Friday, March 16, 2007
Why Does a Hummingbird Hum?
Because he doesn’t know the words. Or so the old joke goes. But there’s another annoying thing you can do when you don’t know the words: pretend that you do. I like to call it the “It’s the End of the World” syndrome.
Everybody knows the R.E.M. song “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” It’s a very catchy tune. Very singalongable. (It’s a word. Shut up.) The only problem is that nobody knows the words. (By the way, have you ever encountered someone who knows the words? Hearing them sing along to the song is awe-inducing. I’m more impressed by people who bothered to learn the 100 or so words to the song than those weirdos who memorize thousands of digits of pi.)
So when a “normal” person sings along to “It’s the End of the World,” it usually goes something like this:
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
And I feel fine.
Six o’clock, don’t get caught
Bbb bup, dbddb bdup
Mmmm bbup ddllbeep boop
LEONARD BERNSTEIN!
(By the way, there’s a similar response with Madonna’s “Vogue.” But since that song sucks, I’m not going to bother naming the phenomenon after it.)
Not knowing the words doesn’t actually stop you from singing. Instead, you sing a lot quieter and just kind of mumble your way through the song. The goal is to sing so quietly that nobody can make out what you’re saying, but loud enough that they can tell that you’re saying SOMEthing.
I’ve always wondered what makes people do this. It never occurred to me that I should really be questioning when people START doing this. The reason is that Luke has recently started doing this when I read him books. Generally, he knows one word per page, usually the very last word. And so he tries to read along with me. But what I end up getting is something like: “mmmm mmmm nnnn mmmm snow.”
If you haven’t had someone do this to you while you’re reading, it’s EXTREMELY annoying. It makes it incredibly hard to concentrate on actually reading the book. I know what you’re thinking: “You’re reading a book to a 2-year-old. How much frigging concentration do you need?” The answer is: a lot.
The reason is that these books are confusing. They have a lot of rhymes in them. They repeat a lot. But they don’t always repeat exactly every word. And if you’re reading Dr. Seuss, he makes up ridiculous words just because he can’t think of anything else to rhyme. (Dr. Seuss really annoys me right now. Honestly. I wish I could be inside his brain as he was writing this stuff. “’There was a knock on the door.’ Huh, what rhymes with ‘door’? ‘More’? ‘Score’? I’ve got it! ‘In walked a hufflepoor.’” GAH!)
Anyway, if you’re reading and you’ve got someone right next to you repeating every word you say half a beat late and/or saying “mmmm mmmm,” you completely forget what you’re saying. All context is gone. You’re basically just seeing words and saying them, hoping that you’re not ruining the pace or meaning. Basically, it’s like when you tried to read out loud in front of your reading group in grade school. Your only hope was to not screw up so that the other kids would say, “it’s pronounced MALapropism, not malaPROPism.” Second graders can be so cruel.
Everybody knows the R.E.M. song “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” It’s a very catchy tune. Very singalongable. (It’s a word. Shut up.) The only problem is that nobody knows the words. (By the way, have you ever encountered someone who knows the words? Hearing them sing along to the song is awe-inducing. I’m more impressed by people who bothered to learn the 100 or so words to the song than those weirdos who memorize thousands of digits of pi.)
So when a “normal” person sings along to “It’s the End of the World,” it usually goes something like this:
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
And I feel fine.
Six o’clock, don’t get caught
Bbb bup, dbddb bdup
Mmmm bbup ddllbeep boop
LEONARD BERNSTEIN!
(By the way, there’s a similar response with Madonna’s “Vogue.” But since that song sucks, I’m not going to bother naming the phenomenon after it.)
Not knowing the words doesn’t actually stop you from singing. Instead, you sing a lot quieter and just kind of mumble your way through the song. The goal is to sing so quietly that nobody can make out what you’re saying, but loud enough that they can tell that you’re saying SOMEthing.
I’ve always wondered what makes people do this. It never occurred to me that I should really be questioning when people START doing this. The reason is that Luke has recently started doing this when I read him books. Generally, he knows one word per page, usually the very last word. And so he tries to read along with me. But what I end up getting is something like: “mmmm mmmm nnnn mmmm snow.”
If you haven’t had someone do this to you while you’re reading, it’s EXTREMELY annoying. It makes it incredibly hard to concentrate on actually reading the book. I know what you’re thinking: “You’re reading a book to a 2-year-old. How much frigging concentration do you need?” The answer is: a lot.
