HAPPY BIRTHDAY GERALD

PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM WINNERS

I was thrilled to see President Obama award the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award.

As the president said, many of these people directly affected our lives.

How proud I am to see the following recognized:

John H. Glenn, our former Senator and astronaut

Madeleine Albright, our first female Secretary of State

Toni Morrison, our first African-American Nobel Prize winner for Literature

Bob Dylan, my all-time favorite rock/folk/poet

John Paul Stevens, Liberal on the Supreme Court

John Doar, civil rights activist

Dolores Huerta, co-founder, along with my hero Cesar Chavez, of the United Farm Workers

Please CLICK HERE to read the biographies of the winners.

OXFORD UNIVERSITY'S TEN MOST IRRITATING PHRASES

Oxford University published its list of last year's Ten Most Irritating Phrases:

1. At the end of the day
2. Fairly unique
3. I personally
4. At this moment in time
5. With all due respect
6. Absolutely
7. It's a nightmare
8. Shouldn't of
9. 24/7
10. It's not rocket science

While those are excellent, following are ones which family and friends tell me are irritating:

Maverick
Shovel-ready
I'm just sayin'
Game on
Let's do this
No problem
In these trying economic times
You know what I mean
My bad
Don't go there
Do more with less
Threw him under the bus
It's all good
It is what it is

I'm sure there are more to contribute. BRING IT ON (please forgive that!)

OTHER ANNOYING SYMBOLS

Along with "AIR QUOTES", my brothers and I share dislike for the following symbols:

1. The "OKAY" symbol. It takes longer to make the symbol with thumb and forefinger than to say it aloud.

2. The "HIGH FIVE" gesture is out of date. I love it when I see someone put their hand up to do it and nobody responds.

3. The "FIST BUMP" is passe. My brother said, "By the time you see middle-aged white guys doing it, you know it's passe."

4. The "THUMBS UP" gesture should be reserved ONLY for Roger Ebert. The "WAGGING THUMBS UP" is especially annoying!

5. Fortunately, I have not seen the "HIP BUMP" recently; perhaps it died a gracious death!

6. The "WINK" is usually seen used by old men and little kids who have just learned to do it! Cute on kids, disgusting on old codgers!

7. The "PEACE SYMBOL" is too 1960s!

As I've written before, my brother hates the use of "air quotes". Someone told him that he'd used them since he was a teenager! My brother responded, "I'm surprised you have any fingers left or that somebody hasn't broken them off!" I doubt that the contemporary has used the annoying habit that long.

In my investigation, I learned that the first documented use of the term "air quotes" was in 1989; the length of time the annoying gesture has been around is unknown but the use of "air quotes" became widespread in the 1990s.

Steve Martin famously used "air quotes" in comedy routines and Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies used them.

Although my brother detests it, I find the habit merely annoying, but I do have questions:

1. What is the purpose of air quotes? I have gathered that users want to show emphasis but quotation marks in writing aren't used for emphasis; italics are. They should be using "AIR ITALICS"!

2. Don't the users think that listeners would comprehend their meaning from emphasis in their voices?

3. Don't the users think the recipients are intelligent enough to know that their comments might be sarcastic, disbelieving, ironic, euphemistic or any other emotion they want to impart?

4. Don't the users realize if they are actually quoting, they should say "Quote"?

5. Do they think they're cute?

6. Don't they want to be taken seriously?

A friend who also detests "air quotes" sent me a video clip of Monty Python And The Holy Grail where the character Tim The Enchanter is warning King arthur that "death awaits you with nasty pointy teeth." My friend wrote: "See--it's the first use of the dreaded air quotes."

Les said, "This MUST be your last tirade about air quotes." and then he started doing his impression of the famous Victor Borge routine about verbal punctuation marks!

QUETAPENS

Yes, Les and I were glued to our TV sets to watch the National Spelling Bee Finals.

I am re-running SPELLING BEE (from June 2, 2010), my BLOG article in honor of all "twitchy little freaks" (myself included).

QUETAPENS is the 2012 National Spelling Bee finalist's word.

SPELLING BEE

If you were ever in a spelling bee, I'll bet you remember the word you "went down on"! I know that I do.

I was at a Home Interiors party and the hostess introduced the Demonstrator as Rosemary Drummond. Rosemary thanked her cousin who was the hostess and then she said she was so happy that her mother Hazel Caplinger was there and she introduced her. My mind immediately stirred: "Rosemary, Rosemary, ROSEMARY CAPLINGER!" Yes, it had to be the SAME Rosemary Caplinger who "spelled me down" in the Spelling Bee when I was thirteen!

I could not concentrate on the party, because all I could think of was that this was THE Rosemary Caplinger who had defeated me!

I ordered something and handed my sheet to Rosemary to figure the amount. I waited until everyone had finished and then I said, "Spell JARDINIERE!" She asked, incredulously, "What?" I said, "I believe you won the Spelling Bee by being able to spell JARDINIERE!" She said, "I don't remember!" How could it be that she didn't remember my humiliation? She laughed and said, "But I DO remember the word that I went down on!" Of course she would remember THAT word!

I said, "J-A-R-D-I-N-I-E-R-E, jardiniere", just the way it's supposed to be done in spelling bees! Mrs. Caplinger spoke up and said, "Her son's a good speller too." Insult to injury!

My brother Les and I love to watch the National Spelling Bee but he calls the contestants "Twitchy Little Freaks"; I tell him that I was also a "Twitchy Little Freak" at one time!

LAURA

Recently, I was speaking to a woman about her husband being in a nursing home and I said that she probably had met our niece Laura because her husband is a resident on the wing where Laura works.

The woman said, "I thought I knew all the girls."

I said, "She works the early shift and she also works a lot of overtime." The woman asked me to describe Laura and when I did, she said, "Oh, you mean Laura."

She was pronouncing it "LAH-RUH" and I was saying "LORE-UH". I said, "They pronounce it like LOR-UH." She answered, "Well, that's not right." I answered, "Well, that's how it's pronounced in the movie and the song." "Well, I've never heard it pronounced that way!" I said, "I think Frank Sinatra was considered the epitome of pronunciation and he sings it LORE-UH."

The woman still adamantly said I was wrong. I even spelled it for her. I said, "Your pronunciation is like Lara in Dr. Zhivago." I could hardly believe her insistence and wondered why it was important to her. I gave her some other examples of "AU" pronunciations, such as "Taurus," "Laurence Olivier" and "caucus", to no avail. The woman just shook her head.

I called Laura's mother and said, "Pronounce your daughter's name." She said, "Norma". [Obviously I should have been specific.] I said, "No, the other one!" Of course she said "LORE-UH."

I called a friend and said, "Pronounce your daughter's name." She said, "LORE-UH." My friend said she loved Mary Tyler Moore as Laura Petrie and Little House On The Prairie author Laura Ingalls Wilder, and that was the reason she chose her daughter's name.

Les asked, "How about Lara Logan?" Oh, my, she pronounces it LARE-UH, unlike Lara Spencer!