Overnight Train to Hel
Month: December 2004
Names
My name is Gary. My parents told me that when they first saw me, they just knew I was "Gary."
There are lots of Garys out there.
- Gary Kasparov
- Gary Sinise
- Gary Moore
- Gary Oldman
- Gary Cherone
- Gary Glitter
- Gary Busey
- Gary, Indiana
- Gary, West Virginia
- Gary, Minnesota
- Gary, South Dakota
So apparently it's a popular name.
Nonetheless, I used to hate that name, particularly in junior high. I also hated my hair cut then, as well. Not man-ish enough. I wanted a Ted Danson do.
What was I thinking?
Changing my hair turned out to be easier than changing my name, which didn't happen until college. Fresh start, new faces -- I can be anyone I want. Armed with that knowledge, I tried going by my middle name: Lawrence.
It lasted a couple of weeks.
I've often wondered at stage names. Do Sting's close friends call him "Sting" or "Gordon?" Is Bono "Bono" to his wife, or just plain Paul? Does Adam Ant's mother still call him "Stuart?" When Eric Clapton was working with Babyface, did they call each other "Clapp" and "Kenneth?" Would Lauren Bacall be as famous as "Betty Joan Perske?" If you call Erykah Badu "Erica Wright," does she answer? "Full list of stage names.
The trouble was, I could never remember who I was.
Someone would call my name and I would continue walking, oblivious to the fact that someone was trying to get my attention.
Names seem to merge with your self, and it's difficult to separate "you" from your name.
The only reason I could start going by "Lawrence" was because no one knew me at college as "Gary." It would have been difficult to convince everyone in high school to call me "Lawrence," for I'd always been "Gary" to them.
Imagine calling the color white "blue" for the some arbitrary reason -- it wouldn't work, because white's, well, "white."
When I gave up on the "Lawrence" nonsense, a few people persisted in calling me "Lawrence" for a little while. That in turn made for a stupid situation, because I had to explain:
- that I'd always been called Gary;
- that I only switched to "Lawrence" at college;
- that I'd not been able to get used to it; and,
- that I'd decided to go back to my "original" name.
"Why'd you want to change in the first place?"
If I'd known what my name sounds like in Polish, and that I'd end up spending years here, I probably would have stuck to the Lawrence. "Garnek" is Polish for "pot" (the kind you cook in, not the kind you smoke), and so when you say, "I'll wash the dishes," you of course use the plural form: garnki. Or you can use the diminutive form, which sounds like...
When my wife introduced me to her grandmother, granny's reaction to my name is, "No, really -- what's his name." After all, what how would you react to being told your granddaughter is dating "Pots?"
Still, I'm glad I stuck with "Gary." It at least lets me make jokes after lunch.
Freedom-frying-over-high-heat and stupid European surrender monkeys
Old news: the Congress (and many Americans) are opting for "Freedom Fries" instead of "French fries." (Read BBC article.) Americans are still calling "French toast" "Freedom Toast" and other nonsense.
I'm sure the French have been getting a good chuckle out of this, because it reveals striking ignorance about the English language itself. In a xenophobic attempt to purge "French" from the language and protest France's lack of support for the American war effort, our leaders headed straight for the fast food.
Are these idiots even aware of the enormous number of English words are French in origin, thanks to Willie the Conquerer, 1066 and all that? (A short article about it.) Besides, what does anyone hope to accomplish in calling a chunk of deep-fried potato a "Freedom fry" rather than a "French fry?"
I'm sure Chirac, when he heard about this, called an emergency damage control planning session with all his advisors.
If Americans are still obsessed with "French" cooking terms (after all, "French fries" is short for "French fried potatoes"), then they need to come up with new terms for:
- blanch (Freedom remove skin?)
- saute (Freedom fry over high heat?)
- fondue (Freedom melt?)
- puree (Freedom crush?)
- flambae (Freedom burn?)
The whole list of Arabic words in English is available here
And while these idiots are at it, why not purge all the Arabic words from English? After all the terrorists that started all this are mostly Arabic, so let's chuck:
- admiral (Freedom big Navy leader man?)
- checkmate (Freedom inability to move your king?)
- coffee (Freedom Java -- oh wait, do they support us?)
- spinach (Freedom Popeye veggie?)
- zenith (Freedom point in the sky which appears directly above the observer (definition from Wikipedia)?)
This dumbfounding nonsense reveals a basic ignorance of how language works and develops. There are very few words in English language that were "planned" in any way. Language generally just "happens," like shit. (A list of how words "happen" can be found at wordorigins.org)
It reminds me of a young man who was spooked by the fact that rearranging the letters in "Santa" produces "Satan" -- clear proof of the evil of Christmas. Still, we're not alone. The French are just as worried about borrowed words creeping into French, as evidenced by the Acadamie Francaise. And Celine at Naked Translations has an amusing post about this.
Of course what sparked all this is the feeling in America of not being appreciated.
The ingratitude of the governments of Belgium, France and Germany boggles the mind. If it were not for the heroism of American soldiers during the Second World War, Hitler's Third Reich would be in its eighth decade.
