This Was The Week In Words (Tina Fey & Shakespeare edition)

So I'm doing Friday's work on Monday because Tuesday's work got bumped to Thursday, which screwed up the whole week. That, and my 11-year-old spent all day Saturday and Sunday singing that creepy song "Friday," but she wasn't doing it ironically, which I find disturbing, because if MY daughter is going to sing pop music, it damn well better be a song that's doesn't have the world's most insipid lyrics. I'd much prefer she sing something by Pink, who uses some cool word play ("If you're too school for cool...") and has a sense of humor in her music ("It's just u and ur hand tonight...")

Editor's Note: In my desperation to find intelligent song lyrics, I'm choosing to overlook the fact that the above lyrics are written in text message, something that normally drives me to do crazy-ass things like sing about what seat I should sit in the car. ("Gotta make up my mind, which seat can I take..." Seriously? )

Or even better, I'd rather my daughter read something very funny and intelligent, like Tina Fey's Bossypants. In case you missed Oprah, The New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Vanity Fair and just about every other media outlet on the planet last week, Fey's book was just released and it's hilarious. (I will be buying this week, I hope.) The 30 Rock star is a smart, funny, attractive, pregnant (did you hear she's pregnant too!) trailblazer -- the first female head writer at SNL. But it was veteran comedic actress Jane Curtain who -- during an Oprah episode last week that gathered past SNL cast members -- made headlines when she pointedly corrected Chevy Chase about just how misogynistic the culture was behind-the-scenes back when the show first started, singling out the late, great John Belushi as someone who openly undermined the sketches penned by female writers. This is a fascinating clip, especially Curtain's opening salvo:

Watch "Jane Curtain Reveals John Belushi Was a Total Sexist on 'SNL'" at New York Magazine

And, as if to underscore the point, this infographic is making the viral rounds today, showing that Fey may have blazed a trail, but late night still needs the very funny voices of more women writers AND performers. (At this point I will shamelessly state my not-so-secret wish to sit in the writer's room at The Colbert Report, the show I consider to be one of the best-written on TV today. Who could help make it even better? ME!)

Finally, in a story that has nothing to do with Fey, feminism in comedy or that f@#%!ng "Friday" song,  you have to check out this fascinating story about how Shakespeare's creative use of language (did you know that he invented about 1,700 words?) has been proven to stimulate brain activity:

 "...we need creative language "to keep the brain alive." [The researcher] points out that so much of our language today, written in bullet points or simple sentences, fall into predictability. "You can often tell what someone is going to say before they finish their sentence" he says. "This represents a gradual deadening of the brain."

So go ahead and build your robot journalists! They may be able to crank out your basic inverted pyramid. They still have nothing on real writers:

"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thought never to heaven go." (Hamlet, Act III, Scene iii)

What's Funny About Words (Guest Blogger)

At my improv class this week, one woman killed the rest of the class with a scene where she described her partner's butt as "two turkeys just bobbing up and down toward the end zone." (I'd explain, but it would take too long. Just know it was damn funny.) The whole scene that followed was hilarious, but it was the "turkey" that put it over the top. "Turkey," all by itself, is a funny word. That "urr" sound is a funny noise to me. And the hard "k" sound has often been cited by comedy writers as something that helps make a word funny. No one has really ever been able to explain why.

For some time now, I've wanted to explore what makes a word "funny." I realized there were certain words I fall back on when I need to be off-the-cuff funny: "Cats," "squirrel," "perturbed," and "pants" are some of them.

So I mentioned on Facebook (you can "Like" right here. WordNerdGirl likes to be "liked.") that I was looking for other people's ideas about what make a word funny when my über-funny, ultra-wordy friend, Dave Ankers, offered some of his thoughts. Then a few more. And then some more. Poor guy is recovering from a Mardi Gras-induced broken ankle and the cabin fever is getting to him. But what he had to say was very interesting and covered way more ground than I ever could with four kids pulling me away from the keyboard every 2 minutes. So I decided to turn today's blog post over to him. Take it away Dave...

