What is That Word?

I fancy myself a wordsmith, in that I write these columns, and I have written a couple of (unpublished) books.  Therefore, my topic for this week concerns a word that always seems to be either misused, or mispronounced.  It turns out that it is neither, but I dislike its use whenever I hear it or read it.  The word is 'misperception."

When I was growing up and going to school, and to college, whenever someone did not understand something and gave an incomplete or inaccurate definition of  it, we said that they misconceived what it was or what it meant. It was a misconception of the facts.

Nowadays, that word has been almost wholly replaced by a close sound-alike word,  misperception. In fact, I so rarely hear misconception used any more that I decided to look up the definition of both words to see which is correct.  Here they are:

            1. mis•per•cep•tion (ˌmɪs pərˈsɛp ʃən)
                n. a false or incorrect perception

            2. misconception [ˌmɪskənˈsɛpʃən]

               n. a false or mistaken view, opinion, or attitude

Hmmm, that wasn't very definitive, was it?  They're pretty close, but the first concerns the senses, while the second has to do with the mind.  And even more interesting, they are not synonymous.  That is, you cannot substitute one for the other, even though the definitions look almost identical.

Now, that brings up another question in my mind... Were we using the wrong word all those years ago?  I swear that I never heard or saw the word 'misperception' until a few years ago.  Maybe it's one of those newly conceived words that appear in the OED every year.  (Kind of like a word that a good friend of mine uses frequently, 'flustrating', a combination of  'flustered' and 'frustrating')

Whatever the source, I guess I'm going to have to learn to live with the misconception that I misperceived the correct word when I saw or heard it, but I reserve the right to think 'misconception' as a substitute; it just makes me more comfortable.

Our Throw-Away Society

I've notice lately that my electric razor just isn't up to the task anymore; it doesn't do a very good job of smoothing my cheeks and neck the way it used to.  The instructions that came with the razor said that the heads should be replaced every 12 months, and I've had this one with the same heads for over two years.  So now I have a decision to make. should I buy replacement heads, or should I just go ahead and purchase a new razor.

I went online to Amazon and looked for both.  What I found was that I could buy a brand new razor for $30 to $50.  On the other hand, I could replace the heads on my current razor for $30 to $40.  Now, which do you suppose I would choose, especially since it does make for a nice annual suggestion to my daughter for Father's Day?

I don't have to use razors as my example.  How about printers?  Cartridge replacement or new printer?  In some cases, the replacement cartridges cost more than it does to replace the printer.  But then you have to dispose of a used printer.  Sell it? Donate it? Who else would want a used printer with no ink?

When was the last time - if ever - you heard of anyone mending torn clothing or socks with holes in them?  Do you even know the term, 'darning'? (Hint - it isn't a cuss word)

To some it might seem great that we've come to a stage in our technology where it is easier and cheaper to replace items with new ones rather than repair them. But think for a minute about all the junk and garbage we accumulate as a result of not using our possessions to their fullest extent.  And I'm not limiting this diatribe to small things like razors and printers and such ... our vehicles are traded in way too frequently, as well. Just travel around the country like I do and you'll see the huge junk yards, a lot with cars and vans that seem to be in pretty good condition.

One result of our throw-away mentality is that we tend to use our resources way too fast. A prime example of that is the clear-cutting of huge tracts of land.  The next time you go for a long ride on an interstate highway, notice that the forests that used to line those highways on both sides of the road are now reduced to a strip of about 20 feet, behind which is a field of tree stumps.  In some cases it will be a field with several piles of tree roots where the forest use to stand.  And it isn't a temporary condition.  I've seen some of those stumps and roots standing there for twenty or more years in my travels.

Responsible companies, like Weyerhauser and Georgia Pacific, actually treat timber as a renewable 'crop" and replant the trees they cut down.  However, many smaller industries do not practice good stewardship of the land.  Hence, those unsightly wastelands along our highways.

I have to confess that I am torn at times over my opposition to tree huggers, global warming enthusiasts, environmentalists, and those who value endangered species of useless wildlife over our ability to achieve energy independence.  There are times when I just cannot justify the actions of my fellow man.  I do at times side with the people on the left in cases like those I described above.

If there is any lesson to be learned, it is that we have to weigh all the factors before we decide where we stand on any of these issues.  For instance, I have no problems with the process called 'fracking" to extract petroleum and natural gas from the earth if it is done with modern technology and deep enough that it doesn't harm the environment.  And to date, every single study has debunked the urban legends propagated by Hollywood and the liberal media about contamination of aquifers and ground water.

