The people next door to my client are having their front steps replaced. My client said, "Those guys do a good job--they're Amish." I said, "They can't be; they're driving vehicles." He said, "They're allowed to." I said, "No, the Mennonites do." He said he knew they were Amish because they'd done other work for the neighbors. I said, "I'll settle this, I'll go ask them."
When I approached the two men, one was clean shaven and the other had a beard about eight inches long but it was growing just from his chin and not from his entire face. I said, "The next-door neighbor says you're Amish, but I told him you couldn't be because you're using modern equipment." He answered, "I'm not going to talk about it and it's rude of you to ask."
RUDE? Of course he was right and I deserved to be upbraided.
Touche! to the Concrete Worker.
Did I apologize? Of course not; I just slunk away in embarrassment.
Recently an acquaintance asked what I considered an inopportune question and I answered, "Why do you want to know?"
"Same difference" as my oxymoronic friend would say.
With great sadness we just learned of the death of Roger Ebert.
Please see my homage from 2011:
We have been fans of Roger Ebert since we first saw him and Gene Siskel in 1978 on PBS. Les usually agreed with Gene and I usually agreed with Roger. We have all of Roger's books and we read his movie reviews online from The Chicago Sun-Times. Roger and Gene had several permutations of their show when moving from network to syndication, beginning with "Sneak Previews" followed by "At The movies With Siskel and Ebert" and then "Siskel and Ebert". They were together for twenty-three years and Gene's death in 1999 was a devastating blow to Roger but he continued on with many substitutes, finally settling on Richard Roeper. After their show was cancelled Roger started a new show in January, 2011 named "Ebert Presents The Movies. The new TV show has Bill Kurtis reading his reviews and his wife Chaz making some appearances but the two youngins leave much to be desired although they are obviously Roger's choices.
Roger began his battle with cancer in 2002 which has left him horribly disfigured and he was so brave to appear at Cannes Film Festival recently.
Roger and Gene Siskel's widow still own the trademarked "Two Thumb Up!" phrase. Roger was the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Roger is the only film critic to have a Star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. Forbes Magazine once listed him as the most important pundit.
Although Roger considers "Citizen Kane" the "most important" movie of all time, he will not say it's his favorite. His all-time favorite actors were Robert Mitchum and Ingrid Bergman.
Roger's TOP 10 ALL-TIME MOVIES are listed alphabetically:
AGUIRRE
APOCALYPSE NOW
CITIZEN KANE
DEKALOG
LA DOLCE VITA
THE GENERAL
RAGING BULL
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
TOKYO STORY
VERTIGO
I sent Roger an e-mail telling him that I thought it was interesting that neither of his favorite actors are in his favorite movies.
I have registered numerous family and friends to WORDSMITH.ORG . My friend Mona Lisa just forwarded the latest Word.a.day to me, along with this message:
"I looked in the dictionary for LOGOPHILE and there was your picture!"
See LOGOPHILE below:
MEANING:
noun: One who loves words.
From THE WISE GEEK
Former United States President Harry Truman was the first person enrolled in Medicare.
He was enrolled by President Lyndon Johnson during the ceremony in which President Johnson signed Medicare into law in 1965.
How fitting since President Truman was the first President to introduce legislation to try to enact universal health care. 60 years later, President Obama signed The Affordable Care Act into law.
From THE WISE GEEK
MUSCLES DON'T TURN INTO FAT IF YOU DON'T USE THEM
Despite the popular misconception, muscles won't actually turn into fat if you don't use them. The reason for this common misconception is likely, because as you stop using muscles, they get smaller. At the same time, if you keep eating the same amount of food, you'll usually gain fat since you decreased your energy output. The new fat often appears in the space provided by the shrinking muscles, leading to the appearance of muscles turning into fat.
My favorite word with no English equivalent is schadenfreude, a German word which means the pleasure one gets at another's misery: my definition: going to one's class reunion and everyone there is heavier or more wrinkled than you.
I also like the Yiddish words chutzpah, schlimazel, and verklempt. Chutzpah: I like Mel Brooks' definition: "A guy who kills both his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he's an orphan!" Schlimazel: I like the definition of a person who, if he didn't have bad luck, would have no luck at all. Verlempt: I like Barbra Streisand's definition: "Feeling all whipped-cream inside."
CLICK HERE to read the article on '14 Wonderful Words With No English Equivalent'.