Dave Ankers' Random Thoughts About Funny Words
Some random thoughts about funny words, as I procrastinate my hobbling out on crutches to pick up both ground beef and my cholesterol-reducing medication (without irony):

Words can be "funny" in as many ways as there are words and ways to use them, I think. Some word can elicit an amused response just due to how they sound phonetically to us. Haboob. Hurly-burly. Rattletrap. Poughkeepsie. Bulbous. Yabba-dabba-doo. Babaghanoush (which we're all familiar with now, so it's no longer funny. These are usually non-Latin or French-derived words. I realize now that I must personally think words with lots of Bs and Ps are funny.

Some are funny because they are archaic and out of common use, and sound old fashioned, like poppycock, folderol, bolderdash, winsome, or zounds! Or because they're foreign and not familiar to us, like benihana, Addis Ababa, bibimbap, couscous.
Alliteration and rhyme can also make a word stand out.

We laugh at things that are unfamiliar and new and unusual. Making something funny has to do with seeing it in a new way that changes its status and dignity. (See also: drag queens calling out to a cop "Excuse me, miss policeman!" Or a gardener solemnly referring to pests as 'Miss Aphid" or "the esteemed representative of the nation of rabbits." but those examples aren't about funny words, per se.)

Most often, words are funny because they are dropped in places you don't expect them, out of their usual sphere of usage. Like calling a pathetic dinner of canned marinara sauce over chow mein noodle as "fusion" "multicultural" or "sino-Italian."

"Tasty" or "crunchy" aren't particularly funny words, or even noticeable words, when positioned next to "breakfast cereal." But they will probably get a giggle when modifying "Volkswagen" or "sound effects manipulation" or "defense attorney." (Both of these words were once fresh and funny when applied by stoners and jam-band fans to "guitar solo" and so on, but they're now a cliché, so they might as well be modifying "breakfast cereal." That usage isn't funny anymore, to paraphrase Morrissey.)

A very funny usage would be "a crunchy and tasty multicultural fusion snack of chow mein noodles cleverly sauced with a traditional Sicilian marinara." Desperation munchy becomes a parody of food-writing pretension.

Ezra Pound said that the whole point of writing things is to make things new, in our descriptions. Recombining words and images in unexpected ways gives us vivid and new thoughts. Which are usually funny because we're saying something you aren't expecting.

Combining techniques, like using non-funny-sounding words in unexpected ways, can be funny. A great recent book title: "The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society." Not funny enough to get me to read it yet, but certainly an inherently amusing title comprising totally ordinary un-funny words in an alliterative and also dry and dignified way. Combining abstract words (literary, society) with vivid and even undignified words and images (the lowly potato peel, unexpectedly crammed into the form of a probably repulsive pastry) can give you a sharp unexpected blow to the head, in a comedy sense.

People who were really good at this combining ordinary words in multiple ways, for comic effect: SJ Perelman, the Marx Brothers, Monty Python. Sometimes Tom Stoppard.

The word "avalanche" may not be funny to you, but remember, avalanche is better than no lanche at all, yes?

A true benefit of English is that it has all these odd-sounding Anglo-Saxon words, as well as lots of weird words absorbed from non-romance languages, which combine with all the words derived from Latin (both religious and legal) and French (which the Norman conquerors spoke), forming a never-quite-blending stew of sounds and shadings of meaning.

Lots and lots of toys in the toolbox, to mix a metaphoric cocktail.

I really should mention John Lennon as a natural master of funny wordplay. Not his song lyrics, but the funny little books he put out: in "His Own Write" and "A Spaniard in the Works." At their best, they are amazing little case studies on how to replace one word with another, usually a homonym, and make a dull sentence both funny and thought-provoking.

Also, Irish writers historically have been very good at clever wordplay. And I'm sure somebody has a well-reasoned theory as to why, but it's not me. Check out quotations from Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, and James Joyce. Please exclude Bono from your investigations -- he is an unfortunate exception to the trend.

Other words: doughboy, wallaby, wombat, ocelot, kazoo, Bonobo. Bebe Rebozo.
 

Cloris Leachman. Which becomes funny when juxtaposed with "Clorox Bleach."

Kalamazoo.

Conniption. Aneurysm. (Which aren't so funny to most people, probably. But think of the comedy mileage you get with just an exclamation point: "Aneurysm! The Musical!" Or imagine a solemn and pompous John Grisham legal thriller titled "The Conniption Ruling" or something like that.)

A great exercise is taking a word that is decidedly unfunny, and finding ways to make it funny, to the point of making people really uncomfortable. (Cancer Crispies, anyone?)

