When the campaign is Donne

Because halfway through an election campaign is as good a time as any to get metaphysical. 

When next the visage of the moon

Turns coyly from the Earth to wane

In Southern lands, a mournful tune

Plays soft to endeth this campaign

Two foes, hast did declare their troth

As means to quench a powr’ful thirst

One side intendeth jobs and growth

The other, putting people first.

What trigger’d such a grand event?

A solemn vow to disagree

‘Til twice-dissolved, our parliament

Restored not the ABCC

For fortnights twain a battle fought

Continued twenty-eight days more

We sit upon the rowboat’s thwart

With battens placed for what’s in store.

What promises are made thus far?

What quarter shall our champions give

To childcare, tax, the NBN

And gearing in the negative?

As rivals gloat and bluff and boast

It matters not what happens hence

The policies that matter most

Seem nothing much of consequence

Of marriage just, nor refugees

Spake neither glori’ed bureaucrat;

More time and swathes of journalese

Apportioned to a blessed rat.

Wrong.

Because once and a while it gets to me.

Far be it for me to criticise how people speak;

But this is, after all, suppose to be quite tongue and cheek.

I cannot curve my appetite for offering advise,

When people make mistakes – another words, don’t dot their eyes.

I know that some can’t help theirselves, but somethink must be done;

Our language is on tender hooks – it’s doomed! Ask any one.

‘Cause when the death nail sounds and we ignore what could of been,

We’ll all be saying ‘PIN number’ and ‘ATM machine’.

We need to reach agreeance on the things what people say,

And weather one way’s better then a wholly nother way.

It’s still a working progress; all we need is some incite.

There’s no statue of limitations on getting it right.

Whatever your criterias or currant paradigm,

I urge you all whole-hardily – it’s really worth your time.

If that don’t work, I think I’ll chuck it in – I minus well;

For all intensive purposes, our lingo’s gone to Hell.

Sesquipedalian

Because I love a challenge.

When I was in my twenties, a close friend suggested that I would do anything for a dare. While I'd like to think this is still true in essence, I tend to take up fewer of the touching-the-police-officer-on-the-pants-type challenges, and concentrate my efforts on the more sedentary, less going-to-jaily ones.

Like this one, from my friend Chrys Stevenson:

All right then:

There once was a Mr J Sesquipedalian:
Quite an unusual sort of a bloke.
He never (unlike every other Australian)
Shortened the phrases and words that he spoke.

In fact, this young gentleman always preferred,
No matter what topic was being discussed,
To use the most lengthy and tiresome word;
He could think of, which left all his listeners nonplussed.

“You seem a bit aggro this arvo” said one
Of his colleagues. “Indeed it would seem,” replied he;
“The horizon of my basal exasperation;
Has been somewhat broadened, postprandially”.

He thought, “My loquacity’s commonly known
For the air of ingeniousness that it lends.”
But alas, on this point he was sadly alone:
He had many more syllables than he had friends.

Big 'G', Little 'g', What Beginneth Thee?

I spell the word ‘God’ with a capital ‘G’
Which prompts fellow faithless to say unto me:
“Do you want to negate us?
Then why afford status
To Him who we claim is imaginary?”

But, my infidel darlings, I ask you for grace;
‘cause respect’s not denoted by mere upper-case.
And when one means to blaspheme,
A sizeable grapheme
Can work just as well to put Him in his place.

Now please let me explain with a limericky spiel,
Why an upper-case ‘G’ has a certain appeal:
Because bringing it down
To a mere common noun
Makes him something that we can see, hear, taste and feel.

For example, the biscuits I have with my tea
Are most certainly there, with their lower-case ‘b’.
And that rock with its ‘r’
And my little-‘c’ car,
And this book, and that house, and the scar on my knee.

But a majuscule character, placed at the helm,
Can whisk Almighty God to the fantasy realm,
Where He sits with Darth Vader,
Snow White and Tomb Raider
Ben 10, Narnia and A Nightmare on Elm.

Though it’s fun to make some fundamentalists squirm
By attaching a ‘g’ to a sanctified term,
I’m still having a dig
When I choose to go Big
And my barstool in Hell I may boldly confirm.

The Daughter-saurus #4

Appealing, one's sentence.

As soon as she turned two (happy birthday squrimasaurus!), Amy decided that random nouns and finger-pointing simply weren't enough any more. Sure, there have been many attempts at putting words together, such as:
"uptake" - small baked item served in a cup-shaped paper wrapper.
"ot-tee" - any drink served in a mug.
"ai-ee won pwee" - Amy would like that, please.
"not-not" - I would like to enter through this door.

