The tagline for the return of fans to Citi Field is “Safe at Citi.” It feels pretty real. While we’ve heard a lot in recent days about the relaxing of pandemic restrictions by the CDC and in the northeast states, the impact of that has not found its way to Citi Field. To get into the park you need to show proof of vaccination or a current negative COVID test result. In addition to hosting the Mets, Citi Field is also a vaccination site and more than 100,000 doses have been administered here. While there are some folks, particularly politicians, who are trying to make a partisan issue out of requiring vaccinations, I’m happy to know that the people sharing the stadium with me have been vaccinated.
As of mid-May they were allowing 20% capacity at Citi Field. You get your temperature taken on the way in and masks are required. Gaiters or bandanas won’t cut it. There are mask police who will come around and tell you to put in on if you slack off. Everything is touchless: parking, tickets, concessions. And we all filled out contact tracing forms. All in all, a pretty safe environment.
20% looks like thisTaking tempsWho wants to stand shoulder-to-shoulder at a urinal anyway.
Once there were ketchup dispensers.
If you didn’t buy tickets together and your buddy wants to sneak into your section and sit next to you, he’s likely to have a wire up his butt.Heading south, we find these guys with uniforms that say Thunder. But in fact these are the Buffalo Bison. Confused? The Toronto Blue Jays couldn’t bring teams back and forth over the U.S./Canadian border, so they are playing in Buffalo, home of their AAA minor league team, the Bison. That required some construction on the Buffalo stadium, and that sent the Bison south to Trenton. They will be playing in what was the home of the Trenton Thunder, a 25+ years successful franchise that was abandoned by the Yankees as part of MLB’s shakedown of the minor leagues. So for at least part of the season, the Bison will be playing under the alias Thunder.I don’t think they’d let you into Citi Field with that mask.
But no amount of mask wearing, vaccinating and temperature taking can save us from this.
Now I went out last Sunday with my little Mary Anne
She said, ‘Please stay ’til Monday,’ and she grabbed me by the can
She laid a big one on me, surprised me with her tongue
But her surprise was waitin’ there between my cheek and gum
Those are the lyrics to a song called “Copenhagen” by Robert Earl Keen. The surprise to which he refers? it’s packed and oozing, it smells bad and tastes worse, it’s a chaw.
Chaw can be a noun, as in a plug or wad of chewing tobacco, or it can be a verb. The Wiktionary uses it in this sentence: When the doctor told him to quit smoking, Harvey switched to chaw, but then developed cancer of the mouth. That pretty much summarizes what the CDC has to say about using chewing tobacco.
There are other definitions. Wiktionary notes that in some areas of the South it refers to the act of chewing or grinding your teeth. It also can refer to ruminating or pondering some question or issue. In Britain, it is apparently used as slang for stealing.
As per usual, the Urban Dictionary offers some more colorful definitions:
An exclamation of surprise, delight or salutation. Used with a rising inflection of pitch through which a gradual diphthong “AW-AH” is used. Various permutations of the word are also permitted, eg. “Phwar” or “Hwaw”
A person who is born with a gun in one hand and a fishing pole in the other. They tend to come from the suburbs of Atlanta and have somewhat of a mysterious life.
A reply that demonstrates an acknowledgment, understanding, or agreement with what one has stated, suggested, etc.
(image by M. Maggs)
But for most of us, it’s about that cheek packed with smokeless tobacco. So the pertinent question is less what than why. I found this story in Esquire by author A.J. Jacobs that addresses that issue.
Jacobs starts off by noting “In my social circle, chewing tobacco elicits universal disgust. It brings to mind marrying your second cousin, jaw cancer, and cups of warm brown spit at awful frat parties long ago.” If you think it’s about the taste, consider this: “One helpful Internet commenter warned that dip tastes like ‘Big Foot’s dick.’ Another: like ‘a rodent exploded in my mouth.'”
Undeterred, Jacobs gave it a try: “The tobacco stings my cheek like orange juice on a canker sore. And I have no control over my wad. It’s supposed to stay compact, but strands of tobacco migrate all over my mouth. The spit builds up fast. I put my empty Poland Spring bottle to my lips and do my best. But instead of the bullet I’ve seen ballplayers emit, I let loose a messy, chin-dribbling drool.”
Hmmm. I’d say we’re better of just singing about it:
Anyone who has lived in Washington for even a short period of time will tell you the best time to visit the monuments is at night. The centerpiece of after-dark monumenting is the Lincoln Memorial, not only because of its beauty but also because of the view of the Washington Monument and its reflection from the steps of the Lincoln. Don’t worry about closing time, the monuments are always open.
Some of my favorite English language slang comes from, of all places, England. I’m especially fond of those four letter words which constitute simple declaratory judgments about some of the Queen’s most unappealing subjects. Prat is one of those words.
