Bring back symbolic dreams

My high school reunion is tonight. Naturally, then, last night I dreamed about...being at my high school reunion. Sure, it had the usual dream elements -- my Indian friend looked surprisingly like Katsumoto from The Last Samurai, for example -- but aren't dreams supposed to be more symbolic than this? If I'm anxious about seeing people I haven't seen in ten years, shouldn't I dream about being parked under a 9th-inning pop-up that is taking forever to drop out of the sky? If I'm nervous about what I'm going to say in the 15 seconds that I talk to people I wasn't friends with in high school, shouldn't I dream about going to a job fair? I guess I should be happy, at least, that I didn't dream about being at my reunion and suddenly discovering I was naked.

Hey, maybe that is what I should wear.

Immutable Cartoon Law #17

Breaking open the main gate of a zoo simultaneously frees all large, non-aggressive animals, causing them to escape within mere seconds and run wild through the town.

On the day they were handing out brevity...

Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day for Thursday, November 17:

two-graf

Well, folks, this is a first...I was unable to find the answer to a question on the internet.

I hope you were sitting down for that.

I gather the above term is used to convey a sense of brevity. It's commonly used as an adjective -- among the links I found -- but Wonk used it as a noun, or at least one of those other-type-of-word-used-as-noun things. Furthermore, Wonk preceded the word with "money," used as an adjective. Sort of a linguistic cross-up (which was a sweet play in Madden '92 when you had a fast third wideout, or just decided to put your halfback in the slot by running the shotgun with your normal offensive package on the field...although technically it was a pick play and should have been illegal...but then again, this was the game in which you could review and overturn pass interference penalties).

However, I could not find one reference that explained the true meaning of the term or its origin. I was going to ask this guy -- because (1) he's a journalist, and (2) he used the term last month in a way that implied he once learned its origin -- but his latest post mentioned how he is currently too busy to respond to e-mail. See, sometimes when a person writes stuff like that, a reader notices and decides not to send him mail he won't read! Kind of like how neurochemicals work.

From what I can tell, "two-graf" comes from print media; from a grid-like arrangement of content; and from the need to fill a small area that remains after the more important content has been arranged. And so far, it's my leading candidate, among Wonk Words Of The Day, for the Underutilized Inigo Montoya Quote Award ("I do not think it means what you think it means").

Of course, Faulkner once criticized Hemingway for hardly ever using a word that required the reader to look it up in the dictionary to see if it had been used correctly. Yes, I happen to know just about everything that is not the answer to a Trivial Pursuit question. [I knew you were wondering. See?]

One actress to bind them

Aragorn, son of Arathorn, was a brave fighter, a compelling leader, and an honorable man. An all-around smart guy, I would say. But I'm still trying to figure out what he saw in Arwen.

Granted, it has been several life-ages since I read The Lord Of The Rings. But in the books Arwen was a character with virtually no depth. Her role in the movies is oddly beefed up, but there is still no explanation of why she and Aragorn fell in love. And for some reason, Peter Jackson decided to cast Liv Tyler as Arwen, to whom this Brian Griffin quote certainly applies: "I leave more personality in tightly-coiled piles on the front lawn."

I have no issue with Aragorn's fidelity to Arwen -- aside from being the right thing to do, it's completely in character for him. But don't you think he must have been struggling for a while after meeting Éowyn? And not just because she iced the Witch-king. Aragorn will be king -- which of these two women seems more like a queen?

Something tells me that when Aragorn became betrothed to Arwen, he was still of the young mindset, "Hey, I landed an Elf chick, I could definitely live with this." For his sake, I just hope there really was more to it than that. Personally, I'd rather be Faramir. Yes, he was almost burned alive by his own father, but he also lived out his days with Éowyn. I'd say it was worth it.

And in retrospect, maybe casting Liv Tyler was the best possible decision. After all, there are few actresses that can successfully portray a porcelain doll.

Vodka defeats the king of the beasts

As I never can recall what nittany means, one would think I'd use Wonk's review of Penn State as an excuse to unravel the mystery of the word. But a mere 30 seconds of online research has reminded me about Pennsylvania's Mount Nittany. So much for that.

