Words. I love them. That is all.

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Last week, The New Yorker‘s Culture Desk launched a game show via social media, called Questioningly. The first question asked was:

“If you could eliminate a single word from the English language, what would it be? Reasons can vary—overuse, etymological confusion, aesthetic ugliness—and need not be explained. Simply propose a word…” (Read more here.)

I was a little disappointed that the first I’d heard of this contest was via my facebook feed today, when they announced the results. I thought Mr. Greenman’s post describing the contest results was quite funny, so I hope you’ll pop over and read it. And I didn’t love it only because he used the abbreviation “cf.” Or because of his defense of the word “actually”. Or because the “runaway un-favorite” was “moist”, a word that I and my friends have discussed at length for its grossness. I loved those parts, but I also loved it because people participated! People cared! People voted for their most-hated words!

I love words. I wanted to study literature and linguistics in college, but for a variety of too-boring-to-tell reasons, I didn’t even explore it once I got there. Still, I feel little thrills of joy when I’m reading and someone surprises me with their words.

But while I love words, I guess I don’t love all of them, because I definitely agreed with a number of the nominations. Fecund, phlegm and all forms thereof. Irregardless, which, when I discovered the article at work today, sparked much discussion and inspired a coworker’s vow to use the term as much as possible in the foreseeable future. It’s not a word. And to all people who use it as a word, I would just like to say, once and for all, that because it’s a double negative, I don’t think it means what you’re thinking it means.

Here are some words I would have nominated:

  1. puss: Every time I read this word in one of Barbara Pym’s novels, I consciously replace it in my head with kitty.
  2. remediate: Because people use this word with me all the time at work, when what they really mean is “remedy.”
  3. chuckle and any variations thereof: The New Yorker says I don’t need a reason.
  4. nugget: State Spelling Bee, circa 1993-ish. Plus, I just don’t like it.

What words would you have nominated?

The Day the Lord Has Made

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the view from my seat

Last week, flying home from visiting my sister in Dallas, I had an entirely new, unpleasant flying experience: tornadoes. Tornadoes are rare where I’m from, and so while I can tell you what to do in the event of an earthquake (we had drills when I was in elementary school — and then again when I started working in a skyscraper in downtown Seattle), the first things that come to mind for me with tornadoes are Joplin, Missouri, and The Wizard of Oz.

The day I left, the skies were darkening and rain was definitely on the way as I arrived at the airport to fly home. My sister had warned me that in Dallas the airlines frequently will do their best to get you off the ground ahead of the storm – boarding as quickly as possible and so forth. I am one hundred percent in favor of this plan, so I boarded promptly and was sitting, seatbelt fastened, looking out the window, watching the rain, when I saw lightning.

I believe it is against regulation to take off or land when there is lightning in the area, but my sister had told me that these storms come up quickly and breeze right through, usually, not lingering long in any location. I sat in my window seat in the second-to-last row of the plane, hopefully gazing out the window and waiting for the storm to pass.

Pretty soon after we were all boarded, stowed, and seat-belted, the captain announced that we were going to be sitting for a few minutes and he would have more information for us shortly. A few minutes later, he announced that we would be deplaning due to tornado sightings in the area. “Take with you everything you’ll need,” he said; “basically, just take everything with you.”

Deplaning started with the unaccompanied minors. Last week seemed to be spring break for many school districts across the United States, so there were quite a few unaccompanied minors on the plane. Then the general deplaning process began.

Pretty soon the hail started. A man in my row on the other side of the plane had his computer out and was watching the news. “Tornado just picked up a semi trailer,” he said. At this point, I started to get scared. Unfortunately I’m one of those people who puts on a brave face if I am with people I know (unless the situation involves creatures that creep or dart) – for instance, if my sister had been with me, I would have stayed as calm as possible for her sake. But something in my reaction system changes when I am by myself, and all I could think was, “If it picked up a semi trailer it could probably snap this plane in half.”

Deplaning seemed to be taking an unreasonably long length of time; and I don’t think it was just my fear making me more impatient than usual, because soon the flight crew announced, “Please hurry, deplane as quickly as possible; there is a tornado at the airport.” At this point I started to shake a little.

A minute or two later the hail was literally the size of golf balls, and it sounded like golf balls hitting the airplane. By the time there were only three rows ahead of me left to deplane the plane had started shaking from the wind, and there was an enormous clap of thunder. And then at last we were moving, off the plane, into the terminal. Airport police were going up and down the terminal, moving people back from the windows. I had no idea where to go – I know the bathroom entrances at DFW are tornado shelters, as at most other airports, but they had told us to stick close by our gate in the event the storm passed quickly so that we would be able to hear announcements. (If ever there was an airport in need of a PA system upgrade, it would be DFW. I can’t hear a darned thing from their gate agents, and I’ve been in and out of that airport quite a few times now.)

So I wandered for a bit – the sky was as dark as I’ve ever seen a sky in the daytime. Most people didn’t seem to be terribly worried – but I, having no experience with tornadoes, had no gauge. And then, in the midst of my wandering, I passed a man who was sitting on the floor singing “This is the day that the Lord has made”. I didn’t recognize the song, but I recognized those words. They’re from one of the Psalms:

This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

I wish I had stopped right there – to rejoice and be glad in my own quiet way. Instead I kept wandering. I made a teary phone call to my dad, feeling that at least one of my parental units ought to know what was going on. My dad reminded me that we knew the One who is in control. Eventually I situated myself in between two half-walls, and a woman came to stand next to me. She had been visiting her sister also, and I asked her if she was used to tornadoes. She told me, “You know, we just have to trust the Lord.”

