The Language Monitor

The readers of this column have once again bombarded the author with a veritable barrage of questions concerning the language which, with varying degrees of success, we read, write and speak.  Reprinted here is a sampling of some of the more interesting queries received recently.

 

            Q:        Whenever I bring something home from a tag sale my husband starts in with “Where’d you get that goo-gaw?” I don’t like the sound of that word and would like to know more about it. I suspect he is “ragging” me.

Mrs. E.F., Paducah, Kentucky

            A:        The precise term is “gewgaw.” While it may have been derived from the French “joujou” meaning a toy or bauble, it may also stem from the Dutch “giegagen” meaning “to hee haw.” There is consequently some dispute among the authorities as to whether the word is to be understood as pejorative, and I cannot say with certainty whether your husband’s intent is to express affection or disapproval without observing him in the act of uttering the word, which I do not care to do.

High-falutin’ type

            Q:        I’d like to know who died and left you boss? Your answer to “Confused in Chillicothe MO” that you’re supposed to say “an history” because the English say it that way is downright un-American. Whoever heard of hitting “an home run”? If I told my wife I was going down to Frosty’s Barber Shop for “an hair cut” she’d think I was a cup and saucer short of a full place setting.  That sort of talk may sound fine to high-falutin’ types like you but the rest of us have to live in the “real world.”  You have insulted the intelligence of a good many people and ought to get down off your high horse and apologize.

 Upset in Ogden, Utah.

            A:        No offense intended, no apology extended. People like you must learn, Mr./Ms. Upset, that the pursuit of patriotism in the guise of linguistic purity is like the pursuit of a rabbit by a man in a greyhound suit–the quarry will not be caught and the garment will be rent by the chase.

Lu Ann, performing her signature “reverse swan” figure

            Q:        A woman I work with is always going on about her daughter Lu Ann–her daughter is an expert water-skier, her daughter has a collection of antique thimbles, her daughter makes prize-winning congo bars, etc. This girl is real “pretty”–pretty ugly and pretty apt to stay that way–and whenever I ask “When’s that daughter of yours going to get married?” she shuts up and says real stuffy-like “I am not at liberty to say.”  I’d like to know what the hell that’s supposed to mean.

Veneta Johnson, Moline, Illinois.

            A:        The phrase is intended to convey that one is not permitted to divulge that which one has been requested to, but I gather that in this instance it has been used to refer to an inhibition rather than a prohibition.  I would recommend that you direct further inquiry regarding this matter to an authority on etiquette, not language.

The Cisco Kid and Pancho

            Q:        My 17 year-old daughter is forever confounding English and Spanish in a manner which I find to be both annoying and a bit flip. “I’m gonna take El Carro and drive to El Store-o,” she will say, or “My date last night was a real El Creepo.” I am not conversant with Spanish, but I feel quite certain that this mode of expression is improper English. I would be interested to hear your opinion of the matter.

Ellen (not my real name), Fitchburg, Mass.

            A:        In my view steps toward international understanding should be welcomed whenever they are heard, and consequently I find your attitude towards your daughter’s refreshing mix of cognates xenophobic, to say the least.  If variety is truly the spice of life, then variety of expression must surely be one of its leading condiments.

Jimmy Durante:  “Hot-cha-cha” was really his idea.

            Q:        My father-in-law is prone to lapse into a sort of pidgin English replete with “hot-cha-cha’s” and terms like “schnozzola” when talking to our five month-old son. What I want to know is whether this atrocious sort of slang is learned or transmitted by heredity, and, if the former, what can be done to halt its spread.

Mrs. Leon Oeherke, Bloomfield, Michigan

            A:        The current view is that man’s capacity for slang is innate, and we suppress the tendency to use it at our peril. For a popular treatment of the somewhat recondite underpinnings of this thesis, see R. Beverly Rouchka’s “Our Slangy World.”

“I’m out of smokes.  Could I bum a Pall Mall off of you?”

            Q:        Recently I found the words “In hoc signo vinces” written on the back of one of my teen-aged son’s school notebooks. Does this have something to do with a cult and should I be worried?

Mrs. Oren Daily, Jr., Hollywood, Florida

            A:        It depends. On the one hand, the phrase, which is Latin for “In this sign you will conquer,” was the motto of Constantine the Great and one of the more popular slogans of Christians of his era. On the other hand, it is also found on Pall Mall cigarette packages and may indicate a nascent fascination with smoking and its folkways. I suggest that you watch the boy closely–he may be headed for trouble, the priesthood or both.