However, always one to rise to the occasion, Wonk came through with a gem that, mysteriously, was among the subjects I discussed while at Lemming's on Friday evening. [Brief review of Lemming's: Good draft beer selection, nice "atmosphere" with local artists' work on the walls, but poor actual atmosphere -- the smoke all but wafts out the front door.] Already aware of one use of the word -- the drink with vodka and lime juice -- I learned of another. Wonk has now introduced me to a third.

gimlet adj. having a piercing quality. (more)

Extra credit to anyone that can elegantly use this word in reference to something other than eyes.

For fantasy aficionados (of a sort), I also stumbled across one more meaning. [My favorite Lord Of The Rings-related joke is the Tolkien version of "Why did the chicken cross the road?" from the e-mail that circulated in 1996. Good luck finding it online, though -- it must have split off rather late in the forward evolutionary tree.]

Painting a picture with words

Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day for Friday, November 11:

limn (LIMM) v. illustrate. (more)

My spidey sense told me there was something funny about this word. Sure enough, I looked into its origins and discovered it was first used in 1948, mere months after the widespread distribution of the board game Scrabble.

Yao makes me feel small

If you've ever wondered just how tall Yao Ming is, I think I can explain it to you. You know those green Gatorade bottles that you see on the sidelines at NBA and NFL games? I have one of them that I use to water my plant. [You can order them directly from Gatorade in packs of four for about $10, including shipping.] Anyway, I know how big it is. And tonight, after Yao picked up his traditional second foul of the game before reaching the first TV timeout, he sat down on the bench and was handed one of these Gatorade bottles.

It looked like a normal person holding a salt shaker.

Yao is 7'6", which means he probably sleeps sideways on a king-size bed because he has to, rather than for the novelty of it.

Yao is so tall that ESPN is now televising Rockets games in "expanded widescreen format" -- 16:12.

Yao is so tall that he was born on September 12th and 13th.

Yeah, that's a good one to go out on.

Memories of Welsh-Ryan Arena

Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day for Thursday, November 10:

semiotic adj. indicative...? representative? noteworthy? I think I had a better feel for this word before I looked it up. I'm not even sure how it's best pronounced.

Rather than continuing to be puzzled by this word, I'll talk about Northwestern. Specifically, their team (Dan Shanoff's sleeper? I got a laugh out of that after reading Wonk today, NU has some work to do) and their arena. Actually, I'm done talking about their team, so let's move on to my four distinct memories of Welsh-Ryan Arena...

1. Age: really young. Event: college football pre-game band show. Which band: not sure. Take-away: really loud.
   
2. Age: 17. Event: regular season high school basketball game between Deerfield and New Trier, both elite teams at the time. Highlight, objectively speaking: A New Trier player hit a three-quarter court shot to beat the buzzer at the end of the third quarter. Lowlight: New Trier won. Upside: Deerfield lost.
3. Age: 18. Event: my high school graduation. Support for the argument that being memorable is more worthwhile than being good: My parents still mention the girl whose graduation speech was about her ratty old gym shoes. Recessional: the song from the last scene in Star Wars. That's right. For one moment in time, I was cooler than you.
   
4. Age: 19. Event: women's volleyball game between Illinois and Northwestern. Total attendance: not many. In practically empty gym, seat location chosen: front row, on the baseline. (No reason.)
   

We are living in a rectangular world

Using the power of deductive reasoning (although power may not be the best word, considering how long it took me), I arrived at the hypothesis that the floor in the corner of my living room is slightly slanted, causing my end table to lie slightly slanted as well. To test this hypothesis, I proposed to place a sphere on top of the table and observe whether and in which direction it rolled. Naturally, I expected prompt results. Sure enough, within fifteen minutes I was able to conclude that I do not own anything in the shape of a sphere.

How is this possible?

Now I know why I used to keep all those superballs in my "random stuff" box. Now I know why I used to keep a random stuff box to begin with. It's not a matter of cost, because the contents of my entire random stuff box could have been replaced for under $20. It's not a matter of nostalgia, because my random stuff was either nondescript or so old that I forgot why it would have had meaning. It's a matter of convenience -- of having that random piece of junk on hand just when I need it.

I think it may be too late to start up a new random stuff box. The only random stuff I encounter these days has some company's name printed on it, and it usually has a real function (refrigerator magnet, ballpoint pen, four-door sedan) that detracts from the ability to make-believe.

