Musing About Disability, I

Minority Report
undifference
Missing Extremities
These three posts are not prerequisites for reading what follows, but they will offer you a greater context. The image is of the conductor to the LGB train that runs around my Christmas tree - at least after the dog welcomed him home.

I had been asked to relate the themes of independence, dependence, and interdependence to the larger issue of disability. I quickly remarked that I was uncertain I have ever felt really dependent, but I knew that I would not like being fully dependent upon another person.

There is very little in my life that I cannot do, although the list is growing. There are things that others do for me, but that is primarily because I can be lazy. The things I can do for myself that I let others do - well, there was a time when I could not do these things, and that is generally when the other individual began to do them. It just continued. There are days when I feel stronger, and I could certainly do some of those things. I imagine tying my shoes, my sneakers, is about the only thing in my life that I absolutely cannot do. I can even still tie a necktie with one hand if need be. It is, however, a marvel of digital dexterity to watch.

I also drive a car with a manual transmission. I probably should not be - according to many people. I have to let go of the steering wheel when I shift gears, but that is not as bad as it might sound. If you think about it, most shifting occurs at slower speeds, and it is only for a second or two that I let go. I have learned shift earlier than one might normally shift or later than one might normally shift so that I am shifting when it is safer to let go of the steering wheel. For example, I never shift while I’m turning my car. Nor do I like the idea of being without a car, although I could always get a car with an automatic. A car is a necessity here, and if I could not drive, I think I would have to consider moving to an area with better public transportation. I cannot imagine being home bound.

I am certain I would dislike having to be completely dependent up on another for some aspect of my life. When I say that, I find myself thinking about the elderly who are so resistant to giving up their drivers' licenses – even when there are significant safety concerns. I understand their fear that when they most need to do something, the someone they rely on to help them might not be there.

That feeling of helplessness is a miserable place to be, and I can easily imagine individuals with significant challenges, individuals who rely upon others to help them with genuinely fundamental tasks, experience similar fears.

Take the time to ask if and how you might help someone with challenges, but don't be surprised if your offer is rejected.

TGB   

Poetically Park Place

Once again I am plumbing the poetic depths - what was once a ritual. The challenge was to 'write a poem about playing a game.' I'm thinking that with two daughters, this is ezpz. What's also true is that although I'm soon bankrupt, no one is richer.

Dad's Rules

I like to win but hesitate
because I love them so.
Nonetheless, I take the cash -
200. I pass go.

Double threes, I roll again.
Oh, no! It cannot be.
Now I possess all of the orange
and both utilities.

But soon enough I find that I
have landed in the jail,
and with the hotels I have bought,
I can’t afford my bail.

While I keep trying to get out,
they’re still going around
and buying all the properties
remaining in the town.

My little girls are growing up.
I have a new nightmare -
no need to try to lose the game,
they’re winning fair and square.

TGB   

Peanuts

A preacher visited an elderly woman from his congregation. As he sat on the couch he notices a large bowl of peanuts on the coffee table. "Mind if I have a few?" he asked.

"No, not at all!" the woman replied.

They chat for an hour, and as the preacher stood to leave, he realized that instead of eating just a few peanuts, he had emptied most of the bowl. "I'm terribly sorry for eating all your peanuts, I really just meant to eat a few."

"Oh, that's all right," the woman said. "Ever since I lost my teeth, all I can do is suck the chocolate off them."

Author Unknown   

Tree

Almost every day I photograph this tree near my office window - always from the same angle and about the same time of day. This is my favorite image from the past week.

TGB   

Copyright © 2013 Thomas G. Brown

To view a video set to music that contains 135 images taken over 12 months, click here.

For the 2010 collection of images, click here.
For the 2011 collection of images, click here.
For the 2012 collection of images, click here.
For the 2013 collection of images, click here.

{essential truths} Life

It's a bit scary, but

your whole life may depend on

how well you do as a teenager.

{this memory} 93

This is the story behind last Monday's {this moment}.

Moi. Younger daughter. Older daughter. Better half. Not certain who the fellow is behind us.

We're at Emory University School of Medicine and in the Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center in 2002. Now that I think about it, that guy behind us might be Woodruff himself. He was president of Coca-Cola™ from 1923-1954. He (with his brother) gave almost a quarter billion dollars to Emory.

But I digress. We were there for the White Coat Ceremony given to mark a “pivotal transition” into the medical profession and to identify students as physicians. During the ceremony, first year medical students take the Oath of Hippocrates where they swear to practice medicine ethically and are given the white coats that will recognize them as students of medicine. Similar to a graduation ceremony, new students walked onto the stage one-by-one as their names were called. Doctors and faculty members stood on stage and dressed students in white coats.

I felt a lot of pride that day, and it's only grown with the years.

Since then, my older daughter completed medical school, earned a master's degree at Oxford, completed residency, and in June will have completed her fellowship in pediatric hematology, oncology, and bone marrow transplantation.

I am a fortunate man. Life's been good to me so far.

TGB

Five Remarkable Days

I had asked one of my daughters for permission to use a photograph of hers for {this moment} 2, and when I asked her what she remembered about the day of the photograph, she characterized it as one of the five best days of her life. In another email she was able to tell me what the other four were. She had clearly given this some serious thought. It reminds me of the scene in The Way We Were in which old friends identify their best day together or best week or best year or best anything as a way of reminiscing.

It seems to me a worthwhile exercise and a way to take stock of one's life so far. Are your best ever days reflective of what you hoped would be important to you? Although I have a third of a century more than my daughter to parse, I'm thinking that probably makes it easier. Four of my five are about family, and one is professional. I'm content with that.

Here they are in no particular order.

1. September 23, 1981: birth of my first child, a daughter - in fact, the one I mention above. A bit of this is described in the post referenced below, and I remember it as if it were yesterday. Because the birth was a C-section, I held and rocked my daughter long before my wife. Oh, my - there just aren't words for that emotion.

I also remember making all of the phone calls from a phone booth! Remember those days with no cell phones? Part of our pre-delivery preparation was to be sure I had enough coins to call everyone with the news and to share the name we had selected for a girl.

2. May 2, 1983: birth of my second child, also a daughter. I recently described this experience in In Need Of A Better View.

3. May 19, 2002: commencement at the University of Virginia. This was my older daughter's graduation, but that was only part of joy. I had missed my own UVa graduation 32 years earlier as I recovered from a serious illness. My wife - unbeknownst to me - had written the president of UVa, shared my story, and asked if I (as a professor and former college president) might march down the Lawn with my daughter.

He did her one better. I marched, but only after exiting the Rotunda with the platform party and walking the full length of the Lawn with the VIPs. It was a good day, and I shall never forget what my wife arranged for me nor will I forget the kindness of President Casteen.

4. Multiple unspecified dates: any of those days when former students return to the college after 10 or 20 or even 30 or more years and tell me I made a difference in their lives. What more can I ask for. It is, after all, why professors do what professors do. In my email signature I often use a quote from William James. "The best use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts life." If James be right, those students are telling me I've made good use of life. Nice.

5. November 18, 1977: first date with my wife. For a couple of months I had been pestering a mutual friend to introduce us. He was not sure she was "ready to date" having lost her husband to cancer the previous December. We were finally introduced and began to date.

We were several dates into a budding romance when I learned what kind of cancer had taken her husband. My heart sank upon hearing it was Hodgkin's Lymphoma. I knew I had no choice, but how was I going to tell her that I was only four years out from my last treatment for the same illness. It may have been the hardest conversation I ever had, but I told her I would understand if she wanted to stop seeing me. To her credit, she didn't run away, and the rest, as they say, is history.

6. Six? - but that's cheating, you say. I suppose, but I'm not really going to list anything here. I just wanted to acknowledge that is no shortage of special people and special moments in my life - some that were incredibly powerful and moving. Glorious and vivid. I am blessed.

Take me on a trip - what are your five best days?

TGB

Too Bad, But I Got There First

     I'm irritated. Maybe I'm sad too. I know I'm tired though.
       It does get old after all. A few days ago I went to my car as
      I left work only to find that someone had left me a napkin
 with a note on it. It wasn't a very nice note.

