I See Illiterate People

There's a bit of graffiti in the men's room in my library that delights me. In one of the stalls, someone drew a ghost saying the word "Boo!" Right next to that, someone added, "Wow, you literally scared the crap out of me!"

I love that exchange because it's a rare instance of someone using the word "literally" correctly, and not, as the current trend seems to be, as a synonym for "really" or "very." (For example, when someone says, "I literally blew my top" when what they really meant was, "I really blew my top.")

I've been feeling very anal with regard to language lately, since I seem to notice typos and misuse of language all over the place. I feel like the grammar equivalent of that kid in The Sixth Sense: I see typos. They're everywhere, and most of them don't even know they're typos.

For example, our library is hosting a bunch of posters in celebration of Black History Month. Since I'm on the Diversity Education Committee, I volunteered to hang them. When the posters arrived, they looked great: large glossy foam board pictures of various African Americans with a small text about who they were/are. Then, as I was hanging them, I made the mistake of actually reading the text. Here are some of the errors I noticed:

• Rosa Parks was not a "42 year seamstress" during the famous bus scene; she was a 42-year-old seamstress.
• W.E.B. DuBois was not a "civil rights leaders", he was a civil rights leader.
• Louis Armstrong was not "still with in band" when he died, he was still with his band.
• And the granddaddy of typos: Phyllis Wheatley's book did not have a forward "sign by" John Adams, she had a forward signed by John Adams.
  

That last example strikes me as particularly illiterate; something written by someone who's just sounding out the words and doesn't read. It really bothers me. These posters were designed and approved by the college's public relations department, and it bugs me that people whose job it is to present the public face of the college would fail to catch such errors. When I pointed out the errors, they re-did the posters, at a cost of several hundred dollars.

Then this week I received an email from our human resources department. They're advertising a new position. Ironically, it's a position as a remedial English instructor. The job description reads, "...three year's of teaching experience..."

I thought of pointing out this "typo" to the person who sent the email, but then I think, I don't want to be that guy. The one who's always correcting other people. If they find a remedial English instructor who doesn't notice that mistake, I guess it'll be a match made in Heaven. Literally.

[And for my irony-impaired readers, that was an intentional misuse of the word "literally."]

Don't Tell Me!

I know everyone's talking about it, but please don't mention to me who won the Illinois state wrestling championships last weekend. At least not for the next eight to ten weeks.

I don't know why I have this habit of developing hobbies that I'm slightly embarrassed about. The latest example of this is my interest in high school wrestling. I was a wrestler in high school, so it's not a completely random hobby, but in the last two years, after a 16-year hiatus, I have become re-acquainted with the sport of my youth. This time, however, my involvement is merely that of a fan. Over the past two seasons I've gone to a few local meets and followed the results of wrestlers and teams throughout the state on the Illinois high school wrestling website.

As fate would have it, the state wrestling tournament is held in Champaign every year, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to attend it last weekend. It's a two-day orgy of the best wrestling the state has to offer, and I've taken the day off work two years in a row to attend it. I don't know why I feel slightly sheepish about admitting this.

Maybe it's because I was one of the few people sitting in the stands who wasn't currently involved in the sport in some way or wasn't a friend or family member of a participant. I had two people ask me last weekend if my "kid" was competing, and I had to respond, "No, I'm just a fan." Theoretically, there shouldn't be any difference between following local high school wrestling and following something like the NFL, but there is. With the former, there's the expectation that you wouldn't be doing this if you didn't have some vested interest in one of the participants. Following the NFL, on the other hand, is considered a activity in its own right; it's on the list of acceptable hobbies (NFL widows notwithstanding.) I guess my biggest discomfort stems from the fact that it's a lonely hobby-- there aren't many people to share it with. This must be how American soccer fans feel.

The state wrestling tournament, while exciting, is also a frustrating exercise in multitasking. There are six mats set up at Assembly Hall, so you have to divide your attention between six different matches going on at once. If you're a bracket junkie like myself, it means you spend most of the time trying to figure out which match is about to end, so you can write the results into the program that you paid $5 for. Of course, there are marquee matches that you really want to see, so you'll pay more attention to them, to the detriment of your bracket.