Can you tell I am going stir crazy, stuck indoors on crutches, alone all day, with nothing to do?

 We can tell Dave. That's one of the reasons we love you. Comment below on words you think are funny, your thoughts on Dave's thoughts, or what you think Dave should do while cooped up in his apartment in a cast/boot for the next one to three weeks.

Celebrating Autism Un-Awareness

We have another off-topic blog post today, for something very close to my heart. I promise the next post will be more writing about writing. Meanwhile, April marks the beginning of Autism Awareness Month. My 9-year-old son and 2-year-old niece have both been diagnosed on the spectrum. Below is an essay I wrote on the subject of how great it feels to be unaware of autism. Thanks for reading, and remember that if you see someone wearing a puzzle piece pin, that puzzle piece represents a person who is loved:

Michael, holding his baby sister
at the top of the sliding board.
(Thankfully, I had my camera
with me that day.)

 Celebrating Autism Unawareness

It’s April – Autism Awareness Month. Time for puzzle pieces, wearing blue and experts who tell us that it’s a neurobiological disorder of epidemic proportions, but nobody knows what causes it. It’s probably genetic, but might also be environmental. But it’s definitely not vaccines. More research is needed.

Personally, I’d like to have an autism un-awareness month. I have to settle for the occasional unawareness day, like the one we had a couple weeks ago. It was a warm, pre-spring day at the playground, and my son Michael, age 9, was chasing his younger brother up the jungle gym. My 18-month old daughter got away from me and followed, up the steps to the highest point at the sliding board platform.

Honestly, if my oldest had not been off with her friends, I would have had her do it. But in a parental leap of faith, I put the baby in Mikey’s lap. He held her tight and smiled.

Then Mikey took his baby sister for her first ride down the big kids’ slide. Then they did it again. And again.

It was a small milestone for the baby, but a very big deal for Mikey. In that moment, he wasn’t one of the 1 in 110 kids diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that everyone hears about each April.

For one afternoon, he was just a big brother, protecting his sister on the sliding board. It was an extraordinarily normal moment for all of us.

For Michael, his ASD means he struggles to maintain his coordination and balance, especially when at any kind of height off the ground, like on a jungle gym. He also has low muscle tone in his upper body, so he doesn’t always have the strength needed to do simple things, like hold his squirmy baby sister in his lap.

Mikey also has sensory issues. That means he’s easily overwhelmed by sights and sounds, and can’t eat many foods because the textures make him gag. He’s never had a slice of birthday cake. The spray of water stings his skin. Once, he tried for 10 minutes to play in a sprinkler because he saw the other kids having fun too. But it ended the way I should have known it would – with him dissolving into a meltdown.

If you only know autism from the TV’s Parenthood, that show usually gets it right from the parents’ perspective. But in real life, we don’t have the luxury of a fade-to-black commercial break when the tantrums start. The wailing and flailing can last all day. I’m lucky; Mikey’s pretty mellow. He only has one or two meltdowns a day, and they’re not usually physical or long-lasting. I know other parents who have to medicate their children because the tantrums are so frequent and violent.

Mikey is “high-functioning.” (That term makes me think of robots – he’s anything but.) He can speak. Academically, he’s on-target, assigned to an integrated classroom with other special needs and “typical” third graders. He has an education aide assigned to help him through each day because he needs constant reminders to stay on-task.

So I am lucky – I remind myself – that Mikey is able to cry out, “I’m a weirdo!” during a meltdown. He knows he’s different – and if he forgets, he has all the constant reminders.

While consoling him, I’ve tried to explain why he feels different, and that it’s okay. But I have no idea if he understands.

Even with three siblings, Mikey is lonely. He wants friends, and gets mad at me because I can’t get him one. I’ve tried. We just finished 10 sessions of a social skills group. (We called it a “friend-making class.”) I’ve arranged play-dates and signed him up for a special needs sports clinic.

But when he goes to these things, he often pulls away to do his own thing -- crazy dancing, or a word-for-word recitation about how to build a campfire. He can be hilarious. But he can also be inappropriate, like the time he repeated all the “big balls” wisecracks from Wipeout. If we try to pull him out of his little world and help him interact with others, he gets overwhelmed, and the tears well up again.