On clear-cutting, I stand with the environmentalists, and one of the best examples of how that destroys the land is seen on the Discovery Channel series, "Gold Rush", which shows the strip mining in places like Alaska and, more recently, Guyana.  In my opinion, there is no more graphic example of our throw-away society than the huge areas of mud left behind where forests used to grow.  And for what?  A few ounces of gold is all they have to show for all that destruction.

I'll climb down from my soapbox now, but I hope you will take this opportunity to think about this topic and how we can, if not reverse it, at least alleviate it.

Green Thumb

Some would say this column is as boring as watching paint dry, and you're probably right about that, but "diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks," as the old saw goes.  At least I condensed it for you, so that you didn't have to actually sit and watch the plant grow, etc., etc., etc...

About this time last year, I wrote a column about a house plant which I thought was called a zebra plant.  It actually wasn't a zebra plant, but a close relative, the croton.  There is very little difference in the leaves of these two, but a huge difference, and the reason I wrote the column, is that the croton produces a stem full of little white flowers.

Well, last year I was so intrigued with the croton that I kept pestering it until one day I accidentally knocked off the stem with the flowers on it.  If one could be heartbroken over the loss of a flower, that was me.  I really was disappointed that I couldn't watch nature take its course and produce generation after generation of buds and blooms on that stem.

This spring our croton again produced that little stem in the beginning of April.  I took a picture of it (above) on April 5th just a few days after it appeared.  then I tried to keep track of it in photos as each successive bloom took place.  Below is a picture of how it looked on April 21st, just before its first blooming.

A few days later, the blooms were starting, and there were new little buds forming for the next bloom. 

This cycle continued through five generations, until I got the below shot of the stem with no blooms but a huge number of buds.  The stem was well over a foot long by this time on June 1st.

I took the picture below on June 5th.  There are over 100 flowers on that one stem with more yet to come.

I don't know how many more times this plant will bloom this year, as that stem is getting very heavy and isn't too thick. It has been growing and blooming for two months now, and it shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.

I can't end this column without a full view of the croton plant with blooming stem. Isn't that amazing?  Well, maybe that's just my opinion.

E-mailing 101

It appears that it is time once again for a lesson I call, E-mail 101.  This week alone, I have received several e-mails that required either A) half a dozen or more mouse clicks to open multiple attachments, B) scrolling down through hundreds of prior email addresses from multiple forwarding actions, or C) attempting to read misspelled words, strange punctuation marks and spaces in the middle of words and phrases and embedded messages from unknown people who forwarded the original message without editing it.

The tips I am about to give you are not my own.  They were compiled and fine-tuned by a fellow Georgian named Cal Hendrix.  Cal had one of the best websites I ever visited.  The site is no longer there, unfortunately, but it had lots of neat links to pictures, games and wisdom.  Cal died on June 11, 2007, and even though I never met the man, I was deeply saddened by his passing.

I’m going to borrow only a few of Cal’s e-mailing tips, so that I can show you how to ‘clean up’ an e-mail prior to forwarding it.  I will underline keyboard keys, so that you know exactly which ones to depress.  It is really quite simple, because you only have to use six keys on your keyboard: Ctrl, A, C, V, Shift and Delete. 

First up: How to copy and paste.

If you want to forward an attachment that is essentially a text document with no video, audio or still pictures in it, it is easiest and best to open the actual attachment (go through all those mouse clicks until you get the genuine message) and copy/paste it into either your word processor or a new, blank e-mail that you are creating.  I prefer to paste into a blank Microsoft Word document, because then I can edit and spell-check it prior to converting it to e-mail message format using the same copy/paste procedure.                   

Here is how to copy/paste any text to or from e-mail and Word.

1.      First, you'll need to select the text you wish to copy. You do this by putting your mouse cursor at the first character you want to copy and, holding down the left mouse button, drag the cursor to the last character you need copied. As you drag, you'll notice everything gets highlighted (selected).

2.      Next, simultaneously depress ctrl plus C for a moment and the selected text will be copied.  You wont see it, but it is on your clipboard for you to use.

3.      Finally, move your cursor to the area in your new document where you would like to insert the text. Then, simultaneously depress ctrl plus V and the text will appear on your screen.  You can now work with it in its new position.