In some ways I long for the days when I built towers out of inverted 2-oz. plastic cups instead of filling them with modified Jell-o.

What does it all mean, Basil?

Today's Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day is another Wonk favorite:

oracular (or-ACK-yuh-lurr) adj. obscurely prophetic. (more)

I think Wonk focuses more on the ability of subjects (fellow bloggers and other writers) to deliver prophetic analysis and commentary, rather than the tendency to do so in an opaque and puzzling manner. Of course, I understand the statistics and methods being used, so perhaps to the less mathematically inclined, the methods used by these analysts may be inscrutable.

At the very least, though, I think we can be sure that Mark Tupper is more than just a sentient program.

Feedback inflation

"A+++++++++++++++++++++++++"

Let's get one thing straight. The only time this many plusses should appear after an A is in a Christmas Story fantasy.

Feedback on eBay should answer two questions:

• Were you generally satisfied with the transaction?


• What -- product quality, communication, delivery, packaging -- if anything did you find to be most noteworthy about the transaction?

Anything else -- like ALLCAPS, +++++++, or !!!!!!!! -- is equivalent to Amanda Peet's nude scene in The Whole Nine Yards. Unprovocative, purely distracting filler that has no reason for being there and signals everything is about to go downhill. If you appreciated how quickly I paid, just say so. If you want to kill Yanni Go-Go, just shoot him. And if you want to make a sequel...don't.

Rebounding really is one for all and all for one

Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day for Tuesday, November 8:

congeries n. a sum total of many heterogenous things taken together. (more)

And get this -- it's used with a singular verb.

Congeries is the Rickey Henderson of English grammar.

[Most players either bat left and throw left or bat right and throw right. There are a few that bat left and throw right. And then there are Rickey and precious few others that bat right and throw left.]

My favorite grammatical anti-Rickey is the way in which Europeans (or probably all non-Americans) describe the actions of sports teams: "Chelsea sit comfortably atop the Premiership." One of my many pet peeves about American sports is how teams such as the Miami Heat and Utah Jazz are used with singular verbs. "The Heat rides a three-game winning streak into tonight's game." No. Please. Plural verbs for all. "The Jazz are coming to Chicago this Saturday, and I will be there." Ah. Better.

[By the way, today's runner-up: Obeisance. But I actually knew that one.]

Princess Leia's big risk

Princess Leia took an excessive risk, one that jeopardized the entire Rebel Alliance, as highlighted by a scene that should have been rewritten to make her ignorant of the situation instead.

"They're tracking us."

After Han, Luke, Chewie, Leia, and the droids escaped from the Death Star, Leia asserted that the Imperial forces allowed them to leave because they were tracking the Millennium Falcon, hoping to be led to others in the Rebel Alliance. She suddenly dismisses this belief, however, even though she has no reason to risk leading the Imperials to their quarry. As the only person onboard to know the location of the rebel base, as well as the person on whom Han was counting for payment, Leia held all the cards. If she suspected they were being tracked, she should have insisted that they land the Falcon and board another ship.

Switching ships was not a dominant strategy, but as the Imperials had no other leads on the location of the rebel base, there was no immediate need to reach the base and analyze the data carried by R2-D2. A delay if not being tracked would be a minor nuisance and would be greatly outweighed by the risk of having the base destroyed if indeed being tracked, given that Leia felt the tracking to be relatively likely (at least enough to mention). Everything that had been shown about Leia's character, to that point, indicated that she was astute enough to understand these risks and take the precautionary route.

And yet she allowed them to proceed to the rebel base, to where the Imperials did indeed track them. This out-of-character moment could have been avoided by simply removing the relevant lines of dialogue and focusing on Leia's hope that a weakness could be found, once the Death Star plans were analyzed. Ignorance isn't flattering, but it's easier to justify.

Of course, the rebels did find a weakness, which they were able to exploit, in part because the Death Star had to maneuver around a planet to get a clear shot at the moon on which their base was located. Quite ironic that the Death Star, which was designed solely to house a laser capable of destroying a planet, had to wait because a planet was in its way. [Yes, Alanis, this is irony.]

If you use it enough...

