Icy weather like what we've just had tends to lead to a bit of introspection for me. Or just random weird thoughts ... like why normally sane people in broadcasting go completely Super Bowl/Wrestlemania fan on the air sometimes.
Why did the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore get so excited about thundersnow in Boston? Yes, he is a self-described weather geek and it's a somewhat rare phenomenon, but still ... that was some crazy celebrating, especially considering that he'd seen it before. If you haven't seen the video, you need to.
Why does it seem there's always at least one meteorologist/weather reporter who laughs maniacally while throwing boiling water in the air during sub-zero stand-ups to watch it turn to ice? And why do so many people try to do the same thing without taking precautions like ... oh, I don't know ... not throwing the water on themselves? And folks, it's not going to get cold enough in Arkansas for it to work anyway, so save the boiling water for some cocoa (maybe even splurge with milk!).
So while you're inside cocooned in blankets, cup of cocoa in hand, and hopefully not fending off a very large cat who either wants to be fed or to displace you, it's the perfect time to ruminate. You can choose your own topics; my ponderings tend to involve words.
Being the word nerd that I am, I get especially amused by malapropisms and other slips I see or hear, or that are shared by fellow logophiles. One of those happened Saturday, thanks to a slip in the sports section that mentioned a Phil Mickelson British Open "antidote," which prompted judge and renowned cruciverbalist Vic Fleming to drop me a line. "I expected a pun to emerge, a subplot, perhaps, in which one player cured another's hook or slice with a swing adjustment," Fleming wrote. "Nope. Just an amusing anecdote about Mickelson's winning and demanding payment in pounds, not dollars."
While I always cringe at any mistake I see in the paper, ones like that always make me giggle as well. (What would that be? A criggle?) Yep, I can be easily amused sometimes.
When it's another paper that made the mistake and it happens to be funny, well, that's just a bonus. One that made the rounds at the end of last week provoked laughs for many reasons. If you saw my blog post Sunday or caught it elsewhere, please avert your eyes as I recount the correction once again, from the Lexington Dispatch of North Carolina: "Boyd Thomas' letter Saturday contained an error in the headline. He does not believe President Obama is the Antichrist, who will come after seven kings, according to Revelation. He thinks Obama could be the seventh king."
The correction has shown up everywhere from Christian Post to WND to Huffington Post, proving that all political stripes can enjoy a good laugh (even if it's for different reasons).
Other corrections are meant to be taken very seriously, but sometimes (at least for me) call for a rim-shot at the end, such as this from the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., printed in April 1996: "An April 5 story stated that Mary Fraijo did not return a reporter's calls seeking comment. Fraijo died last December."
Death does have a way of interfering with things like that.
As much as words have been used to volley hate, a recent study of 100,000 words in texts across 10 languages published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that soothing and happy words tend to dominate.
Yes, the study appears severely limited in its choice of sources, which The Atlantic listed as "texts from Google Books, Twitter, the New York Times, a Google Web Crawl, subtitles from movies and TV shows, and music lyrics." I'm thinking had the study authors included newspaper comment boards (the Washington Post's comments are some of the most combative I've seen) and Facebook walls, it would be skewed wildly in the other direction.
That brings up the notion of word neutrality. Some words are inherently "loaded," having been given (usually) a negative connotation, and careful news writers try to stay away from them (opinion is a whole other matter). "Funneled," "shadowy" and other such words have obvious negative connotations; others might not be so blatant, especially in this era where "left" and "right" are epithets, not directions. For some people, it seems any word at all is negative.
Here's an idea: Let's take everyday words for what they actually mean rather than whatever baggage someone else wants to attach to them. While some are far from polite, not every word is offensive. When you can't say something as simple as "hello" or "I love you" without offending someone, we've gone too far in policing language.
You muse on that for a while. My cocoa's getting cold.
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Assistant Editor Brenda Looper is editor of the Voices page. Read her blog at blooper0223.wordpress.com.
Editorial on 02/18/2015