But now we're also seeing:
"I go rah doe" - I'm going to approach my Auntie Jo and say "RAH!"
"Torta Daddy / torta Nan / torta weewee" - I would like to talk to Daddy/Nan/Reni on the phone.
"Ai-ee mwoe-bot beep beep" - I am a robot.
"You mwoe-bot Mummy?" - Are you a robot Mummy?

...and of course the ubiquitous:
"Yutty pooh in dare" - I may have soiled myself, but it's more than likely just a fart.

The Daughter-saurus #3

Dwiving Daddy to Distwaction

As I've previously mentioned, Amy's mastery of English is... shall we say... pending. She's got all the non-verbals right - her intonation and gesticulation are spot-on, if a little insistent and chubby. The only thing she's really got to work on now is the pronunciation of words. A mere trifle, really.

Usually hubby and I can work out what she's trying to say, by playing charades, making educated guesses or, as a last resort, holding up every item in the room consecutively until she says "Yay!" And like many other mummies, I'm a lot better at deciphering Amese than her father is. Except for yesterday.

I'm currently working on a lovely contract with my old employer (with money and everything!), in which I'm required to travel to Sydney once a week to make an appearance at head office. There were a few teething problems when I started, but Stocko is generally pretty awesome in the kid-minding department, and instances of exasperation are getting fewer and further between. Yesterday, however, I was sitting at my desk when my phone rang. It was Stocko. No hello - just the familiar sound of Amy's wail in the background, and Him Indoors asking desperately, "I give up. Babe, what does 'Mah-bwee' mean?"

We never did figure it out.

Pechung! Pechung! Pechungggg!

Three in a row from Mr Thinky.

Mitch reminds me how much fun life can be before one gets the hang of consistent vowel use and homonyms. The following surfaced during a ten-minute car trip...

Me: "Mitch, we're going to play with Lily on the weekend. And her Mummy. Do you remember Lily's Mummy's name?"
Him: "Yes. Sian. Sian the sheep!"

Him: "I think you hurt your leg and you need to go to the doctor."*
Me (remembering that swine 'flu vaccines are now available free for sproglets): "We're all going to the doctor soon!"
Him: "Is the doctor going to give Amy a noodle?"

Him: "Are we at the shops now?"
Me: "Yes. We're in the car park."
Him: "What are we doing?"
Me: "We're looking for a space."
Him: "Are we in SPACE??!?"

*Don't write in. I'm not injured. This is a common theme of Mitchell's, just to prove he cares.

They're alive, and I'm pretty sure I know where they are.

It's not about what you do, it's about finding someone who does it worse.

Since kids were first invented, mothers have been wondering whether or not they're doing a good job. That's why sales of beautifully designed but basically useless parenting aids are so enormous. That's why I live in the shadow of the possibility of Government Kid People taking my beautiful wee ones away and locking me up. That's why I'm thinking of changing my kids' names to Worry and Doubt.

But before one goes out and spends hundreds of dollars on Mummy-facing prams, polysyllabic flash-cards or genetically-modified replacements, one must remember this:
Someone else is doing a crappier job than you.

I know this from hearing Paramedic Hubby's stories of kids with three-day-old fractures.
I know this from friends who've done Family Day Care and had kids turn up without shoes or breakfast and a scar from "playing with Daddy's razor".
I know this from school teacher friends who chase homework from kids who spend their after-school time cooking dinner for their siblings.

Sometimes, too, I'll get a first-hand glimpse, like the father and daughter who just strolled past my front window on the way home from the local primary school.
She was very upset about something, and sobbing to the point of hyperventilation.
He was saying, "Shut UP! All this sh*t about a f*cking pushbike! Jesus!"

Makes Mitchell's stumbling over verb-tense agreement kinda pale in comparison.

The Daughter-saurus #2

They're words, Amy, but let's just keep it between us.

Having a three-year-old (happy birthday plus eleven days, Mitchy!) who is teetering on the brink of Not Being Quite As Obnoxious, I'm really cherishing Amelia's 17-month-old-ness, because now I know. I know that it's only a few months until my precious little cling-on with wobbly legs becomes an all-kicking, all-screaming, all-possessing two-year-old. And one of the things I'm enjoying the most is the emerging language.

I couldn't tell you exactly which language is emerging from Amy - it sounds like English. That is, it's constructed of the same phonemes. But I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who understands it. When, for example, I point to a picture of a turtle in a book and she says, "Toe-too!", I look to whomever happens to be visiting as if to say, "See! She can say turtle!" and I get a look back that says, "Uh-huh. She's very special. Yes. Let's move on."

Nevertheless, I would like to dedicate this First Post in Bloody Ages to the cataloguing of my daughter's little collection of little words, whether I'm imagining them or not. Before I forget.

