Monthly Archives: March 2009

There was an article in the newspaper one morning this week that got me so excited I almost spilled hot English Breakfast tea on the headline. It wasn’t the latest news about the economy. It wasn’t the news about the huge blizzard that was heading our way. It wasn’t even the story about Montana’s “Petrified Man,” a probable hoax that visitors paid a quarter each to see back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s—though I must admit that one definitely caught my interest.

Nope, this was even more exciting than that. After five decades, the fifth and final volume (“S” to “Z”) of the Dictionary of American Regional English is about to be published. How did I not know about these books? I want a set.

I knew, of course, that there are plenty of regional differences in our speech. I knew that what is called “pop” around here is called “soda” in the eastern part of the United States, because when my stepkids were visiting in New York as teenagers they were teased about it. Their dad, incidentally, always rushed through the halls of Stevens High School when we went for conferences, because he claimed fathers weren’t allowed there. After all, they had signs up: “No Pop in Hallways.”

But I’ve gone for years not knowing that a drinking fountain is known as a “bubbler” in parts of Wisconsin. Or that a potluck supper might be called a “pitch-in” in Indiana or a “scramble” in parts of Illinois. Or that the flat cinnamon roll called a "bearclaw" isn't called that everywhere.

As I was reading the article about the Dictionary of American Regional English with such attention that my tea was getting cool, the realization came. I’m a nerd. A nerd about words, and also about odd stories and interesting bits of trivia. Thank God—or at least God’s legions of computer nerds—for the Internet, because I’m always using it to commit random acts of research.

I suspect at least part of this might be genetic, because I’m not the only one. A person in my family, who shall remain nameless to preserve her privacy—but Natalie, you know who you are—sent out an email this week, complete with photographic proof, about balancing an egg on one end. Supposedly this is something that only works during the spring equinox.

And I have a question. How many of the rest of you who received that email promptly went to the kitchen to get an egg and try it for yourselves? We did, but couldn’t manage to make ours balance. Either we were too far past the equinox, or our countertop isn’t level. Or maybe we just gave up too soon.

Of course, being a nerd, then I had to go look up the whole spring egg balancing thing. I found that, yes, it’s possible to balance an egg on end and no, the spring equinox doesn’t have anything to do with it. All that’s required, apparently, is a lot of patience.

I suppose that could mean spending an hour or more trying to get an egg to balance. But then, what’s time to an egg? Or to a nerd who is trying to find the answer to a completely pointless but fascinating question.

Last week at dance class, trying to protect my toes from a temporary partner who apparently was not born with an appreciation for three-four time, I was distracting myself by listening to the music. It occurred to me how ironic it was that so many people could have so much fun dancing to so many sad country songs.

This led, more or less inevitably, to thoughts about some country songs that, as far as I know, have yet to be written:

• I could waltz across Texas with you, if only you didn’t keep trying to do the two-step.

• I can’t even cry in my beer any more; the sodium is bad for my blood pressure.

• She was only a bootlegger’s daughter, but the sheriff loved her still.

• Send me the pillow that you drool on.

• Nights are so cold since you’ve been gone, I’m sleeping with my socks on.

• My eyes are as red as the dress that you wore on the night that you told me goodbye.

• You washed my new jeans with my underwear, and now I’m your faded love.

• Please take me back to that ice fishing shack, where we had love to keep us warm.

If any of these titles inspire you, feel free to write your own music and lyrics. All I ask for is ten percent of the royalties if the song should prove to be a hit.

Who is your favorite poet?

That’s the sort of question new sweethearts might ask each other during those first weeks of getting to know one another and falling in love. Especially if one of them is a romantic type who envisions tender scenes of cuddling in front of the fire or strolling in the spring sunshine while reading love poems to each other.

You know, that whole “loaf of bread, jug of wine, and thou” thing.

Love is wonderful, and romance is wonderful. I’m sure for those who enjoy that sort of thing, a loaf of bread with a jug of wine is wonderful, too, though I frankly would prefer my loaf of bread with some homemade chokecherry jelly.

And poetry? That’s wonderful, too, but as an aid to romance it doesn’t work all that well for someone like me, a practical, non-romantic type who would be more likely to bake a loaf of bread than to write a poem about one. Especially because my favorite poet happens to be Ogden Nash.

For those unfamiliar with Ogden Nash, here’s a sample of his work (which, like much poetry, works best when read aloud):

The Clam

The clam, esteemed by gourmets highly,
Is said to live the life of Riley;
When you are lolling on a piazza
It’s what you are as happy as a.

True, it isn’t exactly Robert Browning or one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. But I love the way Nash played with words and twisted them into unconventional rhymes, slipped in unexpected humor, and would write 37 lines of verse for no other purpose than to set up a delightfully awful pun.

My taste in poetry was shaped at an early age. When I was growing up, one of the books in our household was an anthology, Best Loved Poems of the American People. It included poets from Shakespeare to Longfellow to Dickinson to Frost. I read most of those poems several times, enjoyed many of them, and can still quote several and recognize many more.

I can also still quote the parody of the first verse of Longfellow’s “The Village Blacksmith” that my father came up with one day at the supper table:

"Under the spindly willow tree the lady blacksmith stands;
The muscles in her scrawny arms are strong as rubber bands."

The poetry that I read and enjoyed the most as a child, though, and that really fed my pun-loving little soul, came from another book on our shelves. It was a collection called The Golden Trashery of Ogden Nashery. All that remains of that particular paperback copy, unfortunately, are pages 29 through 74, which I have, tucked into an old greeting card envelope for safekeeping. The book is long out of print; I would owe a debt of gratitude to anyone who could tell me where I could get a copy.

I’d even be happy to send you an unromantic loaf of homemade bread in return. Sorry, but you'd have to find your own "jug of wine and thou."