The Great Dish Dilemma

From yesterdays exploration of names I decided that today I was going to write about words. So I'm going to try and come up with some lists of interest, which may or may not work out... Without further ado.

Words That Have Different Meanings In Other Languages

• Japanese: 'mansion' means 'apartment' (very environmentally conscious of them)
• German: 'hell' means 'light'; (that Germans sure have an interesting perspective on life :)
• Malay: 'cat' means 'paint' (alluring translation. does that mean it would acceptable to have a pet can of paint, or is that stretching it?)
• English: 'pants' mean 'underwear'; 'fit' means 'hot' -not the opposite of cold, the other hot- (I might write more about awesome English translations in a future post)
• Swedish: 'fart' means 'speed'; 'slug' means 'smart'; 'gift' means poison OR unmarried (is this some sort of sick stereotype of single people? Note to self: don't go to Sweden unmarried)

Another Wikipeida page excerpt:

A word is a unit of language that represents a concept which can be expressively communicated with meaning. A word consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together, and has a phonetic value.

Some word quotes:

• “The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.” - Mark Twain
  
• “When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain” - William Shakespeare
  
• “Words should be used as tools of communication and not as a substitute for action” -??
  
• “I do not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” -Voltaire
  

And then the Internet service wanted me to pay for more... from my research there seems to be a common thought that words mean little when compared to the action that follows. Or doesn't follow. Apparently words are not a substitute for action, only a placeholder.

Oh my beloved placeholders. Interesting, fine, whatever, I don't care. Holding the place of your real feelings before they have a chance to burst out of you at random intervals whether at the newspaper carrier who dared to cut across your beautiful lawn or you good friend whose last remark was the breaking point of a carefully planned facade.

There I go again, off on my anger management rants. Read Just Listen by Sarah Dessen to fully understand.

Sometimes it'll wash over you in this weird wavelike sensation, the power of words. Where did they come from? How did they start? How do we learn? It's so fascinating. Or boring. It's fascinating to me but it's just now occurring to me that this may be a dull blog entry for you readers. I'm going to go grab my journal and see if there's anything in there relating to this topic that I can copy....

Okay this does not relate to words but I liked reading it so hopefully you will to. This is an excerpt from my Wreck This Journal which may some day be part of an autobiography. Consider that you are reading a preview for an amazing book:

You know that dish smell? The one you can never get off your hands when you finish washing dishes. I've taken to wearing rubber gloves but then you still get that rubber  glove smell on your hands. I'm not sure which I dislike most. When dishes start to pile up it gets harder and harder to keep up. You can either wash the dishes that have been there for two weeks and are growing mold, therefore smell excruciatingly bad or you can wash the freshly dirty dishes therefore saving them from becoming their horrifying friends in two weeks. But then your old dishes just get worse, intensifying your problem. You rarely have the time or patience to wash ALL the dishes or there would be no dishes in the first place. What are you to do? (question for comments: what would you do? wash the fresh or the smelly old)

This charming page is illustrated with a lovely picture of a stick person (me) standing beside a sink with rubber gloves on with my hands up in the air. Dishes are stacked up and a there is a frenzied look on my face. It's quite the dilemma.

There you have it. A look into the future (when it's inevitably published as a novel) and the past, when I wrote it about a year ago.

I'm sorry to say that other than these flashes of the past my journal is getting very little traffic these days. Other than to write down ideas to blog about (which in case you haven't guess are a bit dry at the moment) I have no time to write in it. This blog is simply sucking up all my creative writing juices. I'll try to make it up to my dear friend at the end of April when I'll be so used to writing every day it will be quite the transition to pick up a pen instead of my laptop. 

End blog. .:dftbA:. (note: I acknoweledge and embrace the typos in here for they are as much a part of me as my gorgeous belly button. typos for the win!)