Big fun at Bull Shoals

            Q:        Please settle an argument for me. I say it’s incorrect to say “who all” as in “Who all’s gonna go with your Uncle Bud to Bull Shoals next week?” My husband thinks it’s okay and the other night he come out with the question above quoted in front of my parents and their friends when we substituted at their bridge club. Mr. Language Monitor, I was just mortified since this is a pretty respectable bunch of people with an osteopath, an insurance salesman and a realtor included. We read your column regularly and have agreed to abide by your decision.

Mrs. Floyd M. Killion, Cape Girardeau, Mo.

            A:        “Who all,” like “you all,” is a common redundant suffixal colloquialism and may be used without disadvantage in all but the most snobbish circles, even though it is not standard English. Your husband may begin to brood if asked to abandon this usage, and he will surely become a more self-conscious and unhappy person.

Ormolu mount:  Who knew?

            Q:        Last week my wife’s sister used the word “ormolou” in a Scrabble game. I asked her what it meant and she said it’s either a kind of cover you put on the arms of a chair or an Eskimo word for snow she don’t know which. This came at a crucial time and “iced” the game for her as they say. Right after she wins she says she has to go take her baby sitter home so I didn’t make a big deal out of it, but now I can’t find the word in the dictionary. This woman took a vocabulary course a while back but I don’t think she knows more words than Mr. Webster.

Ed Moyer, Bangor, Maine.

            A:        “Ormolou” is probably a misspelling of “ormolu,” a kind of gold leaf and not a furniture covering of the sort your sister-in-law probably has in mind, which is an antimacassar. I cannot say for certain that there is no such Eskimo word, however, since there are more Eskimo words for snow than there are English words for sex and liquor combined. You people seem to be playing fast and loose with the rules of Scrabble, and I would suggest you stick to jotto.

The Three-Legged Stool of Jazz Violin

In the early years of the twentieth century, three men were born who would give life to the violin as a voice in the chorus of jazz; Joe Venuti (1903), Stephane Grappelli (1908), and Hezekiah Leroy Gordon “Stuff” Smith (1909).  Together they form the three-legged stool on which all jazz violinists have sat since.

 

Joe Venuti

Venuti and Grappelli would form partnerships with guitarists–Eddie Lang in the former case, Django Reinhardt in the latter–while Stuff Smith would go his own way throughout his career.  Venuti was one of the great practical jokers of jazz; he once called nearly two dozen bass players and asked them all to show up for an imaginary gig at a busy street corner where he sat in waiting to watch the confusion that ensued. 

Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti

When he played, however, he was all business, and he and Lang combined for some of the earliest and most important recordings of the improvised music that is America’s most enduring gift to the world of the arts.  Lang died prematurely in 1933 and Venuti went into a long period of artistic hibernation; he emerged in the late 60’s and played with both survivors of jazz’s infancy such as Earl Hines and younger (comparatively speaking) players such as Zoot Sims.

Stephane Grappelli, with Django Reinhardt, of Le Quintet de Hot Club de France

Grappelli teamed up with Django Reinhardt, the gypsy guitarist whose left hand was short two fingers, the result of a disastrous caravan fire in 1929.  Together they formed Le Quintet de Hot Club de France, a Franglais label that aptly described the mixed breed contents within; a French interpretation of the “hot” records that were issuing forth from New Orleans, a combination of African rhythms and European harmonies. 

Django

The two were separated when World War II broke out, Grappelli moving on to London, Reinhardt returning to France; they were reunited when the war ended but never worked together again on a regular basis after their first separation.  Their brief reunions over the next seven years until Reinhardt’s death in 1953, are a tease–an indication of what we might have heard had they stayed together over the long haul.

Stuff Smith

For my tastes, Stuff Smith is the greatest of them all; he swings with a style that is loose-gaited and free, while never losing his orientation to the rhythm, a prerequiste for that indefinable something we call swing.  He cited Louis Armstrong as his principal influence, and his tone on the violin did indeed recall Satchmo’s voice, as expressed on his trumpet and in his gravel-voiced singing.  Like Armstrong, Smith was both a musician and an entertainer; he had novelty hits with “I’se a Muggin’” and “You’se a Viper”, but any of his versions of “Willow, Weep for Me” and “Cherokee” are worthy of scarce space in a suitcase packed for a desert island.