That's it. The steps are basically the same for any copy/paste procedure you need to do.  Remember, you can copy/paste from e-mail to Word, or from Word to e-mail the same way.  If the text includes a link--that blue, underlined text--to a video or article, it will usually carry over to the new message for you.            
If you have a really long area of text that you want to copy/paste, here is another way to handle it.  

Place your cursor at the first character you want selected and, while holding down the Shift key, scroll down until you can click just beyond the last character you want selected. It's sometimes easier to follow this procedure than to make selections by dragging, especially when you’re wrestling with a lengthy document, and you only want to copy/paste part of it.  I can't remember the number of times the area I wanted to stop selecting at zipped right by me on a document! 

(Want to try the shift key trick on the above paragraph?  Position your cursor before the P in Place, depress and hold the shift key, and replace your cursor beyond the ! at the end of the paragraph.  Watch the whole paragraph go white-on-black. You can now either right click to get a cut/copy/paste menu, or use the ctrl plus C to copy it.) 

Another fun way to use the Shift key is adding to an existing selection. Let's say you select an area of text and you came up short of what you really needed. Rather than trying to re-select the whole thing, try this.  While the partial text is still highlighted, just depress the Shift key and click your mouse where you would like the selection to end. (You can also shorten a selection by doing this too.)  After you have used the Shift key to get your text selected, follow the previous steps to copy/paste.

Finally, if you have that lengthy text and you want to copy every word of it, (you can edit it later for spelling and other tidbits you want to remove) that is the easiest thing to do. Just depress ctrl plus A on your keyboard to highlight the entire text.  Then depress ctrl plus C to copy it.  Lastly, place your cursor in your new message body and depress ctrl plus V, and it will appear there.  Remember that you have to press ctrl and hold it down while pressing the other key.

Once you do this a few times you will see how easy it is... took me a year to learn it, trying to read these fancy tutorials on the net! That's why I'm trying to keep this very basic. 

We have one final step to cover: Cleaning up your forwards.
 
That is, let’s remove all those former e-mail addresses of everyone who got copies of the message previously, and delete all those >>> marks in front of each line of text and the weird punctuation or letters in the middle of words.  You should try to do this in every message you decide to forward.  It not only respects the privacy of others, it also makes it easier to get to the meat of the message.  It is so quick and easy to do that you should make it a “must do” before you send any e-mail.  Here is the procedure.

1.      Click on the Forward button on your upper menu. (You won’t have to do this for messages where you used the copy/paste procedure.  You already got rid of all the garbage before you transferred the text.)

2.      Put in all your e-mail addresses at the top of the message, using the Bcc:, and put your cursor in the text box.

3.      Using the same technique you used to copy/paste, highlight any text you want to get rid of, such as those lengthy e-mail addresses from prior forwards.  You might have to do this in groups, especially if the texts are in different fonts. 

4.      Depress the Delete key on the keyboard. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for all unwanted text in your message, including ‘>’ and ‘!’ and all those other strange symbols that get added whenever a message is forwarded.

5.      Use a spellchecker under Tools on the top menu bar to correct spellings.

6.      When you have only the text that you want in your message, send it in the normal manner.

If you get a message, or an attachment in a message, that has vertical blue lines to the left of the text, you can use the copy/paste method to get rid of those, too.  Merely select the text in the message--the blue lines wont be highlighted--and copy/paste them into a new blank message.  I don't know about you, but I hate those blue lines.
There you have it.  If you follow these simple steps with any message, you will speed up the entire process, too.  Uploads and downloads will be much faster, and no one will be forced to wade through all the junk to find the gem.

Now, do yourself a favor and copy/paste this message into your word processor, make your own document with the title “E-mail Tips” and keep it for future reference.  “Try it – you’ll like it.”
Note: If you want to practice these techniques, once you have copied and pasted the entire message into a word processor document and closed it, reopen it and highlight a paragraph and copy/paste it below.  That’s right, copy this paragraph, move your cursor down below this area, and then paste the same paragraph in.  When you finish, just close the document again, only this time, when the pop up asks if you want to ‘Save Changes’, click ‘No’.  Only the original text will remain in your saved document.

Travel Tips You Can Use

 As you all know by now, I'm an avid road tripper, and I do love to share my trips by way of the photo journal.  I also like to give tips on good road tripping.  Over the years, I think I've learned quite a few tricks and shortcuts.

