Route 66
Hello World,
I know it doesn't seem possible that it could be halfway into the middle of January already, but there it is, believe it or don't. It's certainly been chilly enough to remind us all that it's January, with frigid temperatures and howling winds that make it seem even colder. In fact, it's enough to make any rational person believe that the bird bath heaters can't possibly still be working in our bird baths, but au contraire! (That's French for "rusted empty hulks of burnt-out temporary boilers covered with snow.") The heaters have been doing an epic job of keeping the bird baths from icing over, in spite of the brutal conditions, and providing the local wildlife with some much-needed water at a time, as it says in the hymn: "in the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone." In fact, I happened to spot the neighbor's cat, the legendary Cinna-mooch, stopping by for a drink, although with her, we can't rule out the possibility that she was just standing there with her mouth open, and hoping that any thirsty birds coming over to the bird bath would just jump right inside and save her the trouble of having to catch them on the wing instead.
I don't know about where you are, but here it seems that there has been a tremendous rash lately of people not saying what they mean (one hopes) or saying it so badly that it may as well not be what they mean after all. Most recently, we got a copy of a letter at work that had been sent by a patient's relative to our Nursing department, and praised the hospital staff overall, plus one nurse in particular.
==============================
She treated my dad like he was part of her family, and me as well.
She never made us feel like we were bothering her and always offered her help.
Joy and I actually "welded up" when I was taking my dad home.
==============================
Gee, I certainly hope not. I'm thinking that it's hard enough to be a nurse, without being welded to anyone, and going home with the patient's family. Heck, with friends like this, you don't even need the federal government to come in and mess everything up.
Then there was a front-page story from the local newspaper on January 3, which the Fashion Police obviously did not get their claws into -
=================
1989 Bride In Search Of Her Lost Gown
The 50's-era dress, a chapel-train lace
gown with a scooped neck, a fitted bodice
and a flaired skirt, was a sentimental heirloom
=================
I can understand that they didn't want to get any highway flares near her precious wedding dress, but it shouldn't take an emergency crew to figure out that "flaired" is certainly not a word, and even if it were, would still not be the word they were searching for, apparently in vain.
Also coming up short in the homophone department, we get this sports report from the AOL Welcome Screen on January 9, where you think they would know better, but is very rarely the case.
==========================
Ravens Roll Over Chiefs in Kansas City
Baltimore's defense overwhelmed
the Chiefs to the tune of 5 turnovers
on the way to a 30-7 route
===========================
It's certainly true that "rout" and "route" can sound exactly alike, but they are two different words and spelled two different ways for a reason, which has obviously been lost on the Welcome editors, or perhaps they were just "en route" from Happy Hour when they came up with that.
Going in a different direction, but not necessarily a better one, the local newspaper came up with this headline for the front page of their December 29 edition:
=======================
Suspect Arrested In
Slaying Of Woman
Found In Suitcase
=======================
Without any punctuation to help, anyone who hadn't read the original story would have wondered if the police had perhaps conveniently found the suspect in a suitcase, which would be an innovation in law enforcement that they would probably be pretty enthusiastic about, I'm thinking.
Having that same problem with misplaced modifiers on the front of the Sound Shore Sunday Express for November 14, we get this unfortunate head-scratcher:
=========================
Tree Helps Grieving
Parents Be Inspired
France Tucker and Dawn Moriwaki
hold an annual ceremony for children
who have died at the Remembrance Tree
in Larchmont
=========================
I know it wasn't their intention to imply that all the children died at the same tree, but for heaven's sake, you've got to send that whole caption back to the drawing board once it becomes so confusing that it's almost inadvertently funny.
They did no better on the main front page that same day, tossing out this curious tidbit with no further information or a picture to help it along:
========================
Soldier Story
Troops keep
visiting senators
safe in Iraq
========================
I read that three times, and couldn't help but wonder what was so fascinating about the senator's safe that the troops kept going to visit it while they were in Iraq.
