Hamm On Wry

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I totally love this poem and that I might make a podcast out of it. My friend John thinks that Grammar Girl has it wrong when it comes to split infinitives, but I would like to point out that our language is based on how we want things to be now, regardless of convention or tradition. After all, read this poem and tell me that you think it rhymes right. It doesn’t now, but at some point in the past it very well might have, or at least been closer.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation — think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough –
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

Ah, the entire world has lost it’s shit over the Leopard delay and Apple’s deflection of blame. Personally, I think it’s all a tempest in a teacup, but then I have work to do for most days. Daniel Jalkut’s concerns, while certainly legit, miss a few points, as I pointed out in my comments, which you can read here.

But I’ll reiterate them for you here, as I find it fascinating that people are overlooking the basics truth that all these wonderful Apple products are finally going to be fruits of the same software tree. That’s brilliant!

The AppleTV brought a new set of tools to the OS, requiring the same level of care that we always expect from Apple. The iPhone brings an even more impressive set of new features and abilities, not the least of which is Multi-touch input, as well as a third type of chip - we have Intel/x86, IBM/PowerPC and now we have ARM. The last time Apple added the ability to run OS X on a new chip, it was a year long dev process that impacted everyone. This only impacts the internal team, as it’s closed from outside development, but why would you think it would impact that same team less?

Developing Multi-touch on top of OS X means that touchscreens for certain apps, especially drawing and editing film (trust me on this, it’s a dream of mine) would be soon supported with Apple built displays. That’d be brilliant!

So who cares that it’s 4 months late? At this point, everyone is just whining because they want a new toy now. Sorry, I don’t care. I want my tools to work, work right, and if they do have a bug, it’s because of something that couldn’t be accounted for, not because they didn’t have the time to test it. That’s why I own Macs in the first place.

It’s been that long since Rob left us, and I still really don’t have a better idea of what happened, other than a freak accident that can’t be explained. I’m still saddened that he’s not here with us, but it’s easier, now, a year later, to remember the really cool things about him that we will all keep with us. Personally, his smile, his laugh, and his easy-going personality were a great boon to me during my time in Maine. I wish more people could have met him, and I really wish more people were like him. I can honestly say that I’m a better person for having met him. He is well loved.

I’m in Houston, Texas, the scene of the single most trying year of my adult life. I’ve been through a lot, not a war, and not as much as everyone else in the world - but this isn’t a contest. I’ve been through enough to know that years like 2006 was for me what 2001 was for New York - devastating, trying, excruciating, hateful, and, for what ever reason, MINE. I know it wasn’t just a bad year for me, and believe me I know it was worse for others, not the least of which is The Cheerleader.

But I can, now, look on it and, while it’ll never be ok, I don’t have any personal regrets about it. I did what I had to do. I learned more than I should have. I survived, and am stronger, more capable and just all-around better for it. Are there things I would reverse if I could? Of course there are, I would never have anyone go through what The Cheerleader had to face. And she’s not the first of my close friends to lose a spouse, The Scot went through that when she was 30, and she won’t be my age for at least another 4 days. (HA!)

I’m in Texas now, tho, here because on April 9th it will be a year since Richard died. In that time, so much has changed, so many people who called themselves ‘friends’ proved to be nothing more than drinking buddies – drinking buddies who couldn’t be bothered with a real-life event, at that. So many others, tho, have stepped-up and shown themselves to be great friends. Some have even been promoted to family, by choice and by grace, regardless of legal standing.

And as I type this up, at 3 am, I want to thank some people who I dearly love, in no particular order: Mom, who really is amazing. Dad, who for the first time I understand and relate to, and he seems to relate to and understand me, too. Boo, who has her moments, but who amazes me nonetheless. Tricia, who is expecting my nephew any day now, and who I keep meaning to call but somehow it’s always late when I remember and she’s a morning person. Zola, who kept my grandpa going strong for 20 years after he’d given up on pretty much everything, and whom I also mean to call. Sue, my aunt, who I know is crazy, but who has some of the best views on the world, and is kinda fun to see nowadays. Larry & Elaine, my aunt and uncle who, no matter how long it’s been since I’ve seen them, they have some great story and want to hear mine, too. Kelly, Jen, Erin, Ryan & Alex, the cousins, whom I miss, and who have spread out all over the country. Victoria, Ruth Anne, and India, my other sister, other mom and my middle-namesake-other-niece, who all love me so much they ignore the fact that I’ve not made it out for a visit since they moved to San Diego. Jan, Brian and Trevor Johnson, the Phoenicians I miss more than I’d miss the sun. Chris, the Phoenician I managed to get moved to Texas and who, really, is going to be one of the business leaders of the next 25 years. Keithi, The Scot; Julie, The Celt, Nae, the Leader and Mando, the barkeep - the girls who made highschool fun, and every day since even better. Janna, who also was part of high school, but also since we were 8, through our first year of college, then she visited me in Phoenix over the holidays in 1997, and who, through it all, has been brilliant. Jerial, who has managed, magically, to be both friend and anchor to Janna and to me. To Sirois, a voice of insanity in a really boring state, Stacey, the side-kick roommate who, with me, could make the pope pee his robe, and Marilyn, the only bookkeeper to wear her Harley-Davidson leather to work and not even raise an eyebrow - and she’s now a grandmother twice over!

And the list goes on and on. Please, if you’re not in this list, don’t be upset, it’s not that I don’t think of you. I know tons of people, almost all of whom I like. These people, tho, are the guard-rails on the winding-twisting-fucked up road that is my life, and I’m beyond grateful for them. They are loved, intensely, by me, and I wish I could see them all every day.