Let me explain. I have "License Plates for People With Severe Disabilities" as New York State so caringly labels them. I earned them, but I don't always need them. Since there are rarely enough handicapped parking spaces, I frequently leave them for folks with greater need and use a regular space if it doesn't cause a problem for me.

This morning I was at work well before 8:00 am and could park anywhere I wanted. I took the space closest to my office, and it was not a handicapped space. The handicapped spaces are a little further away to take advantage of grade and elevators. Those concerns are not usually a problem for me unless I'm carrying stuff, and that wasn't the case.

This student evidently came in later than I and resented that I had parked where I did. Of course, she could have come in much earlier and had a great choice of spaces. There is no shortage of parking on campus.

Her note reveals a lot about her - just not her name. I guess she's afraid to defend her beliefs, let alone her actions. She could have signed it after indicating she'd like to talk to me about issues related to disability.

It never occurred to her that the driver of the vehicle might not be the individual with a disability and, therefore, could not use the reserved spaces unless that person was with them. I also assume she's been ticketed for illegally taking a handicapped space. Enough said.

What galls me the most, however, is that she is just one more ignoramus who resents that some folks require and have the right reasonable accommodation. It's been a while since Blogging Against Disablism Day for which I repeated an earlier post.

To borrow from that post, this immature student has gotten "my knickers in a twist. ... some folks can’t stand the fact that others with disabilities get to park closer to where they are going than they do. I call this kind of attitude a leading indicator because if people are still that insensitive to disability issues, there remains much to be done to secure the civil rights of those whose independence is persistently challenged."

It isn't about me. It's about how far there is still to go. That's what irritates me. It's the refusal to recognize that reasonable accommodation is fundamentally a civil rights issue. All she cares about is that it somehow inconveniences her. I know I repeat myself but until those who are without disability are just as offended and angry about the barriers to independent living as are those who are with disability, ... well, we're not there yet.

So I'm irritated, and I'm sad. I'm tired too, but that student has no idea just how annoyed someone can be. I'm not too tired to share my annoyance with this young lady by telling her what a fatuous, petulant, insensitive, egocentric, semi-literate, dysfunctional, puerile, lily-livered, good-for-nothing slubberdegullion she is.

So there! Phew - now I feel better. Thank you very much.

By the way, I've continued to park there, of course. In fact, that space is now been designated as a parking space for "People With Severe Disabilities."

TGB   

{this moment} 93

A Monday ritual. A single image - no words - capturing a moment from the past. A simple moment along my life's Journey - but one over which I wish to linger and savor each treasured aspect of the memories it evokes. If you are moved or intrigued by my {this moment}, please leave a comment. On Thursday in a companion ritual called {this memory}, I'll share the story of this moment.

{this moment}

{this moment} is a ritual copied and adapted from cath's wonderful blog ~just my thoughts. She, in turn, borrowed it from Pamanner's Blog. Check out their blogs, and if you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your {this moment} in the comments for each of us to find and see.

TGB

$$$

Three boys are in the school yard bragging about their fathers. The first boy said, "My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper. Then he calls it a poem, and they give him $25."

The second boy said, "That's nothing. My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper. Then he calls it a song, and they give him $200."

Not to be outdone the third boy said, "I got you both beat. My Dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper. Then he calls it a sermon, and it takes eight men to collect all the money!"

Author Unknown   

Tree

Almost every day I photograph this tree near my office window - always from the same angle and about the same time of day. This is my favorite image from the past week.

TGB   

Copyright © 2013 Thomas G. Brown

To view a video set to music that contains 135 images taken over 12 months, click here.

For the 2010 collection of images, click here.
For the 2011 collection of images, click here.
For the 2012 collection of images, click here.
For the 2013 collection of images, click here.

{essential truths} Parents

By the time you realize you are

getting more and more like your parents,

you'll be kind of happy about it.

{this memory} 92

This is the story behind last Monday's {this moment}.

Look at that face! If that doesn't scream "what a beautiful day," I don't know what would. That child is literally soaking up the sunshine. "That child" is my older daughter in the summer of 1984 - so she was about three.