Barbie at 50

2009 is Barbie’s 50th anniversary.  The Boston Herald

I looked out the window of my Dream House and allowed myself a teensy-tiny moment of reflection.  How far I’d come in fifty years!  It seemed like only yesterday I was born, fully-developed, in a secret test lab deep within the bowels of the Mattel Toy Company.

Half a century, and not a single stretch mark, even though I seem to have a daughter, Skipper, by Ken, my “on again-off again” boyfriend as my Press Site notes.  On again-off again, my bony ass.  He’s a shiftless, no-count loser.  But I don’t like to dwell on the negative.

Some people criticize me for having a perfect, unattainable body that creates unrealistic expectations in young girls, causing them to turn up their noses at mom’s American Chop Suey and Stuffing Puppies.  Well, which would you rather have–a durable, dishwasher-safe hard-plastic torso like mine, or a body that could be “attained” by every Buzz Lightyear and GI Joe on the shelf?  To ask the question, as they say, is to answer it.  Besides, American Chop Suey sucks.

I just wish I could spend more time with Skipper, but I seem to have shipped her off to boarding school, like some cruel parent in a W. Somerset Maugham novel.  Thankfully, she’s coming home in 2009–check my website!

Maugham:  “May I have a turn with Barbie–please?”

You know, long before everyone got so “hip” to being “post-racial” and including black sidekicks in gangs of guys eating at Chili’s in TV commercials, I had an African-American friend–”Christie”.  The Federal Trade Commission did an investigation after someone sent in an anonymous tip that no self-respecting black woman would ever allow herself to be called “Christie”.  Because of Mattel quality control, we passed with flying persons of color!

But I’m not just racially tolerant, I’m omni-tolerant!  I had a friend in a wheelchair long before you did–Becky.  I had another friend with a crippling beauty handicap–glasses!  Don’t believe me?  Again, it’s right there on the World Wide Web, writ large so those who surf may read.

Skipper, after and before she got married to the local Chevy-GMC dealer

Maybe I’ll have a big family reunion for my 50th.  My brother Todd and my sisters Skipper, Tutti, Stacie, Kelly and Krissy.  My “gal pals” Teresa, Kira, Kayla, Becky and Christie.  My BFF Midge and her husband Alan.  I wonder what ever happened to Alan?  I don’t remember hearing about a divorce or a death or anything.  If anything ever happens between me and Ken, it’s on the front page of the National Enquirer before you can say “Holly Hobby”.

With Ken and me it’s always a “headline-generating breakup”–no thanks to the Mattel public relations department.  What I wouldn’t give for Midge’s quiet life with Alan!  I don’t want to end up alone in some Barbie Dream Nursing Home, with flabby bingo-arms, doddering around reliving my outfits of the past; Stewardess Barbie, Nurse Barbie, Executive Barbie, Rapper Barbie, Streetwalker Barbie.

No, all I want is . . . hey, that’s Midge down there now–with Ken!  Why that freaking skank!  Hey you!  Yeah you, you red-headed bitch!  Get your hands off my arm-candy!  He may drive around all day in my dream car, and shack-up in my dream house, and never go out and get a job so he could have cool outfits like me–but he’s all I’ve got!

Walk for the Cure for Man Boobs Draws Jeers Along the Way

WAYLAND, Mass.  The first signs of spring are beginning to appear in the Northeast, and with them plans for the numerous walk-a-thons, 6 kilometer races and other charitable fund-raising events that crowd the region’s roads with the coming of warm weather.

“We have old narrow highways, so sometimes tempers flare when a walker walks somebody off the road,” says State Trooper Jim Hampey as he monitors two different streams of volunteers converging at the intersection of routes 20 and 27.  “It can get ugly in a hurry, assuming you didn’t start out ugly in the first place.”

“Whatta you lookin’ at?”

For one such event, the Walk for the Cure for Man Boobs, the ten-mile route is a mine field for those who suffer from the affliction, as participants in the “Break the Chain Walk to End Smoking” taunt their flabbier fellow walkers.  “Hey fat boy,” says Claude Thurman, a rail-thin cigarette addict who gets his oral gratification from Marlboro Lights in the hard pack.  “Those things are worthless as tits on a boar!”

“You guys are like totally gross!”

“May be, pal,” says Furman Boul, a claims adjuster who has spent the better part of the winter on his sofa watching televised sports, “but I’ll be reclinin’ in my La-Z-Boy where your bony ass is six feet under.”

“Why don’t you bend over and pick up your damn bowling ball!”