What some of you don't know is that I always attempt to do my trips on a tight budget.  Consequently, some of the hotel accommodations I choose are places that many would not consider for their stay.  Since I only stay one night at most of the hotels, I'm not too fussy about certain amenities, while I do focus on some things that you would call silly. Like, I don't use the swimming pool, but I do like a hot tub.

I frown on spending over $100 for a hotel night, so I have to be pretty careful and selective in which ones I choose, and I do read those guest reviews before making my choices.  of course, I try to stay at hotel chains that provide reward nights for loyalty, and I've spent many a "free" night using my rewards points. 

My tip today is one that I learned a long time ago, and it was garnered partly through my perusing of those guest reviews.  One of the most frequent criticisms or complaints about a guest stay is the noise level.  Who wants to spend a night fully awake because the people in the adjacent room were partying all night long?  Or the window-mounted air conditioner kept recycling noisily every 5 minutes?  Or there was a leaky faucet that kept dripping throughout the night?

Every one of those things has probably happened to you, too, and sometimes it was at a high-end, high-priced hotel.  It is way more frequent at the  budget inns, but no matter where it occurs, there is a simple and inexpensive "fix" for it.

Buy and carry with you on every trip a set of ear plugs, preferably with a noise reduction rating (NRR) of at least 25, but it is better if you can get some with a 30+ rating. 

The plugs I use are foam and only need to be compress/rolled between two fingers and then inserted into the ear canal where they will re-expand.  If they don't fully expand, you can lightly press that small ear flap in front of your ear canal back against the exposed end of the plug and it will expand further.  Turn the room television set to a comfortable volume, and when you cannot hear dialog or music, you have inserted the plugs correctly.

Voilá!  You can now sleep through anything, including sleep alarms, which might not be so good, so here is another trick. You probably carry a cell phone, and even the cheap ones have alarms and a vibrate silent ring function.  Merely set the alarm on the phone for the time you want to awake.  Then set it to "vibrate" and place it under the front edge of your bed pillow, or somewhere against your body - a pajama pocket will do.  If you're like me, the vibration will be enough to wake you up.

Fire alarms are another matter, but I've found that on the one occasion I was awakened in the middle of the night by fire alarm, it was loud and high-pitched enough to make it through to my brain even with the plugs in. 

I cannot leave the topic without pointing out that those plugs are great for another source of unrest during the night - snoring.  If you are the snorer, they won't help a bit, but if you happen to be the snoree, they are a godsend. 

Bon Voyage and sweet dreams!

Fun With Phrases

There are two long-used and well-worn phrases that we've probably all used at one time or another: 1) What in Sam Hill is ...?, or 2) Where in Sam Hill is ...? 

Do you know the origins of either of those phrases? Well, if you don't know and you care to read on, you're going to learn about the many possible origins.  You see, nobody has ever agreed on the actual one, but the possibilities are certainly strange and funny.

There are six different legends about "Sam Hill."   Here they are in no particular order or veracity.

1. Sam Hill was a mercantile store owner in Prescott, Arizona in the late 1800s, and he carried a diverse assortment of items for sale.  People started using the term, "What in Sam Hill is that?" in reference to something unusual that might have been in the store.
2. Writer H. L. Mencken suggested that the term derived from the name Samiel, which was the name given the devil in the Carl Maria von Weber opera,  Der Freischütz.  Sam Hill was a polite way of referring to the devil, as in, "What the devil...?"
3. A lesser known origin was with a early Connecticut legislator with that name who served in the state legislature between 1725 and 1752.  He was there so long that it resulted in a popular adjuration, "give 'em Sam Hill."  (Hmm, not exactly the same phrase, but close)
4. A good candidate for the origin lies with the story of a Michigan surveyor of the 1800s, Samuel W. Hill, who used such foul language in his everyday speech that his very name became a euphemism for swear words.  he was known to tell tall tales of his adventures in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and when someone retold the story, they substituted the sinless synonym , Sam Hill, for the words that weren't polite in mixed company.
5. You may recall that I visited a town along the Columbia River in Washington State on one of my trips out west.  The town, Maryhill, was the namesake of the daughter of its founder, Samuel Hill, a millionaire businessman known as "the Father of Roads" in the Pacific Northwest.  Some have attributed the phrases above to him but, since he lived in the 1900s, he was too late to have earned the honor.
6. The final recipient for the beginnings of the phrases is (was) the adjutant general of the State of Kentucky, Samuel Ewing Hill, who traveled to the eastern border of the state where it abutted West Virginia to investigate the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. That battle had been raging for over ten years and had claimed over a dozen lives. of family members.  The feud made national news, and the country waited for word of, "what in the Sam Hill was going on up there?"

