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painting with words
Dec. 18th, 2007 11:30 pmI'm reading a linguistics book called The Stuff of Thought, which deals with how we learn words and how words don't just compose our thoughts, but influence how we think them. It is funny, interesting, and appropriately, thought provoking.
I'm only a little over a hundred pages into it, because it's the book I take with me when I go out to eat, and I've only been doing that once every few weeks. I went out tonight, because on Tuesdays the Barley House has half-price guinness, and I had some success selling stuff on ebay this past weekend.
So while I'm sitting there eating and reading, Mechelle--who is one of the servers and who I've known now for about 5 years--is at the table next to mine and she's explaining tonight's specials. One of the specials was cornmeal battered knockwurst, which is a bit of a stretch for this place, and not in a good direction in my opinion. In contrast, the other special was a parmesan and herb encrusted NY strip steak, which was HUGE.
Now, to properly appreciate this, you have to understand a little about Mechelle. She is friendly, enthusiastic, a little intense, and almost constantly in motion. She has two speeds: fast, and faster. She's also professional, thorough, and conscientious. And she likes to have fun. So, she's describing the knockwurst to the customers at the next table. When she had told me about them, she described them as "fancy corn dogs", and clearly had been making fun of it all. With the "real" customers she was a more polite, but having just as much fun as she told them that "you can really taste the fair in them!".
I almost laughed out loud! I thought that was just awesome, and later said so to her. Unfortunately, they didn't get it. Which completely surprised me. I'm not the swiftest guy when it comes to "getting" people, nor am I the most well-spoken. But that doesn't stop me from loving words (and actually, maybe helps explain some of the motivation for doing so) and I love the chance to experience a clever phrase or twist on a thought.
Maybe it's because I've been to the Ohio State Fair, which is one of the largest in the country, or maybe it's because my social anxiety shite went full-throttle after I moved out here, but I have never been to a county fair here in New Hampshire. But I'm sure I could do a fair now. After all, I've been to King Richard's Faire down in Mass which was just packed with people, and to the Robin Hood Faire at Hammond Castle in Gloucester, which is very cozy. And after having been entertained with Mechelle's word-play tonight, I'm hungry for a funnel cake, overly-greasy french fries with vinegar, a couple of corn dogs, and a big bag of cotton candy.
Fortunately for me, I already ate.
I'm only a little over a hundred pages into it, because it's the book I take with me when I go out to eat, and I've only been doing that once every few weeks. I went out tonight, because on Tuesdays the Barley House has half-price guinness, and I had some success selling stuff on ebay this past weekend.
So while I'm sitting there eating and reading, Mechelle--who is one of the servers and who I've known now for about 5 years--is at the table next to mine and she's explaining tonight's specials. One of the specials was cornmeal battered knockwurst, which is a bit of a stretch for this place, and not in a good direction in my opinion. In contrast, the other special was a parmesan and herb encrusted NY strip steak, which was HUGE.
Now, to properly appreciate this, you have to understand a little about Mechelle. She is friendly, enthusiastic, a little intense, and almost constantly in motion. She has two speeds: fast, and faster. She's also professional, thorough, and conscientious. And she likes to have fun. So, she's describing the knockwurst to the customers at the next table. When she had told me about them, she described them as "fancy corn dogs", and clearly had been making fun of it all. With the "real" customers she was a more polite, but having just as much fun as she told them that "you can really taste the fair in them!".
I almost laughed out loud! I thought that was just awesome, and later said so to her. Unfortunately, they didn't get it. Which completely surprised me. I'm not the swiftest guy when it comes to "getting" people, nor am I the most well-spoken. But that doesn't stop me from loving words (and actually, maybe helps explain some of the motivation for doing so) and I love the chance to experience a clever phrase or twist on a thought.
Maybe it's because I've been to the Ohio State Fair, which is one of the largest in the country, or maybe it's because my social anxiety shite went full-throttle after I moved out here, but I have never been to a county fair here in New Hampshire. But I'm sure I could do a fair now. After all, I've been to King Richard's Faire down in Mass which was just packed with people, and to the Robin Hood Faire at Hammond Castle in Gloucester, which is very cozy. And after having been entertained with Mechelle's word-play tonight, I'm hungry for a funnel cake, overly-greasy french fries with vinegar, a couple of corn dogs, and a big bag of cotton candy.
Fortunately for me, I already ate.
