Time to get serious

One of my readers keeps me on the up and up sometimes, and I'll probably hear from that person.

I am thinking of not writing limericks anymore if I don't win at least a mention in the WPSI. After all, I've been entering those lousy contests since 2004 for heaven's sake. I've seen some pretty mediocre ones getting mentioned. The Empress doesn't have perfect taste in limericks. So how about letting one teeny tinsy limerick of mine slip right by?

If I don't get a mention, I am thinking of pulling out of limerick writing altogether. There are still haiku and DDs, after all. Heck, Shu has been challenging me with "dipsomaniacal" which is a great DD word.

I hate to say "never" so I won't. But I really want a mention!!!!

What good is peanut butter?

Someone commented on my Blog about the title of the entry "What good is poetry?" That title came from a rather funny family story. I was in church with my family one Sunday, a long time ago. Suddenly my younger brother looked up at my dad and, big as you please, asked in a rather loud voice that could be heard all over the church, "Daddy, what good is peanut butter?" It was out of the blue, and of course everyone started laughing. "What good is peanut butter?" has become a family phrase we use when we're don't know something and are trying to be funny. Try it sometime!

William Carlos Williams

So I looked up Williams and I like his work. I particularly like this one:

First Praise

Lady of dusk-wood fastnesses,
Thou art my Lady.
I have known the crisp, splintering leaf-tread with thee on before,
White, slender through green saplings;
I have lain by thee on the brown forest floor
Beside thee, my Lady.

Lady of rivers strewn with stones,
Only thou art my Lady.
Where thousand the freshets are crowded like peasants to a fair;
Clear-skinned, wild from seclusion
They jostle white-armed down the tent-bordered thoroughfare
Praising my Lady.

What good is poetry?

This question, from a reader, appeared in Parade Magazine today:

"Why are my tax dollars going to pay a poet laureate when nobody reads poetry?" (emphasis mine)

What??? Nobody reads poetry? Why is it that people generalize their preferences to others? I bet, being from Nebraska, he thinks everyone loves a good beef steak. I sure don't.

Here was Parade's answer, which I thought was far too kind to him:

"'It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there'

wrote the great American poet William Carlos Williams. (We hope you'll look him up!) While it's true that not many people read poetry, they'd probably get a lot out of it if they gave it a try. The current U.S. Poet Laureate, Californian Kay Ryan, earns all of $35,000. But fret not. Her stipend is funded from a private endowment, not tax revenues."

I might have been harsher in my reply.

I need to look up William Carlos Williams...

Google images

Whenever I present I look on the Web for new quotes that fit perfectly (I have a new one that I am just dying to use) and I look for great images for my PPTs that portray what I am trying to say. For example, I use this one for my transition to practice initiative. Audiences love it because it so perfectly explains how the new nurse feels. They are supported in their nursing program, with tight clinical groups. Then they get their first job! They're alone, often isolated and without much support.

Tonight, I decided to look for images for "epicaricacy," completely thinking that I'd find none. Instead, look what I found. Interestingly, there's a link to my own Blog there!

Compete

In looking up "compete" in the OED, the etymology is surprisingly long, compared to other words:

"[repr. L. compet-re, in its post-classical active sense ‘to strive after (something) in company or together’, f. com- together + petre to aim at, go toward, try to reach, seek, etc.: see prec. No such sense is recognized by Littré for mod.F. compéter, but Cotgrave has ‘competer, to be sufficient for, sutable with, agreeable vnto; also, to belong or appertaine to’ (= prec. vb.); also, ‘to demaund, or sue for the same thing that another doth’ (which corresponds to this). Florio 1598 has It. competere ‘to contend or striue for any suite, office, place, or dignitie,’ [1611] ‘to contend or striue with another for maistrie’; Minsheu has Sp. compéter ‘to be meet for, to agree with’ (= prec.); ‘to sue with another for anything, to content or striue for any suit, office, or dignity’. The early related words in Eng. are competitor, competor; cf. also

COMPETENCE, COMPETENCY, sense I. Though in occasional use in 17th c., this verb is not in Johnson, nor in Todd 1818, Seager 1819, Jodrell 1820; it is given by Richardson (without quotations) as ‘now not uncommon in speech’; by critics, in 1824, it was styled ‘a Scotticism’, and ‘an American discovery’.] "

I think it very interesting that it wasn't defined in Johnson, Todd (1818) or Jodrell (1820) and then in Richardson it is called "not uncommon in speech" and in 1824 called "an American discovery." Maybe! It does sound very American. Not being a linguist, it's not as easy for me to analyze this etymology, but its derivation seems more complex than other words, though "competition" is simply described as deriving from "agreement, a judicial demand, rivalry, n. of action f. competre."

Wherever it comes from, I've always been a competitor. I loved sports as a kid and excelled at softball. However, I wasn't all that good in my favorite sport, basketball, because I am too short, so I chose to cheerlead, rather than to play something I stink at (as my son says). To this day I really can't watch a basketball game because I have a fit when the other team gets a basket. My husband says, "What do you want, the other team to be skunked??!!"

But of course it isn't only in sports. Indeed, I am not an avid sports fan (except for the Bulls). I hate football for example and while I like the Cubs, they lose too much. However, competition is around in my personal and professional life, too. I am sure I inherited it from my mom's side. She and her father were worse than me...slamming the table when they'd lose at cards. My family all loved hearts, bridge and euchre. I remember I was playing bridge with my parents and my boyfriend (newish), and my mom had to have my boyfriend for her partner. I knew why. She wanted to cheat! So, she got dealt a typical short club opening bid, but not everyone plays a short club...and you can't ask after the hand has been dealt or it gives everything away to your partner. Never fear. My mom knew I'd not challenge her with my boyfriend as her partner. So, big as you please, with her first bid after the cards were dealt, she brazenly said, "Do you play a short club, honey?" Grrrr! That gave the whole hand away, and of course they won it. Now, one would think I might forget that since I was 18 at the time. No way!

When I get off the train and go down the steps, I cannot stand it when people in back of me beat me. I make it into a race, and I've beat 6 foot tall, young men down the stairwell. Not bad for a short, not so young lady!

And of course on Wordcraft there are the limerick and bluffing games. When we kept score in the bluffing game, I was a wreck. Now that we don't keep score, I am much better, though I get peeved when people don't choose my daffynition. With limericks? Well, I'm not the world's best limerick writer, and I know that intellectually. The meter and rhymes I get right. However, the content could be more clever, and others are much better at that (particularly my husband, who has every once in awhile helped me write something that wins). But in my heart? Oh, I hate not winning!

Professionally? I am not sure I'd call it competitiveness, but I surely strive to be the best. Of course, I am not the best, but I work very hard at it. So, in the end, there are some positivenesses to being competitive. I think it helps you in your work. However, it can make you downright crazy!

[Don't I have the best blog going????]

Twitter knows about epicaricacy

Thank heavens for those Google alerts. Yes, just today I found that Robin Bloor has tweeted about "epicaricacy." That word is really getting around!

I suppose I should begin to tweet a bit, but I haven't found a reason yet. I know that people first heard about Michael Jackson from Twitter, but what does a nano-second mean anyway? I really am perplexed about what people see in Twitter. A friend found that I have a Twitter account [I have one follower :)], but neither of us knew what to do with it. Perhaps one of my many readers can explain. [I am full of sarcasm today! One might think I were British, except I don't write color with a u.]