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AWADmail Issue 760

Sponsor’s Message: What does old school mean to you? “You’re welcome” instead of “No problem”? How about: saddle shoes. White handkerchiefs and white gloves. A hand-written note. Hitchhiking. Let us know -- we’re offering this week’s Email of the Week winner, Julia Brown (see below), as well as all you traditionistas out there the chance to tell us what you miss most about the world we are losing or have already lost. You may even win some of our authentic ludic loot, to boot. ENTER The Old’s Cool Contest NOW.

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Interesting stories from the Net

Words Donald Trump Said for the First Time in Any US Inaugural Address
Washington Post

A Linguist Offers a Brief Immersion in Black English
The New York Times
Permalink

Translating Trump -- Literally
Public Radio International
Permalink

From: Kevin P Kearney (CatchKevin aol.com)
Subject: borrowed words

When I was in grade school in the 1950s I decided to read our family’s huge two-volume Merriam-Webster dictionary and I still recall the opening sentence in “Americanisms”, one of the introductory articles: “Throughout its history, English has had all the delicate sensitivity of a powerful vacuum cleaner.”

From: John S Karabaic (jk karabaic.com)
Subject: borrowed words

You wrote: The reason English is such a rich language is that it’s not afraid to adopt words from other places. It has welcomed words from everywhere. If you speak English, you know parts of at least a hundred different languages.

Well, in most cases from the 1600s on, it actually travelled to where the words were living and kidnapped them. But, yeah, I get the spirit of these remarks. :-)

From: Michael Poole (michaelpoole paradise.net.nz)
Subject: Satori

“Satori” in its Zen meaning is of course several centuries older than 1727 (and as a general-use word must be way older than that even). However, I was surprised to see that it became known in English as early as 1727. It made me realise just how long ago and how far afield my forebears were travelling around the world and learning new stuff.

From: Kiyo Kisimoto (kiyo.kisimoto aist.go.jp)
Subject: satori

In a Japanese dictionary about “satori”, there is no explanation connotative of “sudden” part. It reads: understanding, knowing, awakening to being aware, or apprehending.

From: Mohini Mullick (mohini.mullick gmail.com)
Subject: hegira

The word muhajir, used to refer to Muslims who migrated from India to Pakistan in 1947, derives from the same root. The word “hijr” occurs frequently in Urdu poetry and means “separation”.

From: Ken Masters (itmeded gmail.com)
Subject: hegira

As a point of interest, at the time that Muhammad went to Medina, it was not known as Medina. It was then called Yathrib. It’s name changed a few years after Muhammad arrived, and the current usage of “Medina” (or al-Madinah) means “The City”.

From: Julia Brown (juliabrownpr yahoo.com)
Subject: Hegira

Today’s word, hegira, helped me decide to take the first step toward happiness. I’ve been debating leaving a comfortable, yet unhappy, situation. Upon opening your email this morning, it was as if the powers that be are telling me it is time... it is going to be ok. So here’s to my hegira!

From: Hagar Ronen (hagar.ronen gmail.com)
Subject: Re: A.Word.A.Day--hegira

I love AWAD and I especially love A THOUGHT FOR TODAY but according to Snopes and Wikiquote, today’s quotation is misattributed to Benjamin Franklin.

From: Barbara Murray (via online comments)
Subject: Quotation

A note on the Thought for the Day: The source is Plutarch, Parallel Lives, The life of Solon. (Solon, the Athenian lawmaker and one of the seven wise men of ancient times) Being asked, namely, what city was best to live in, “That city,” he replied, “in which those who are not wronged, no less than those who are wronged, exert themselves to punish the wrongdoers.”

From: Alex McCrae (ajmccrae277 gmail.com)
Subject: pronunciamento and bobbery

Apparently, during his election campaign primary run for the presidency, some party insiders came up with the catchy, progressive-sounding slogan, going to the extent of stamping out and dispensing thousands of campaign buttons bearing their man Hoover’s smiling countenance and the “misquoted” slogan. Oh, and for the record, Hoover never officially advocated... “a car in every garage”, either.

Here, in keeping with the Hindi derivation of our word “bobbery”, Taz has just left a stunned snake charmer (and his snake) in a cloud of ire and confusion as he zips away with a sack of ill-gotten rupees.

In the early ’90s I was part of the animation team that designed the key backgrounds for TAZ-Mania, Warner Bros. TV Animation’s successful attempt to resurrect a popular character who many fans felt had been given short shrift when he first whirled onto the animated cartoon landscape.