She is in front of the Alumni Hall residence hall at Utica College. We had sold our home in May and were beginning construction on a new home. Well, we thought we were. As it turned out we didn't dig the foundation until October. We lived in one of the three bedroom units on campus for the summer. It was great being able to walk to work, but in August we had to vacate. We moved in with my mother-in-law - crowded but we got along very well.

I faced many a long day. I would work a the college all day, get a bite to eat, then go work on the new home until 11:00 or midnight, and finally collapse into bed after checking on my daughters. There were some very cold nights that winter, but I finally finished. We moved in on July 1, 1985.

So when I look at this image, I'm reminded of all that. Especially though, I treasure that happy face on my daughter.

I am a fortunate man. Life's been good to me so far.

TGB

Poetically Childish

I was challenged to write a poem that included a broken object. I wrote two - with 'object' being broadly interpreted. They're silly, but I like them.

It happened once upon a time
from high upon a wall.
Without a care to keep him safe,
he knew that he could fall.

Unfortunate as it would be
for him that tragic day,
he wasn’t going to bounce back up.
There's little else to say.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

He climbed up on the tracks of steel
so he could look around.
So many times he’d come to look,
and then he’d climbed back down.

It isn’t clear which way he looked.
What’s clear is it was wrong
to look this way instead of that.
Now mighty Ushy’s gone.

TGB   

It Really Is Just An Illusion

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain," spoke the actor Frank Morgan in his immortal role as the Wizard of Oz in the 1939 film of the same name.

When we heard that - even for the first time - we knew exactly what was going on. We knew that someone was trying to fool someone else. It was so transparent, but it's not always so obvious.

Look at this.

What do you see? I don't know about you, but I don't see perfect concentric circles - no matter how hard I try. This is, however, what is there. Four perfect circles.

Such illusions have always been problematic for philosophers and scientists - especially centuries ago. For millennia we believed the psyche was a faithful reproduction of the real world, that there was a one-to-one correlation. It's perhaps less of a puzzle today, but it is still a challenge to explain the apparent incongruity between sensation (the four circles your eyes see) and perception (whatever those things are that your mind thinks you see). Usually I can 'defeat' illusions with enough concentration, but this one is overpowering. I know the truth of it, but I just can't get myself to see it.

That must be what is going on in America today where good hearted people - strong and true - refuse to believe what they know must be true. They continue to buy into the misrepresentations of those who got us into this mess. I don't want to oversimplify nor do I want to single out any one group. There is plenty of blame to go around.

But I ran out of patience with these governmental hypocrites long ago, and I fear I am beginning to give up on my fellow citizens as well. At some point you have to ask to be treated like an adult and to be given the truth. Demand it. Insist that they stop giving you what you want to hear. Stop with the illusions which I admit are mildly amusing and feel good, but they serve only to distort the reality of a precarious time in our history.

TGB   

{this moment} 92

A Monday ritual. A single image - no words - capturing a moment from the past. A simple moment along my life's Journey - but one over which I wish to linger and savor each treasured aspect of the memories it evokes. If you are moved or intrigued by my {this moment}, please leave a comment. On Thursday in a companion ritual called {this memory}, I'll share the story of this moment.

{this moment}

{this moment} is a ritual copied and adapted from cath's wonderful blog ~just my thoughts. She, in turn, borrowed it from Pamanner's Blog. Check out their blogs, and if you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your {this moment} in the comments for each of us to find and see.

TGB

Useful Information

Pat and Mike were walking down the street. When they came to the church, Pat said, "Mike, you wait here. I'm going to run in for confession. It's been a long time."

Pat entered the confessional and said, "Father, forgive me. I have sinned with a married woman."

The priest asked, "Was it Mrs. Murphy?" "No, Father," came the reply.

"Was it Mrs. O'Boyle?" Again the reply was "No, Father."

"Was it Mrs. O'Grady?" Pat said, "Father, I'll not be telling you the lady's name!"

So the priest told him to say two Hail Marys for each time he had sinned with the woman.

Back on the street, Mike said, "Well, how did you do?" Pat said, "Just fine. I kept me mouth shut and got three new prospects!"