This last one actually happened to me in person, as I needed to place a service call with Verizon for some work that had to be done at church. When we upgraded the church's alarm system, we were told that the phone company would have to come to install this RJ31X box to be tied into the alarm control panel, so I called them to make an appointment. It turned out to be scheduled for Wednesday, December 29, which was two days after the blizzard, and conditions were better than they were on that Monday, but still pretty ugly out there. I got to church early in the morning to find that the driveway had not been plowed by the people who plow the parking lot behind us, so I had no place to put myself or the Verizon truck when they showed up. I told the parking attendant that since they hadn't plowed the driveway, I had no choice but to park in the lot itself, and Verizon right along with me, and they could lump it. There also was no path shoveled out of the lot, so anyone wanting to go to the church had to jump through the drifts in order to reach the sidewalk. Fortunately, the electricians were also scheduled to do work that day, and they pitched right in and cleared a trail from the lot right to the door, and couldn't have been nicer about it. As soon as I got inside the building, I called Verizon so they could be alerted ahead of time that the truck would have to park in the lot behind the church and not in the driveway, because I didn't want them driving around the block in circles and not know where to go. It turned out that I needn't have worried. I spent two hours in the phone, and pretty much wasted the entire day waiting, only to find out that they weren't going to be coming anyway. When I finally reached someone who understood what was going on, she explained to me that the order had not been put in as a dispatch call, but rather a central station call, which meant that no one was going to be coming out to the site to do any work there. By that point, I was cold and tired and annoyed, so I couldn't help but ask the woman how exactly they thought that they were going to actually install the RJ31X box on the wall of our boiler room next to the alarm panel, from the central station and without really being on the premises - by holographic remote control perhaps? Frankly, I was prepared to get all welded up if she was able to help me out of this route, but I guess she could tell that my nostrils were flaired, and I suspect that our next service request will be found in a suitcase with the rest of the victims at the Remembrance Tree.
Elle
I know it doesn't seem possible that it could be halfway into the middle of January already, but there it is, believe it or don't. It's certainly been chilly enough to remind us all that it's January, with frigid temperatures and howling winds that make it seem even colder. In fact, it's enough to make any rational person believe that the bird bath heaters can't possibly still be working in our bird baths, but au contraire! (That's French for "rusted empty hulks of burnt-out temporary boilers covered with snow.") The heaters have been doing an epic job of keeping the bird baths from icing over, in spite of the brutal conditions, and providing the local wildlife with some much-needed water at a time, as it says in the hymn: "in the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone." In fact, I happened to spot the neighbor's cat, the legendary Cinna-mooch, stopping by for a drink, although with her, we can't rule out the possibility that she was just standing there with her mouth open, and hoping that any thirsty birds coming over to the bird bath would just jump right inside and save her the trouble of having to catch them on the wing instead.
I don't know about where you are, but here it seems that there has been a tremendous rash lately of people not saying what they mean (one hopes) or saying it so badly that it may as well not be what they mean after all. Most recently, we got a copy of a letter at work that had been sent by a patient's relative to our Nursing department, and praised the hospital staff overall, plus one nurse in particular.
==============================
She treated my dad like he was part of her family, and me as well.
She never made us feel like we were bothering her and always offered her help.
Joy and I actually "welded up" when I was taking my dad home.
==============================
Gee, I certainly hope not. I'm thinking that it's hard enough to be a nurse, without being welded to anyone, and going home with the patient's family. Heck, with friends like this, you don't even need the federal government to come in and mess everything up.
Then there was a front-page story from the local newspaper on January 3, which the Fashion Police obviously did not get their claws into -
=================
1989 Bride In Search Of Her Lost Gown
The 50's-era dress, a chapel-train lace
gown with a scooped neck, a fitted bodice
and a flaired skirt, was a sentimental heirloom
=================
I can understand that they didn't want to get any highway flares near her precious wedding dress, but it shouldn't take an emergency crew to figure out that "flaired" is certainly not a word, and even if it were, would still not be the word they were searching for, apparently in vain.
