Word Creep: Lame, Gay and Asshole

I got my tail good and yanked by a friend the other day. I used the term “lame” as in “that was a lame excuse”. She pointed out in no uncertain terms that lame means “unable to walk normally”. So of course I looked it up (1) and found the above definition. I also found another definition, this from the Urban Dictionary: just plain stupid, un-original, or lifeless (2). This is the way I had used the word.
Now I didn’t and don’t want to get into a pissing contest with her for a couple of reasons. She is a published author and knows more about using words than I ever will. She has MS and is lame in the first sense and crippled in the same sense. Not handicapped, mind, just crippled by MS. Another reason is I respect her opinion and agree that the creep of meaning can lead to ugly connotations for words. “Gay” once meant happy, then crept to meaning “homosexual” and then became pejorative, so now when you say you had a gay time, what exactly do you mean?
You see, being Gay (also a girl’s name) is OK to be as in “He is a Gay”. But saying something is “Gay” can be an insult depending on what you mean and even who said it. Confused yet?
My point is this: over time, the meaning of many words has changed. Some end up keeping one, two, three or more meanings while others simply lose one and gain another. During the transition from one to another there is sometimes some dangerous language to navigate. And not all of us are that good at navigating. I apologized for the inappropriate use of the word “lame” and promised to be good. My other point is this: words change meaning all the time and not everyone is aware of the prejudice that sometimes comes with the changes.
So here is my recommendation: Don’t use words that have double meanings, especially those that might hurt someone inadvertently. Many words have multiple meanings, and that is the problem. Selecting the word and using it correctly may be impossible, since meaning remains firmly in the brain of the beholder. After all, we all need an asshole, and most of us have an asshole, but none of us want to be an asshole. See?

1. Google definitions
2. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lame
Image: http://www.archiedunlop.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/uranus1.jpg

Last Man Standing

Murph. Depue. Max. Anne. Janet. Linda. Wendy. Me.
The core gang. We hung around and got ready for life. We made mistakes, had fun, got in trouble, got drunk together, fished, drove, skated, swam, laughed, cried a little sometimes. The heady days of high school. There were others in and out of our gang, but the core of guys was pretty tight. The girls were on and off girlfriends and mostly just friends.
The missing: Linda, Janet and Wendy.
The dead: Murph, Depue, Max and Anne.
The survivor: Me.
When we sat around the fire on the beach, or in the snow on the pond, or in the basement or in the “Apple Tree”, every once in a while someone would ask “I wonder who will be last?” I can now answer that question: Me.
The missing may be living or dead. Women change names and get hard to find, and in the ramp up for the 50th reunion serious looking happened. Some of the class of ’58 just dropped off the radar. Missing and presumed married.
So, effectively, I am the lone survivor of that august group. Occasionally I lift a glass or have a thought about those days and those friends. My job is to remember them. My guess is that most of the gang is remembered by their families or other friends, but who knows the fun and sometimes dark tales of us collectively? No one. Just me. So it may be time to write more tales of those days and those friends. Some are not so pretty. Some are already written. Some, a few, never will be.
Image:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/26/And_Then_There_Were_None_US_First_Edition_Cover_1940.jpg

Celebrate Life and Death

An old friend died a few days ago and I should be happy!!!
When did you ever hear a conversation start that way? Probably never is my guess. But wait and think a moment: She was in great discomfort and pain for the last several months of her life. She had strong core religious convictions that guaranteed her a place in Heaven (hers) and she is no longer suffering. Why shouldn’t we be happy for her? Her religious friends believe that she is in a far better place than here, and with their God, whatever that means. And I believe she had a good life lived well and at the end was very sick and suffered and had no hope of recovery.
So why shouldn’t we be happy for her?
We are sad to lose a good friend sister aunt cousin, but the feeling of relief on her behalf should overtake those feelings and replace them with a sense of all is now well with her.
So celebrate the life of the departed, remember the good times and laugh at the foibles, but don’t be sad. Be happy.
By any measure, she is.

