WordWacky

Can you sue the world if you don’t like a word in general use? My instinct says no, but apparently someone is trying.

The people of the island of Lesbos are not pleased. It seems that one famous Lesbian’s sexual activities have trumped the accomplishments of the entire island. No longer can a straight woman from the Greek island say she’s a Lesbian without raising eyebrows. This is the complaint of a lawsuit filed against the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece. [via Deblog]

While the homophobic implications of this are undeniable, I have to say, I empathize for a few reasons.

• I’ve never liked the word, even though I will cop to the identity in certain settings. I prefer to call myself a dyke. It’s hipper, more in-your-face, less apologetic. While I am eternally grateful to the feminist lesbians of earlier generations for doing their absolute best to de-stigmatize the word, I’m not sure it worked. There’s something about the way the way it forms in your mouth that makes it sound a little like a disease, or like you’re trying to spit out a hair caught in the back of your throat. Is this internalized homophobia? Probably. But it’s how I feel, nonetheless, and I’m not alone.
• The activities of certain a soon-to-be-ex-President make me embarrassed to call myself an American. While I won’t equate bombing nations, destroying their infrastructure, claiming their natural resources, and watching the nation’s decline into civil war with, say, cunnilingus, I can understand how one person’s actions should not define that of an entire geographical region.

The man behind the lawsuit, Dimitris Lambrou, also mentions that she wasn’t really a lesbian dyke, anyway. New research (funded by whom, I wonder) has unearthed that Sappho had a family and killed herself over a guy. Two things to say to that: 1) So?, and 2) She should have stuck to women.

Despite my qualified empathy with the plight of the Lesbians, I will enjoy watching this initiative fail. For one thing, there are far more of us than there are of you. Your brand has been co-opted, people of the island of Lesbos.

Sorry?

Apparently Woody Harrelson is not only a “hemp” activist, but a spoken word performer:

“…Morality is legislated
prisons over-populated
religion is incorporated
the profit-motive has permeated all activity
we pay our government to let us park on the street
And war is the biggest money-maker of all
we all know missile envy only comes from being small…”

Check out the full piece (with visual accompaniment).

Speaking of the spoken word, here are a couple of performances featuring Seattle writers coming up in the near future:

Bent & Andrea Gibson
Tuesday, May 13, $10 at the door

Champion slam poet Andrea Gibson performs with great local queer poets.
Re-bar, 1114 Howell St, Seattle
$10 at the door
http://bentwriting.com

Writers in the Schools: 2008 Student Reading & Celebration
Thursday, May 22, 7 p.m., free!

“The best of the best” elementary, junior, and senior high Seattle students perform their original work.
Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., Seattle
For free tickets e-mail wits@lectures.org or call 206-621-2230
http://www.lectures.org/wits.html

It seems to me that there’s an inverse relationship between the number of letters and/or syllables in a word and how many different meanings it can have. Is this due to our tendency to nickname — that is, to shorten? Seems logical.

I had to look up the word that meant “having many meanings.” Polysemy itself has one. Good word to know, even if only 17 English speakers in the world will understand when you say it out loud.

I haven’t tried that yet. Let’s say it out loud together: “POL-ly-see-me.” Or the less personable version: “puh-LIS-uh-me.”

After Tatiana sent me this cool video of a pop-up book today, I began to ponder the polysemous word, pop (>30 definitions!).

I won’t bore you with all of the definitions of pop. Here are some favorites:

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In middle school we had a sub named Mr. Gliner. He was no ordinary sub. Usually they were nervous and controlling, sometimes angry, too. Mr. Gliner had a disturbingly giddy manner that made him oblivious to all but the worst behavior. Behind his layered glasses, his eyes were tiny blue peas. Mr. Gliner was also missing a couple of fingers on each hand, and he was built lopsided, so that one pant leg dragged under his foot, torn and stringy.

All we ever did with Mr. Gliner were logic and math problems — no matter whom he was replacing — which he handed out at the beginning of class from a stack of papers he plucked from his briefcase. I always believed he paid for those copies himself.

A recent story has surfaced from Pasco County, FL about a far less bizarre substitute teacher, Jim Picula.

Picula was fired for “wizardry.”

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It’s been a long time since I’ve been behind the wheel at a blog. Picture me stretching, because that’s what I’ve been doing: re-familiarizing myself with name servers and redirects, getting up to speed on the new technologies available to me.

Truth is, blogging hasn’t changed much. What has changed is the marketing of blogs, and that industry has exploded.

When I pulled the plug on my personal blog in 2005, I knew that blogging wasn’t over for me, but I also knew my next endeavor would have to be something less personal and more topical—but what? Since then I spent some time blogging professionally, but when the company’s blog goals changed, so did my motivation.

So here I am, starting a word blog. A blog about words—what they are, what they make—even, sometimes, what makes them (typography and etymology are fair game, in other words). Other words! Word industries, word games, the spoken word, the written word, lyrics and anti-lyrics. Words, words, and more words.

To ensure a variety of content, I have extended an invitation to at least one other potential word blogger, and we may see more people pop up on this blog as time progresses. Or you may just be stuck with me. Some things I have planned; others will be pure improv.

Why, you ask? Aren’t there plenty of word blogs around? What could I possibly have to add to the blogosphere at this late date?

To quote Henry Miller, a writer whose intensity and proliferation I admire, “Writing is its own reward.” Does the same statement hold if I substitute blogging for writing?

This is not to say that I don’t believe blogging is writing—far from it. But is blogging its own reward, or is the reward elsewhere? In community, in traffic, in financial gain, in credibility, in authority? I know what I got out of my personal blogging endeavor, but I suspect new rewards await me in this next incarnation of the blogger’s I.

I picture myself looking back on this post with amusement. This is how I will go forward: boldly, and with confidence. Join me if you would like. If not, I’m sure I can dig up someone else to come along…