I already know more about autism than I ever wanted. In addition to Mikey, my two year-old niece was diagnosed on the spectrum just a couple of months ago. So in our family – even as we wear blue clothing, attach puzzle pins to our coats, organize walk-a-thon teams and promote research to identify a cause and effective treatments – we do these things while not-so-secretly wishing for more autism un-awareness days, like that day my son had on the playground. It’s one I’ll hold forever in my heart.

Personally, I think Mikey deserves more of them.

Heartfelt Words from My Dad

My father -- a Vietnam veteran who, until recently, has not shared a whole lot of his experiences -- wrote this letter this morning. He sent it to me because, "I thought you might be able to use it on your newspaper whatever thing."

It's called a blog, Dad. (And I say that -- rolling my eyes -- with love.) 

This blog is (usually) about writing -- how to write so that your words have an effect on people. Today, the lesson is 'writing from the heart.' And the lesson is an easy one: If you write the truth as you know it,  you won't have to worry about the effect of your words, because they'll have a power all their own:

To those of you who served, this letter is to you:

Welcome Home and Thank You for Your Service to Our Country!

Believe it or not, after all of these years, they have finally decided to say, "Welcome Home!" to the Vietnam Veterans.

There was actually a resolution passed in the House earlier this year designating March 30 2011 Welcome Home Vietnam Vets Day, by Rep. Richard Burr (R-NC) and endorsed by 5 other members of the house. – I’m impressed.

I happened to stumble across this in a news article from the VFW letter I receive periodically – I personally have certainly not seen a whole lot in the press (printed or electronic) or on the television.

And as far as a "Welcome Home" goes, this should go out to all Veterans, for any hazardous duty assignment, not just Vietnam. People ended up just as dead in Korea, Grenada, Mogadishu Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan etc. It is a shame that it took the event of 9/11 to wake people up to the fact that veterans and their families make sacrifices, and that politics and service to this country are not a dividing line that determines whether or not you should thank someone for their service.

The military has been the mainstay of the defense in this country, and allows people the liberties that we all enjoy. A simple "Thanks" and "Welcome Back" should not have to be solicited – but sadly, that appears to be the point we have devolved to.

In my opinion, Vietnam got all the attention because of all of the political protests and the stigma brought out by the press coverage – everyone from every conflict should have been welcomed back. We all did a job, be it significant or insignificant, with several goals – uphold the Constitution, defend the people, obey lawful orders, get back in one piece -- or at least enough pieces to function .

Remember, all gave some – some gave All.  Celebrate that (for more than just one day a year) PLEASE.

Michael C. Bartha

Specialist 5

Hazardous Duty Service 1970 - 1971

HQ Company, 1^st Signal Brigade – Phu Bai

337^th Signal Co. M/W, 1^st Signal Brigade -101^st Airborne Div Camp Eagle

Active Service May 20, 1958 – March 16, 1973

Status – Disabled Veteran

Vietnam was one of the most boring experiences of my life, interrupted by moments of sheer terror.

My parents' wedding, February 7, 1970, one week before my father left for Vietnam

L'Chaim!

I had a humor piece about Purim published in the Philadelphia Jewish Voice blog. Check it out here.

This Was The Week in Words

Happy Friday everyone! Hope we make it through the weekend, what with the crazy 'Supermoon' that we're supposed to get tomorrow. Really, I think we've all had enough natural disasters for one week, but more on that in a sec.

This week in words, The Washington Post apologized and suspended its Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Sari Horwitz for plagiarizing stories from the Arizona Republic. Horwitz also issued her own apology. Sorry, lady. Deadlines are no excuse for stealing other people's words.  Meanwhile, over at The New York Times, the newspaper finally unveiled plans for its online paywall. It sounds overly-complicated, but Gawker's Hamilton Nolan sums it up nicely:

"For those of you inclined to bitch about paying to read NYT stories online: stop bitching. The fact is the paper needs the money. All papers need the money. In retrospect, it was a strategic mistake for newspapers to put their content online for free. Charging for online access is the way of the future. Get used to it. If you're going to pay to read journalism on the internet, you might as well pay for good journalism."