It’s not just other men who are dismissive of victims of man boobs.  Women line the streets when the long file of sufferers moves through Sudbury, and they make it clear that they think the supposed ailment of the marchers is all their fault.  “Why don’t you lift something heavier than a 12-ounce can of beer every once in a while,” yells Linda Fairchild, who has just come from a private session with a personal trainer that shows in her well-toned upper arms and torso.  “You eat a bag of marshmallows,” she yells at Wade Newsome, “you end up looking like one.”

 

“Foot long subs . . . foot long subs!”

Sympathy runs low for the victims of man boobs, because they are viewed as partly responsible for their condition, or at the very least capable of correcting it.  “I don’t know why those guys get their own march,” says Norton Dennison, executive director of VOSII, an acronym that stands for “Victims of Self-Inflicted Injuries”.  “I’ve got guys who fell out of tree stands hunting, or ran over their own foot with a lawn mower, who are in much worse shape.”

Beer Pong With the Nobel Prize Winners

Alcohol and American writers have always had a connection–about 70 percent of American winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature could be considered heavy drinkers if not more.

                                         Five Fantastic New Orleans Bars, MSN Cityguides

Pearl Buck:  “I could drink your sorry ass under any table in the joint!”

 

It was getting late, and I was getting tired.  I pressed my temples to my head, trying to finish at least one good paragraph for my work-in-progress; a stream-of-consciousness novel about an unconscious boxer, flat on his back.

My wife appeared at the den door.  “Are you coming to bed soon?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.

“I’d like to,” I said, “but I feel my life slipping away, and I haven’t written anywhere near all the stories I’ve got to tell.”

Sinclair Lewis:  “Whiskey on beer, never fear?  Beer on whiskey, never risky?”

 

“I know sweetie, but you need your rest,” she said.  “You’ve got a real job, remember?”

“You’re right,” I said. “But I’ve got to keep writing–it’s who I am.”

“You’d probably write better if you were rested.”

“No–what I need is to have some more to drink,” I replied as I drained my glass of merlot.

Her eyes opened wide, no longer sleepy.  “I think you’ve had enough already,” she said, more than a little concerned.

Eugene O’Neill:  “If you drink a rum coke through a straw really fast, you’ll get drunk quicker.”

 

“Not according to MSN Cityguides,” I said, hitting the “Print” button on the msn.com website.  “See–it says here that about 70%–if not more–of American Nobel Prize winners for literature were heavy drinkers.”

Hemingway and six-toed cat:  “Six toes and you still can’t hold your goddam liquor.”

 

I had her attention now.  The Nobel Prize is worth ten million Swedish kronor, or $1,132,182.50 at current exchange rates.  That ought to pay off those Christmas credit card balances!

“Maybe you’re right,” she said as she handed the article back to me.  “After all, nobody knows literature like the Microsoft web site–right?”

“You can say that again,” I replied with a smug, knowing look.

“I’ll go get the gin,” she said, as she hustled off to the liquor cabinet.

Toni Morrison:  “Just a glass of chardonnay–something oaky if you have it.”

 

I searched around for some tonic and a lime, but it was the dead of winter.  We didn’t have any vermouth either, so it looked like just gin on the rocks.  Not my favorite, but I am dedicated to literature.

Saul Bellow:  “I seem to recall this fellow Chapman waited on me at the University of Chicago faculty club.  He spilled Vichyssoise in my martini.”

 

“You ready?” my wife asked as she poured the liquor over ice.

“Don’t we at least have a lemon twist?”

“Nope.  You’ve got to take your medicine straight.”

Joseph Brodsky:  “My cat can kick Hemingway’s cat’s scrawny butt from here to next week.”

 

I took a look at the glass–two fingers of the stuff that used to be called “blue ruin” in Samuel Johnson’s day.  “Over the teeth, through the gums–look out stomach, here it comes!” I said, and knocked it back.

Wow!  I felt as if I’d been kicked in the head walking through the mule barn at the Missouri State Fair.  I was both clear-headed and stunned–little blue and yellow shooting stars all around me–at the same time.

Samuel Johnson:  “This was written by a drunkard!”

 

“How do you feel?” my wife asked.

“Ready to write!” I exclaimed, and I sat down at my four-and-a-half-year old Toshiba “Satellite” model laptop that the pimply guy at BestBuy had convinced me was my, uh, best buy.

Czeslaw Milosz:  Only half-American, so only half-drunk.

