Photo mid-1890’s courtesy of O. Henry Museum
William Sydney Porter, pen name O. Henry, b. September 11, 1862, Greensboro, NC, d. June 5, 1910, New York City, NY, age 47. He is known for surprise endings, and this story is no exception.
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Photo mid-1890’s courtesy of O. Henry Museum William Sydney Porter, pen name O. Henry, b. September 11, 1862, Greensboro, NC, d. June 5, 1910, New York City, NY, age 47. He is known for surprise endings, and this story is no exception.
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naïve
“Dieresis” [di-ER-əs-əs] is a two-dot mark over a diphthong. A diphthong is a sound formed by the combination of two vowels in a single syllable, in which the sound begins as one vowel and moves toward another, as in coin, loud, and side. An example is naïve. A dieresis is the reason the word “naïve” is pronounced as two syllables. Without the dieresis, it might be a homonym with “knave”, and he is unscrupulous! Etymology: the word comes directly from both the Latin diæresis and the nearly identical Greek “διαίρεσις”, meaning “division” or “split”. Striking similarities between Flannery O’Connor and Frédéric Chopin might have gone unnoticed. Both were devout, practicing Catholics from birth to death. Both never married or had children. Both died at 39.
Countless English teachers told me to ignore an author’s background and analyze a piece of writing, and by extension, a piece of music, as it stands…on its own. I disagree. It would appear that both expressed love through art and relationships with people, and reserved a big portion for Our Lord. There is an entry for one of O’Connor’s stories read by her, and there are multiple entries for Chopin. My enemies I punch
And salt them for lunch. A little bit of brine And they taste divine. Original poem Author: Alexander (8) Mystery/horror story written by Lovecraft when he was 14! Life began and ended in the same place (1890-1937). Length – 20 minutes. I highly recommend this reading. The reader and I talked to each other. Listen as Lovecraft builds... Suspense George Orwell (1903-1950) wrote 1984.
“In his essay ‘Politics and the English Language’ (1946), Orwell wrote about the importance of precise and clear language, arguing that vague writing can be used as a powerful tool of political manipulation because it shapes the way we think. In that essay, Orwell provides six rules for writers:
From Wikipedia.  When the poster for the video titled, Nicaragua, alludes to Mexico, he is referring to the Cristero War, 1926-1929.
On May 21, 2000, Pope St. John Paul II canonized 25 saints and martyrs of the Cristero War. Most were Catholic priests. Above are pictures of five: (1) Margarito Flores Garcia, 28, (2) Tranquiliano Ubiarco Robles, 29, (3) Agustin Caloca Cortes, 29, (4) Roman Adame Rosales, 68, and (5) Cristobal Magallanes Jara, 57. https://aleteia.org/2019/06/28/these-5-martyr-priests-make-perfect-intercessors-as-we-pray-for-the-priesthood/ The article from Aleteia describes how the government murdered them. Aleteia is an online Catholic news and information website that I have used many times. “On October 5, 1928, he was captured while saying a nuptial Mass for a young couple. Father Tranquiliano was taken outside to the front of the house and hanged from a mango tree. The soldiers made the bride, the groom, and the several guests who were there watch the young priest die.” Graham Greene, an Englishman, wrote a novel about the war, The Power and the Glory, 1940, in my top ten. Modern Mexico “There is a lot of religiosity and little commitment,” said priest and historian Father Manuel Olimón. Social commitment is often lacking in modern Mexican Catholicism, he said: corrupt politicians, tight-fisted businessmen, and cartel kingpins all consider themselves proper Catholics. “Politicians seem anxious to appear with the pope, too, suggesting that the political class needs the church to bolster its popular appeal amid a string of scandals and desperately low popularity ratings.” [in advance of F’s visit to Mexico in 2016] “The government will try to legitimize itself with [the pope’s] visit,” said Bernardo Barranco, a columnist and church observer. Doesn’t it make you think of fake Catholic politicians in the US or the weak bishops? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/12/mexico-catholicism-politics-religious-history-pope-francis Not gold, but only man can make
A people great and strong; Men who, for truth and honor’s sake, Stand fast and suffer long. Brave men who work while others sleep, Who dare while others fly― They build a nation’s pillars deep And lift them to the sky. Ralph Waldo Emerson Use these oxymorons and your writing will improve – alone together, amazingly awful, clearly confused, bittersweet, definitely maybe or “Call Me Maybe”, dim light, farewell reception, growing smaller, jumbo shrimp, only choice, open secret, original copy, painfully beautiful, passive aggressive, random order, small crowd, true myth, walking dead, or weirdly normal.