"Bow" - Bowl.
"Bowwwwwww" - Ball.
"Na-na" - Banana.
"Da!" - Daddy.
"Mimi" - Mummy.
"Da-deh" - Teddy.
"Roll roll roll roll roll" - Roll.
"Eye" - Eye.
"Ya" - Ear.
"Toe-too" - Turtle.
"Nonononononononono" - No.
"Boo!" - Boo!
"WAAAAAAAAA-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" - Mummy, Mitchell just snatched a toy out of my hand and pushed me over and my head hit the floor. Could you pick me up please?

Everybody's got one...

...but not everyone's is switched on.

I have just been watching a so-called debate on Channel Seven's Sunday Night program about vaccination in Australia. It's not a program I'd usually watch, but I'm an avid supporter of vaccination, and wanted to see if the telly would spew forth its usual panic-promoting bollocks.

It didn't. Ray!

There are plenty of people who will blog in detail about the show - I'm looking forward to reading more on Ratbags.com and on the Sceptic's Book of Pooh-Pooh (my vote for Blog Title of the Year). So I'm not going to blather on when some of my favourite bloggers will do it more eloquently and with more respectful insolence than me.

One moment did, however, motivate me to put fingies to keyboard. Meryl Dorey, of the mind-bogglingly misinformed and irresponsible Australian Vaccination Network, made this comment (apparently trying to convince the audience of something):

"I'm not a doctor, but I do have a brain."

I'm instantly reminded of a corker attributed to 19th Century English essayist Adam Cooper:

"Giving English to an American is like giving sex to a child - he knows
it's important but he doesn't know what to do with it."

The Mitchionary #5

Unfortunately, we taught him everything he knows.

This instalment of the Mitchionary is quite simply to record the following, which was suddenly uttered in the car on the way home from the beach:

"What was that, Mummy? Sound like a fart."

And for the record, it wasn't.

The Daughter-saurus #1

My daughter does da-da
Hurrah! Amelia started proper babbling this week, with unmistakeable "Da-da-da"s all over the place. I had forgotten how rewarding and explodingly gorgeous it is to hear intentional and articulate sounds coming from someone who previously only farted, grunted, coughed and wailed her bedroom walls down.
As far as her vocabulary goes, we all know that an alveolar plosive is simpler to form for a 7-month-old than a bilabial nasal, right? In other words, 'da-da' more easy than 'ma-ma'. So there are still good things to come. Are you still reading this?

The Mitchionary #4

My little sponge.
We've been watching our language around here, because it doesn't take long to realise how attentive and non-selective a two-and-a-quarter-year-old can be. Having said that, I was pretty impressed when Mitch refered to Karl Stefanovic as 'a nob' a few weeks ago. Here are a few poetic examples of what our chewable little bloke has sucked up from books, telly, music and twenty million pieces of junk mail (known as 'Mitchell's letters'):

Helmet like on a bicycle with Daddy and Mitchy don't hurt your head no
Helmet.

Like Roary the racing car neeeeeeeeyowm
Car.

Like Thomas woo-woo
Train.

Portant paper
Bank statements, bills, the ferry timetable etc.

Chippy-bikkie
Rice cracker

Bikkie-bikkie
Biscuit

Plis-mahi/Plis-dahi
A well-mannered suffix delivered in haste and designed to deliver a much-wanted item from either parent; for example, "Nuther chippy-bikkie plis-mahi"

Ab-see
The first three letters of the alphabet.

Watch-a-binsie...?
A question about the initial letter of words, for example, "Big A, Little A, Watch-a-binsie A?"

The Mitchionary #3: More potty mouth

Going down in linguistic history

Just when you think his linguistic development is getting boringly normal, what with verb-enriched sentences and a smattering of appropriate possessive pronouns, Mitchell pulls this one out, so to speak:

Whilst watching an episode of Bob the Builder in which a family of small, spiny English mammals are awoken from their winter hibernation, Mitch points to the screen and says, "Headjobs!"

The Mitchionary #2: Compound words

This goes with that... sort of...

One of the most exciting things about having a toddler is watching babbling become words, and then words become phrases. Below are just a few examples of what happens when a 23-month-old is given the tools of language without the instruction manual:

Turnover-toast - any piece of toast lying on a plate topping-side-down.

Make-a-wave - a kitchen appliance that uses invisible waves to heat food.

Pink-dick - a meal eaten outdoors, usually on a rug.

Hairy-daughter - a flying machine that uses rotating blades to acquire lift

Cuddle-milk - what baby sister Amelia's diet consists of.

The Mitchionary #1

Washing one's mouth out with soap.

The English language is a complex thing. And like sex, guns and ice-cream, when put under the control of a toddler, the outcome is not always predictable. With that in mind, I'd like to welcome you to the Mitchionary; a collection of explanatory notes underlying the newly adopted language of a 21-month-old.