Image: http://www.jjchandler.com/tombstone/

Lady Anne de Bivalve Part Two

Lady Anne de Bivalve died last night after a long and unsuccessful battle with cancer. Her actual name was Anne Schwiebert, and got the “Lady Ann” moniker from years of working at the Horton Point Light House for the Southold Historical Society (http://www.southoldhistoricalsociety.org/lighthouse.htm) as a docent and board member. She was instrumental in saving the structure and turning it into the fine museum it is today. She was called “The Lady of the Lighthouse”. She was also addicted to clamming in the pond behind her house, thus the “Bivalve”.
We went back all the way to 1950 and grew into teenagers together. Never boyfriend/girlfriend, always just friends. Her father was a fairly prominent radiologist with a very healthy sense of humor. I remember one time I was having trouble with my hotrod and she and her dad were across the street raking leaves. I called her and asked her to come over to help me check my spark plug wires. Her father started laughing, knowing what was coming next. I put the wire in her hand and told her to tell me if she could feel anything, and hit the starter. She flew back on her ass, and was not amused. Her father and I were very amused. Just a practical joke and she took it well. It was one of those things that you keep coming back to when you meet up in later life.
She was an artist and weaver and sailor, and a passionate lover of light houses. She always thought of light houses as safe harbors, safe places.
Rest in peace, Lady de Bivalve. You are in a very safe place. And you are missed.

Image: http://toddatteberry.com/New-York/East-End-of-Long-Island/Horton-Point-Lighthouse-and/779295843_f3P3C-L-1.jpg

WTF?

Here is an interesting story: Mississippians will vote soon on Prop 26 which defines a fertilized egg as a person. That means killing a fertilized egg is murder. So no IUD’s please, and no termination of tubal pregnancies thank-you-very-much, and no morning after pills, and of course no abortions of any kind for any reason. Why? Because we want to get Government out of our businesses and our lives, except we want Government to control all aspects of a woman’s reproductive process.
Men want this badly for some reason. And for the life of me I don’t know why women fall in line and help these sick bastards pass dangerous and misogynous crappy laws. Are women just so docile that they say “Yes Sir!!” to any man that wants to regulate her reproduction? Why not just vote in Sharia Law and be done with it.
Two things piss me off today: Democrats by NOT VOTING put Republicans in office. Women by not THINKING and VOTING put men in charge of their bodies.
As an Aussie friend once said “WTF Mate?”
Image: http://images.paraorkut.com/img/funnypics/images/w/wtf_mate-12876.jpg

Life and Death: What FUN!!

Time this morning for a bit of writing. But what to talk about? Politics? Too depressing. Religion? No point - - - believers believe and the rest of us don’t. Climate change? No point either - - - too late to do anything. Death? Ahhhh. Death.
There probably are few things in life more certain than death. It stares you in the eye the day you are conceived, and yes, life begins at conception or before. The sperm and egg are both alive don’t forget. But YOU are not alive until conception, and YOU are not a person until much later. Many embryos are formed imperfectly, and fail early on. Miscarriages are nature’s way of eliminating the “unlikely to succeed” category of conceptions. So the live births represent the most perfect, or at least the least defective among us. Down syndrome for example is a minor genetic aberration since the bearer survives.
Anyway, all through life the specter of death is always just a heartbeat away. For some the moment comes with pain; for some with fear; for some without any feeling at all; for some a moment of clarity. Whatever the experience, it is the final experience.
Now here is where opinion diverges: life ends with death or life after death. Think about that tiny phrase: Life after Death. Makes no sense does it? No one yet has been able to reanimate something seriously dead. So the life after death must be on another plane of existence. The trouble is no one has ever found or demonstrated that there is another plane to exist in. It exists in your head, not in your sky.
The point here is this: You can bet on Death as a reality and you can bet on Life after Death as a theoretical or you can bet on both. In any case the only strategy for life that makes sense to me is to live it while you are living, and don’t wait to “live life” after you die. There is likely nothing there after you die. Have fun now. Have friends now. Have love now. Have beer now.
IPA in heaven? I doubt it very much.
Image: http://www.metal-archives.com/images/4/3/6/2/43621.jpg