I think only bittersweet applies to the post, Contrast 1: “the bittersweet of their long separation” … — Christopher Morley (1890-1957, American journalist) “Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.” Online Literature — Christopher Morley I dreamed the end of the world this morning. It was very terrifying. Alone and floating, I saw narrow, vertical lines of every color in front of me, perhaps a view of the world squished together into lines. There was a loud rushing sound, and I felt it, but no voices or cries. I knew the end was coming and said, "Save me, God.” A story about Poe's relationship with the Jesuits at Fordham, published in 2017, touches his loneliness. Many modern interpreters of Poe tend toward the macabre. They do not know his tender sensitivities. https://aleteia.org/2017/07/28/edgar-allan-poes-unknown-friendship-with-the-jesuits/ Associated Press, censorship, language, Orwellian, style guide
by Zach Freeman, August 1, 2022 “The Press Changes its Stylebook to Promote LGBT Definition of Sex/Gender.” Good luck, ladies and gentlemen of the press. I will not apply these changes to my lesson plans, and I will continue using my 1996 The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual. “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought,” writes George Orwell, in 1984. This kind of stuff will force journalists and writers into other options. Limerick – humorous, frequently bawdy, verse of three long and two short lines rhyming aabba
I don’t know if I ever told this limerick on my website, but here goes – There was a girl named Anheuser, Who thought none of the boys could surprise her, So, Pabst took a chance, Put Schlitz in her pants, And now she’s pale Budweiser. My father told that one at the dinner table. My mother stared at him and said, “Don’t talk like that, Joe.” Dad and I looked at each other and laughed. I was around 15. Mom left the room for the kitchen to get more food. Here is one for the sensitive ladies – A mouse in her room woke Miss Dowd, Who was frightened and screamed very loud, Then a happy thought hit her, To scare off the critter, She sat up in bed and meowed. Okay, one more, from Dad... There was a girl from St. Paul, Who wore a paper dress to the ball, The dress caught fire, Burned the entire, Front page, back page, and all. Ottis Shirk, poet. According to the Muncie Evening Press, until his retirement in 1953, he was employed in the Ball State University maintenance department where he earned the title "campus poet". A Lento consists of two quatrains with a fixed rhyme scheme of abcb, defe. The second and forth lines of each stanza must rhyme.
Our Watermelon Patch We used to have secluded, Every summer on the farm, A spot we kept protected From the pilferer, who might harm Or vandalize this valued plot, No fence with gate to latch, ’Twas just a family secret - Our watermelon patch. I remember as a youngster How I watched the melons grow As the vines spread out like carpet Covering every hill and row. How the mammoth, green-striped melons Seemed to nestle in the vines; Each branch so closely matted With another intertwines. When it came the time for ripening, I wondered how Dad knew; He'd thump each melon briskly; Then he'd thump his shoe. He said, "It's just like music, When they tune with tuning pipe; If they sound alike, harmonical, The melon then is ripe." I still am fond of melons, But the pleasure's no more mine, To thump those tempting beauties And pull them from the vine. To me it seems I've never Found any that would match The sweetness of the melons From our watermelon patch. Lie on the couch, close your eyes, and listen. (story originally published in 1932)
Awhile: adverb, modifies a verb, as in, “We stayed awhile in the park.” It answers the question, “How long did we stay?” and immediately follows the verb.
A while: noun phrase, as in, “It’s been a while since we visited the park.” It refers to a time. It’s easy to know which one to use by replacing the phrase with, “It’s been a week since we visited the park.” Park is both a homonym and a homograph. Park your car. We visited Yosemite National Park. The words are pronounced and spelled the same but have different meanings. Shipmates brought Dunn in with his dunnage, dumped all in the cargo hold, and laid dunnage over Dunn and his dunnage.
Heliacal [hə-LIH-ə-kəl] means relating to or near the Sun. This word is based on both the Latin “hēliacus,” and the Greek “ἡλιακός,” both meaning “sun”. (credit wordgenius.com) I think I will throw in another Latin word here because I see it quite often: cunctis means to all. It makes me think of conk.
I listened to a friar and wanted to put the conversation in my blog, but I said no. The talk about serving the poor sounded self-serving and self-congratulatory.
