I’ll go first. 

Pointless cross-stitching is, I’ve found, much better for this activity than TV-watching, floor-scrubbing, and mousing around on the web.  There’s the pseudo creativity angle, plus the fact that you’re making a surprise gift for a loved one, or even a passing acquaintance.  Hell, you could even sandbag a total stranger on the street.  Instead of a fistful of germy M&Ms, you could slip the unwitting passerby  a one-of-a-kind wall decoration.  Below is a keepsake for my son, the fabulously talented jazz keyboardist Ed Kornhauser, who has yet to learn he’s getting it.  I got the idea from his Facebook page.  I can’t wait to see his face light up with joy.  Or possibly alarm. Next I’d love to do “Release the kraken,” although I’m having trouble figuring out who would best benefit from such a memento.  The horizons are limitless! 

Look, if you’re not going to join me, stop me.  It’s up to you. 

Note that artistic talent is completely optional.

Some nouns in English are always plural.  Can we add to this list?

pants (also slacks, trousers, pantaloons, shorts, etc.)

scissors

pliers

pajamas

The standard explanation for this phenomenon is that these are things that essentially have two parts.  Yet we talk intelligibly about the buttock.  (Too intelligibly, some might say.)  What’s the diff?  Is it more “things with legs” than “things with two parts”? No, apparently, because, courtesy of Prof. T.F.T., here’s:

thanks (the noun)

heebie-jeebies

fantods

congratulations

Kudos to Caitlin for:

coveralls

tights

tweezers

tongs

binoculars

glasses

It has been suggested that the principle involved in most of these nouns isn’t “things with legs” but “things with crotches,” or whatever you want to call the thing that joins the two “legs.”  One doesn’t want to think of glasses as having a crotch.  I don’t, anyway.  Still, that doesn’t explain thanks and congratulations.  Also

kudos

A Hatlo hat tip to B. Frolick for

oodles

scads

alms

(Oddly, “lots” doesn’t work, because you can have a lot of something.  But you can’t have an oodle or a scad, which is just as well, since it sounds like part of a bad song lyric.)

From Katharine Weber, whose terrific novel True Confections has just come out, these excellent additions:

mathematics

gallows

headquarters

news

barracks

crossroads

series

species

economics

dregs

(I’m not sure, though, about “species” and “crossroads.”  Can’t something be a  specie? Can’t a road be a crossroad?)

Late-breaking bulletin on “kudos”

Many thanks to Siri Gottlieb, who points out that “kudos” is not plural. It is a Greek word meaning honor, glory or acclaim, and is singular.
Correct: Much kudos to you for pulling it off.
Incorrect: Many kudos to you for pulling it off.

In other words, there’s no such word as “kudo.”

Of course, you can find dictionaries (such as the Online Webster’s) that legitimize “kudo.”  Let’s face it, dictionaries will inevitably legitimize anything, including “incredulous” for “incredible,” and that’s only right (she said manfully), English being a living, organic thing, and blah blah blah.  Still at the end of the day you have to pick a dictionary and stick with it.  My own Ultimate Authority is the Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Second Edition, which, it turns out, does not recognize “kudo.”  So I won’t either. 

I love the Second. You can keep your Oxford; the Second is the dictionary of the American language. In time, the two of us will sink for good beneath the waves, our pages floating free, but right now we’re still afloat (barely).

Thanks, Siri! 

By the way, here’s a nice page considering this topic, connecting kudos to peas and cherries:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000507.html

ADJECTIVES THAT ONLY EVER MODIFY ONE THING

tumescent

wine-dark  (thanks and kudos, Jonathan Harnum)

sopping (thanks and kudos, Billy Frolick)

scudding

WORDS THAT ARE THEORETICALLY INDEPENDENT BUT ACTUALLY ONLY EVER USED WITH ONE SPECIFIC OTHER WORD

trove

 throes

Please add–or subtract, if you can find exceptions.  I’m actually too busy writing my new novel to come up with more than one apiece, but I think both lists have merit.

On one of Ed Kornhauser’s blogs I came across the most fantastic list. “Goat” has now joined “soon” in my list of nosebleedingly amusing words. I’ll let him introduce it.

WHY AREN’T THERE SO MANY SONGS ABOUT GOATS?

