Category Archives: Words

2024, Media, Poems, Uncategorized, Words, work

National Haiku Poetry Day

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The other day Husband and I made a quick trip to Bismarck-Mandan to Costco. We also went to a favorite butcher shop in Mandan. Down the street from the butcher shop is the office for the National Day company. They are the ones who post all the “National Day” declarations. I assume that they make it all up, It was fun to see where it actually takes place. It is a pretty unassuming building right there on the Mandan “strip”, the main drag in town.

I noted that today is National Haiku Poetry Day, and that yesterday was National Wear Your Pajamas To Work Day. That is interesting, as our clinical director declared that anyone who wants to wear pajamas all day this Friday can do so, as long as they pay $5.00 to the social committee. This is my pajama day haiku:

If I pay five bucks

Friday I will work in PJ’s

I will wear my sweats

I don’t have any clients on Friday, just meetings, so I won’t feel too unprofessional in my sweats.

What did you consider “professional attire” at work? Make up a haiku about your clothes. What kind of pajamas do you prefer?

2024, animals, education, Words

Laughing Matter

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Some days it’s all about laughing.

On Duolingo yesterday morning, I started a new section – with words such as lazy and messy.  Clean and dirty have come up before so it was nice to have a few more to go with them.  Then came “stinks”.

Several animals have made it into the lessons: cat, dog, bird, penguin, snake, duck, elephant (the very first lesson!).  But yesterday was the first appearance (after 3 years) of hamster.

Duolingo doesn’t just give you words, they put all the words together in sentences and stories for you.  After all these months, I should have seen this coming.

I tuoi criceti puzzano

This translates to “your hamsters stink”.  Not a euphemism for anything that I can find although it does remind me of the Holy Grail line “your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries”.

I can’t imagine that stinking hamsters comes into conversation too often in one’s lifetime.  My sister had hamsters and I don’t remember them stinking….

What pets did you have growing up?  Did they stink?

2024, Gatherings, Music, Songs, Uncategorized, Words

Musical Ear

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We have a new assistant pastor at our Lutheran Church who is working out rather nicely. She is good with youth, preaches good sermons, and is fitting in well with the congregation. There is only one problem, and that is her lack of musicality.

Our pastors sing much of the of the liturgy, and to do that the they have to know to listen to the note the organist gives them to start on the chant. Our new pastor can’t carry a tune in a bucket. No matter how emphatic the organist is in giving the note, the new pastor invariably starts on a pitch three notes below where she should start, and can’t seem to read the intervals between the notes to sing the chant correctly. The liturgy is such that the pastor sings, then the congregation comes in on a pitch based on where the pastor leaves off. We now have to listen for a prompt from the organist to know what our pitch is.

It would be fine with me if our new pastor read the liturgy instead of singing it, but I guess in Lent things need to be sung. We are all suffering through these forty days together!

How are you at singing a capella? What are your favorite metaphors and idioms?

2024, animals, books, Mysteries, Words

Chewing on Words

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I’m still working at my Italian every day… some days more than others. Having done some Spanish and French in my youth, I love seeing some of the resemblances. Every now and then though, I get thrown for a loop. Yesterday Duolingo served up “in bocca al lupo” for “good luck”. In bocca al lupo means literally “in the mouth of the wolf”. I have actually heard the phrase “buona fortuna” in the past so finding a reference to a wolf sent me straight to the internet. Apparently In the mouth of the wolf is when something needs to be warded off… like when they say “break a leg” in the theatre. “Buona fortuna” is your basic good luck.

Thinking about this reminded me that a few months ago Duolingo let me know that “bookworm” is “topo di biblioteca” which translates to “mouse of the library”. Fascinating. In looking into that one (yes, I do check up on Duolingo occasionally), here are some others I found:

• English/Serbian/Russian/Thai – bookworm
• Italian/Romanian – library mouse
• Arabic – book moth
• Chinese – book fool
• Greek – book eater
• Danish – reading horse
• French – ink drinker

Of course the reading horse is the most intriguing (PJ, is this correct?) but I think it’s interesting that there are so many varieties. Just a side benefit to learning a new language!

If you were asked to come up with a better phrase for “bookwork”, what would you choose?

2024, Kids, Media, Words

My Word!

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I subscribe to my hometown paper The Rock County Star Herald, and was tickled to see the recent news that English students at the Luverne High School recently were named State Champions in the Minnesota Fall 2023 Vocabulary Bowl.

This competition was new to me. It is done on-line. Every two months, students are given access to 15,000 vocabulary words from various subjects, and study the words and take tests through definition, context, spelling, etc., also learning the words in specific pieces of literature they read in their English classes. After a certain number of correct answers, they are considered to have mastered the words. 100 Junior and Senior students at Luverne mastered 11,000 words from Oct. 1 through Nov. 30. They are on their way to another championship for Feb.1 through March 31.

