Out of My Mind (43 page)

David Letterman and Jay Leno are popular, but I've never liked their opening monologues because they seem contrived. You can hear the writers in the background. Humor is best when it's spontaneous, and there's nothing spontaneous about those carefully written opening series of jokes even when the material itself is clever.

Nothing is funny that tries to be funny. Laugh tracks designed to indicate to people at home what's funny on television ought to be outlawed. When I'm home, clicking through the channels, there are a dozen shows that don't take me half a second to reject. I don't watch “survivor” shows; I don't listen to television evangelists; I don't watch hockey games; I can't stand anyone in a toque blanche telling me how to cook; I don't watch stand-up comedians or quiz shows; and if a program comes up and I hear a laugh track, I move on in an instant. I don't need recorded laughter laid in by a producer to let me know what he thinks is funny.

So-called “stand-up” comedians ought to sit down and relax.

They're trying too hard. My idea of funny on television is what Bob Newhart or the Smothers Brothers did. Their humor wasn't in the form of jokes. It played off real-life situations that we all recognize. Right now, I find Al Franken genuinely funny quite aside from his political opinions. We don't have anyone in the same league with the Marx Brothers anymore. We don't have Mark Twain or Will Rogers.

Humor doesn't take kindly to being explained, analyzed or written about (like this). E. B. White said that explaining humor is like analyzing the theory of flight by dissecting a sparrow.

One of many reasons I'm pleased to be an American is that I'd hate to be a foreigner and have to learn the English language.

It's so complex. I've been making notes:

Last night, the news anchorman paused for a commercial and said, “We'll be right back.”

What a strange use of the word “right,” I thought, missing the whole commercial as I considered some of the many meanings the word right has. There must be twenty. “You're right,” meaning correct. “Take a right.” “He hit him with a right.” “It's a right angle.” “You have a right.” “He's right wing.” “That's not right to do.” “It doesn't fit you right.” “The canoe tipped over and he righted it.”

How would you teach anyone all those meanings?

“A slip of the tongue.” Slip? What's a tongue got to do with slipping? Isn't a slip underwear? “Slip and fall?” “She's a slip of a girl.” “Put the boat in the slip.” And consider:

Why does someone “go to the hospital” but “go to prison”? “I'm afraid we can't go tonight.” What do you mean you're “afraid”? What are you afraid of?

And why do we spell “embarrass” with two r's and two s's when we spell “harass” with just one r but two s's?

If you live in Chicago, you say, “IlliNOY.” Many others call it “Illinoise.” Same with Colorado. Natives call it “ColaRADo.” I say, “Cola-RODo.” Sounds better.

“Till” is not a contraction of until. It's a word all by itself. People who spell it “'til” don't know that.

Is gray a darker color than grey? Why do we spell it two ways?

We say, “I could of hurt myself,” but if we wrote it, we'd know it should be, “I could have hurt myself.”

High school English teachers are still insisting on “dived” instead of “dove” and “hanged” instead of “hung.” They're fighting a losing battle.

We still accept “mankind,” but it's politically incorrect to call a woman “chairman.” I don't like just “chair” and “chairperson” doesn't have much authority. I don't see anything wrong with a woman being chairman.

“OK” has been one of the most useful American additions to the English language. It's old and no one knows its derivation. There are at least twenty theories.

I don't understand the punctuation of “Rock 'n' Roll.” (Of course, I don't understand Rock 'n' Roll, either.)

You don't hear people say “PDQ” much anymore.

“Jock” and “closure” have become popular recently.

The English language has three times as many words as French because we take in new words that are useful and have a different nuance of meaning than anything we already have. The stuffy French Academy doesn't allow that. They wouldn't have taken in “pizzazz,” for example. French is nice, though.

During the hearings held by the commission investigating the
₉
/11 attacks, one member, Richard Ben-Veniste, questioning Condoleezza
Rice, kept referring to the “PDB.” It was irritating. I felt dumb because I didn't know what PDB stood for and he used it as if everyone should know. I've since found out it stands for “President's Daily Brief.” Now I know Ben-Veniste was dumber for using it than I was for not knowing the meaning.

There are always people who try to make themselves sound special by using words familiar only to the people in their profession. Doctors do it, lawyers do it, scientists do it.

There are hundreds of initials we use as shorthand without thinking of the words they represent. A newspaper using them doesn't have to spell them out every time because we're all familiar with their meaning: USA, AFL-CIO, NATO, YMCA, AMA, FBI, CIA, OSS, AIDS, ROTC, PCB, USAAF, AP, ABC, NBC, CB S, CNN.

In many cases, it's just more practical to use initials or acronyms. What road crew would plant a stick of trinitrotoluene under a rock? They'd use TNT. Acronyms and initials have been very handy and good if not abused. No one has to post a sign outside a Hollywood blockbuster saying, “Standing Room Only.” All we need is “SRO.”

Some familiar initials turn into words called acronyms because you can pronounce them. We say “OK” as the acronym “okay.” Other sets of initials don't lend themselves to becoming words.