But the week's biggest words-related controversy came from comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who tweeted when he should have kept his quack shut. Gottfried was fired from his gig as the voice of the Aflac duck after posting a slew of really tasteless jokes on his Twitter feed about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan over the weekend. He has since apologized, and removed the jokes from his Twitter feed. But they're everywhere. Nothing really dies on the Internet. (Sari Horwitz, are you paying attention?) It turns out that Aflac insures a substantial number of properties in the disaster zone. Gottfried -- whose entire act is based on tasteless jokes, that's his thing -- was not the only one to say insensitive things (Rush Limbaugh, 50 Cent, we're looking at you), he's just the only one to have lost work over it. Honestly, I think Limbaugh's comments were far worse... because he was being completely serious. An actor who lost his gig as a Geico spokesperson after criticizing the Tea Party had an interesting take on the situation. 

The sex jokes, in particular, were baaad. But I'll I'll admit, I laughed at a couple of Gottfried's other jokes. (Personal favorite: "What do Japanese Jews like to eat? Hebrew National Tsunami.") That's a great bit of word play, and would be funny -- if hundreds of thousands of people had not just died or had their lives destroyed by an earthquake, a tsunami and now, multiple nuclear reactor meltdowns!! The torrent of news has been oh-so-heartbreakingly sad and terrifying. It would be nice to find something funny in it. Since there's not much, I'll take that silly Hebrew National Tsunami punchline. And then I'll take a cue from the Geico guy. Instead of tweeting jokes, or telling everyone how very-very-outraged I am, I'll do something more productive, like text 90999 to the American Red Cross to donate $10 to the relief effort, or make another donation to reputable agencies that are helping. Hope you will too.

Finally, tomorrow is also the Jewish celebration of Purim, which, from what I understand, is a lot like Mardi Gras, but without the beads and boobs. So enjoy life this weekend. Hug your kids (I'll be hugging mine.) Between the radiation clouds, California falling into the ocean and that crazy, crazy moon, we might not even make it to Monday.

The 1% Solution

In the recent The Feedback Loop post, Anonymous "JZ" mentioned that getting feedback on her personal writing was scary for her, especially since she wanted to write a semi-autobiographical novel based on her experiences.

At about the same time, I heard about a relatively new writer who -- after finishing a novel he had spent months writing -- was considering completely gutting his story. The reason: he thought of the main character as an extension of himself... and no one who read the story thought the main character was a likeable person.

Now, every writer has the prerogative to change their story to suit whatever objective they want to achieve. But this writer, until he got that feedback, was relatively happy with the story. It was solid. The events unfolded in a way that made sense. The characters were consistent. But the main character's behavior was morally questionable -- his deception and manipulation of his wife was the driving force of the story. And this writer had invested a good deal of himself into this character. As a result, when faced with feedback that called his character "a bad guy," the writer heard judgment not of the character, but of the story and -- by extension -- himself.

I used to fall into that trap myself. I had gotten better over the years, but it wasn't until I started taking the improv classes (new session started last week - yay!) that I really got it. You are not your characters. On stage, the audience is not laughing at you. They know nothing about you. They are laughing at the character you've created through the silly actions you take.

It is the same in writing. Readers aren't judging you. Ninety-nine percent of the time, they know nothing about you (except what you choose to tell them.) They're judging the character you've created.

It's the judgment of that pesky 1 % writers fear most. These are the people who do know you, who may know the origins of  a specific character, scene or idea . You fear what they'll think of you. ("He'll think I'm a pervert for writing that sex scene.") You fear they won't like what you have to say. ("That's not how it really happened. She's lying.") At it's core, the fear of the 1% comes down to: if they don't like some part of my story, then they don't like some part of me.


All stories -- fiction and non-fiction  -- come from something that is part of the writer. It's truth as you see it. Characters inspired by real people, and plot lines inspired by life events, are part of that. But in a story, the characters you create and the life events you choose to use should only appear in a story for one reason: to serve the telling of your story -- the "truth" that you want to tell.

Writers can't control how readers will judge their story. All writers can do is tell their stories honestly, truthfully, to the best of their ability. Most of the time, the 1% of feedback you fear hearing the most is going to come from people who know you best, or at least understand and care about what you are trying to accomplish with your story. They will know the difference between you and a character, because they know you.

When a story contains truth -- especially a hard truth -- your 1% readers, 99% of the time, will respond not with anger, but with love. They will like you more, understand you more than they did before. And so will the other 99%.