The reason is that these books are confusing. They have a lot of rhymes in them. They repeat a lot. But they don’t always repeat exactly every word. And if you’re reading Dr. Seuss, he makes up ridiculous words just because he can’t think of anything else to rhyme. (Dr. Seuss really annoys me right now. Honestly. I wish I could be inside his brain as he was writing this stuff. “’There was a knock on the door.’ Huh, what rhymes with ‘door’? ‘More’? ‘Score’? I’ve got it! ‘In walked a hufflepoor.’” GAH!)
Anyway, if you’re reading and you’ve got someone right next to you repeating every word you say half a beat late and/or saying “mmmm mmmm,” you completely forget what you’re saying. All context is gone. You’re basically just seeing words and saying them, hoping that you’re not ruining the pace or meaning. Basically, it’s like when you tried to read out loud in front of your reading group in grade school. Your only hope was to not screw up so that the other kids would say, “it’s pronounced MALapropism, not malaPROPism.” Second graders can be so cruel.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
The Smell of Eastern Europe
This morning, I went to the gym for a swim. I haven't been to the gym since before Courtney was born and I really needed a workout. (Oh yeah, had a child last week. Cute little thing. Check out The Wife's blog for more details and pics. I'll probably write something about it later. Like in 10-12 years.)
Somehow, I managed to lose about 3 pounds while I was off work for the last week. That really boggled my mind given how much I've been eating. But then I've also been working on the basement. We're trying to finish it so that we can throw our children down there and lock the door. So I'm working at a feverish pace to get it done. It's slow work, but I'm making a bit of progress. Anyway, apparently all that work caused me to lose some weight. Perhaps I should ditch my actuarial job and get into construction. Then I wouldn't need to sign up for a triathlon to lose weight.
So there I am this morning in the pool. There are 4 lanes and there are two people already swimming. I choose the lane between them. I'm familiar with the guy who's swimming next to me. (I have no idea who the lady is and she's irrelevant to the story. Let's just say she's Star Jones and move on.) This guy is about 50 and some sort of eastern European immigrant. I'm basing that on three things: (1) he's short and stout, (2) he has a mustache and (3) he has an accent.
I've always wondering where he's from though. The Wife is part German and Czech (and Swedish, but that's not germane to the story). I'm part Polish. It's probably one of those. Today, I found out which nationality he is.
As I was swimming, I couldn't help but notice that the guy was a bit pungent. I thought it odd that someone could possibly smell so bad in a pool. And that's when I realized that I wasn't smelling B.O. I was smelling cologne. (Now there's another tip-off that he's eastern European. Too much cologne.) So I thought to myself, "what kind of person puts on a load of cologne before going swimming?" Aha! A Polack, that's who. In fact, he probably thought, "hey, I'm going swimming this morning, I'd better put on some extra cologne in case some of it washes off." It's this kind of thinking that got us solar-powered flashlights and submarines with screen doors.
Somehow, I managed to lose about 3 pounds while I was off work for the last week. That really boggled my mind given how much I've been eating. But then I've also been working on the basement. We're trying to finish it so that we can throw our children down there and lock the door. So I'm working at a feverish pace to get it done. It's slow work, but I'm making a bit of progress. Anyway, apparently all that work caused me to lose some weight. Perhaps I should ditch my actuarial job and get into construction. Then I wouldn't need to sign up for a triathlon to lose weight.
So there I am this morning in the pool. There are 4 lanes and there are two people already swimming. I choose the lane between them. I'm familiar with the guy who's swimming next to me. (I have no idea who the lady is and she's irrelevant to the story. Let's just say she's Star Jones and move on.) This guy is about 50 and some sort of eastern European immigrant. I'm basing that on three things: (1) he's short and stout, (2) he has a mustache and (3) he has an accent.
I've always wondering where he's from though. The Wife is part German and Czech (and Swedish, but that's not germane to the story). I'm part Polish. It's probably one of those. Today, I found out which nationality he is.
As I was swimming, I couldn't help but notice that the guy was a bit pungent. I thought it odd that someone could possibly smell so bad in a pool. And that's when I realized that I wasn't smelling B.O. I was smelling cologne. (Now there's another tip-off that he's eastern European. Too much cologne.) So I thought to myself, "what kind of person puts on a load of cologne before going swimming?" Aha! A Polack, that's who. In fact, he probably thought, "hey, I'm going swimming this morning, I'd better put on some extra cologne in case some of it washes off." It's this kind of thinking that got us solar-powered flashlights and submarines with screen doors.