Author Unknown   

Tree

Almost every day I photograph this tree near my office window - always from the same angle and about the same time of day. This is my favorite image from the past week.

TGB   

Copyright © 2013 Thomas G. Brown

To view a video set to music that contains 135 images taken over 12 months, click here.

For the 2010 collection of images, click here.
For the 2011 collection of images, click here.
For the 2012 collection of images, click here.
For the 2013 collection of images, click here.

{essential truths} Trinity

Start where you are.

Use what you have.

Do what you can.

 Ashe

{this memory} 91

This is the story behind last Monday's {this moment}.

We're in our backyard in Norfolk, Virginia - just off of Granby Street and not far from Ocean View. The year is 1951, maybe 1952. My brother (older by almost five years) and I are trying to stay cool on an obviously hot afternoon (I can tell from the shadows). Please note we spared no expense to jury-rig a pool - looks like a shower curtain but was probably some military surplus.

The memories evoked for me have to do with family. My brother and I are not close and never were. Our interests are different, our life styles are different, our religious orientations are different, our politics are different. We're just different, but ... we're brothers. Growing up, however, I did everything I could to irritate him, and my mother says I was very good at it. Nevertheless, he let me live.

When he has needed my help, I have been more than happy to be there. If he needs it again, I'll be there. I'd like to think he feels the same. Friends may come and go, but one's family is forever. As they say, blood is thicker than water.

I am a fortunate man. Life's been good to me so far.

TGB

The Year Of Living Ambiguously

For the past few years I have been learning to embrace ambiguity. I confess my pace has been slow, but it has also been steady. There is, thank goodness, evidence of real progress. Throughout my 40+ years as a laboratory scientist I always searched for answers to questions that would provide the striking clarity of black and white, even though I knew the world was decidedly gray. It was, in fact, the one thing of which I was absolutely certain. Yet there is for most of us something comfortable in the simplicity of a world with well-defined boxes, however shallow that view may be.

Living in the present offers us a similar ambiguity, and it would surely be easier to look forward to an end point or to focus on a goal. Similarly, most of us are naturally drawn toward the illusion that we might know where our life's journey is leading, and such simple certainty once again provides familiar comfort. To be here now, however, to trust in the moment, to be content with what is, and to enjoy just being – within these values we can discover genuine clarity. Learning to Be the Journey is difficult, but striving to attain that wisdom affords us a truer and more assured path of contentment and serenity.

Patience, Grasshopper.

TGB   

Impeach Earl Warren

I wrote this a year go, but after screening the film The Butler this weekend, I was reminded of it.

It's hard to be certain what triggers a memory. In this case it may have been something to do with disability discrimination or perhaps a billboard sign, but I think it was the disrespect that is so often directed at President Obama, disrespect that is so clearly racial in its underpinnings. Some may not even realize that this is what drives their behavior, but I have no doubt.

I grew up in the South, born in Virginia. My mom was born in Arkansas. My two namesakes, a grandfather and an uncle, were born in Georgia and in Arkansas, respectively. At the same time I have spent the last two-thirds of my life living in the North - which harbors just as much racism as the South, by the way, and in some ways it's worse.

I had hoped we, as a country, were further along the road to diversity equality than we are. It hurts. I saw so much ugliness growing up, and I want it to disappear forever.

After retiring from the pulpit in the late 50s, my maternal grandparents moved into a home in Little Rock only a few blocks from Central High, although a couple of years after the integration crisis. I can remember seeing large roadside billboard signs shouting "Impeach Earl Warren." Warren was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court that unanimously decided Brown v. Board of Education.

Those signs are the old dormant memory that was triggered, and it's been on my mind of late. As a third grader, I never got much of an answer when I wondered aloud what the signs were about. My parents sheltered me, I guess, from racism, but perhaps from other races as well. My brother has always asserted that my parents moved us to Virginia Beach rather than Norfolk to avoid a growing black population. Schools were one step beyond separate but equal, and you chose which one you wanted to go to. Except when there was little choice, whites preferred to stay in white majority schools and blacks in black majority schools. Voluntarily.