The origin of this list stems from a conversation I had with Mack Leighton. I posed a query: if you were a musician, and you were marooned on a deserted island, and somehow, you wound up with a trumpet (say it came from the luggage rack of the plane that you were in prior to crashing), and you didn’t play trumpet, would you learn to play it? Both of us agreed that we would, to which I added, “…but all your songs would have to be about goats. The ones you domesticated to survive, like Robinson Crusoe.”
Here’s a list of jazz tunes as they would be titled if they were written about goats. Most of the songs in the list are mine; there are some great contributions from others. Feel free to add:*

A Day in the Life of a Goat
A Goat in Tunisia
A Goat Sang in Berkeley Square
Afro Goat
All the Things Goats Are
As Goats Go By
Autumn Goats Goat Glow
Basin St. Goats
Beautiful Goat
Bernie’s Goat
Besame Cabras
Beyond the Goat
Billy Goats Bounce
Blue and Goat
Body and Goat
Bye Bye Country Goat
Bye Bye Goat
Cheek to Goat
Clay Goat (or Goat Clay)
Darn That Goat
De-Lover-goat
Don’t Get Around Goats Anymore
Dream a Little Dream for Goats
Embraceable Goat
Everything Happens to Goats
Falling Goats
Five Hundred Goats High
Flamenco Goats
Fly Goats to the Moon
Forest Goat
From This Goat On
Gee Baby Ain’t I Good to Goats
Giant Goats
Goat By Starlight (or Stella by Goats)
Goat Cleaner From Des Moines
Goat Dance
Goat Dreamer
Goat Enclosure
Goat for Sale
Goat From Ipenema
Goat Hunt
Goat in New York
Goat in Time Square
Goat of Darkness (or Prince of Goats)
Goat Peanuts
Goat Remembered
Goat Up
Goat Voyage
Goat-ee Goat-ee Goat-ee
Goat-ee Grind
Goatland
Goats Bag’s
Goats Can Really Hang You Up the Most
Goats for Two
Goats from Heaven
Goats Get in Your Eyes
Goats in Vermont
Goats in Wonderland
Goat’s Notice
Goats on My Mind
Goats Rush In
Goats Weep for Me
Goat-trane
God Bless the Goat
Gone With the Goat
Green Goat St.
Haitian Goat Song
Have You Met My Goat?
Honeysuckle Goat
How Deep is the Goat?
I Can’t Give You Anything but Goats
I Didn’t Know What Goat it Was
I Got Goats
I Hear a Goat
I Left My Goat in San Francisco
I Let a Song Go Out of My Goat (or a I Let a Goat Go Out of my Heart)
I Love Goats Porgy (or I Love You Goat)
I Remember Goats
I Will Wait for Goats
If I Were a Goat
If You Could See Goats Now
I’ll Take My Goats
In A Mellow Goat
In a Sentimental Goat
In the Goat
In the Wee Small Goats of the Morning
In Walked Goats
It Could Happen to Goats
It Had to Be Goats
It’s Only a Paper Goat
I’ve Got the Goat on a String
I’ve Never Been in Goats Before
Joy Goat
Just Goats (or Goat Friends)
Just One of Those Goats
Killer Goat
La Vie En Chèvre
Lady-goat
Lennie’s Goat
Let’s Call the Goat Thing Off
Like Goats in Love
Lonnie’s Goats
Love Me or Leave Goats
Lullaby of Goatland
Mack the Goat
My Funny Goat
My Goat Stood Still
My Little Goat
My One and Only Goat
My Shining Goat
Nature Goat (or Goat Boy)
Nica’s Goat
Old Devil Goat
On the Sunny Side of the Goat
One Finger Goat
One Goat Samba
One More for My Baby, and One More for the Goat
Over the Goat
Passion Goat
Polka Dots and Goats (or Goats and Moonbeams)
Portrait of Goats
Put it Where Goats Want It
Quiet Nights and Quiet Goats
Re: Goat I Knew
Rhode Island is Famous for Goats
Rhythm-a-Goat
Satin Goat
Scrapple from the Goat
Serenade to a Goat
Seven Goats to Heaven
Softly As In a Morning Goat
Sophisticated Goat
Stolen Goats
String of Goats
Take the Goat (or Take the “A” Goat)
Taking a Chance on Goats (or Taking a Goat on Chance)
The Days of Wine and Goats
The Eternal Goat
The Goat Has a Thousand Eyes
The Shoes of the Fishermans Goat Are Some Jive-ass Slippers
The Very Thought of Goats
The Way Goats Look Tonight
There is No Greater Goat
There Will Never Be Another Goat
These Foolish Goats
They Can’t Take Goats Away From Me
This I Dig of Goats
This Time the Goat’s On Me
Time After Goat
Tones For Goats Bones (or Tones for Jones Goat)
Too Close For Goats
Turn Out the Goats
Un Poco Cabras
Unforgett-a-goat
Up Jumped Goats
Waltz for Goat-ee
West Coats Goats
What A Wonderful Goat
What Are Goats Doing for the Rest of Your Life?
When I Fall in Goats (When Goats Fall in Love)
Who Can Goats Turn To?
Yardgoat Suite
You Are the Goat of My Life
You’re Nobody ’till Goats Love You

