Those Childhood Traits

Those childhood traits can really stay with you. And what can be more fun than to see them in your own kids follow them into adulthood? And then tell them that you always knew something would come of them.

Take my youngest daughter Susan. She's still the youngest, but at 38 it can be agreed she's firmly in a youthful middle-age, and I'm an old man. It's all true.

At an early age she exhibited a desire for language to be precise. "Susan, could you please pass the butter?" "Sure." No movement. Pause "Okay, okay, would you please pass the butter?" "Sure." Butter is passed.

She was always driven up a wall whenever I suggested that something was "more or less..." "Well, what is it? More, or less?" Ambivalence was not acceptable. She'd certainly have trouble with quantum physics and Q bits when two opposite things can occupy the same space at the same time. But then again, we'd all have trouble with that.

My wife and I recognized she'd head into academics, and she did, becoming a Speech Language professor, right now at Hofstra, with a fairly newly minted Ph.D.  When she was an undergrad at Geneseo she took an interest in my desire to try and find out what were words called that were spelled the same, pronounced differently, and meant different things? They're not as common as you might think.

I'd make a list: tear/tear; wind/wind; read/read. I even made a colorful graphic display that I have framed, and that I made a gift to her that she hangs in her office. She's the one who chased down faculty at Geneseo and got the profs to come up with the word used to describe such words: homographs. I'm still adding to the list, but they come quite slowly now.

Being sensitive to language and I've read that there is a rule governing the use of "much" and "many." You wouldn't think there would be, but that's our complicated tongue.

Much apparently is used to describe something that is rather non-quantifiable, non-countable, "too much water," "too much sand," things like that.

Many is used when the object can be reasonably quantifiable; too many people in the room...too many oranges to buy.

It would seem to be a bit slippery. Too much to drink...too many drinks...drinking too much, or too many? Yikes.

So, when my word sensitive daughter helped me carry a rather large cedar planter I just built out of the garage and noticed what looked like a flaw in the construction, she remarked, "why the mistake there?"

I explained it was an error that I was aware of where the miter joints were not flush due to two thicknesses of the cedar planks. I explained I used some scraps I had in addition to the fresh supply we brought back from the lumber yard.

The variance in thickness threw off the bottom mitered trim, but I didn't care. In the spring it was eventually going to be positioned toward the back where it wouldn't be seen.

Susan went into some distinction between mistake and error. She soon sent me links explaining when to use which one. Jesus, really? 

The difference between error and mistake is in the context that they are used in. A mistake is usually accidental, you know it is wrong. Otherwise, an error is usually made do to lack of knowledge and is more formal than mistake. "Machines never make mistakes, but rather they make errors"

One wonders how the Republicans are describing the voting tallies. People made a lot of mistakes, or there were a lot of errors?

What about boo-boos? What are they? It is confusing.

http:/www.onofframp.blogspot.com