Going Out Glasses

          I was cleaning out my room the other day, as my mom basically jumps on me to do every few summers or so, and found one of my favorite cards that I had long forgotten about. I used to work at the Fairfax Movie Theater when I was fifteen, and one day an elderly woman came in asking if we had found a pair of glasses she’d left behind. We checked all over the theater to no avail, but later received this extremely earnest and oddly descriptive note in the mail:

“Dear Theater Staff:

Thank you so much for helping us search for my husband’s “Going Out” Glasses. The mystery was solved today when we drove our other car (16-year-old Volvo wagon) which needed gas—and there were the G.O.G. How happy we are! We drove his 12-year-old Camry to your theater and I thought he’d taken the specs then. Sorry I have wasted your time.

Merry Christmas, Season’s Greetings and Best Wishes for a Happy New Year,

Robin and Diane”

Did I keep the note because it’s so heartwarming? Or because it contains hilariously detailed references to cars and a proper noun (and acronym!) for a pair of spectacles? I’ll let you be the judge of that :) 

funny money

If you’re begging for money, I’ll be more likely to give it to you if you please me linguistically. Yesterday I took a long walk on the Embarcadero in San Francisco and heard some creative requests. My two favorites: “Can you help me on a down payment for a cheeseburger?” and “Donations for THC research.”

            Sadly I had to hold onto my coins for the ride home (why do city buses require EXACT change??), but next time I want a lesson in effective persuasive language maybe I’ll visit the Tenderloin.

Then I found this amazing website in my quest for more wit. Check it out! I had no idea vulgarity was so in! I like the one “Obama’s not the only one who wants change” and “amature gynocolgist [sic].” Which sign would you be most inclined to tip?

(Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing funny about these people’s situation, only the humorous ways they confront it.)

legitimate b.s.

Speaking of language, sometimes words are used in some pretty appalling ways. Normally by politicians, to nobody's surprise. By now you might be familiar with Missouri Congressman Todd Akin's comments about “legitimate rape.” This is one of those instances when you shouldn't use a qualifying adjective if it's not a direct synonym of “tragic” or “detestable.” A referee can announce a “legitimate goal,” a judge can deem a homicide a “legitimate defense,” Bush can even try to claim that 2000 was a “legitimate election.” But Akin is legitimate proof that men should not call the shots for women.

Like I said, maybe you heard about that story, since it's blowing up the news right now. But did you hear about VP candidate Paul Ryan's reaction? Euphemisms can be really warm and fuzzy and welcomed, like when people tell you you're “more womanly” after Spain instead of saying, “How many tapas did you EAT???” or when we used to suggest to my dog that he “do his business” instead of demanding, “Please shit now!” But to use a euphemism like “method of conception” for “rape,” as Ryan did, is legitimate BS.

(check out this funny political cartoon)

lost in translation: she's probably not a cougar

When I first got to Granada I noticed a startling phenomenon. People were saying “tío” and “tía” in almost every sentence, which I learned in school to mean “uncle” and “aunt.” I thought to myself, what is wrong with this country? Why is everyone interrelated? I know they say Latin families tend to be large, but this is verging on ridiculous….

Turns out “tío” means dude, mate, or guy. So if you travel to Spain, keep in mind that one ten-year-old boy calling another “tío” does not necessarily imply that his father’s sister likes them young.  

lost in translation: biggest regret

Bear with me while I kick off this series on a somber note: my biggest regret.

           My biggest regret in my language learning process was that I didn’t record myself speaking Spanish before I first moved to Spain. I had taken seven years of Spanish and had lived in Nicaragua with a family for one month, but by no means was I fluent. During my time in Spain it was difficult to notice if I was improving my Spanish, because day-to-day conversations blend together and I was learning at such a gradual and consistent pace. Sort of the way you don’t realize you’re putting on weight, but then your friends, who haven’t seen you in a really long time, take one look at you and are like, That girl really let loose, eh? Anyway the same goes for learning a language. Which is why my biggest recommendation to anyone going abroad is: take a before-and-after shot. Or, in this case, recording. That way you can hear yourself talking in a hybrid valley-girl/Spanish accent or confusing gender and referring to yourself as a man. It will be very hilarious and oh-so-gratifying to look back on your progress. 

lost in translation

As I’ve alluded to before, the idea for this blog grew out of the many entertaining moments in my quest for fluency during my year in Spain. I’m going to start this Lost in Translation series that will cover all my favorite anecdotes throughout the process. Enjoy!

lexically inept

I would really like to be a writer, maybe for magazines or newspapers or press releases or even books, but I often get discouraged by what I perceive to be my small vocabulary. Maybe it’s because I re-read Harry Potter too many times instead of moving on to more challenging literature, but sometimes I feel flat out embarrassed when I ask for definitions. But is it really my fault that the English lexicon is composed of over one million words? Am I supposed to know them all? This is one reason why I love Spanish: it has 1/3 the lexicon of English, and so one word becomes very versatile. A typical example would be the adjective pesado, which can mean: heavy, ponderous, massive, deep, profound, troublesome, injurious, gloomy, violent, cumbersome, tedious, tiresome, dull, offensive, oppressive, lazy, clumsy, fat, gross, mischievous, and annoying. In one quick swoop Spanish encapsulates more than 20 meanings in one. What an efficient language!