From: Andrew Pressburger (andpress sympatico.ca)
Subject: Camorra

Today’s AWAD mail brings two dramatic works to mind. The word Gomorra is the eponymous title of Roberto Saviano’s documentary novel about the Mafia in Sicily. In the film version, at the funeral of a victim of gang warfare, family members place mobile phones on the coffin, ostensibly so they can leave their final thoughts with the departed, while in fact they intend to discover in this devious way the identity of the killer who may also be placing a call in order to camouflage the crime in this peculiar way, and thus give away a clue to his identity.

In the Thought for Today portion, Mencken’s prophetic comment presages the writer Jerzy Kosinski’s scenario for the movie Being There, in which a slow-witted gardener by the name of Chance (aka Chauncy) -- who is addicted to television and takes everything he sees on the screen as true representation of reality -- fortuitously becomes President of the United States. The story has a bizarre ending which your readers may wish to explore at their leisure.

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Anagrams of this week’s words

From: Linda Riebel (linda.riebel earthlink.net)
Subject: New president, new satirical book

Political satire at its best! 101 limericks spoof the candidates, the process, and especially the “winner” of the 2016 presidential election. Composed by four sharp-eyed AWAD members and based on unusual words selected by Anu Garg, the limericks will make you laugh, cheer, nod in agreement, and vow to remain awake during the next four years. Ideal gift for the shocked, the disappointed, the humor-lovers, and political junkies everywhere: Limericks in the Time of Trump.

Here’s a sample:

From: Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)
Subject: Limericks

Although he was too amatory,
to her it seemed fine, hunky-dory.
Then suddenly he
was abandoned when she
grew enlightened through timely satori.
-Anne Thomas, Sedona, Arizona (antom earthlink.net)

Attempting to get to satori
The young man eschewed wealth and glory.
He was calm and serene
Until Time magazine
Offered millions to publish his story.
-Adam Perl, Ithaca, New York (adam pastimes.com)

Mrs A no sympathy hath
With Mr A’s concern with his bath --
and satori nights-
and imaginative flights -
“Archimedes, just lie in the damn thing and do the math!”
-Mike Parsley, Malaga, Spain (slussen2 gmail.com)

In a town in New York called Elmira
I was raised by my dear Uncle Ira.
When he said, “Snow and ice
All your life will be nice,”
To Miami I made a hegira.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

Oh, Canada, don’t close the gate
‘gainst those fleeing a frightening fate.
People on that hegira
will really admire ya.
Adieu, Lower sad Forty-Eight.
-Zelda Dvoretzky, Haifa, Israel (zeldahaifa gmail.com)

A parent’s pronunciamento
Is the law as far as it went so.
Children shouldn’t cross
Their parental boss
Till they can pay their own rent, no?
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)

I expect a pronunciamento
From the Donald concerning Steve Benko.
“His book isn’t funny!”
He’ll tweet, “Waste of money!”
I’ll treasure it as a memento.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

Each Twitter pronunciamento
Becomes a most painful memento
Of what we have lost
And at such a great cost
No, you never will see a “lo siento”.
-Joel Holtz, Rancho Palos Verdes, California (planetholtz cox.net)

The thieves got in a heated bobbery
Over a botched bakery robbery.
When I said, “Take the dough,
I thought you would know
I didn’t mean pastry jobbery.”
-Judith Marks-White, Westport, Connecticut (joodthmw gmail.com)

Our election was so full of bobbery
That Putin moved in for some robbery.
Now Trump is upon us
With Vlad his Adonis.
My knees are a little bit wobbly.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

We’ve seen nothing yet the pundit tells us
Of this world where wild bobbery propels us
Where ethics don’t matter
Only tweeting and patter
“Sad!” Grief and gloom now compels us.
-Kathy Deutsch, Melbourne, Australia (kathy deutsch.net.au)

It looked like a deep dark camorra
Ten men in black suit and fedora
It soon came to light
As they talked through the night
That they’d gathered to study the Torah.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)

Can all the political bobbery
Produce some level of satori?
Pronunciamentos may require
A philosophical hegira,
Or a camorra engaged in battery.
-C. William Elliott, Sarasota, Florida (evenports msn.com)

From: Phil Graham (pgraham1946 cox.net)
Subject: Phil’s punny pronouncements

In Britain, the Conservatives used to be called satori party.

My Individual Retirement Account is in a hedge fund that took off, i.e., an hegira.

About retaining women’s contemplative orders, the Pope said, “I’m pronunciamento make that clear.”

What with the nine Kennedy kids’ accents and arguments, Hyannis Port became the new Bobbery Coast.

Heavily armed, the Irish Mafia is a Glock camorra.