The simple definition of prat is fool. We’ve already learned from this Wednesday’s Word series how many synonyms there are for fool: goober, dingleberry and nincompoop being just a few. But a prat has definitive characteristics that makes him a specific kind of fool. A prat is arrogant. A prat is smug. A prat’s head is swelled with conceit. A prat may be the dumbest guy in the room, but he thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room. I use guy since I’ve never heard a woman referred to as a prat. Maybe one of my small handful of English readers can weigh in on that.
(Image by Artern Page)
There are some other definitions of prat. Wiktionary says it is slang for “a buttock, or the buttocks; a person’s bottom.” If that’s not clear, free dictionary.com elaborates “the fleshy part of the human body that you sit on.” In Scotland, apparently, a prat can be “a cunning or mischievous trick; a prank, a joke.” And the Wiktionary also claims it is a slang term for female genitals. Now I grew up in a lower middle class community where there were innumerable, mostly crude, words used in reference to various female body parts. But I never heard this one.
So let’s get back to the definition that reflects how most Brits use the term. As always, I turned to the crowd-sourced Urban Dictionary to look for some real context around this definition. Here’s what I found:
Basically someone who’s a major idiot, or is delusional and dumb. Acts against logic and thinks he’s self-righteous. AKA: Major dumbass.
A self-aggrandizing, pompous f**k. Someone who is full of themselves and, almost invariably, stupid as well. With a hint of ‘deluded.’
An overly pretentious person. Someone who is so obviously into themselves that others notice and they fail to realize it.
Offering the kind of insight you can usually only get from a spelling bee moderator, the Oxford Dictionary used prat is a couple sentences:
He looked a right prat in that pink suit.
You’ve made me spill my drink, you prat!
So having read all this and given some thought to the concept of merging stupidity with arrogance, I couldn’t stop myself from asking Siri this question: “Is Trump a prat?”
Perhaps worried that it could result in Matt Goetz descending on Cupertino, I didn’t get a straight answer. But she did offer up a suggestion for me to make up my own mind by delivering this link from Vanity Fair: Trump’s Limo Driver of 25 Years Confirms He is an Unrepentant Asshole.
In its typically humorless way Merriam-Webster defines nincompoop as “a stupid or silly person.” How many words are there for a stupid person? There’s nasty ones, like asshole, judgmental words like idiot and derogatory pronouncements like moron.
(Image by Christian Dorn}
Nincompoop is a kinder, gentler way to say stupid. I learned the word from my grandmother. She often used it in reference to the guy who lived in the back room of her house who I called Uncle Rob, although I was never aware of any evidence relating us. Nincompoop has an ever so slight tinge of empathy, even affection, while still calling stupid stupid.
Some synonyms: boob, dolt, nitwit, lummox, ding-dong, schmuck.
Use of nincompoop predated my grandma. It goes back at least to the early 18th century. One story is that Samuel Johnson, who compiled the first English dictionary, traced it to the Latin phrase non compos mentis (“not of right mind”).
They aren’t buying that over at vocabulary.com: “Nincompoop is a silly-sounding word that’s also kind of old-fashioned, like ninny. No one has any solid idea where it came from, and anyone who claims otherwise is, well, a nincompoop.”
As always I checked the Urban Dictionary for some alternative definitions. Here are some highlights:
“A person who’s intelligence is at a lower caliber and proceeds to flaunt his idiocracy in an unappealing or inappropriate manor(sic).”
“A braindead self important little turd given an impressive sounding job title to keep him blissfully ignorant of the world shattering nefarious machinations of his keepers.”
“Slang term for anyone who is a devoted fan of Nine Inch Nails, or NIN, usually only used by other fans.”
Does anyone still use this word? I searched newspapers.com for use of nincompoop in 2021. I found one columnist, Kathleen Parker, who used it to try to explain Republicans fealty to Donald Trump: “either Trump has a stockpile of incriminating videos — his people have people you know — or today’s Republicans are the weakest, wimpiest crop of nincompoops in American history.” (Monroe, La., News Star, Feb. 1, 2021). Only other use of nincompoop was in a syndicated crossword puzzle.
Did these nincompoops all go shopping together for those suits?
I have many blogger friends who write poetry. As a service to them I went to rhymezone.com and found this list of words that you can rhyme with nincompoop: dupe, scoop, snoop, Guadeloupe, chicken soup, alleyoop, rock group and basketball hoop.
Mending Walls is a public art project in Richmond, Va, the goal of which is to promote healing by having artists from different backgrounds tell their stories through their murals. The project was conceived by Richmond muralist Hamilton Glass. The name comes from a Robert Frost poem about two farmers who come together to mend a fence.
Freedom Constellations: Dreaming of a World Without Youth Prisons, Performing StatisticsThe Journey Forward, Nadd Harvin/HumbleIn Conversation, Hamilton Glass/Matt Lively
Silence Isn’t Golden, David Marion/MeMeTwo of several paintings covering the doors and windows of the Poe Museum in downtown Richmond
Beyond the Mending Walls project, Richmond is a city of murals with more than 150 adorning its public spaces.