I was reminded three times to turn to the Lord, the only real source of comfort I know, in this moment of distress. To my shame, it took all three reminders before I did so.

See the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. For He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind…Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm.

O give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good: for His mercy endureth for ever.

Me and Mindy Kaling Used to Like Romantic Comedies

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image via amazon.com

This being a Leap Year, as you all know, there were a number of Leap Year-themed episodes on television shows I watch (okay, one episode of 30 Rock), which got me thinking about a romantic comedy I saw a few years ago, imaginatively entitled Leap Year.

Watching Leap Year resulted in my writing the following entry in my journal:

22 January 2010

Am considering banning romantic comedies from my life.

In spite of this, I started thinking about watching it again. I’ve also been reading Mindy Kaling’s memoir, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, which at one point includes Mindy’s views on romantic comedies. Happily, her views are decidedly in favor, at least until the genre was ruined, in her opinion. I can’t say I disagree, and Leap Year might have been the final straw.

Inexplicably feeling empowered by having this opinion in common with Mindy Kaling, and thinking of Matthew Goode’s scruffy goatee, I watched it again. This being a Leap Year and all.

The basic premise of Leap Year, for those of you who have not experienced it, or who were sufficiently less entranced by Matthew Goode’s scruffy goatee to forget it quickly, is this: Anna (Amy Adams) has been dating her cardiologist boyfriend for four years; when he misses a prime opportunity to propose to her, and subsequently leaves for a medical conference in Dublin, she decides to follow him and propose to him herself. On Leap Day. Along the way Anna meets Declan (Matthew Goode).

My objection to this movie is its complete disconnection from reality. You may be recoiling in horror at my expectation of connectedness-to-reality from a romantic comedy, but I don’t mean gloom-and-doomsday reality, I mean relatable characters. Here are some examples of what I deem to be the unrealistic aspects of the movie.

  • Anna is a straight-laced, tightly-wound “apartment stager”. Is this a real job? If so, does she really make enough money at it to be applying for an apartment that sits next to the Boston Common?
  • Anna’s boyfriend is a cardiologist. Cardiology, according to Wikipedia, is “a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the heart”. Notably, Wikipedia also says, “Cardiologists should not be confused with cardiac surgeons”. Yet, dinner with the proposal-that-wasn’t is interrupted by Cardiologist Boyfriend receiving text messages requesting (what appear to be) surgery consults from fellow doctors.
  • Anna flies from Boston to Ireland in a tight skirt and heels – heels that notably include a strap around the ankle. That’s a long flight. It’s not a flight on which I would wear tight anything; Toms, leggings, and an abundance of layers being my flying uniform of choice whenever possible. But in particular, I require no tight straps around my ankles, which are prone to swelling, especially when I fly. (I share this to reinforce my point, and just in case anyone needed confirmation of my prematurely geriatric nature.)
  • On this trans-Atlantic flight, Anna unburdens herself to her seatmate without the loosening influence of alcohol, behavior I believe to be highly improbable in a person as tightly-wound as Anna. As another such individual, I speak from experience.
  • The pilot of Anna’s plane has “underestimated” the severity of a storm they are approaching, and is forced to re-route to Cardiff, Wales. Once landed in Cardiff, even though she still has something like two days to get to Dublin before Leap Day, Anna remains determined to get to Dublin right away, in spite of a ferocious and unreal-looking storm.
  • In spite of a ferocious and unreal-looking storm, Anna convinces an aged, experienced seafarer to take her across to Ireland in his boat.
  • Anna traverses much of the Irish countryside in these same improbable traveling clothes. In 3-inch, ankle-binding heels, indomitable Anna teeters through terrain that includes loosely paved roads; wet sand and mud; grassy, rocky slopes; and castle ruins! A highlight for me is when, while waiting for a train, she hikes all the way up a grassy, rocky hill in her tight skirt, fussy top, and heels to reach a castle ruin – then, of course, she rambles through the ruin. Where are this girl’s jeans? And Chuck Taylors?
  • Having misjudged the time required to hike the hill and ramble the ruin, Anna runs through a sudden torrential downpour down a now-muddy hillside, and finds herself face-first in a giant mud puddle. And still she misses her train. At least she had the good sense to remove those shoes before attempting that speedy descent.
  • The jeans appear at last, rendering more ridiculous their absence in earlier exploits.

All of those examples are mostly about Anna, but I find Declan equally inexplicable. What seems to clinch it for me is that in spite of their having nothing really in common or any apparent attraction other than that born of time-intensive close proximity, they fall in love: one conversation in which each shares one single thing that makes them either the hyper-planner or the disaffected acerbic breaks down every brick in the erstwhile wall of mutual animosity.

Really? I just don’t get it. Why does he like her? More importantly, why does she like him? What does it say about our society as a whole that women are portrayed as either Uptight Control Freaks or the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and the men are apparently excusable man-children? And if our female lead is an Uptight Control Freak, she will end up with a very attractive jerk who is kind of a loser.

That’s what I miss about old romantic comedies, I guess; how women could have big personalities in legitimately funny screwball comedies without being clichés. Maybe the characters have always lived in apartments they couldn’t afford and had jobs that rarely exist (at least as sole occupations). I can excuse a lot of that for stories about people making real connections with each other. Isn’t that what we’re all looking for?