Case 1. Take the guy who is 30 and drives a delivery truck for a large company. Because it is a large company, he has health insurance. He can walk into a Kaiser emergency room and be taken care of. However, he rents, owns an average car, and has some possessions but, basically, lives from paycheck to paycheck. Case 2. Take the guy who is 30 and lives on the street. He has no job and begs all day. However, he has money. Homeless people do. How else do you think they buy their booze, cigarettes, and drugs? Who is poor? Both, but the second man is treated as “the poor” by the Church and the first man is not. Working people who are poor are excluded as if work were not important. I think Joseph worked his whole life as a carpenter. I am a realist. I would rather listen to Flannery O’Connor, Shakespeare, or music than a dreamer or do-gooder. Henry V William Shakespeare … for so work the honey-bees, Creatures that, by a rule in nature, teach The art of order to a peopled kingdom: They have a king and officers of state, Where some, like magistrates, correct at home, Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad, Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds; Which pillage they with merry march bring home To the tent-royal of their emperor; Who, busied in his majesty, surveys The singing masons building roofs of gold, The civil citizens kneading up the honey, The poor mechanic porters crowding in Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate; The sad-eyed Justice, with his surly hum, Delivering o'er to executors pale The lazy, yawning drone. My first venture into ancient Greek, a little somber to a Western ear, “Agni Parthene” is an Eastern Orthodox hymn. While much of the grammar and vocabulary of English is inherited from German, over 60 percent of English words have Greek or Latin roots. In the sciences and technology, the figure rises to over 90 percent. Latin and Greek were favored in Catholic schools up until the 1960s when radicals decided that everything old was outmoded, including the linguistic pride of our civilization. Majestic Captions are in the Latin alphabet. The breathtaking painting of Father and Son in purple is by Diego Velázquez, 1641-1644, oil on canvas, 69 in by 49 in, held by Museo del Prado, Madrid. The icon of Our Lord holding onto His mother's hand is the choice subject of many artists.
The hymn is perfect for a tenor. I sing along in two registers, the higher one a bit of a strain. Registers include modal (soprano, mezzosoprano, alto, contralto, countertenor, tenor, baritone, and bass), vocal fry (male, very low), falsetto (male, very high), and the whistle (female, extremely high). I have revised my ideal Catholic K-12 school. Study English, French, German, Latin, and Greek. Add them to history, reading, writing, mathematics, science, art, music, and the Catholic catechism. Tall order. Please. Mary Flannery O’Connor, born Savannah, Georgia, 3/25/1925, died Milledgeville, Georgia, 8/3/1964, was an American author who wrote two novels and 32 short stories. She died unmarried at age 39. Wikipedia says - “She was a Southern writer who often wrote in a sardonic Southern Gothic style and relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters, often in violent situations. The unsentimental acceptance or rejection of the limitations or imperfections or differences of these characters (whether attributed to disability, race, crime, religion, or sanity) typically underpins the drama. “Her writing reflected her Roman Catholic faith and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics.” … “Her daily routine was to attend Mass, write in the morning, then spend the rest of the day recuperating and reading. Despite the debilitating effects of the steroid drugs used to treat O’Connor’s lupus, she nonetheless made over sixty appearances at lectures to read her works.” If you have never read any O’Connor, here is a chance to hear her lovely Southern accent as she reads her own “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Did you like it? I bet there isn't a single exclamation point in the text, though I haven't seen it. Lame word! It is an unstressed syllable, always pronounced “uh”.
Notice how the “e” in “dozen” and the “o” in “memory”, both pronounced like “uh”, have a short, dull presence. Some languages omit schwas completely. That’s better. The schwa is there, but the speaker chooses not to say it. This is a common phenomenon in French … and throws a curve ball at me every time. American English does it, too. Listen to how we pronounce chocolate, every, and camera. In each one, the schwa in the middle of the word does a disappearing act to the hearer … bless the ESL student. Not lame. I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes, I honked again. Because this was going to be my last ride of my shift, I thought about just driving away.
Instead, I put the car in park and walked up to the front door and knocked. “Just a minute,” answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor. After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a hat with a veil pinned on it as if she had stepped out of a 1940s movie. By her side was a small, nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware. “Would you carry my bag out to the car?” she asked. I took the suitcase to the cab and returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb. She kept thanking me for my kindness. “It’s nothing,” I told her. “I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.” “Oh, you're such a good boy,” she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, “Could you drive through downtown?” “It’s not the shortest way,” I answered quickly. “Oh, I don't mind,” she said. “I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.” I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes glistened. “I don't have any family left,” she continued in a soft voice, “The doctor says I don't have very long.” I quietly reached over and shut off the meter. I asked, “What route would you like me to take?” For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that once had been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl. Sometimes, she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing. At the first hint of sun creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, “I’m tired. Let’s go now.” We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico. Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her. I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair. “How much do I owe you?” she asked, reaching into her purse. “Nothing.” “You have to make a living,” she said. “There are other passengers.” Almost without thinking, I bent and kissed her. She held onto me tightly. “You gave an old woman a little moment of joy. Thank you.” I squeezed her hand and then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life... For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away? What would my lady have said? Anonymous  Read this exciting new book, Letters from Hawaii, from my brother-in-law,
Robert K. Lindsey. etymology of genuflection: Latin genu + flectere genu meaning “knee” and flectere meaning “to bend” Not fond of “tribulation”: “dogfight” sounds better. Vigano is in hiding, which explains his freedom to speak. Schneider of Kazakhstan and Vigano of At Large are the bravest bishops. His comment uses two rhetorical devices: (1) repetendum, derived from Latin and meaning repetition, and (2) parataxis, derived from Greek and meaning to place side by side. The latter is a rhetorical term in which phrases and clauses are placed one after another independently, not coordinating or subordinating them with conjunctions.
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