After two days of sitting in a plastic seat and watching hundreds of (snippets of) wrestling matches, there were times when I overdosed on the whole thing. But after a short break I was usually read for more action. The state tournament is fun because seasons and careers are ending all around you. You see some kids achieving their lifelong (to that point) goals and some falling just short of them. It can bring out the best and worst in sportsmanship.

I attended every round of the tournament, but had to leave before the finals because Rebecca and I had another event to attend Saturday night. In the lobby they were pre-selling DVDs of the championship matches, so I paid $40 to order a copy for myself. You can imagine my disappointment when the girl who took my money informed me that it would be eight to ten weeks until they sent out the DVDs.

Have you ever recorded a game on TV and hoped to watch it later, all the while trying to avoid any mention of the outcome? I'm going to have to do this with the wrestling DVD, only I'll have to avoid it for 8-10 weeks. Luckily, high school wrestling is not water-cooler conversation fodder, so I should be able to accomplish this, as long as I remember not to go to the wrestling website I spent so much time on before the tournament.

So please keep your discussions of the championship matches to yourself. Thanks!

Exhausted

This is how I feel after a library instruction session.

We don't need no stinkin' Valentine's Day

It's February 14, and at the university press where I work, that means . . .

Arizona Statehood Day Party!

Yes, folks, instead of candy hearts and valentines, at my workplace we mark February 14th with enchiladas and a big light-up cactus. According to press lore, the party was the brainchild of a former rights and permissions manager who was a native Arizonan and bore a healthy dislike of Hearts-and-Flowers Day. She doesn't work here anymore, but a fellow Arizonan has carried on the tradition and we've been celebrating the anniversary of Arizona joining the union with a Mexican-themed lunchtime potluck for the past eleven years. Of course, the Native Americanist in me isn't totally thrilled that we're celebrating Arizona's statehood -- but I have to admit that it's a better alternative than Valentine's Day.

And did I mention that I love my job?

The Unintentional Sandbagger

My opponent in my tennis league last night was really pissed off at me for losing the first set so spectacularly. He "bageled" me, which means he beat me 6-0 (the 0 being the bagel.) At the changeover after the first set I told him, "You're playing really well, but I'm really not this bad." He didn't believe me. What he was really thinking was, "This guy doesn't belong in this league." He thought he'd been given faulty scouting reports about me. I was clearly a creampuff. A doormat. Out of his league.

What pissed him off, later, was that he thought I was sandbagging. In our post-match discussion, in which he'd told me what he thought about me after the first set, he said, "At least the scouting reports about you were right." (What's in those scouting reports? Do they say I'm scrappy? That I never give up?) But then he added, "If you'd have played better in the first set, we might have had a different outcome."

The outcome, as it turned out, was a 0-6, 6-3, 11-9 victory for me. I didn't appreciate his insinuation that I played some sort of psychological warfare on him-- pretending to be bad so he wouldn't take me seriously. I'm not that devious or clever. To be honest, after the first six games, I shared his opinion that I didn't belong in the league. I really was trying, I just couldn't find my shot. I started thinking that maybe I can't compete at my best playing on Tuesday nights after a full day of work. It always takes me a while to warm up, although usually not six games. But in the second set I calmed down, started hitting the ball better, and figured out his weakness.

When the match was over, my attempts to be a gracious winner probably just infuriated him more. After taking a 9-6 lead in the 10-point tie-break to decide the third set, he lost five straight points, including a double fault for the last point. When we shook hands, I said, "That was a good match, but I hate to win it on a double fault." I wasn't trying to rub it in, but in hindsight it probably wasn't the most tactful thing to say. When he smashed two balls into the wall to relieve his anger, I offered him the third ball for smashing. Hey, I understand, I wanted to say. I've felt that way many times. Smash as many balls as you want.

Throughout the match, whether I was winning or losing, I would say "good shot" when he hit a nice winner or "good point" after a particularly exciting point. I don't know if he thought I that was some Machiavellian strategy on my part, but I was just trying to be a good sport.