Because I was actually familiar with every word used in today's Big Ten Wonk post, the Word Of The Day will be a Wonk favorite:

indefatigable adj. showing sustained enthusiastic action with unflagging vitality. (more)

I believe the intent of the word is to emphasize passion and dedication, not endurance. Unfortunately, an alternate definition -- simply "tireless" -- is much more readily assumed by the unfamiliar reader upon first encountering the word. At least, that's how I first interpreted it last spring. What the word has going for it, though, is that it's slightly obscure enough to make one wonder, "Is that what it really means?"

Even the little people count

It's a cool feeling to write to a mainstream-media sports journalist and get a response.

In almost all cases, because of the volume of comments these people receive, the response is limited to one sentence, two tops. I'm aware of at least three types of responses along those lines:

1. The "briefest of acknowledgments, in case this reader is crazy" response. For example, a couple years ago I decided to write in to John Buccigross about hockey at the University of Illinois. However, I accidentally sent four copies of the message because I did something wrong with Web Mail. On the plus side, it does show that Bucci cares about his readers. Or at least his own safety.

2. The "I'll keep it in mind" response. This can occur when one actually has something concise, unique, and of interest to say. For example, I thought Jayson Stark's "Useless Info Dept." column could have run this question: "Who is the only player in major American sports who will be the last player in his league to wear a particular number, even though that number is not retired for him?" The answer: Mariano Rivera (Jackie Robinson's number 42). Never ran in the column, though. I think I've only encountered one mention of this by anyone, anywhere, in the several years since it became fact...so I guess no one really cares about this, no matter how unique it is.

(Speaking of which...something is either unique or it isn't, right? Are there degrees of uniqueness? And shouldn't unique have a much weirder-sounding nominalization, like uniquity?)

3. An actual response, despite its brevity. This usually only occurs with lesser-known writers that can actually spend the time to read all of their mail (i.e., definitely not Bill Simmons). The funny part about these is that they're usually one-liners -- like what you'd say in a men's room to complete strangers, never intending to speak with them again.

The funniest response I've ever received, though, is the kind of thing that no professional writer should ever send to a complete stranger. Unless, I guess, he realizes that he's not a big enough writer that anyone would take notice, even if what he said got out. Believing as I do in the sanctity of private communication, all I will say is that the subject of our discussion was Tiger Woods, and in a mere 2.5 sentences the writer used prick and a-hole in referring to the prominent golfer.

I still laugh at this.

There's at least one other category of response -- the detailed, well-considered response -- that I have witnessed on occasion. However, I'm still trying to understand what Aaron Schatz wrote. Still, I appreciate the effort, and maybe one day I'll really understand why successful third down plays are inherently more valuable than successful first down plays. (Rereading it, I think I'm almost there. Almost.)

"The Hawkeyes of Iowa"...actually sounds cool

Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day for Friday, November 4:

synecdoche (sin-ECK-duh-kee) n. A figure of speech substituting a more inclusive term for a less inclusive one or vice versa. (more)

To get a better feel for it, I recommend reading the full definition/explanation, to which I've linked. It's a cool word and concept, and it would break some 12-year-old's heart at the Scripps National Spelling Bee. I mean, I'll probably never use the word in writing because of its unfathomable pronunciation. Conversely, I don't know how a kid, no matter how much home schooling he or she has had, could spell this based on the pronunciation. [Like country of origin is going to help.]

The metaphor of POY balloting

Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day for Thursday, November 3:

ratiocinative (rash-ee-OSS-in-ay-tiv) adj. Marked by methodical and logical reasoning; based on exact thinking. (more)

I still think Bracey should have left school after his freshman year.

Warren needs to get nasty

Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day for Wednesday, November 2:

irenic (eye-REE-nik) adj. Promoting peace; conciliatory. (more)

Kind of like Cerrano for the bulk of Major League 2.

Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day

Coinciding with the start of a new season for Big Ten Wonk, here's the inaugural Big Ten Wonk Word Of The Day (messy acronym, so maybe I'll come up with a different name for it) for Tuesday, November 1.

ukase n. An authoritative order or decree. (more)

Jury's still out on preferred pronunciation. I'll pretend I'm my little brother and go with the definitely-wrong "yoo-KAH-see."