In this chapter, we look at some of the words that seem highly inappropriate coming out of the mouth of young Mitchell, and if nothing else, they emphasis the importance of context. Lately we've heard these gems:

Bitch - a sandy area immediately adjacent to the ocean.

Bastard - a receptacle made of natural fibres woven together

Rectal - a quadrilateral shape with opposite sides even and parallel.

Twat - the sound a duck makes.

Setting a example of good England

Time to put Grammar in a home.
You know those people who bore you to death by ignoring the content of television shows, news articles and emails and instead take pleasure in picking the spelling, grammar and pronunciation to pieces? Well I am one of them.

I understand that the teensy, weensy rules of English aren't terribly important in the touchy-feely, as-long-as-we're-all-understood-who-cares scheme of things, but I don't think it's too much to ask to have people who are paid to talk to us make an effort to do it properly. (Obviously I'm not paid to write this, or that last sentence wouldn't have been quite as clumsy).

This morning, when tuning in to Channel Ten's morning news as I was feeding His Majesty, there was a strange story about a training exercise at a Japanese zoo. Zoo staff were learning how to deal with large primates when they do their 'nana, but instead of a real animal, they were shooting tranquiliser darts at a guy in a monkey suit. Or, as Natarsha Belling put it more than once, "a ape suit".

It wasn't like she inelegantly split an infinitive, or mispronounced a foreign seven-syllable place name. The Designated Talking Head of Channel Ten's 11am time slot made a boo-boo that most kindergarten children have worked out of their system. Twice.

Do I really expect people to change the way they talk or write just because I whinge about it? No. Do I reserve the right to whinge simply because it makes me feel good? Lordy, yes.

Dropping Twords #2

About as necessary as antlers on a bar of soap. Literally.
Some words are used so much that they lose their impact, and their meaning fades into ancient history. When they reach that point, People-Who-Couldn't-Care-Less-About-English throw them around like old tissues, with nary a thought for how stupid it makes them look.

To illustrate, see if you can figure out the difference between the following sentences:

1. The woman's car was swept away by the flood.
2. The woman's car was literally swept away by the flood.

I'll tell you the difference. Nothin', that's what. But try telling that to a Channel Ten newsreader, a Today Tonight reporter or another Champion of Unnecessary Filler Words. It's as if adding the word 'literally' gives a sentence more drama; makes it more newsworthy.It's as if the person who wants to say, "there's a hole in my sock" needs to beef it up with, "no, man, really, I'm not kidding - there is really, truly a hole in my sock", when it's quite easy to take his word for it in the first place (incidentally, if you have any issues with my use of the masculine pronoun to denote a person of unspecified gender, please contact me and I'll talk you through it).

Using the same example, if the person in question had a hole the size of a tennis ball in his sock, he could say, "there's a hole in my sock and it's literally as big as a tennis ball". In this case, the addition of 'literally' is justified, because a hole that big is unusual, and a listener might respond with, "Oh buullll it's as big as a tennis ball. You're full of malarkey".

If you find yourself tempted to use 'literally' in a sentence, first try the sentence without it. Please.

Back to blogging...

George am plenty good talkie
One of the things that I've discovered since being on baby-feeding duty at all hours of the morning is the Today show from the US, which starts at around 4am in Sydney. I caught it this morning, and there was a news article that covered comments by John Kerry and a response by George W (see CNN's version).

In a nutshell, Kerry made comments that insinuated that you didn't have to be a genius to be in the US military. And you don't have to be a genius to know that, surely? Bush's retort gave me the biggest laugh I've had in ages. It included the statement, "The United States military are plenty smart".

It's a pity the report I saw cut him off there, and didn't let him finish his sentence. I believe he meant to add, "...but the Commander-In-Chief is dumb as sheyat".

Dropping Twords #1

My concern around preposition abuse.

Over the last year or so, I've noticed a special brand of evil creeping into the business vernacular. It's so sinister that it's disguised itself as a single preposition. It is the word "around".

How can this word be evil, you ask? The same could be asked of gunpowder, plutonium and bagpipes - they're not inherently evil, but put them in the wrong hands and they have the potential to bring civilisation as we know it crumbling to a pile of smoking rubble.

But please, allow me to explain.

In my workplace, a large insurance company which represents a fairly typical corporate office environment, I hear sentences like the following every day:
"We have some concerns around the implementation of the program."
"If you could just prepare a summary around what worked well and what we could do differently..."
"The whole presentation is around the future direction for the department".

In my world, around means encircling, encapsulating, even avoiding. What on earth are these people on about? What happened to "about", "of" and "regarding"?