 

“It was the best of times, and a dark and stormy night,” I began.  “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is my name–call me Ishmael,” I continued. 

“That’s some really good stuff you’re cranking out!” my wife exclaimed as she looked over my shoulder.

“Happy families are all alike,” I tapped out.  “I am an American–Chicago born.”

“You’re on fire!”

T.S. Eliot:  “Budweiser is the King of Beers, Bud Light is merely the crown prince.”

 

“I am a sick man . . . I am a spiteful man . . . I am the eggman . . . I am the walrus–goo goo gajoob.”

“Oh . . . my . . . freaking . . . god!  You are incredible!”

“And it’s just the liquor talking!” I exclaimed, happy to at last have found my voice at the bottom of the bottle.

“Do you want some cheese curls?”

I thought about it for a second.   “I don’t know–do you think Isaac Bashevis Singer–”

“Let me check the bag,” she said.  “Yep, it’s pareve.”

Kosher cheese curls.

 

“That’s comforting,” I said as I stuffed my mouth full of the salty, orange cheese-flavored food products.

I looked at her, and she looked at me.  She’d stuck it out with me through the thin years, and now we were on the verge of the big bucks.

“Just supposing,” she said, her voice as dreamy and ephemeral and far away as a jet contrail in the sky.  ”If you were to win the Big One–the Nobel–what would you do with all that money?”

“I don’t know,” I said, gazing off into the distance.  “I might stop buying Beer Nuts in the giant economy size at Costco . . .”

” . . . and?” she asked expectantly.

“Well, I guess I could actually spring for some imported beer.”

Helpful Household Hints From Helena

Helena’s many “Household Helpers” stuffed her mailbox with numerous “questions and suggestions” this month.  So without further “ado”–let’s see what’s on their minds!

Dear Helena:

Last month somebody asked you what she could do with all those little chips of bar soap that are too small to wash with but too big to throw away.  Your “hint” was that she should melt them down in a frying pan with vegetable oil and pour the mix onto a waffle iron to create “soap waffles” to wash your feet with.  I tried this and put one in the shower where my husband Earl stepped on it, slipped and threw his back out.  Now he is laid up for at least a month and cannot tend to his work as a contract wheat harvester.  I’d like to know what you intend to do about it.

Beverly Oehrke, Tarkio, MO

Dear Beverly–

Please–check my column!  I said you should use soap waffles as a welcome washing mat for your pets–not your husband–when they come in from outside with dirty feet.  Also, remember that soap waffles are not edible.

Dear Helena:

I tried your suggestion that you could use “dust bunnies” to make clothes from scrap.  It was a lot of work, but I recently completed a cute sweater vest and skirt combo.  They were a sort of greyish brown, so I dyed them red.  I wore this outfit to my bridge club the other day at Sue Ellen Myneke’s house.  She just has one window air conditioner and it is in the den where her husband was watching the University of Oklahoma spring football game, not where we were playing cards.  Long story short, I was sweating like a bitch wolf in heat and when I got home and took my clothes off my body was brick red from my neck to my knees!  How am I supposed to get this off?

Eunice C. Othmer, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Dear Eunice:

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!  The Oklahoma Sooners “official colors” are crimson and cream, and you should fit right in at the first football game of the season when it will still be hot enough to wear shorts and a sleeveless blouse.

Dear Helena:

My husband came back from the lake last weekend with fifteen catfish, which we have put in the deep freeze until we hear from you.  I have never cooked any catfish other than ready-made breaded fillets.  Do you have a good recipe I can use?

Mrs. Veneta Sue Dunham, Hoxie, Arkansas

Veneta Sue–

Here is a traditional recipe for oven-baked catfish that my grandmother gave me:

Take catfish fillets, dip in egg and cover with bread crumbs.   Season to taste.  Set oven to 350 degrees.  Place catfish on a cookie sheet.  (Add a layer of aluminum foil to avoid scrubbing later if desired.)  Put cookie sheet in oven along with a 2 by 4 (get at any lumber yard or Home Depot).  Bake for 45 minutes.  Throw away fish and eat board.

Helena:

I took the advice of the reader who wrote in, a Mrs. Virginia Buchter, to put sponges in the dishwasher at night to get them clean and make them smell fresh in the morning.  Unbeknownst to me, my husband Virgil read in his “Outdoor Life” magazine that the way to get his “gimme” caps clean was to wash them in the dishwasher.  Anyway, he put his “Dekalb Seed Corn” cap in the upper rack with the glasses last night where I didn’t see it, and this morning all my sponges and dishes smell like soybeans.  Do you have Mrs. Buchter’s address so I can get ahold of her to see if she can help me with this problem?

