A New Word for Tableau

Despite our continued hot humid temperatures, I'm determined to welcome fall into my home. With that in mind, Linda T. and I attended a Pottery Barn one hour decorating class. Pottery Barn's goal was to sell product (they succeeded), and our goal was to gather new ideas. The sales/decorator woman introduced me to a new word: TABLESCAPE. I checked Webster's and it's not there, but tablescape is an appropriate PB All-American term for arranging your crap in an eye-pleasing manner. In ancient times, the fancier French term tableau would suffice. (It's in the dictionary). So, I worked out color, texture, and staggered my decorative gems. I do lack proportion, but I don't buy really tall things due to lack of storage space.

Fun with language indeed. There is a reason why my runner is on a slant. Turns out my tablescape covers a table scrape. Pottery Barn did not include that issue in this class, but perhaps they will in the future: Flair for Flaws.

Seamless Safire

Over Labor Day Weekend, I stood on the Wilmington, DE waterfront and watched young crew teams train. I admired their coordination and teamwork. No oars dragging in the water. Instead, crisp and steady, the boats glided seamlessly.

William Safire, New York times columnist, passed away on 9/27/09 and as Mark Davis wrote in the Dallas Morning News, "There are many left to man the oars of punditry, though few will do it with such grace." You didn't have to agree with his conservative politics, but you couldn't disagree with his love of the English language. He wrote seamlessly and debated endlessly over word usage, structure, and style.

I pulled out my copy of Safire's Language Maven Strikes Again, and chuckled as I perused a few chapters. In the forward he wrote, "It's your language, too, buddy; if you want to abuse it and muddle it up, you will do that for yourself, not for me. If, on the other hand, you are willing to think about how we communicate, and consider the words and the forms of grammar, then you are automatically a member of the Authority, entitled to the thrill of membership."

It's a fun journey. Grab an oar and start paddling.

Water cooler chat

Gotta love the English language - "slangs, puns, and putdowns - freshly minted coinages from the white-hot furnace of electronic culture." (1)

Time spent on Facebook - Social notworking.

Brickor mortis - dried up housing market.

Daylighting - work a second job while on the clock for your first job.

Cramer-Krasselt, a Chicago ad agency compiles a zeitgeist dictionary and their new words zap into life as we know it. http://www.c-k.com/culturaldictionary

I laughed out loud at textually frustrated, ecconoisseur, and enoughism, off gridding - lots of words identified by "societal trends, such as sin vs. salvation spending." (2)

Language is ever-evolving and phrases for 2009 will no doubt disappear by 2010 only to be replaced by a pack of new idioms. Writers - keep this in mind for book characters who want to stay cool and trendy.

(1, 2) Thanks to the Dallas Morning News Business section for their article "Making Light of Language" (June 28, 2009).

One final painful term - steeply devalued retirement account: 201K
Arrrgghh - I'm not laughing now.

Joanne

wrestling images

Summer 2006 - Ray and I visited the Olympic facilities at Colorado Springs, in the shadow of Pikes Peak. Lovely city and facility. Here are some wrestling dummies lined up, ready for action. Eager for a tussle. Well, writing is a daily struggle and like these dummies, words are waiting for some commotion. They are waiting for me to do something creative - align them in a formation that makes sense, that draws in the reader, that paints a picture. It can indeed be a strain or endeavor, and yet it's worth the effort to pummel, to strike, to beat up the English language, and end up with a sentence worth reading. Whew! Where's the Gatorade?

Joanne