The upshot of all this is that I'm now 2-2 in the new league, which should guarantee me a spot in the league next session. (To stay in the league, I just have to finish ahead of last place.) Some really strange things would have to happen for either of the two guys I've beaten to finish ahead of me, especially with only three matches to go. I've already achieved my goal for this new league, so now I can relax and have fun. Any more victories will be gravy.

Sweet, sweet tennis gravy.

Apologies for Being a Language Stickler

I belong to four professional listservs at work, so I'm constantly getting emails from librarians around the country discussing various issues ranging from information literacy, library instruction, community college libraries, digital reference, and reference in general. Sometimes it feels like about 30% of my work day is spent cleaning out my email inbox.

One phenomenon I've noticed a lot lately is that someone will post the same message to three different listservs, so that I receive that same message three times. When they do this, they will put the following disclaimer at the top of their message, APOLOGIES FOR RECEIPT OF DUPLICATE POSTINGS, or something to that affect. What they're doing, in essence, is apologizing for something they don't regret doing, and have every intention of doing again.

Is that really an apology? Are they really asking for my forgiveness? There's an old joke about it being easier to ask for forgiveness (afterward) than to ask for permission (ahead of time.) But this method of bundling your transgression along with the apology seems to bypass those two options altogether. You're neither asking for forgiveness nor permission. I guess what they're really asking for is tolerance. The word "apology" in that sense is shorthand for, "I acknowledge this may annoy you, but that's not going to stop me from doing it anyway."

What annoys me most is not the multiple messages cluttering my inbox (although it does annoy me), but the misappropriation of the word apology. You're not sorry. You don't regret what you're doing. You're not asking for my forgiveness. So stop "apologizing."

What should people use instead of an apology? Here's my suggestion for a more appropriate disclaimer: Posted to several listservs. If multiple receipts bother you, you're cordially invited to suck it. At least that would be honest.

I Hate Weather

I just recently came across this line in a Roy Blount book: Sometimes I put too much energy into being pissed off. I had to write it down, because it seems to describe my life a lot lately. For me, though, I would amend it thusly: I often put too much energy into being pissed off at things that I have no control over.

Take the weather. Please. February is traditionally the month when I get a bad case of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) because I'm tired of the gray cold winter and ready for spring to start. But this February started off great: we had a beautiful snow storm on the evening of the 31st, covering the ground in a pristine white blanket 6-8 inches thick. The beauty of a snow storm is only matched by the beauty of a snow day, and Friday the college was closed, giving me a much-needed three-day weekend.

But then a warm front came in over the weekend, and Monday morning I was greeted by the thickest fog I've ever seen. This being my busy season at work, I had a 12-hour day at work on Monday. The fog didn't lift at all during the day, and by the time I drove home from work at 8:00 pm, I was driving on the highway through darkness in a fog so thick I could only see about two car lengths ahead of me. I couldn't see anything out beyond the car, only a tiny stretch of road in front of me that I took on faith would lead to another tiny stretch of road. It was one of the loneliest feelings I ever had, as if I were the only person left alive on Earth.

I made it home safely, but exhausted, after having given four library presentations, worked twelve hours, and driving an hour through the dark fog.

Although I got a full eight hours of sleep Monday night, I was still exhausted on Tuesday. It rained all day. I had two more library presentations, and then drove home into a torrential downpour and against blinding winds. That mostly pissed me off because it severely affected the miles per gallon on my Prius. I absolutely hate driving into the wind for that reason.

When I got home, I immediately tried to take a nap, because I had my tennis league that night and wanted to rest up for it. I rested, but didn't sleep much, for about an hour and a half, with a short break in between to eat dinner. When I got up and dressed for tennis, I didn't feel very rejuvenated.

I drove to tennis through another downpour. (Or rather, through the same one that I had driven home from work in.) Now I had to deal with flooding, since there were several places in the road with standing water. At one point I barreled through about 1-2 feet of water, but I made it through. When I got to the tennis center, I couldn't even turn into the road it was on, because there was about 3 feet of water blocking the entrance. A police car was also blocking the path, along with a tow truck and a line of cars. Like an obsessive compulsive chihuahua chasing its tail, I kept driving around in circles trying to figure out where to park or how to get into the tennis center. All the while I cursed the weather with a vehemence that was unnatural. I finally just parked on the side of the road with my blinkers on, marched through the mud (in my tennis shoes) to the building, and asked if there was anywhere I could park.