Wanda Jean Peters, Normal, Illinois

Dear Ms. Peters:

I must maintain the confidentiality of all my corresponents’ personal information under the Federal Advice Column Privacy Act of 2004.  However, you might try running a load of dishes with some baking soda instead of detergent.  It will either get rid of the odor or remove the pattern on your china.

Congressman Says Dollar’s Hairy Eyeball Causing Market Swings

WASHINGTON, D.C.  Congressman Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, took the Federal Reserve to task yesterday, saying the eyeball atop the pyramid on the US dollar was causing wild swings in world stock markets.

Frank:  “People are scared to death of that hairy eyeball thing.”

“Speaking frankly, as I always do, if I had a choice I wouldn’t keep that thing in my wallet,” the Massachusetts Democrat said to Benjamin Bernanke as the Fed Chairman appeared before Congress for his quarterly scolding by grandstanding legislators.  “The hairy eyeball is a real problem in world financial markets.”

Notice how it follows you around when you try to take it to a bank and save it.

Bernanke said the Fed was only playing the hand it was dealt by a world-wide conspiracy of Freemasons who plotted to include the eyeball in the great seal of the United States in the 18th century.  “The all-seeing eye is the symbol of God, the great architect of the universe” Bernanke explained, reading from a prepared text he had pulled off the internet shortly before entering the hearing room.   ”Either that or it’s an Egyptian god that was brought to America in a UFO.”

Bernanke:  ” . . . and when the doors to the mother ship opened, out popped a one-eyed pyramid.  Really.”

Frank suggested that the Fed hire a good interior decorator to redesign the dollar to reflect current tastes.  “Right now, the dollar bill is as cluttered as a Provincetown antique shop,” Frank said, referring to a predominantly gay community at the tip of Cape Cod that lies outside his district.  “I would dump the pyramid and the scrollwork, which looks like the carpet in the lobby of a Motel 6.”

“I’ll give you $200 for a Domino’s Discount Pizza Coupon!”

Yesterday the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined to 7114.78, or half its peak of just sixteen months ago.  “At some point we will hit bottom,” says trader Bill Ortwein of Stromberg Securities.  “Until then, I would suggest moving into tangible commodities such as Pokemon cards and Star Wars collectible drink cups.”

Your best investment right now.

A number of the Founding Fathers including George Washington were Freemasons and the eye and the pyramid are commonly-used symbols in the rites and lore of that secret society.  “Like most other lodges, the Freemasons are primarily an excuse for men to get together and drink,” says William Thain, an expert on American fraternal societies.  “The eye is often depicted inside an enclosed pyramid, which translates rebus-style into ‘I want to get out of the house and drink myself cross-eyed’.”

Freelance Your Way to Poverty!

There is a charity in Boston that helps the homeless by publishing a newspaper to which they contribute articles and poems.  The thinking is that if a panhandler has a newspaper to sell, as opposed to merely asking for a handout, people will be more likely to give him or her money.  As a happy byproduct of this retail transaction, the theory goes, the downtrodden will acquire valuable skills by cranking out content for the good sports who fork over cold, hard cash for their efforts.

“It was either this, or write a two-part article on the decline of social dancing in America.”

What a great idea; help people get out of poverty by turning them into freelance writers.  While we’re at it, why don’t we take away the deposit cans and bottles they’ve been collecting?

Maypole dancing:  The pay is lousy, but the benefits are bad.

As someone who first sold a freelance article for $100 some three decades ago (adjusted for inflation: $3.26), and worked the better part of a summer to get it, all I can say is if you want to lift people out of poverty, freelance writing is as good a tool as any, if by “any” you mean maypole dancing.

As a freelance writer, you deserve to be treated like the professional you are, although with pay for print articles being as low as it is, you may feel like you’re preserving your amateur status for some future Freelance Olympic Games in Oslo, Norway.

“Umm–I just love this guy’s writing!”

I sold twelve freelance articles in 2008.  At the everday low prices that prevail in the marketplace for unsolicited non-fiction, my take-home pay averaged twenty cents a word.  Not bad, you think.  You’ve got plenty of words–you’re the freaking Wal-Mart of words, fer Christ sake!  The problem is, no one wants to buy the Big Gulp size; everyone wants to buy the little, teensy 500-word piece.

