Noble Wireless & Other Tightropes

I am sitting at Barnes & Noble Booksellers Cafe, in DeWitt, New York, decaf coffee at my side, having just finished a Warm Granny Smith Apple Purse pastry (rather dry). The good news is that AT&T wifi is now "complimentary" here, which to me spells f-r-e-e. I'm not saying that makes B&N all virtuous and all that. I'm sure they finally figured out that it's better to lure customers with free wifi. But that's cool. I'm here. My daughter purchased (actually not yet; I'll buy it later) a notebook she is already sketching in, sketching the design of her Vera Bradley purse. Who knew I'd find two such very different meanings of "purse"? A few moments ago, while paying for my coffee and purse (is "purse" truly a name for a type of pastry? I guess so), I saw someone who appeared to be a colleague from 2003. I hesitated. When I spoke, I figured if it was her [she, for you grammatical purists], she'd respond upon recognizing my inimitable voice. She did not. When she spoke, I recognized her apparently inimitable voice and began an "Is that you?" conversation. Her face blushed. Why? Was she essentially planning on avoiding me -- a plot I had foiled? We traded some stories of mutal former colleagues. She told me what she was doing, after my initial wrong guess. She never asked what I was doing or have been doing since 2003. This does not rankle me as much as you might think. [Dr. Freud: Then why are you blogging about it, Pawlie? Screw off, Sigmund.] Reciprocity. It ain't that one needs to keep count or keep score. No, not at all. But civility demands at least the appearance of reciprocity. Reciprocity, such as, "Oh, and what have you been up to?" would at least provide the pretense of mutual interest. No big deal. I hardly had the conversational momentum or verve to explain the last six years, or even the last six weeks, or six minutes. So be it.

'Um. . . The Book' Reviewed

Um...The Book entertained and educated me. Anytime you can do both at the same time (soixante-neufing, so to speak, your learning) is an accomplishment. Fortunately, this very readable book by Michael Erard does not come off as stuffy in any way. And it doesn't make one self-conscious, as in the nervous equivalent of crossing and uncrossing one's legs or readjusting one's posture in front of a psychoanalyst. (I can report that seeing a shrink is not really like that anyway, not after the first 877 visits.)

When I was a copy editor at a newspaper, I remember an editor telling me, after I corrected someone's spoken solecism, "Don't edit speech." Wise advice.

Um...The Book takes the reader through a pleasurable stroll through several leafy jungles you wouldn't think had connecting paths: pop culture, anthropology, linguistics, epistemology, psychology, history (...and more! as copywriters shout). (As I have noted before, the book's subtitle, "Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean," embraces the serial comma, as does the narrative. Merci, Mr. Erard and editors.)

The book's website invites examples from readers. I dare not submit this one of my own, because it's more dementia than blunder: I once introduced myself at a serious business function, in front of a large crowd, with the prefatory "His Lord and Eminence" before my name. I don't know what came over me. Curiously, I still have the same job, and more curiously, one of the people who had been in that audience, as a competitor, now works with me. No, I've never brought the subject up.

I like the fact that the author takes on Herr Dr. Freud and explains how the term "Freudian slip" has taken on a life all its own never intended.

I learned about spoonerisms, powerless vs. powerful speaking, and tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon. (Medical update: I seem to have some sort of TMJ problem, and yesterday the ENT/dentist specialist prescribed an exercise of putting the tip of my tongue onto the roof of my mouth, pausing, repeating, et cetera, ad infinitum. I can think of better things to do avec ma langue.)

I'm, um, thinking that at the office holiday gala, with my bow tie on and pinkie out, I'll try to impress someone (well, someone with ample cleavage, of course) by breezily dropping terms like parapraxis (or parapraxes, plural) or Fehlleistung (Fehlleistungen). The German is literally "faulty performance." The hope is I'll be referring conversationally to language or memory, not some other kind of, um, "performance."

Before signing off, two things.

One, I've had a fussy awareness of these things even before I read the book (evidently, that's why my friend from WebPros sent it to me), so today it was amusing to hear a public official say at a forum several times: "flush it out" instead of "flesh it out." (Well, he was referring to an aqueduct.) (I once knew a colleague who thought "flesh it out" was too meaty and gross an expression, and she wasn't even a vegan!)

Second, a slight disclaimer: as I was reading the book, I contacted the author. He was gracious in replying. In my experience, most authors are very gracious, just as John Updike was admirably kind when I met him in the lobby of Random House in the 1980s.

It's Da Bomb

Hmmm.

Totally unintended, but I see now that my poem below, on the preceding post, takes the shape of a bomb, or other piece of artillery.

I mean, yeah, words can be weapons, even poetry, but . . .

Herr Dr. Freud, what was I thinking?