The guy at the tennis center said he had tried to call me at home, but I had already left. Due to the flooded parking lot, the league was canceled that night. So I got to drive back home in the rain and flood. Because of all the ponds in the middle of the road, I had to take several detours on the way. I finally made it home an hour after I had left. I was wet, angry, and inconsolable. I'd wasted my pre-tennis time napping in vain, I'd missed my only opportunity this week to play tennis, I'd spent a stressful hour driving around dodging the flood, and now it was too late to do anything fun before bedtime. But I still had a lot of energy to be pissed off.

I don't believe that I'm naturally a discontent. When I'm not sun-deprived, and things go according to plan, I love life. I probably even love the weather almost as often as I hate it. But I do not react well to unexpected adversity. I get angry. I kick at things that can't feel it, like the wind. And I scream at things that can't hear me, like the rain.

The only thing that saved me this week was my new Jimmy Buffett CD that accompanied me through the fog, rain, and flood.

I want to live in a Jimmy Buffett song.

Exercising Compassion

The most tender place in my heart is for strangers
I know it’s unkind but my own blood is much too dangerous
Neko Case, “Hold On, Hold On”

Christians are called to see Christ in all people, especially the poor. I was reminded of the challenges of living this calling at church on Sunday. But I’ve also been thinking lately about the challenges of seeing Christ in those closest to me. In a lot of ways, Neko Case is right – it’s easier to be charitable toward people I don’t know than to people I know (or think I know) all too well. Sometimes the cost of trying to see Christ in my family and friends seems too steep to pay. And yet I know it’s important to see Christ in them too.

Some of my thinking on this subject is influenced by Henri Nouwen, who offers a great working definition of compassion – the deep recognition of another’s pain and suffering, which often leads one to see “Christ in need” in that person. But for clues on how to put that definition into action in my everyday life, I find Madeleine L’Engle’s discussion of compassion in A Circle of Quiet especially helpful. Compassion, she points out, is particular. It’s evoked by a particular person in a particular set of circumstances; it’s not easily generalizable, even in this age of televised mass disasters. And the ability to be compassionate is one that can grow with practice – very much like a skill. Elsewhere in the book she talks about the need for “finger exercises” for various skills such as writing. Finger exercises are special exercises that pianists do to develop their technique; they’re not music of themselves, but they enhance one’s ability to play music when the time is right.

So in a sense, exercising one’s ability to be compassionate is like finger exercises for the soul. There are many times in a regular work week that I might exercise my capacity for compassion by simply checking in with a co-worker who looks troubled or asking the administrative assistant with a broken leg if she needs help getting out to her car. Then, as my capacity for compassion grows, I might notice that my spouse is really quiet when he gets home from work, and instead of taking advantage of the quiet to read without interruption (just kidding, honey!), I might take the time to ask what’s wrong. If I can’t be compassionate with the people I love, or at least am familiar with, how much more likely am I to miss the chance to be compassionate to a stranger when it presents itself? (I’m thinking of what Jesus said about servants who are trustworthy in small matters.)

Winter Landscape

When I woke up this morning and looked out the window, the sky and the ground were both white. The skeletons of bare trees stood out, etched against the sky and snow. It made me think of the time a few years ago when I was driving along north Prospect on a gorgeous spring day and decided that, for me at least, what made winter landscapes so special was their emphasis on structure. In spring, summer and fall, the lines, angles and curves that shape the landscape tend to recede in favor of brilliant color. But in winter, with its limited palette of browns, grays and whites, the contours of the things that surround me take pride of place. Ice and snow only enhance the delicate tracery of tree branches. Even the outlines of man-made things seem more prominent in a snowy prairie landscape -- the contrast between white snow and the lines of a weathered gray-brown fence, for example, or the way that barns and silos, like trees, stand out more clearly on a monochromatic winter morning.

Blisterwatch '08 update

Overheard minutes ago at Timbecca Manor (after Crest whitestrips commercial):

Tim: "I wonder what would happen if I put Crest whitestrips on my blisters. Would it make them heal faster?"

Rebecca: *buries head in hands*