Of all the possibilities, I like the second one best, because of the close similarity of the names, "Samiel" and "Sam Hill" and their association with the devil, once considered a swear word.  It also fits the time line more accurately for the origin of the phrases in the early 1800s.  So now you maybe learned a new way to cuss without drawing criticism from the holy-rollers, and you can use it in so many ways, as well.

By the way, all of this is available online with Wikipedia, but you probably never would have thought to look it up independently.

I think I'll go look up some other interesting phrases and cuss words that aren't,  phrases like "consarn it," "yer durn tootin," "dadgumit," "dagnabit," and "where in tarnation." Now that swearing and cussing is becoming common in everyday life, even promoted on TV and in movies, some of these might disappear, and that would really be a shame.

Man of Steel

I'm going to break the mold once again and write about our 'perfect' president, but this column won't be so much political as it will be cultural.  Multiculturalism is good, isn't it?

We, the American people, have put ourselves in a quandary that seems insoluble.  The problems we have with our government's actions, and more specifically our debate about those actions, are the cause of a lot of dissention, divisiveness and discord among the various factions of our society. 

You all know where my politics and philosophy lie, as I make no secret of it.  However, I'll wager that you don't know that I have no loyalty to any political party, or organization or group.  I quit the Republican Party years ago, and I absolutely refuse to join any other political party.  I also avoid like the plague the Tea Party or any other PAC group.

Like many others too numerous to count, I am opposed to the current administration, and have not yet, in over five years, seen anything come out of Washington that I like or even remotely agree with. 

Also, like those others, I hesitate to express my opinions in 'mixed' company for fear of offending someone.  Many of you good friends and relatives continue to state that any disrespect for President Obama shows disrespect for the office of the president and is not tolerated.  I disagree with that, but for now I'll let it ride.

If I, or anyone I know, says anything negative about our president's policies or actions, the first thing that seems to be thrown out is that we are being 'racist'.  It seems to be assumed that if we are against Obama, we must be 'racist' rather than opposed to ideas.

Here is the crux of our dilemma... We cannot oppose this man for anything he does, or else we must be given the epithet, RACIST.  End of discussion, end of debate, end of conversation.

You may correct me if I am wrong -- and I mean that literally, but I don't think anyone will be able to do so -- but to my recollection and my knowledge of history, the United States of America is alone in the world as the only nation to ever fight a civil war of the Caucasian Race over the freeing of the Negroid Race.  In the American Civil War we caused the death or maiming of about one third of our population. 

Think about that for a moment... Virtually every nation on earth, every civilization in the history of mankind, has had slavery of some kind and to some degree.  Some nations in Africa and Asia still practice some forms of slavery today, to wit, the young girls recently kidnapped in Nigeria. Yet, among all those diverse cultures, we are the only one to have fought, bled and died among the non-slave populace to free those who we were holding in chains.

What did we get for our trials and tribulation? We have the gall to label each other 'racist'.  And we further have the gall to label anyone who disagrees with a president who just happens to be of a minority race, with that epithet in order to silence them.

Come on, Folks, get real!  Do you really believe that mantra that any American wants to starve children, the poor and the downtrodden? Can you honestly believe that we are happy to see people live in filth and squalor here in America, or anywhere in the world?

Is it really possible that you think I want to take away anyone's Social Security benefits,

or their temporary lifelines such as welfare and  unemployment and food stamps? And

finally, do we, either side of the issues, really swallow the Kool-Aid that the other side is close-minded and uninformed? 

We are all Americans, and that means we are 'exceptional' in so many ways that the rest of the world cannot comprehend.  We should be a united people with similar goals and aspirations.  However, since the 1980s, or maybe the 1990s, we have become more and more polarized and hostile toward one another to a point where even families are divided over everything.

When the late Rodney King uttered those words, "Can't we all just get along?" it was prophetic, because it ushered in a new era where we definitely do not get along, and we now go out of our way to stifle debate and compromise. All sides have the position that, 'it's my way, or the highway."

One of our famous presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, once said, “Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.”

Political?  I think not!  It is just good common sense.