, but the brother remained hostel toward me irregardless. I wondered how either of us would prophet by engaging in fisticuffs.<\/p>\n<p>I certainly didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to irritate the situation, so, after his brother left, I went to Carlos\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s house and found him sitting on his chaise lounge. I expected animosity, as I knew he belonged to a small click of neighborhood toughs.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Did you really think I was mad at you, Mannie?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I answered, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well yes.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Apparently, Carlos retained his abdominal behavior long enough to tell his brother about the lip burning. But Carlos certainly cooled off in a hurry. And the issue then became mute.<\/p>\n<p>For several days I saw to it that Carlos and I remained incognito. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t speak to him until our next shift at the bowling alley, where we agreed to a packed.<\/p>\n<p>Oh yes \u00e2\u20ac\u201d he brought along his cigar that night but made sure to hold it correctly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Moooonnn River, wider than 1) a mile, 2) the Nile. Well, thanks to my listening to trivia on Martha Johnson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s early show on KFUN, I know the answer: It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s No. 1 above, and my miss was wider than a mile. In my medieval torpor upon waking a few days ago, I heard a radio conversation [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1201,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200\/revisions\/1201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}