A Poem Lovely As A Tree

Hello World, Now that it's more than halfway past the middle of the month, it's really starting to seem like fall around here for real. After weeks of unseasonably warm weather (nonetheless welcome for all that) there's finally some cooler temperatures, especially overnight, and that sound you hear is the unmistakable clatter of people shutting their storm windows all over the region at long last. Some of the leaves are changing on trees and bushes, and it won't be long before the frost is on the pumpkin in earnest, I'm thinking. The venerable Farmers Almanac is standing by their assertion that we're in for another frigid and snowy winter, like last year, while meteorologists insist that we can expect milder conditions to prevail throughout the Northeast for the most part. I'm not one to take sides, heaven knows, especially when it's all guesswork to start with, but one thing I do know - it all depends on who gets to our old nemesis Comrade Mischka and his infernal weather machine first, da? Speaking of weather, all of us around this idyllic enclave in the Queen City on the Sound were presented with the following invitation from our friendly neighborhood association last week - ========================== Greetings, One of the activities discussed by the Social Committee was a plant swap. There are still some good gardening days left. If anyone has excess plants in need of dividing or anyone who is interested in obtaining plants, please let me know and we can organize a plant exchange/swap/ give a way. For instance, I have hostas, of various types in need of dividing, Siberian Iris for anyone who is interested. Let me know so we can arrange this. Mary O. =========================== My reply was swift, concise and unambiguous: To paraphrase Henny Youngman, "Take my poison ivy ..... PLEASE!!!" So far, I haven't been overwhelmed with requests, but it's early days yet, and I refuse to become discouraged. But while we're on the topic of discouraging things, what hasn't been happening in the printed press these days - ye gods, it's enough to make grown men weep, and normally sober intellectuals long for the oblivion that only strong drink can provide. You know it's bad when even columnist Phil Reisman (who is an actual writer, and not just some cub reporter or copy boy pressed into service to fill a void) and who should certainly know better, lets slip some ridiculous mistake into his usually meticulous prose, setting off waves of eye-rolling on an epic scale. In a recent column, he offered this commentary on Governor Cuomo's new book: ===================================== "No one is likely to read this 513-page book, except the governor's closest friends and relatives. Everyone else will skim the index for their names. Otherwise, they will use the book as a doorjamb." ===================================== Inasmuch as a "jamb" refers to the actual frame of the door, it is all but certain that "doorjamb" is not the word that he wanted to use by any means, and I'm not just saying that because a book that can be used as a door frame has yet to be invented by the publishing or construction industries - which is probably just as well. I'm convinced that his intended target was "doorstop" instead, and although I'm willing to concede some style points for the idea that a creative type might hope to coin the term "door jam" for an object that you jam into a door to keep it open, I still have to draw the line at using "doorjamb" in the sense of "doorstop," and I am unanimous in that. Meanwhile, in the Life & Style section of the local newspaper, there was this follicle faux pas in an otherwise workmanlike article on fall fashion trends: ============================================ This season masculine-inspired hairstyles also are trending. Switch up your look by sheering long locks for a short 'do. ============================================ Ouch! Like "peak" and "peek," or "real" and "reel," the poor over-burdened spell-checker is not going to help you when homonym trouble crops up, and you go ahead and choose "sheer" in the place of "shear." Of course, this is why the late and lamented Daniel Webster invented the dictionary in the first place, bless his heart, and even a cursory examination would show that "sheering" is pretty much restricted to nautical uses, for a ship going off course. In the newspaper, they would probably refer to it as going off "coarse," I shouldn't wonder. It was actually in the same day's paper that they ran a news story about the iconic Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City being sold off to a Chinese insurance company, to the tune of $2B (that's two BILLION dollars, mind you) as well as major renovations of the premises. This caused panicky jitters all along the Potomac, with fears that federal offices and diplomatic staff already located at the hotel would be subject to electronic surveillance and international espionage at perilously close range. This is normally what I would consider a snoozer of a story, but it caught my eye because it featured this arresting headline: ============================= Government weary of potential privacy, security risks at hotel ============================= One can only suppose the writers intended to portray the administration as "wary" rather than "weary," and here again, the spell-checker is powerless to help in these situations, whereas Daniel Webster's old-fashioned hard copy version would be all it would take to avert disaster on the long and weary road to wariness, I dare say. On the other hand, we can't overlook the possibility that the word they were actually clutching for was "worry" rather than either of the other two, and then the joke would really be on me after all. And finally, we have the following alarming tidbit courtesy of one of our alert readers (thanks, Deb!) which only goes to prove, if any more proof was needed, that things can always be worse - =========================================================== There was a spell-check mistake in Sunday's Inquirer which made me think of you: The Rev Father Peter Konteh lives next door to death. From the yard of his house in Freetown, the Catholic priest watches a procession of copses arrive at King Tom Cemetery. ============================================================ At our house, this is what we call the "Zombie Apocalypse" version of the spell-checker, where instead of the usual benign and inert corpses that should be going to their eternal rest, apparently this burial ground is being over-run with rampant stands of trees, traipsing about the place, no doubt waving their branches in menacing fashion, and giving the locals reason to hope that their bark is worse than their bite. All they need now is the chainsaw-wielding lunatic, and the lingerie-clad co-ed in the basement with the broken flashlight, to really turn this gothic pot-boiler into a page-turning thriller of arboreal proportions. Personally, I intend to use mine as a doorjamb. Elle