and lastly…

Goats Would Be So Nice to Come Home To

*Additions include:

Slow Goat to China
Goat 66
Pick Up the Goat Pieces
Cut the Goat
Red Goats in the Sunset
When the Goats Go Marching In
Goat Bless the Child
What Are You Doing With the Rest of Your Goat?

Note: The last suggestion is technically wrong, because “with” was introduced for syntactic purposes. Still. What are you doing with the rest of your goat?

Arrivederci, Goat

All You Need is Goat (thanks, Garrett Nichols)

I’m In Love with a Wonderful Goat

It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got that Goat)

My Goat Just Cares for Me

Lush Goat

Goaty Goaty (Goody Goody)

I don’t want to waste time wailing about this.  There’s nothing to be done, and anyway we’re still free to use each adjective correctly, and I hope we do.  

Instead, I’d like to waste (a little)  time cataloguing the devolution of words and phrases, specifically as hastened by movies and TV.   Linguists are certainly right that language is a living thing, always in flux, but surely that flux becomes a torrent [extended metaphor, but this is just a blog] when the same word or phrase is broadcast to the millions.

If anybody’s already done this, I’d like to know about it.  Meanwhile, feel free to add to this very short list.

1.  “Deja vu all over again.”  Yogi Berra said this, and it was funny  (like “incredulous”).  Then writers and entertainers took up the phrase and used it, mostly without citing Berra, but still (I think) with conscious irony.  These days, I’m pretty sure that most of the time when somebody says “It’s deja vu all over again,” they’re dead serious.  They probably don’t even know who Yogi Berra is.  If we take the passage literally, it’s essentially tautological. 

2. “It is what it is.”  Speaking of tautologies, I’m guessing that when this was first uttered, it wasn’t one.  In paraphrase it meant something like “It is limited in scope” or “We must accept it as it is.”  Actually, come to think of it, I’m not sure what the hell it meant to begin with, but now it’s, well, what it is.  A waste of space.

That’s all I’ve got this morning.  Please offer additions.  Maybe we can all get a grant.

3.  “Wah-lah.”  The first time I heard this, I thought it was deliberate and intentionally funny character work: the character didn’t know that ”Voila!”  begins with a V.  Or even that it’s French. Ha ha.   Now I’m pretty sure it’s the writers who don’t.  Please prove me wrong.

- Un mec entre dans un bar : “bonjour, je voudrais un chwirzkitchuidrutec à la menthe” et le barman “Vous voulez un chwirzkitchuidrutec à quoi ?”

Automatic translation: - A man enters a bar: “Hello, I’d like a chwirzkitchuidrutec with mint” and the bartender “You want a chwirzkitchuidrutec what?”

 Qui a inventé la cédille ? Monsieur Groçon

 Who invented the cedilla?  Mr.  Groçon

 Pourquoi les éléphants sont gros, gris et frippés ? Parce que s’ils étaient petits, blancs et lisse, ça serrait de l’aspirine.

Why are elephants big, gray and frippés? Because they were small, white and smoth, it shook the aspirin.

 Pourquoi le schtroumpf à lunettes at-il été emprisonné pendant deux ans ? Parce qu’il a schtroumpfé.

 
Why smurf glasses he was imprisoned for two years Because it has schtroumpfé.

 ”Papa, papa, c’est vrai que j’ai une grande bouche?” “Mais non !! Prend ta pelle et mange ta soupe.”

“Dad, Dad, it’s true that I have a big mouth?”- “But no! Takes ta ta scoop and eat soup.”