Some folks in Richmond have added some color to the Robert E. Lee statue on Monument Ave.The fate of the statues of some of Lee’s Confederate co-conspirators have suffered a more definitive fate.
I started with a lot of questions about this word. Is it one word or two? Is it dingle or dingel? And what exactly does it mean? I thought it referred to animal droppings, specifically the kind that come out in small round pellets, deer shit for example.
One definition of dingleberry is, courtesy of Merriam-Webster, “a foolish, stupid or contemptible person.” Synonyms include chowderhead, dingbat, schlemiel and doofus. You get the idea.
(image by Gerhard G.)
And then there is an actual berry called a dingleberry. Scientifically speaking it is a vaccinium erythrocarpum. That is a small dark red berry similar to a cranberry that is found in the southeast United States.
But neither of those represent the most common definition and usage of the word dingleberry. There are many ways in which this definition has been expressed with varying degrees of specificity and explicitness. Some are awkward and some are disgusting. I dug deep into the Urban Dictiobary to find this most elegantly stated definition of dingleberry:
“A smallish, semi-dry, extraordinarily tenacious remnant of fecal matter which, when unwittingly rolled into a mixture with toilet paper lint by the action of wiping, becomes almost irremovably entangled among ones anal hair, a situationality exacerbated by the vigorous chafing and friction between the buttocks and most commonly remedied by the sad and almost entirely unavoidable remedy of plucking out at its root the individual hair to which each dingleberry is conjoined.”
I will pass on providing photos of this one. I have no interest in searching for them and hope to never be in a position to take a shot myself.
With that definition in mind, consider some of these uses of the word dingleberry.
In California in the John Muir Wilderness there is a Lake Dingleberry. Apparently the lake got its name from the sheep that surround it, sheep that have dingleberries hanging from their backsides.
This is not Lake Dingleberry, but you get the idea (image by Gina Dolenc)
If you live near Columbus, Ga., you could take advantage of the services provided by Dingleberry’s Pet Waste Removal.
Untappd, the app for beer aficionados, has a listing for a Dingleberry beer, a product of the microbrewer Hell ‘n Blazes. It is described as “A Sour German wheat beer aged on boysenberry and passion fruit to give a tart slightly sweet flavor with a dry finish.”
If you prefer something harder, the Cocktail Builder offers up a recipe for a Dingleberry: a combination of root beer schnapps, Jagermeister, Crown Royal and wine. (offtheleash.net disavows any responsibility for what might happen if you go into a bar and order a Dingleberry.)
And last but not least you can go onto Amazon and order up a Dingleberry candle. No idea if it is scented and, if so, with what.
Renewal 2121 at ARTECHOUSE Washington is about how nature survives in an over-developed and technology focused future. The photo above and the two videos below are from the main gallery which features a vision of Tokyo 100 years from now. The visual design is by Yuya Takeda, music is by Mario Hammer and the Lonely Robot. The exhibit is timed to coincide with cherry blossom season in Washington.
This appears at first to be a static scene but as I get closer flowers begin to rain down and as I come closer still you can see the outline of my body.
Part of Abandoned View installation by ARTECHOUSEPart of ATH20XX printed mural by Dragan 76
Nothing ambiguous about this word. Cheddar is cheese. The kind of cheese you put on a cheeseburger. An excellent choice for a grilled cheese. And what respectable macaroni and cheese doesn’t include cheddar.
The typically straight laced Merriam Webster definition of cheddar is: “a hard white, yellow, or orange smooth-textured cheese with a flavor that ranges from mild to strong as the cheese matures — called also cheddar cheese.” Really?
So why is the woman in the Capital One commercial talking about saving cheddar when she shops on line? Because cheddar is also slang for money, a slang that is commonly used in rap songs. Like this one:
(Daniel Costa)
Is there a connection between cheddar the food and cheddar the cash? You betcha. It goes back to a time when Americans found certain benefits like welfare or food stamps embedded with a hunk of cheese. While it may not be one of the options at the local deli to add to a sandwich order, there is something called government cheese. This is an orange processed substance similar to American cheese. It was acquired by the government as part of an effort to subsidize the dairy industry, something that originated in the 1940’s.
By 1981 the government had stockpiled enough of this stuff that they could have provided 2 pounds to every American. President Ronald Reagan announced that the government cheese stockpile should be distributed to the needy. California was the first state to raise its hand. It got a first shipment of 3 million pounds which it distributed to welfare, food stamp and social security recipients. You can well imagine some of those folks saying, “just give me the cheddar.”
There are some other uses of the word cheddar. In the world of sports there is more than one and neither involve strange odors in the locker room. If a baseball pitcher serves up some cheddar it means he threw a fastball, and a good one at that. In hockey if you shoot the puck into the cheddar it goes into the top of the net under the crossbar.
No doubt thinking of the money definition, there is an online business news service called Cheddar. I have focused on cheddar the noun. There is also cheddar the verb, cheddaring being a cheese-making process.
Perhaps it is best summed up In the words of Ice Cube:
