Stepping in it

On a recent bright cold day, as I was strolling the sidewalks of New York, I stepped in dog shit. There was a well-spaced trail of it, about the size (but not the color) of ping pong balls scattered along that particular block and other pedestrians were, as I had been, striding forward, unaware of the potential difficulty underfoot. In my case I spent the rest of the way home rubbing the bottom of my soiled shoe on small frozen patches of snow, hoping the brown stuff would somehow be scraped from amongst the tread.

And I thought how times change.

For, in the city's distant past, all New York pedestrians constantly watched the pavement for dog droppings. And there were a lot of them. On a dark rainy night, when you were in a hurry, you would often slide on them. Quite unintentionally, of course.

Then came the pooper-scooper law. And dog-owners and dog-walkers did what the signs said and cleaned up after their dogs.

Who would have thought such a law would be so suddenly and universally obeyed? Yet it was.
Our new mayor has expressed an interest in cracking down on jay walkers. And a good friend of mine is up in arms about what he believes to be a right of our pedestrians. (And there are no more aggressive pedestrians in the good old USA than New York City pedestrians.)

And, truth to tell, though jay walking is by no means a right, it is surely a set-in-stone custom.
I don't think he needs to worry about a crackdown on jay walkers. I'm reminded of the time Jack Paar announced on his version of the TONIGHT SHOW: "I want everybody who crossed against the light in Times Square during yesterday's rush hour to report to the studio." Big laugh from the (New York) audience, of course.

There is probably a mathematically provable formula to tell us that a law becomes unenforceable once X percentage of people insist on breaking it. Prohibition and marijuana-smoking are two good examples. Of course you can insist on enforcement, but that always leads to bad results: first, the law is disobeyed anyway and therefore all law is disrespected; second, it leads to unfair (because uneven) arrests and therefore more disrespect for all law; and, third, and finally, there spring up new economic opportunities for organized and disorganized crime -- though I confess I don't see how the Mafia can make a buck aiding and abetting jay walkers.

Some of our democratically-elected representatives will try to pass draconian penalties, of course, and some advertising agency will get the account and make Cross at the Green, Not In Between commercials again.

"What are you in for, Lefty?"

"Ten to twenty."

"Yeah? What for?"

"Tweening." (Prison slang for jay walking.)

"Hey, man, that's tough."

"Yeah. Thank God it was only my first offense."

Winter Dreams and Advisories

I have just returned from my Saturday grocery shopping. And as I sit in my apartment contemplating the beginning of the third snowfall of 2014, and realizing that the supermarket was even more crowded than usual for a Saturday, I understand the reason for the multitude of shopping carts, blocking each other at every turn of the shelves.

The weather. Or, rather, the so-called news of the weather.

Our electronic press, (often referred to as the media) speaking for the National Weather Service, has announced a Winter Weather Advisory which national service, in turn, has just this year begun naming snowstorms after powerful characters in Greek Mythology. (Well, at least one.) And it is time to say, as they do in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas: Hold, enough!

Why?

Well, to begin with, though, as the adage goes, everybody talks about it — I certainly am writing about it — it is no longer true that no one does anything about it. The local news always does something about it. Something numbing to me, but obviously plenty frightening to the desperate souls crowding the supermarket’s narrow aisles to stock up on provisions for what may be, for all they know, the end of the world. And even local news as we know it.

With great excitement, local TV reports every snowstorm in the same monotonous, though thoroughly irritating, way. Time after time. Every time. To wit:

First the weatherman stands before his map, spews cities and temperatures, and predicts inches. He uses phrases like Polar Vortex, (though our snowstorms, unlike Santa, do not come from the North Pole. And a vortex is a spinning motion about a non-existent axis. A spinning snowstorm? A meteorological curve ball? Harder to hit than the fast ball? A  tornado made of snow?)

Then cut to a “senior” New York City reporter, live! (senior, yes; dead, no) at the place where city trucks are being loaded with sand. He spews tons and hours, then his location and name. From there we shift to a live (and lively) young woman in a parka reporting from whence the Sanitation Department’s salt spreaders are being loaded with salt. Tons again, hours again. Location and name again. Next, on to a young man, standing in the narrow traffic vortex (well, he is something of a non-existent axis) at the Manhattan entrance to the Queens Midtown Tunnel. He is bare-headed and his hair is waving in the wind. He shouts to us that there is wind. Snow is falling all around, some of it is falling on him. He shouts that it is “really coming down.” The cars all around him are merging into the tunnel behind him. Traffic is slow and roads are slippery, he shouts. Then he identifies place and self and we return to the pastel studio where the anchor persons tell him to hurry in from the storm, and then one of them estimates what the city’s cost for dealing with the snow could be, as though this is a surprise expense. And back to the dapper, if slightly square, meteorologist who tells us he will tell us more in the next news broadcast.

I submit this is not news; it is olds. And tireds. We could use an advisory if we suddenly were to have summer weather in January, I guess, but according to the calendar it is winter and what other kind of weather do you expect? Advise me when autumn leaves start to fall in May. Advise me when hair is falling instead of rain. Finally, if you have spent even a single winter in, say, Vermont — and I’ve spent five there — a few inches of snow is not Herculean. In Vermont, it is feet and it will stay a long time and it will not be named for anyone famous. In Old New York, Winter Storm Agamemnon will be plowed and shoveled away tomorrow and gone without a trace in a week.

That ends my winter weather advisory.

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CHRISTMAS MUSIC: IMMORTALITY KEEPS MULTIPLYING‏

Oscar Wilde, we are told, once said, "Soon we shall have Christmas at our throats."

Little could he have imagined that one day, because of mass media, elevator music and a (heavenly?) host of hand-held devises, we would too soon have the sacred holiday at our ears, as well.

And here's the trouble:

Christmas songs are an ever-multiplying and never-dying phenomenon.

Only Christmas songs could resurrect Gene Autry, Perry Como and Bing Crosby and, likewise, bring Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Mel Torme and Judy Garland back from the grave every year.

I'm old enough to remember when Rudolph was first barred from reindeer games, when Frosty first set up shop and when Santa Claus first steered his team of eight down Santa Claus Lane.  And that's leaving out The Little Drummer Boy, Silver Bells, A Jolly Holly Christmas, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, All I Want for Christmas is You, Oh, By Gosh, By Golly, Jingle Bell Rock.  And all the rest.

ALL THE REST!

Douglas MacArthur bid farewell to Congress, the nation and public life with the adage and song title, "Old Soldiers Never Die; They Just Fade Away."

But while it is true that old Christmas songs never die, it is equally true that they refuse to fade away. Traditional or modern, Come All Ye Faithful and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen are still mandatory and so are Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and The Christmas Song (Chestnuts roasting and kids dressed up like Eskimos, etc.)

The bad Christmas songs don't drive out the good. But, then, neither do the good Christmas songs drive out the bad. Nor do the old drive out the new or the new drive out the old. Nothing drives any of them out.  And why? Because Christmastime (old-fashioned word) keeps expanding. Many people complain that Christmas begins immediately following Halloween. Perhaps not yet. Probably soon. However, there can be no question that Thanksgiving and its bete noire Black Friday are now fully accepted as the beginning -- even though it's still November.

Even the kids behind the counters at Starbucks are dressed like elves that black day and the very cardboard cups in which they serve their multitudinous brews are decked like halls.

The War on Christmas? Like most things of Fox News -- Bah! Humbug!  It's Christmas' War on My Ears that's got me dreading all those tidings of comfort and joy the last fiscal quarter -- I mean, the most wonderful time  --  of the year.

I Beg Your Question!

Now, lookit:

There are words and phrases that sound the opposite of what they mean. “We expect a certain amount of snow this winter,” means that, though we expect snow, we are not certain how much snow we will get this winter. Somehow “certain” has become “uncertain.”

“Opprobrium” sounds as though it means approval. In fact, it means condemnation.

“Meretricious” sounds as though it means something has merit. What it really means is a thing that appears to have merit, but is instead awful.” The word is itself meretricious.

There are other examples, too, of course. The odious “I could care less” means the only slightly less odious “I couldn’t care less.” (It also means the speaker is not listening to his or her own words.)

On and on.

But here’s the latest foul-up. “That begs the question” does not mean “That raises the question.” It means, “That avoids the question,” or, usually, more precisely, “That intentionally dodges the question.” To beg the question is to leave the question unanswered, rather than to suggest the question in the first place.

News people from the serious kind – “This is the news” – to the comic – “This is the fake news” – to the Sunday morning pundits – “But the real issue here, George, David, Bob, John, Chris”-- all make this mistake.

Why? Hard to say. Probably because to them it sounds good. Like “Oversight” which really means a mistake but is used to mean “oversee.” Or “Feedback” which any broadcasting person should know is a terrible electronic snafu, very hard on the ears, but has become “response.” Or, more to the point, words are often simply about sound and this phrase sounds important.

Mark Twain said: “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. “

“Beg the question” is our latest lightning bug. And it’s a dim one.

No News May Be Good News But No Problem is a Problem

Now look: this isn’t complicated. Yet it’s confusing a lot of people. In fact, recently, when CBS SUNDAY MORNING had one of its editorial lite guys try to explain the “No Problem” problem, he got it wrong.

The crux is that instead of saying, “You’re welcome,” the younger generation is saying “No problem.” The older generation thinks, “I never said there was a problem. In fact, there never was a problem and no one ever thought there was a problem. So why are you saying, 'No problem,' when I pay for my groceries or I acknowledge you for holding the elevator for me?"

The CBS guy got all turned around, though, saying that when you thanked someone for a big favor, then it was okay for that person to reply, “No problem.”

No.

When someone does something for which you thank him or her, there are many things to say: “You’re welcome.” “Sure Thing.” “You bet.” “Glad to do it.” Or, in some cases, “No! Thank you!!!”

Back to basics. Manners are about making the other person feel good. The only time saying “No Problem” meets that standard is as an answer to an apology. Someone feels bad because of stepping on your toe, losing something he or she borrowed from you, spilling coffee on your rug, breaking a dish of yours.

To make that person feel better in such a situation, when he or she apologizes, you try to alleviate the embarrassment, make the person feel okay again. So you say, “You have done no real harm.” Nothing serious. Don’t worry. The person in question has created no problem.

Thus, this guide post: when someone does something nice and you say, “Thank you,” the reply should never be, “No harm done.”

You got a problem with that?

They say...and I Wish They'd Stop It

Mark Twain found the German language maddening. George Bernard Shaw thought English spelling and pronunciation absurd. Well, I don't speak much German and I never could spell worth a damn. So it's all the same to me. However, here's a question that isn't:

Who is it who takes foreign words -- from other alphabets yet  -- and tells us how to pronounce them?

Oh! And gets them wrong.

Just a couple of examples:

Over the years, I have heard the name of a city in China pronounced "peking," "peek-ing," "pay-ping" and, lately "bay-jing." Well, which is it? Have the Chinese changed their pronunciation of this name every decade? We still order peek-ing Duck, but apparently the city's name has moved on. They say.

Next, if Moscow is supposed to be pronounced "Mosco" (like Monaco, I guess, or Texaco), why spell it as though it were a sort of cow? They do.

The sole purpose of taking such words from other alphabets is to give us their proper pronunciation. And yet, whoever it is who has this purely phonetic task of getting it right gets it wrong. Whoever that is is called "They."

I know the identity of highly-paid meteorologists on television who, when their predictions are wrong, never mention, let alone apologize for the fact. I can identify Chris Matthews, whose national TV shows -- not counting repeats -- are a  weekly six-pack of inexcusable bad manners; he predicted a Giuliani presidency in 2008 and a Michelle Bachmann Republican presidential nomination in 2012. That's Chris. Wrong, certainly, but identifiable.

Now that we are becoming more aware of the Middle East, very strange pronunciations show up daily that certainly do not match their spellings. So we can expect more and more of this odd-matching.

But what is the source of all this chop-logic and confusion?

That is to say: who are they?