Essay
Language
Today I want to look at language, and specifically the use of certain words. In this case—given the climate of hatred spewing out all over the place—I’m focusing in on the word, despise (verb) to feel contempt or a deep repugnance for, as in : he despised himself for voting for Trump.
So, jumping right in, let’s get to it…
It’s one thing to dislike someone or something; it’s quite another to despise or detest a person or thing. Both are strong words used to describe an extreme dislike or hatred.
Detest is probably the purest expression of hatred, (: she detested the woman who had raised her, and longed to find her own mother), while despise suggests looking down with great contempt and regarding the person as mean, petty, weak, or worthless (: he despised men whose only concern was their own safety.)
Disdain carries even stronger connotations of superiority, often combined with self-righteousness, (: to disdain anyone lacking a college education.)
Scorn is a stronger word for disdain, and it implies an attitude of not only contempt but of haughty rejection or refusal, (: to scorn the woman he’d once loved.)
To loathe something is to feel utter disgust toward it (: he grew to loathe peanut butter and jelly sandwiches) and to abhor it is to feel a profound, shuddering, repugnance, (: she abhorred the very idea of asking her husband for the money.)
Contemn is a more literary word meaning to treat with disdain, scorn, or contempt, and not often used for obvious reasons.
So now you understand these words you can go off and accurately describe how much you detest, despise, hate, scorn, loathe, disdain and feel contempt for … whom or whatever. But, be careful, you never know who might choose to describe you in such derogatory terms!
Friendship
No matter who you are, you need two kinds of friends in your life. The first kind is one you can call on when something good happens in your life, and you need someone who will be as excited for you as you are.
Not a fake excitement veiling envy, but a true and real excitement. You need someone who will actually be more excited for you than she would be if whatever had happened, had happened to them. The second kind of friend is somebody you can call on when things go horribly wrong—when your life is on the line and you only have one phone call.
What kind of friend are you?
This comes up today, because I was thinking about a friend back in the UK, we’ve known one another since 1992. Yes, 30 years. But I’m not so sure if we have any more years on the clock because, for the very first time, I didn’t receive the usual Christmas card in the post, this year.
To say I was unsettled is an understatement. Not because I felt slighted at the time, but because my first thought was for my friend, and worrying that something has happened to her. After all, neither of us is getting any younger and with COVID you never know. And, with each passing year, I ask myself will there be another one because, shit happens.
Now I’m fretting, because, thousands of miles apart, there’s no one answering my emails, and I don’t have a working phone number. I haven’t been able to contact her family or the one other friend I know we have in common. Already we’re in mid January and the more time passes, the more I think it’s just one of those things. Too much time has passed and the fact is, we’ve just drifted apart.
It’s hard losing a friend to that drift and something I will just have to accept if true. But, without knowing, I’m somewhat in limbo and that’s a feeling I don’t like.
LOL & OMG Toll the Death-Knell of the English Language
Really? I don’t think so.
English is one of those languages that begs, borrows and downright steals from other languages to the point of stalking them down dark alleys. Where, before hitting them over the head with a dangling participle, rifles through a language’s pockets in search of any word it thinks it can get away with. It doesn’t care whether it’s bright, shiny, and new, or if it is dog-eared and long since forgotten. The only criteria is, can I use it?
You have to remember, languages live by adapting or die by stagnation. English (and yes, we’ll include American, Canadian, and Australian English here too) knows this and isn’t above grand theft and petty larceny in the verbiage world at large.
So, to any and all of you out there bemoaning the death-knell of the English language when reading announcements that the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) is once again adding new and controversial words to its pages. Ask yourselves, do we speak the same language of Shakespeare, or even the Victorians? Could you imagine a dapper-dressed Victorian saying, “I better Google that, or check that fact on Bing.” Eh, of course not. Nor do we, in our time, go around asking, “doth thine eyes, of palest emerald, beseech the heavens above …”
Hell, no!
We speak and write a vibrant, living, growing, transforming language that is constantly in flux and adapting to the changing needs of those using it.
And to that, I say, hallelujah!
My Sister ... and other strange phenomena
My sister breaks things.
It’s a fact—a family fact.
She doesn’t just break ordinary things like you or I might do; dishes, glassware, bones in our body, no. My sister breaks things like, the internet.
What? Oh, okay, so maybe it wasn’t her, per se, who caused Google to have a nervous breakdown the other day, thereby causing everyone one on the planet to collectively hold their breathes. But we, that is, our family, on hearing of another Google outage immediately think, Sis! Yes, we actually text and or messaged one other asking, did she do it, did she break Google, again?
You see, my sister has this knack, put her within 3 feet of a remote handset and you can guarantee it, and any programme you might have set to record will either start in the middle, end before it’s supposed to, record another channel entirely, doesn’t record because it set itself to another century from now, or simply doesn’t work.
We have no idea why, let alone the ‘how,’ but it happens. She goes through fancy watches like you and I might go through hot dinners. Digital? Forget it. The thing might work out of the box—for a week, and then stop. Or she manages to somehow cause the digital display to go haywire. I’ve seen it.
Microwaves? Not much better. Strangely enough, she has yet to break the fridge. We’re working on that one. Factoring it into the equation, throws it for a loop. Why one appliance, but not another? Why a digital alarm clock but not an old fashioned wind-up one?
Brother Number One reckons my parents dropped her on her head as a child. My sister gives a good evil eye. Brother Number Three thinks she was struck by lightning as a kid and, thereby, has been electrically discharging ever since. Brother Number Four is still doing the calculations and has yet to come to a conclusion demanding more verifiable evidence. But, as we all know, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
These things are abstract and, in a lot of cases, just her proximity to something can force the issue and blame assigned without anyone knowing the exact nature or details of the occurrence, such is the mystic that has grown up around my sister’s seemingly innate ability.
I’m sure someone, somewhere out there in the scientific community knows what I’m talking about, and would love to study her at length. But hey, good luck with that. You’ll need to do it without instrumentation, mechanical or otherwise, because as sure as my sister is my sister, she’ll break or f*ck up your equipment.
As kids, her freakish nature was fun but, as adults? Not so much. Invite over to dinner? Maybe. But just clear the room before hand, and under no circumstances let her into the kitchen.
Oh, hi sis, what? What am I writing about? I’m writing about you … no, no, don’t touch that …