 

You can’t tell by the smell alone.

And then there’s the phenomenon of reverse literary panhandling.  One editor to whom I sent the taboo-breaking article “How to Tell Your Teenaged Son From a Dead Rodent” went out of his way to tell me how much he enjoyed it, and how eager he was to run it in his suburban weekly.  “Of course, I have no budget for freelance articles,” he added with a fraternal tone, as if an experienced writer like myself would know that one doesn’t actually get paid for this sort of thing.

Maurice Chevalier

“Mais oui, mon ami!” I replied with the devil-may-care attitude of a blase, sophisticated boulevardier like Maurice Chevalier.  “Why should you pay me for something that will mean so much to your readers, when it is but a trifle to me!”

Pointer Sisters:  “I want a publisher with a slow hand . . .”

The purchasers of free lance writing have a well-deserved reputation for responding as slowly as possible, thereby increasing your pleasure in much the same manner that the Pointer Sisters longed for a slow hand.  I was pleasantly surprised in 2007 by the jackrabbit response of a publishing company to an over-the-transom Hail Mary I sent them.  “Thank you for your submission,” their friendly, personalized form letter read.  “You should hear back from us in approximately six months.”  I set my snooze alarm for January of 2008, and waited for the big check to arrive, Ed McMahon-style, at my front door. 

“Could it be the rejection letter I’ve been waiting for, or is it the pizza guy?”

Time passed.  Buildings rose and fell outside my office window.  The Tampa Bay Rays went to the World Series, an African-American president was elected, the Arizona Cardinals played in the Super Bowl.  We were surely in the end times predicted in the Book of Revelations, but I had to wait for a year after I received that first “Save the Date!” semi-rejection letter to get my official rejection letter.  All I can say is, it’s a good thing I didn’t send them a live report from the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

“This is good, but could you cut it down to 500 words?”

If one were to adopt this policy for a one-on-one transaction with a panhandler, instead of going through a middleman non-profit newspaper, the exchange might go something like this:

BUM:  Hey man, spare a quarter?

YOU:  Actually, I’d be happy to give you more than that.

BUM:  You would?

YOU:  Sure.  Just send me a draft of a short, humorous piece about sleeping on heating grates.

BUM:  That ain’t funny . . .

YOU:   Well, no, not strictly speaking, but if you embellish it, and I take it, I’ll pay you within 30 days of acceptance.

BUM:  (To another passer-by)  Hey man, spare a quarter?

“I can send it in Word or HTML format, whichever you want . . .”

My “hit” rate for print articles last year wasn’t bad, ten out of twelve, about average for high-school basketball-level free-throw shooting.  On-line, I wrote approximately 180 blog posts, and sold only one–more like those bring-a-fan-down-out-of-the-stands promotions where the guy wins a new car if he can make a basket from the opposite free throw line.  Assuming you could buy a Honda Civic for fifty bucks.

“Tell him I can’t see him right now–I’m meeting with a homeless guy.”

And then there are the unintended consequences of training the currently unemployed to become freelancers.  My going rate for a 500-word article is $100; do the math on a price-per-word basis yourself, I can’t afford to waste precious battery juice.  Additional writing supply means prices will go down, leading to uncomfortable negotiations like this:

ME:  . . . so that’s the news hook.  Unless we rescind the Hungarian Toy Tariff right now, we face the collapse of the domestic Play-Doh market, which will ripple through the economy like the fudge part of Fudge Ripple ice cream.

EDITOR:  Um-hmm.  So . . . what kind of fee were you looking for?

ME:  Well, my usual.

EDITOR:  I don’t know.  I met a guy sleeping in the vestibule who said he’ll do a three-part series on how the Pope controls his bladder–for a 50 ounce jug of Thunderbird wine!

ME:  (Pause)  Okay, I’ll do it for the 750 milliliter bottle.

Across US, Sullen Teens Dump Families for Olive Garden Waitstaff

FRAMINGHAM, Mass.  It’s Saturday night at the Olive Garden restaurant here, and as the line snakes up to the hostess station, Emily Nilson is offering some helpful but pointed criticism of her daughter, Alicia.  “You need to pluck your eyebrows,” she says.  “That zit on your forehead just won’t go away, will it, sweetie?” she adds as she brushes her daughter’s bangs downward.

“Mother–please!” Alicia seethes through clenched teeth, then folds her arms across her chest to express in body language that she doesn’t want to talk about beauty right now.