I would have loved such a challenge. I was in every musical competition and speech tournament there was, but this would have been extremely fun! I would love to know if this expands their working vocabulary and if they use the words they are learning in their everyday conversations!

What extracurricular activities were you involved in during high school? What new or interesting words have you heard lately? Got any favorite words?

2024, Media, Uncategorized, Words, work

Mottos And Slogans

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I have two coworkers who plan to retire about the same time I do next year. We have worked together for 25 years, and have experienced the highs and lows and ridiculous moments that one experiences in a government agency.

Over the years we developed a motto to keep us going in our continued State employment until the time we reached the ages to get our pensions- “Just Soak Em!” Why, we ask each other, do we keep doing this? Because we’re going to soak em! We are going to extract every penny we are due from the State for all the hard work we did at wages much lower than in the private sector.

I suppose I will need a new motto for a new life that doesn’t involve my work. I will have to think hard on that. Luverne, the town we plan to move to after I retire, has the motto Luverne, Love the Life to encourage people and businesses to move there. Better, I suppose than “If you ain’t Dutch you ain’t much“, another popular motto from back home.

What is your personal motto right now? Think of new mottos or slogans for yourself, your family, state, or your community.

2024, Family, Uncategorized, Words

Nicknames

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Somehow and rather mysteriously over the past couple of ayears at my work I ceased to be called Renee and now I am referred to as Dr. B It is not something I particularly like, and in some ways I find it sort of dehumanizing, but it is what it is and I just respond when I am addressed. It isn’t the worst sort of nickname to have I guess.

Growing up in Luverne there were several guys my dad knew who had nicknames. Clarence Thone, the junkman, was called Abie, which was meant to be a slight since junkmen in literature and popular culture were often Jewish. One of the local mail carriers was called Ippy Olson. Ippy wasn’t his real name. I never knew what his real name was. I asked my mom whey he was called that and she just said “Oh, he is a real Ippy”. I never figured that one out. Then there was Skinny Kiebach. He was pretty thin. Soft Water Frakes was called that to distinguish him from his cousin, Marion. He owned a water softening business. Marion was a building contractor.

Husband has the nicknames of Kiffey or Dazzle. A good friend of mine is know to the world as Toots, when her real name is Denelle. I don’t know why we just can’t leave people with the names they were given to start out with.

Did you ever have a nickname? What are some of the best nicknames you have heard?

2024, Family, History, Media, Uncategorized, Words

Cheater

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I love crossword puzzles. I subscribe to the New York Times online, and get their crossword puzzles all week as well as the one in the New Yorker each edition.

I hope none of you think of me as a cheater, but I feel it entirely within my rights to look up crossword clues on line. Given the number of sites I see for just this purpose, there must be many like me. I view these puzzles as research projects, not as measures of my intellectual acumen. It is so satisfying when they are completed and correct!

Today would be my mother’s 100th birthday. She didn’t mind bending the rules at all! She got secretly married at 19 against the 1942 rules of Mankato State that students couldn’t be married. Ha! She showed them!

What are your favorite puzzles to solve? When do you bend the rules?

2023, Gatherings, holidays, Kids, Uncategorized, Words

Reading Aloud

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Thank the Lord! We are done with all our Christmas church performances for the year! Being a church musician can really be exhausting in December. Yesterday we played bells for two morning services and then sang, played bells, and read various things in a Lessons and Carols service in the afternoon. We had a great time, but are so relieved it is over.

I love reading lessons and scripture verses in church. I know how to pronounce some of the more difficult names, and I understand what I am reading so I think I can communicate the meaning of what is being read to the listeners. The words from the King’s College Bidding prayer are almost poetical and I was so happy to read them. Last night, several Grade 5 and 6 students read some of the Lessons, too, and they did a really good job.

I have always secretly wanted to narrate things like the public narrations of Joyce’s Ulysses that you can hear on public radio. I know that reading in public is torture for some. I love having wonderful words crafted by someone else to let others know about. 

How do you feel about reading in public? What would you like to narrate and read to others?

2023, Theatre, Travel, Uncategorized, Words

Wicked in Swedish

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Last year our church choir director and her husband sponsored a foreign exchange student from Sweden. She was a lovely girl named Hedwig who fit in very well with the host family and the community. The family has stayed in contact with the girl and her family in Sweden.

Hedwig’s mother is a costumer for a Swedish opera company. Recently, the opera company put on a production of Wicked translated into Swedish. Our director heard a brief recording of the production, and said it was very odd to hear Defying Gravity sung in Swedish. I guess Stephen Schwartz, the composer, even came over make necessary changes in the production.

I can’t imagine how a person could translate lyrics from one language to another if the lyrics had to rhyme. I don’t know if I like hearing productions in their original languages with subtitles. I don’t know if I like translations from the original language. Such a dilemma.

What English theatre or opera production would you like to see translated into a different language? What non-English production would you like to see translated into English? Where would you have wanted to be a foreign exchange student?