Often times while speaking Spanish I would try to translate directly from English and would get tripped up because Spanish simply doesn’t have an equivalent. For example, one day I was wracking my brain for the word shallow, the opposite of deep. A simple concept, right? Yet I could not for the life of me remember how to say it. Turns out they don’t. There’s profundo (deep) and there’s poco profundo (not deep). If only life in English were a matter of simple opposites.

My suffering self-esteem in the lexical arena is not helped by my parents, who drop impressive vocabulary in casual conversations as though they were wiping with word-a-day toilet paper. I know they’re not doing this to sound pretentious, but sometimes when I hear my mom form sentences that include magnanimous and reticent I wonder if the meaning could not have just as easily been evoked by using the layperson’s speech: generous and shy. Not all of us majored in English, Mom, so please throw us a bone here.

There are three possible conclusions to this tale:

1. The English language, thanks to cheap TV and movies for the masses, is becoming diluted and one-dimensional.

2. My mom has a superhuman vocabulary.

3. I am linguistically challenged. 

Shall we blame it on the first two? Or does anyone have a pleasing alternative?

the veggie life

               This week I became a vegetarian. I didn’t do it the conventional way, with a grand Last Supper with all my favorite meat dishes. If I had done that, it most likely would have been a table laden with chicken burritos from every Mexican restaurant in a 10-mile radius. Instead it happened more by accident. I woke up on Thursday and thought, “It’s about time I stop eating meat.” Then I realized that I didn’t happen to eat any meat the day before, so Bam!, it was official, I would just keep the clean slate going. 

               In reality, though, it was a long and pensive process, fueled mainly by my participation in UCSB’s environmental club. The number one thing people can do to reduce their carbon footprint is eat less meat (read this article and watch this movie), and after an entire year of pretty consistent long-distance bus and plane travel, I thought my footprint was becoming a bit too pronounced. Also I ate about a small ranch’s equivalent of ham while in Spain, and figured it was about time to give back to the Pork community by sparing their sister and brother and cousin pigs for at least a temporary while (although I will still allow myself some occasional fish).

               So far I’ve had hardly any meat cravings, although I must say that from now on I will be avoiding the “mixed vegetable” burrito at Grilly’s. It’s one thing to cut out meat from a burrito, but it’s a whole new level of atrocity to add broccoli, carrots, and squash to the mix. That, my friends, goes by the separate name of wrap, and it’s to be sold at Good Earth and Whole Foods, not at any self-respecting greasy taquería. 

majors

I first came to UCSB as a declared Global Studies major. It’s sort of a broad major—you know, studying the globe and all—but generally encompassed the fields of international relations, political science, sociology, anthropology, environmental studies….In theory the major would be perfect for me, since I am interested in other countries, languages, and grew up with some very politically-charged family members. However, I soon came to realize how truly depressing it could be to study global affairs day in and day out. Every Powerpoint slide in the Intro classes touched upon some new atrocity the U.S. government had committed in the past week, some new war we were about to enter, some new famine hitting Africa that was producing hoards of round-bellied children. It was simply too much. Instead of instilling me with hope and motivation to do something, I started feeling like it was best to start making funeral arrangements, should the next terrorist attack or natural disaster strike much closer to home.

During this time I took an Intro to Linguistics class, since the use of languages had always interested me. And I discovered an odd and foreign feeling. There is nothing depressing about the way our mouth produces sounds, or the way certain words are constructed, or how different cultures use language differently. The saddest theme that class managed to touch upon was the fact that some remote languages in the far corners of the earth are disappearing—sobering indeed, but a far cry from the tragedies of nuclear warfare and infanticide. After that first class I went on to explore the social side of linguistics—how language is used in social settings and across cultures—and since that day I haven’t looked back. Certainly there are aspects that I don’t find thrilling about the field—namely, syntax, which should come as no great shock—but overall I love what I study, and thoroughly loved applying a linguistic vantage point to learning a new language in Spain (which is the basis for this blog, in fact).

hi there!

I started to have a quarter-life (or hopefully one-fifth-life) crisis today, now that I’m back from my year abroad and facing the reality that I only have one more year of college left before I enter The Real World. Many of my friends have already graduated, and although a substantial number of them are doing really Grown-Up things at impressive companies, there are others who don’t know what to do or, as would be expected in this economy, can’t find work. Which really gets me thinking, that’s going to be me next year. Studying Linguistics is great and all, but what in the world do I do with it? I don’t want to do more schooling, at least for a while. I don’t want to work in a 9-5 desk job and I don’t want to do an unpaid internship (sorry, but it’s America’s euphemism for slave labor). And I really  don’t want to move home after college. (Maybe I should have put future security over true passions and studied Business, afterall.).

            So before sinking into despair, I thought maybe I should focus on some do’s. 

            I do like languages. I do like traveling. And I do love to write.

So just as those who can’t teach, teach gym (School of Rock), those who can’t pass the LSATs or encode computer software for a living, blog. And thus A Thing for Wor(l)ds is born, my space to blab about linguistics (not the boring kind!), jet-setting, and just about anything that strikes my fancy. Because the lead-up to unemployment will be more fun if it’s shared.