Also coming up short in the homophone department, we get this sports report from the AOL Welcome Screen on January 9, where you think they would know better, but is very rarely the case.
==========================
Ravens Roll Over Chiefs in Kansas City
Baltimore's defense overwhelmed
the Chiefs to the tune of 5 turnovers
on the way to a 30-7 route
===========================
It's certainly true that "rout" and "route" can sound exactly alike, but they are two different words and spelled two different ways for a reason, which has obviously been lost on the Welcome editors, or perhaps they were just "en route" from Happy Hour when they came up with that.
Going in a different direction, but not necessarily a better one, the local newspaper came up with this headline for the front page of their December 29 edition:
=======================
Suspect Arrested In
Slaying Of Woman
Found In Suitcase
=======================
Without any punctuation to help, anyone who hadn't read the original story would have wondered if the police had perhaps conveniently found the suspect in a suitcase, which would be an innovation in law enforcement that they would probably be pretty enthusiastic about, I'm thinking.
Having that same problem with misplaced modifiers on the front of the Sound Shore Sunday Express for November 14, we get this unfortunate head-scratcher:
=========================
Tree Helps Grieving
Parents Be Inspired
France Tucker and Dawn Moriwaki
hold an annual ceremony for children
who have died at the Remembrance Tree
in Larchmont
=========================
I know it wasn't their intention to imply that all the children died at the same tree, but for heaven's sake, you've got to send that whole caption back to the drawing board once it becomes so confusing that it's almost inadvertently funny.
They did no better on the main front page that same day, tossing out this curious tidbit with no further information or a picture to help it along:
========================
Soldier Story
Troops keep
visiting senators
safe in Iraq
========================
I read that three times, and couldn't help but wonder what was so fascinating about the senator's safe that the troops kept going to visit it while they were in Iraq.
This last one actually happened to me in person, as I needed to place a service call with Verizon for some work that had to be done at church. When we upgraded the church's alarm system, we were told that the phone company would have to come to install this RJ31X box to be tied into the alarm control panel, so I called them to make an appointment. It turned out to be scheduled for Wednesday, December 29, which was two days after the blizzard, and conditions were better than they were on that Monday, but still pretty ugly out there. I got to church early in the morning to find that the driveway had not been plowed by the people who plow the parking lot behind us, so I had no place to put myself or the Verizon truck when they showed up. I told the parking attendant that since they hadn't plowed the driveway, I had no choice but to park in the lot itself, and Verizon right along with me, and they could lump it. There also was no path shoveled out of the lot, so anyone wanting to go to the church had to jump through the drifts in order to reach the sidewalk. Fortunately, the electricians were also scheduled to do work that day, and they pitched right in and cleared a trail from the lot right to the door, and couldn't have been nicer about it. As soon as I got inside the building, I called Verizon so they could be alerted ahead of time that the truck would have to park in the lot behind the church and not in the driveway, because I didn't want them driving around the block in circles and not know where to go. It turned out that I needn't have worried. I spent two hours in the phone, and pretty much wasted the entire day waiting, only to find out that they weren't going to be coming anyway. When I finally reached someone who understood what was going on, she explained to me that the order had not been put in as a dispatch call, but rather a central station call, which meant that no one was going to be coming out to the site to do any work there. By that point, I was cold and tired and annoyed, so I couldn't help but ask the woman how exactly they thought that they were going to actually install the RJ31X box on the wall of our boiler room next to the alarm panel, from the central station and without really being on the premises - by holographic remote control perhaps? Frankly, I was prepared to get all welded up if she was able to help me out of this route, but I guess she could tell that my nostrils were flaired, and I suspect that our next service request will be found in a suitcase with the rest of the victims at the Remembrance Tree.
Elle
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 7:16 PM
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