 Qu’est ce qui traverse la foret la nuit et qui est transparent ? Un troupeau de vitre

What runs through the forest at night and that is transparent?  A flock of glass.

C’est l’histoire d’un homme qui rentre dans un café. Plouf !

- It is the story of a man who enters a café.     Plouf !

Bullies May Get Kick Out of Seeing Others in Pain

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27592980/

Portuguese sausage sighted in North County

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/08/20/food/groch/z8756df8b2ffbd441882574ab0001abe5.txt

LOS ANGELES — When the rare birds of paradise escaped from his suitcase and flew over the heads of U.S. Customs Agents at Los Angeles International Airport, Robert Cusack decided it was best to confess that, yes, he did have more to declare.

“I have monkeys in my pants,” Cusack told the agents. (Court TV, 9/19/06)

SYDNEY, Australia—A Sydney man has been charged under the country’s biodiversity conservation law after allegedly trying to smuggle parrot eggs out of Australia in his underpants. (ENS, 11/15/2004)

LOS ANGELES—The two men couldn’t wiggle out of this one–not when customs agents found snakes writhing in their pantyhose. (L.A. Times, 9/16/97)

BAYONNE, N.J.–Ace Hardware Store employees at 915 Broadway saw John Pasuco, 41, of Broadway, stuffing about $130 worth of paint brushes into the front of his pants, police said. (nj.com, 11/19/03)

LANSING, Mich – A woman stole a boa constrictor from a pet store by slipping the snake down her pants, the owner said. The animal was stolen Thursday afternoon from Preuss Animal House in Lansing.

“I am far less concerned for the person than for the snake,” owner Rick Preuss said. The 20-inch snake was worth $174.

Jayzun Boget, assistant manager of Preuss’ reptile department, called the heist “audacious.” (AP, 4/7/08)

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.–William Napoli was almost in the clear with his purloined strip loins but the bulge in his pants did him in, authorities say. (St. Petersburg Times, 6/17/08)

SAN DIEGO – A San Diego man accused of poaching lobsters allegedly was caught with six of the creatures stuffed down his pants.

Thirty-three-year-old Binh Quang Chau, who has been cited four times for poaching, allegedly took the lobsters from the La Jolla State Marine Conservation Area.

Department of Fish and Game warden Daryl Simmons says wardens arrested Chau when they noticed “odd bulges” in his pants. All six of the newspaper-wrapped lobsters were still alive and were returned to the ocean. (AP, 10/11/08)

SAN LEANDRO, Ca.–The younger of two brothers who survived a Christmas Day tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo has pleaded no contest to grand theft for allegedly shoplifting video game equipment from Target stores in the East Bay, authorities said today…

Dhaliwal was arrested March 27 by San Leandro police after a security guard at the Target at the Bayfair Center mall on East 14th Street saw him hiding two Nintendo Wii controllers in his pants, police Lt. Tom Overton said. (San Francisco Chronicle, 11/14/2008)

NEW ZEALAND–A German reptile collector has been fined US$5,300 for attempting to smuggle lizards out of New Zealand in his pants.   Customs intercepted Jorg Kreutz, 38, trying to leave the country with two green geckos in his underwear, according to Customs Minister Phillida Bunkle. (BBC News, 2/2/2001)

LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) – A Lafayette man, Joshua Parrish, received his sentence for possessing pain killers and trying to leave a grocery store with a frozen pizza in his pants.

Parrish pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of a controlled substance and one count of theft. A judge sentenced Parrish to time served at the Tippecanoe County jail and community corrections.

Prosecutor Pat Harrington said officers found 24 pills in Parrish’s pocket that he did not have prescriptions for. He said Parrish was arrested when security at Pay Less Grocery Store witnessed Parrish stuffing a frozen pizza down his pants.