That separation was clearer in Virginia Beach of that era. In fact, it's remarkable that I never shared classroom space with a black student until I started teaching college in Utica. That's after twelve years of public schooling (scattered among three states), four years of college, and five years of graduate school. It wasn't by choice.

In the late 60s, I saw a fraternity brother jump out of his chair and cheer when he learned of the shooting of Martin Luther King, Jr. and another brother make it clear that he would blackball any prospective pledge who was black - not the terminology that was used, by the way.

Ugh. There is more to dredge up but no reason to. I know racism when I see it - no matter how subtle it is, no matter how much in denial is its owner. It runs far deeper that I thought though, and the way our president is treated is evidence of that. Perhaps the next generation will be the one to make a difference. In the meantime, I shall continue to do my part and question verbally those whose words or actions are racist or discriminatory. As I observe my polarized country today, my head tells me it's going to get worse before it gets better. Sigh.

What will it take for us to accept finally that diversity - in each of its forms - is not a threat and, in fact, makes us stronger?

TGB   

{this moment} 91

A Monday ritual. A single image - no words - capturing a moment from the past. A simple moment along my life's Journey - but one over which I wish to linger and savor each treasured aspect of the memories it evokes. If you are moved or intrigued by my {this moment}, please leave a comment. On Thursday in a companion ritual called {this memory}, I'll share the story of this moment.

{this moment}

{this moment} is a ritual copied and adapted from cath's wonderful blog ~just my thoughts. She, in turn, borrowed it from Pamanner's Blog. Check out their blogs, and if you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your {this moment} in the comments for each of us to find and see.

TGB

Two-fers

Going over our church finances I found a receipt from a local paint store signed by someone named Christian. I wasn't aware of anyone buying paint, so I called the store to point out its mistake. "I'm sorry," I told the manager, "but there are no Christians here at First Baptist Church."

One Easter Sunday morning as the pastor was preaching a children's sermon, he reached into his bag of props and pulled out an egg. He pointed at the egg and asked the children, "What's in here?" "I know, I know!" a little boy exclaimed, "pantyhose!"

Authors Unknown   

Tree

Almost every day I photograph this tree near my office window - always from the same angle and about the same time of day. This is my favorite image from the past week.

TGB   

Copyright © 2013 Thomas G. Brown

To view a video set to music that contains 135 images taken over 12 months, click here.

For the 2010 collection of images, click here.
For the 2011 collection of images, click here.
For the 2012 collection of images, click here.
For the 2013 collection of images, click here.

Mighty Finn - Update #18

Hi, friends ...

Back home in New York,
I went for a swim in my cousin's salt water pool.
Of course, I had my own floatation assistance device.
In fact, I'm probably the only one who fits in it.

Back to grandpa's and a party on the back porch.

Only requires one word - DUPLO.
I mean - really - what else is there?!
These things are amazing.

We went to Marineland in Canada so mommy
could visit friends from her Oxford days.

Another first.
A completely organic-local-sustainable-awesome peach basil ice lolly.
Yum.

Check out the tie! I had to dress up for a wedding.
It was okay, but - well - I'm not sure I get the point
of hanging this thing around your neck.

Here I am trying out Crème brûlée.
I'm learning there area lot of pretty tasty things in this world.
Still working on my spoon skills though.

I went down to Virginia to see my great grandmother.
Here she is - 93 years young, and I shared my Puffs with her.

Oh boy! I got some paints and painted some rocks. An artist is born.
I hope to become a Renaissance Man - that and a philanthropist.

How'r you doin' ...

See you around the galaxy.

{this memory} 90

This is the story behind last Monday's {this moment}.

Mom and me in early spring of 1970. I'm 21; she's almost 50. What you can't see is we are standing next to my 1970 Mustang Mach-1 (next car over). Zoom.

We're in front of my apartment on Stadium Road near the University of Virginia. It's actually my sideburns that give me the date. I spent four years in ROTC where those sideburns would not be tolerated. In January, however, I became physically ineligible for service because of a December diagnosis of Hodgkin's Lymphoma. As soon as I could, I grew those sideburns - especially after having the left side of my head shaved during my diagnostic workup.

