Bing bing bing
Ack! That’s the interjection, not the abbreviation.
ack interjection
used to express mild alarm or dismay
ack abbreviation
acknowledge, acknowledgement
– Merriam-Webster
Side note: The Collins Dictionary–printed (and presumably thought up) in Glasgow, where they speak an occasionally intelligible variant of British English–identifies ack. as an American-English abbreviation. They present it with a period, which I have never seen in the wild, although I see its rationale.
Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago:
‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence.
Three times is enemy action.’
– Oxford Reference
I love this quote. You might have noticed it in these pages (once, twice, thrice and, ahem, frice). I worked it in here today (I mean, it clearly applies here) because this makes the third time that I’ve wished you a happy Martian new year (here we have the once; here the twice). Yes, as of Nov 12 in 2024 (as some Earthlings reckon our own years, sometimes), we will move into Year 38 as Earthlings track Marsling years.
I may have commented negatively on our fall leaves this year. I don’t say that I did, mind you, but I can’t rule out the possibility. Here in the Ottawa area our signature trees–the red maples–have been somewhat muted compared to other years or, indeed, to others and it’s been on my mind a little bit.
And yet. When the sun is shining and the light is nicely angled and the October winds and rains haven’t started, even a muted season offers views that are both pretty and pretty nice.
If the light is right, the leaves don’t even have to be orange/red to gladden this Albertan’s heart.
How often do I miss appreciating what’s in front of me because I’m comparing it to a memory? A photo of someone else’s experience? An expectation?
What I should do is to seize the day, or even the hour: October’s winds and rains are at hand; November’s gray skies await.
I don’t hate it.
That’s what professional curlers say these days to indicate, um, well, that they don’t hate a shot being proposed by another team member or by the coach. It doesn’t set a high bar, does it? Is that really what they’re looking for? Just a shot that they don’t hate?
On the face of it, it seems unnecessarily negative. Couldn’t they just as easily say something more positive?
I love this plan.
I’m excited to be a part of it.
– Ghostbusters
Without going all Bill Murray, isn’t there something mildly positive that could be said? I expect there are many things, but for some reason curlers say this:
I don’t hate it.
Sometimes a slight pause precedes a meaningfully downbeat delivery of the last word.
The high today will be 14 . . . Bill.
Sometimes a just-more-than-slight pause acts like audible punctuation or a line break.
And that leaves the Yankees leading the ALCS
two games to one.
Bill.
Sometimes there is no discernible pause but the rising intonation catches your attention.
Traffic is moving well
with no accidents this morning, Bill?
But sometimes it all just runs together Bill so that it’s hard to tell when the weather/sports/traffic specialist has stopped talking Bill and is trying to hand the baton back to the morning-show host without any (shudder) dead air Bill because everyone speeds up on their delivery of the repetitive bits of their patter and the host’s name just gets tacked on at the end of it without any pause or intonation change Bill.
Do you remember my recent visual disorientation: not being sure whether I was moving? Here’s an example of a similar phenomenon. This time, though, I think it’s deliberate.
What is life?
A few centuries ago when I was in Grade 11, my biology teacher wrote that question on the board at the start of the year. We learned a few concepts that year and memorized a bunch of definitions, but we didn’t answer that question, even just in a strict biological context.
What is life?
A week or so ago, Jim Taylor wrote a post about life that evoked some of my high-school confusion. Is an individual ant or termite or bee alive, given that the characteristics we generally associate with life–including the ability to reproduce–are vested in the collective?
A bee landed on my arm the other day. She didn’t sting. I assume she was a “she,” because the worker bees who gather nectar that the bees inside the hive turn into honey to sustain the queen and her children are always female.
This particular bee wasn’t aggressive. Or defensive. She just clung to my skin and looked around.
We had a pleasant little chat before she flew off.
I think of her as an individual. A lone bee, foraging on behalf of the hive, able to choose for herself which flowers – or persons —she would visit today. But those who study bees – called Melittologists or Apiarists or Apiologists – say I’m thinking incorrectly. The living organism is not the individual bee but the hive as a whole. (See pdf below for the entire post.)
It got me thinking.
Time: A year later than then.
Place: The same west-end parking lot as then.
Result: More or less the same as then: a fine reflection in the car’s side mirror, and a chain-link fence still trending to horizontal.
It seems early to be fussing about the cold, even here in the Great White North. In Ontari-ari-ari-o, our leaves are just starting to turn: a mix of the should-be-usual fantabulous fall colours and a depressing gray-brown.
Ooh, Brr
Posted: 2024 Nov 01