“RADAR” is an acronym so familiar that we don't think of it as anything but a word. Originally it came from the combined first letters of some of the words in the phrase “Radio Detecting and Ranging.” “SONAR” came from “Sound Navigation Ranging.” “SCUBA” is short for “Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.”

“BASIC” is an acronym in computer-talk that stands for “Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.” The acronym “MOUSE” refers not to a computer “mouse” but to a proposed “Minimum Orbital Unmanned Satellite of the Earth.”

The most familiar acronym to come out of World War II, which is still part of the language, was “SNAFU,” which I won't translate here. The sanitized version is, “Situation Normal All Fouled Up.”

“AWOL,” meaning “Absent Without Leave,” originated in World War I. The most unfortunate military acronym in World War II was “CINCUS,” meaning “Commander in Chief of the United States Navy.” It was pronounced, “Sink us.”

The federal government loves initials and acronyms. Franklin Roosevelt's administration brought in hundreds like WPA, NRA, OPA. Even the name “Franklin Delano Roosevelt” is often replaced by the initials “FDR.” John F. Kennedy was often called simply “JFK.” Lyndon Johnson was “LBJ.”

It's hard to know why that happens to some Presidents and not to others. It didn't happen to Presidents before FDR and it didn't happen to some of our most recent presidents. No one called Richard Milhous Nixon, “RMN.” They didn't call Jimmy Carter “JC” or Bill Clinton “BC.” It may take three letters to give it the right ring.

Big Business didn't leave itself out of the initial and acronym business. We have words like “NABISCO” for “National Biscuit Company,” “SUNOCO” for “Sun Oil Company,” and “ALCOA,” for the “Aluminum Corporation of America.” “IBM” is familiar as a name but it's not an acronym because you can't pronounce it as a word.

I have to get out of here PDQ. I hope the essay is OK, pronounced as the acronym, “okay.”

If it were not for the fact that mine is worse than any of theirs, I would complain bitterly about the people who write me letters with handwriting I cannot read. I often give up on a letter and throw it in the wastebasket because it's too difficult to decipher. I always think there's a good chance the writer wasn't trying to tell me anything I wanted to know anyway.

People become enamored of the scrawl they use for their signature even when it's illegible. I have no objection as long as the name is
printed clearly under it. I do object to letters I can't read. The ones with the worst handwriting are always the longest.

The letters of our alphabet are not all beautiful. Cursive writing—the name for handwriting in which the letters are connected to each other, is supposed to be quicker because you don't lift the pen or pencil off the paper between each letter. This type of handwriting may be quicker but it is not pretty. The letters a, b, c, d, e are nice enough but some others are not.

Generally speaking, our capital letters are better-looking than the small ones. The big, looping B and the moving S are fun to scrawl. G's are not.

When I was growing up, I was taught something called “The Palmer Method.” The writing instrument was held between the thumb and the forefinger and went almost straight up before the second joint and the knuckle. You were not supposed to use your fingers to move the pen or pencil. The motion all came from the shoulder moving the whole arm with the writing tool held between the thumb and forefinger. The teacher insisted that she be able to see light under your wrist.

In the I930s, 80 percent of all American schoolchildren were taught “The Palmer Method.” It was stupid and awkward and may account for why my handwriting is so bad.

The typewriter should be ranked in importance to civilization with the light bulb and the telephone, I don't write anything except a grocery shopping list by hand anymore.

For fifty years, I wrote on a great typewriter known as an Underwood No. 5. It was satisfying to hit the keys with my fingers because the lever with the letter on the end of it rose quickly and struck the inked ribbon in front of the paper to make its mark. It made a good sound, too. The computer is not so satisfying physically but it's a major improvement as a writer's tool.

About fifteen years ago, I fought a losing battle to resist giving up my faithful old typewriter for a computer. I was embarrassed to tell people I was writing on one, but now you couldn't get me to go back to the typewriter any more than you could make me use “The Palmer Method.” A
computer makes it so much easier to make changes that it improves the work of any writer who uses one. Writers make changes now they wouldn't have bothered with twenty years ago because it's so much easier. They don't have to throw away the page or make marks on the paper they're writing on.

Reading this, you may not be convinced I write better on a computer.

Here are some thoughts on sports:

Baseball players are talking about a strike again. A strike by ballplayers is ridiculous. It wouldn't be a work stoppage. It would be a play stoppage. It seems unlikely, though, that any ballplayer making two million dollars a year at age twenty-six would be in favor of walking out. Most of the owners are already rich, but they aren't making as much from the game as the players—which is the way it should be.

I don't know what's happened to baseball. Even Little League baseball is close to being Big League. Don't kids ever get together anymore, divide themselves into teams without any adults around and play a game on Saturday morning?

Size is too important in several sports. Most offensive linemen in the NFL weigh more than 300 pounds. A few weigh 400. There are more players seven feet tall in the NBA than there are players under six feet.