A Sizzling Summer Beach Read: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25280915/

[F]irst-rate satire…not even the mean-spirited sniper can find anything evil to say about the endearing Amy, whose quirky Web site (called “Go Away”) is a gold mine of literary nuggets:  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/books/review/Crime-t.html?_r=1&ref=books&oref=slogin

A Killer Murder Mystery: http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-0/1214037020320080.xml&coll=2

Not Your Usual Murder Mystery: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23889208-5003424,00.html

[A] black comedy about an adult-ed class gone bad. The Writing Classis an old-fashioned locked-door mystery in which strangers are trapped in a classroom with a sociopath in their midst. http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/the_arts/a_killer_in_the_classroom_2111.html

A Fall-off-your-chair-funny, Yet Gently Sad Murder Mystery: http://www.sdcitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/murder_and_other_bad_behavior/7015/

A Delicious Satire Savag[ing] Every Literary Pretension Imaginable: http://www.miamiherald.com/tropical_life/story/552534.html

An Engaging and Very Funny Novel about a Diverse Group of People Learning to Write: Canberra Times, 5/7/2008

A Clever Page-Turner: Australian Women’s Weekly, July, 2008

A Darkly Comic Murder Mystery: Sydney Daily Telegraph, 6/28/2008

A Readable and Entertaining Mystery but it’s also more than that. It explores, albeit lightly, the underbelly of the writing world:  http://www.smh.com.au/news/book-reviews/the-writing-class/2008/07/18/1216163140461.html

A Dark Comedy of the Absurd [and] Damn Fine Guide to Writing Fiction: (Publishers Weekly) http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Writing-Class/Jincy-Willett/e/9780312330668/?itm=2#TABS

A Murder Mystery Written by Someone Who Maybe Doesn’t Like, and Definitely Doesn’t Understand, Murder Mysteries: (Snarkus Kirkus Reviews)  http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Writing-Class/Jincy-Willett/e/9780312330668/?itm=2#TABS

 Mystery! Mayhem!: http://www.dailycandy.com/chicago/article/36539/All+the+Worlds+a+Page

A Marvelous Toy of a Book, Full of Wry Surprises and Sly Twists: Booklist Magazine (ALA), May 2008

A BookSense Pick: http://www.booksense.com/bspicks/June08.jsp

A Darkly Comic Mystery: http://www.sandiegomagazine.com/media/San-Diego-Magazine/June-2008/Calendar/

[with]  Zany Humor…Blended with Intelligence and Empathy for People Worth Knowing, at Least in a Book: http://www.projo.com/books/content/BOOK-WRITING-CLASS__06-22-08_CHA5VBE_v9.1109902.html

[following] the Same Advice that Innumerable Writing Teachers Give: Write What You Know: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/features/20080622-9999-1a22willett.html

A Kooky and Spooky Whodunit: http://www.straight.com/article-151100/the-writing-class\

What’s Hot in the Media: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/07/08778

A Terrifically Engrossing Page-turner, a Comic Thriller that is Likely to be One of the Great Reads of the Summer of 2008: http://www.buffalonews.com:80/entertainment/booksliterature/story/386144.html

The Most Profound Contribution to Western Letters since the Gutenburg Bible: http://www.jincywillett.com/journal/

 9th Viewing of Return of the Jedi a Disappointment

Haydn Threatens to Glut the Symphony Market

Kierkegaard’s Latest Philosophical Musing Depresses No One

Mark Russell to Apologize to Nation for Not Writing a Song about Super Tuesday

Writer’s Strike Cripples Nigerian Banking Industry

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Tops NAAMBLA’s Best Books of 2007 List

Ghost of Norman Mailer Forgives Nobel Literature Prize Committee

Dennis Kucinich Finds New Lost Cause

Local Ron Paul Supporter Considers Possibility that Oswald Acted Alone

Blogger’s Latest Case for Impeachment His Most Devastating Yet

Nation Shows Signs of No Longer Giving a Shit about Fucked Up Blonde Girls

Chewbaca’s Wikipedia Entry Rife with Errors

Flava Flav Suspects Some of the Ladies Are Not Really Here for the
Flav; Money, Publicity Possible Real Motives

Some Designers Not Consoled by Heidi Klum’s Icy Farewell Kiss

Britney Spears Hopes the Lampshade on Her Head Will Amuse Onlookers

Whole World to Suffer Again for Richard Hilton Not Paying Enough
Attention to Daughter Paris

Hillary Clinton Tells Husband Making Fun of Obama’s Name Is Not Helping

In His Most Impassioned Dissent, Antonin Scalia Finally Drops the F-Bomb

McCain Campaign Song Frightens Children

Obama Campaign to Instil Vague Sense of Well-Being with New Slogan,
“The Hopefulness of Hope”

McCain Says Brahms-Wagner War May Last Another 100 Years