Poor us -- we won World War Two for those spineless surrender monkeys and they should still be bowing to our wishes sixty years later. How dare they think for themselves now! Why, we've earned unquestioned support!
The Dirty Stairs II
"Okay -- you can check now," I called out to my wife after I thought the steps had had enough time to dry. I'd looked at all three of the un-wiped-down steps carefully, feeling to make sure there was no dampness, looking at it from this angle and that, trying to make sure it wasn't obvious.
Part One of the dirty stairs wager is here.
Up the stairs she marched. Straight to the first step. "She's a cleaning hound," I thought. "I haven't got a chance."
"This one," she proclaimed, and marched on.
My sporting-chance had now turned into insurance. "She can't possibly find all three."
She didn't -- she only found the one, which was in the most brightly lit portion of the staircase. My ego therefore took a beating, but it could have been worse -- I was saved by poor lighting, I suppose.
Stunned, I sat wondering what had gone wrong. Now, I'm not a slob. When I lived alone, I didn't have the cleanest apartment in the world, but it was regularly given a good shakedown. Still, I don't like to carry things to extremes, and wiping down the staircase after vacuuming seemed like just that.
I was sure that she would not detect a single step.
I went back and looked again. There was no difference in the carpets. At the scene of the crime, there was nothing obviously out of place. It would be easy to chalk this up to gender differences, to come up with a carefully worded generalization that didn't make all straight men seem like slobs and yet didn't insult homosexual men, who are stereotypically cleaner than straight men but not always, hence the adverb "stereotypically," that at the same time acknowledged the high slob-factor of some women without selling the occasional male clean-freak short, that tip-toed the touchy area of gender/orientation distinctions with a nod to a possible cultural influence without seeming overly PC...
All I ended up with was a run-on sentence and the affirmation that I am, despite all my protests, a lazy slob.
Christmas 2004
Wigilia 2004
Christmas break
If I had a window, and a sign to hang it in, the sign might read, "Out for Christmas."
But I don't, on either count.
Here's wishing everyone a merry, safe Christmas.
The Dirty Stairs
Part of getting ready for Christmas here is cleaning. Massive cleaning. Some people clean all the windows as well as every single rug.
But let's not exaggerate.
My in-laws are reasonable people, and my wife is equally reasonable. But they're still Polish, so that means a lot of cleaning. From a masculine point of view.
Today I was helping clean and was asked to do the staircase.
"Vacuum everything," instructed my wife, as if I didn't know how to clean stairs. "And then go back with a rag and clean all the carpets."
Apparently, I didn't know how to clean stairs.
"Clean all the carpets with a rag? After they've been vacuumed?" I asked incredulously. "What for? It's not like it'll make a difference!"
Long story short: we made a bet that I could skip cleaning one of the steps and she wouldn't be able to tell which one.
Off I go, a lean-mean-clean machine.
I am a fair guy. More than fair. Hell, I even let folks do take-backs while playing chess online. So I thought, "If I'm such a sporty, fair-player sort with other people, how much more so should I be with my wife?" So, to give her a sporting chance, I didn't clean three of the stairs.
And one of them in the most brightly lit portion of the staircase.
It could be more the effect of my testosterone level than any cultural difference, but I was sure she wouldn't be able to find one.
The question is: how many did she find?
Singing in Class
One of the best things about being an EFL teacher is the fact that I can do "stupid" lessons and get by with it.
Like singing Christmas carols. Imagine going to math (or "maths" for those who prefer British English) class and the teacher says, "Today, we're going to sing Christmas carols." Even in, say, literature class it doesn't really float.
But in English class, it does. So I teach the kids a few songs. This year:
- We Wish You a Merry Christmas
- Jingle Bells
- Silent Night
Nothing special. I've always wanted to do "Jingle Bell Rock," but they don't know the melody, and that's key. It's a language lesson, after all, not a music class.
I can't really recall learning Spanish Christmas carols in high school. Perhaps we did, but I have no memory of it...
Polish Christmas Carols II — Choral Versions
Kinga recently found some old CDs of choral renditions of many Polish carols. Several of them are simply different versions of the carols posted earlier.
- “WÅ›ród Nocnej Ciszy”
- “Pójdźmy Wszyscy Do Stajenki”
- “Dzisiaj w Betlejem”
Most of them, though, should be entirely new to non-Polish ears:
- “Do Szopy Hej Pasterze” (“To the Stable, Hey Shepherds”)
- “Ah Ubogi Å»łobie” (“Ah, Poor Manger”)
- “Hej, KolÄ™da, KolÄ™da” (“Hey, Carol, Carol”)
- “Li Li Li Li Laj” (As it appears. It’s a lullaby for Jesus.)
- “MÄ™drcy Åšwiata Monarchowie” (“Wisemen and Kings”)
- “Północ Już Była” (“It’s Past Midnight,” though a literal translation is “It’s Already Been Midnight”)
- “Tryumfy Króla Niebieskiego” (“Triumph of the Heavenly King”)
Unfortunately, I don’t have the time now to provide information about all the songs. If you want to download the whole bunch at once (24 MB), this is the link for you.
(Note: All songs have been removed, lost in a site-redesign 15+ years ago…)