The Nilson’s table is ready, and after they are seated, veteran bread-and-water man Tony DiFillipo appears to fill the glasses and drop off some rolls.  “Hey, Princess,” he says to Alicia.  “How’s my little beauty queen?”

“Your mom’s got a poker up her butt–stay with us!”

“Hi, Tony,” Alicia says as she smiles for the first time tonight.  “I’m okay–except for le genitori”–her parents.

“Eesa no gooda to notta respecta your momma and-a poppa,” Tony says in the bogus Italian stage accent that Olive Garden employees are required to use during working hours.  “Onna the other handa, soma-times these things don’ta work out,” he says with an arched eyebrow, a veiled threat to Alicia’s parents.

Alicia is part of a growing phenomenon across America; sullen teenagers of the “baby boom echo” generation who have sought sanctuary among waitstaff and kitchen help at Olive Garden, the Italian restaurant chain whose slogan–”When you’re here, you’re family”–appeals to youths whose high-pressure upbringing results in frequent disputes and intra-family sniping.

Alicia disappeared for a week last November before the Nilsons obtained a court order forcing her to return to the family home.  “It was terrible,” says her father, Lloyd, an executive at an insurance company.  “All that pasta–she gained ten pounds.”

Runaway teenagers get together in comfortable home-like Italian setting.

Three tables over, seventeen-year-old Charles Barker, whose parents are hoping he’ll get into one of two Ivy League colleges at the top of his list, buries his head in his entree when his father peppers him with questions about his essays.  “Dad, I don’t want to talk about it all the time!” he snaps as Maria della Famina appears at their table.  “Wassa matter?” she asks in a display of warmth that the chain’s “hospitaliano” policy requires staff to display, if not feel.

“He won’t shut up about my Harvard and Penn applications,” Charles says, a bit mollified by the waitress’s friendly tone.

“You no need to go to college!” she says, gesturing broadly with her hands.  “My brother Gaetano, he no go to college–he’s inna crushed stone business.  My father, Giuseppe–he no go to college.  He make-a good-a living in hees-a shoe repair business.  Fugeddabouta da college–do whatta makes-a you happy!”

A look of enlightenment comes over the young man’s face.  “You’re right,” he says, half to himself, looking off into the distance.  “I’d like to take a year off, learn how to make stained-glass windows.”

His father, sensing trouble, looks desperately around for the owner, then spotting him at the cash register, yells “Check please!”

Conchita Aramaio, Pioneer Female Jai Alai Player, Dead at 86

HOLLYWOOD, Florida.  Conchita Aramaio, often referred to as the “female Jackie Robinson of jai alai”, died yesterday after a brief illness.  She was 86.

Aramaio, left, scoring with her signature “pinwheel” shot

A native of Navarre, Spain, Aramaio broke jai alai’s sex barrier in 1941 after sneaking on to a cancha with her hair cut short and wearing a binder to conceal her breasts.  She scored points with several well-placed chula shots off the back wall, and was accepted by teammates who had previously barred her because of her gender.

Like many famous athletes, Aramaio acquired nicknames from both fans and fellow players during her years with the Hialeah Hurricane.  She was lovingly referred to as “La Diosa Ramera” or “The Bitch Goddess” by her fellow players, and as “La Blanco Linda” or “Linda White” by American bettors who felt funny trying to pronounce her name in Spanish.

Xistera

Aramaio first become proficient at jai alai, widely-acknowledged to be the fastest game on earth, by carrying her groceries in her father’s xistera, the basket in which the pelota is caught and returned to the front wall of the jai alai court.  She would often recall the pelota’s roomy capacity fondly when, in later years, arthritis forced her to switch to Kate Spade handbags.

Kate Spade handbag.  Holds wallet, lipstick, one Tic Tac.

Her finest hour came in game seven of the 1954 All-World Championships against the Ft. Myers Conch, in which she recovered from a blow to the head from an errant shot by an opponent to rally her team to victory in a sudden-death tiebreaker.  Her skills declined dramatically after that incident, as she often mistook her husband Joao for a floor lamp.

Memorial service.

Before Aramaio’s rise, women’s participation in jai alai was limited to sitting at the fronton and placing bets based on inside knowledge as to which team would “throw” a game.  “It was lucrative, yes,” Aramaio said, “but I wanted to be part of the action.”

She is survived by a son, Francisco, a daughter-in-law Concepcion, and Luz, her Pomeranian.  In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Zazpiak Basque-American Social Club and Jota Dance School.