Anyway, my parents were there with me as I began radiation therapy at the University Medical Center, and we were saying good-bye now that they were convinced I would survive the linear accelerator. Parents! - but I can't blame them for their concern, especially now that I'm a parent. I'm sure that even then it was hard for them to leave.

The University had a tradition of students wearing coats and ties in those days - so my outfit is nothing special. You can't read it, but the lapel pin says πKø (that last should be 'phi' which isn't on this keyboard). Pi Kappa Phi was/is my fraternity and one of the best things that happened to me at the University.

I am a fortunate man. Life's been good to me so far.

TGB

Now We Say It, Now We Don't

I'm not sure why, but it just fascinates me.

Foremost, it is our crowning intellectual achievement as a species. I made that point in Through the Looking Glass. "Never again in our lifetimes will we achieve anything as complex and profound as our ability to share what is essentially an infinity of shades of meaning. Furthermore we are able to do this in a novel fashion each time – even if we wish to express exactly the same message."

What I have been thinking about lately, though, is the dynamism of a given language. English, in particular, is in constant change. New words emerge, and a few disappear - so the lexicon is always changing although the rules stay pretty much the same.

To quote myself again, "Language is also a gift most of us develop with minimal effort. No one teaches us that plurals can be created by adding an 's.' No one teaches us that adding '-ed' to verbs will usually result in the past tense. We simply abstract those rules of grammar by listening to those around us. Young children often say 'foots' or 'goed' instead of 'feet or 'went.' They didn’t hear those words; they just figured it out. That’s remarkable! Of course, they have to learn later that there are exceptions to many of the rules." They regularize but too often.

That regularization of verbs also occurs as part of our language's evolution. Some verbs that were once irregular become regularized. Holp has become helped. Swole has become swelled. Chode has become chidded. What's intriguing is that this happens mostly to words that are used less frequently.

High frequency verbs tend to stay irregular. I assume because you hear the irregular usage a lot. Choose, chose - not choosed. Do, did - not doed. Catch, caught, - not catched. Is, was, - not beed. Those are the kinds of errors children often make as the apply that -ed rule.

Then there are the words that are currently in transition where your hear both forms used. You're likely to hear both burnt and burned, dreamt and dreamed, proven and proved, shown and showed, leapt and leaped. I imagine, however, that in a few decades the transition will be complete, and you will only hear the regularized version.

It perplexes me that American English has more regularization the British English. For example, we're more likely to say burned; they're more likely to say burnt. Why? Was it Churchill who said of us that we were two countries divided by a common language. Indeed.

Fascinating.

TGB   

{essential truths} Caring

No matter how much you care,

you'll discover that some people

just don't care back.

{this moment} 90

A Monday ritual. A single image - no words - capturing a moment from the past. A simple moment along my life's Journey - but one over which I wish to linger and savor each treasured aspect of the memories it evokes. If you are moved or intrigued by my {this moment}, please leave a comment. On Thursday in a companion ritual called {this memory}, I'll share the story of this moment.

{this moment}

{this moment} is a ritual copied and adapted from cath's wonderful blog ~just my thoughts. She, in turn, borrowed it from Pamanner's Blog. Check out their blogs, and if you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your {this moment} in the comments for each of us to find and see.

TGB

Get Off The Hood

Two nuns were traveling by car throughout Europe. They got to Transylvania and were stopped at a traffic light. Suddenly, a diminutive Dracula jumped onto the hood of their car and scratched the windshield!

"Quick, quick!" shouted the first nun, "What shall I do?" "Turn on the windshield wipers. That will get rid of this abomination," shouted the second. The nun switched them on, knocking Dracula about, but he hung on and hissed at them loudly!

"What shall I do now?" shouted the first nun. "Switch on the windshield washer. I filled it with Holy Water when we stopped in the Vatican!" said the second.

Dracula steamed as the water burned his skin, but somehow he managed to hang on. He hissed at the nuns even louder now!

"Now what?" screamed the first nun. "Show him your cross!" replied the second.

So the first nun rolled down the window and shouted: "GET OFF MY HOOD, YOU STUPID IDIOT!!!!"

Author Unknown