The streets I see are filled with big chunks of metal moving past, spewing gasses. That is how it appears to me, now, over a year since I sold my car. Sure, these chunks also include plastic, sometimes leather, probably rare earth metals for the electronics, and some stone for the glass. It is the metal, though, that contributes most to their mass, and that makes them seem disproportionately big and heavy when they are moving a 170 pound person up and down the road. According to Slate, the chunks weigh about 4,000 pounds, on average, with or without the driver.
“Ask” is a Noun
A few days ago I told a few friends that, where I work, “ask” is now a noun, as in “what was the ask of the meeting?”
Exit Strategies
When my dad decided to forego “maintenance therapy” for his health condition, knowing that the therapy would thoroughly impoverish his ability to live a productive life, he told the health care professionals, “I want to die and receive the new body Jesus came to give me.” He had an exit strategy.
It’s Business, Not Personal (a dream)
So…I was assigned a spot in the rear of a jumbo jet airliner from where I would shoot the occupants of two designated seats, one at either side of the plane, several rows ahead of me.
But before explaining that situation, I want to consider the relation between wording and persuasion, asking, How does one separate elegant wording from misleading thinking? If something is pithy, doesn’t it also seem true—whether or not it is?
Throughout my adult life, I’ve shied away from justifying decisions with the convenient disclaimer that it is “business, not personal.” Perhaps in part, I’ve not needed the phrase because I’ve also shied away from business. Lately, however, as the encumbrances of career and property accrue, I find myself using the formula occasionally.
‘Tis an unweeded garden (surgery, minor)
Lying there, shirtless, I waited beneath the fluorescent lights, alone for a quarter hour, thinking how lonely a hospital room can be. And so it would have been, except I’m a veteran with this procedure.
In comes Surgeon, we greet, and I say, “Cut on me.” We locate the three lipomas that I want removed from my arms and chest, three being a standard insurable amount, and then he throws one more in for free—each now having its own X inked over it.
Already I’m happier.
The Grammar of War and the War on Grammar
I am more qualified to talk about grammar than war, although (the pending Syrian) war is the truly important item—so I will start with grammar.
The War on Grammar: We know that language simplifies itself over time. For example, the use of the apostrophe seems doomed. Half the people who see it’s importance, use it incorrectly (yes, I know, I did, and I know punctuation is not grammar, strictly speaking).
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Technology & My Workplace
Last week our CEO walked by my cubicle, talking rapidly on a cell phone to someone from another company, “…I cannot believe you are still on [IBM’s] Lotus Notes. I was in a company that was where you are, and five years ago they switched over to Outlook…."
I Beat my Boss
That is “beat” as in “surpassed,” not “treated violently.” Newsworthy the moment was because as everyone knows, there are few sports in which I could surpass Lucy.