Anger Management
[ No Comments ] Posted on 04.08.04 in pictures, random
Death to Blinky
Bologna
[ 2 Comments ] Posted on 04.06.04 in bad grammar, random
Merriam Webster defines it as “a large smoked sausage of beef, veal, and pork; also : a sausage made (as of turkey) to resemble bologna.” And I would agree – its bologna.
But it’s pronounced “baloney.” Come to think of it, Merriam Webster also defines such a word in that whimsical book of theirs: “pretentious nonsense : BUNKUM — often used as a generalized expression of disagreement.”
So, what we have on our hands here are two different words! Up until five minutes ago, I thought it was “bologna” in all contexts. Like, for example, when that Flick character on A Christmas Story argues with Shwartz about the notion that his tongue would stick to the flagpole, he cries (phonetically), “BALL-OH-NEE!” For sixteen years I always thought it would have to have been written “bologna” in the script, and for sixteen years I thought that such a spelling would be outrageously aesthetically unpleasing. Now I have been shown the light.
But what about other uses of bologna, not necessarily relating to pretentious nonsense? Admit it, it’s a funny word, but you’re telling me, Mr. Webster, that I’m supposed to spell it like you say even when I know full well that’s not how it sounds? When one uses the word “bologna” in somewhat humorous ways, I find that it takes away from the comedy when one spells it as if it were a deli meat.
So, here I am, submitting that whenever we aren’t talking about meat or a city in Italy, we spell it “baloney.”
QED
Rank Offence
[ 3 Comments ] Posted on 04.02.04 in high school
O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,
A brother’s murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will:
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offence?
And what’s in prayer but this two-fold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardon’d being down? Then I’ll look up;
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? ‘Forgive me my foul murder’?
That cannot be; since I am still possess’d
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.
May one be pardon’d and retain the offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but ’tis not so above;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compell’d,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? what rests?
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it when one can not repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
All may be well.
Had to memorize that beast for Powell’s class. And I made it cry to its mommy.