A Dictionary For BONEHEDs

First published November 25, 2005

Not too long ago on this page we formed a group called the Bureau Of Nearly Everybody Hacking English Down. Since then prospective BONEHEDs have contacted me from every part of the country, enlisting in the noble effort to escort our language – in shackles, kicking and screaming if necessary – into the twenty-first century.


Last week I got a text message about BONEHED on my cell phone. This was my first text message ever (other than the one that came with the phone, which welcomed me to the incredible world of text messaging, and which is still on my phone because I don’t have any idea how to delete it). The message, from a young woman, read:

DEER MR FNYGY

Y I OTTA RYAOABYWTBS. U GOT ABRVS RONG. U R A WOMBAT

H&K, YR FAN, JESSICA

Ok, I’ll admit this one had me completely baffled, until I got my son to help me translate it:

DEER MR FNYGY = Dear Mr. Funny Guy

Y I OTTA = Why I ought to

RYAOABYWTBS = rip your arm off and beat you with the bloody stump

U GOT ABRVS RONG = You got the abbreviations wrong

U R A = You are a

WOMBAT = You know, it’s a funny thing; by the time we got to this one I thought I was getting the hang of this whole deal, so I figured that this meant Wonderful, Outstanding Man, Brilliant And Talented. Not quite. It means Waste Of Money, Brains And Time.

H&K = Hugs and kisses

YR FAN = Your Fan

JESSICA = Mary

Well Mary, I’m glad to have you for a fan, and I welcome you to BONEHED. All I have to say is, “My HHIS” (My Head’s Hanging In Shame) – next time I’ll try to get the abrvs ryt.

This whole incident has me wondering if there are occasions when sending a text message may not be such a great idea. Like this:

JOHN

I M DMPNG U.

MARCIA

Here Marcia appears to be breaking off some sort of romantic relationship with John. This is her prerogative, of course, but doing it this way seems a bit harsh and impersonal. It would be much kinder for her to communicate this message, with its many underlying emotional implications, in lipstick on the bathroom mirror.

Here’s another example:

DEER KIM,

U R 4 ME. WIL U B MY M8?

WELL, IGTR (I’ve Got To Run), BILL

Here Bill is clearly proposing marriage to Kim, but it seems like there must be a more romantic way to go about it. For instance, he could find a cool picture of a penguin wearing a top and hat holding an engagement ring, then email it to her.

Other questionable uses for text messaging might include a Summons:

U R ORDRD 2 APEER

… a thank-you note:

DEER ANT RUTH,

THNX,

BOBBIE

… bad news:

U R GONNA CROAK

… good news:

OOPS, I MENT 2 DIAL YR B-I-L (brother-in-law) 4 THAT CROAK THNG

… or suicide notes:

C YA

In any case, it is clear that we need to set some standards for our proud new version of the English language – and we BONEHEDs are just the folks to do it! If all of you readers would email me with your favorite acronyms and abbreviations, I’ll put them together for us into a BONEHED’s dictionary. Send your ideas to bonehed@learnedsofar.com.

Merriam-Webster, eat your heart out!

Copyright © 2005 Michael Ball

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Here We Are – The Pilgrims' Pride

First published November 18, 2005

The car pulls into Great Aunt Ellen’s driveway at exactly five minutes after eleven on a fine Thanksgiving morning. Since the moment the family left the house, an hour before dawn this morning, Todd Junior and Little Suzie have been passing the hours playing festive travel games, alternating between the traditional “Let’s Make Little Suzie Cry!” and the crowd-pleasing “Mom, Todd’s Making Me Cry!”


Before the car has quite rolled to a stop, Mom, Todd Junior and Little Suzy are out and sprinting for the bathroom. Dad, who apparently has a much larger bladder, joins Great Uncle Charlie and Uncle Fred in the garage where they are squatting on the floor and studying the directions for a brand-new turkey fryer.

Great Aunt Ellen has arranged fifteen fire extinguishers at strategic points around the garage. Now she’s standing behind the men, explaining how a story she saw on the six o’clock news proved that frying a turkey in the garage is more dangerous than tossing a burning road flare into a bathtub full of napalm.

Grandpa is sitting in a recliner in the living room watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV. Grandpa is wearing a flannel shirt, wool pants, two pairs of socks, insulated work boots, and long johns. Grandpa has adjusted the thermostat so that the air in the living room is hot enough to curl the wallpaper.

Grandma, Mom, Aunt Karen and Aunt Meg are in the kitchen making things like pumpkin pies and mashed potatoes. Aunt Meg had wanted to make a mincemeat pie, but Grandma reminded her that Uncle Stan is bringing his new girlfriend, and she’s some kind of a vegetarian, so they’d better stick with pumpkin.

Before long Todd Junior has drafted Karen’s boy Sheldon and Aunt Meg’s twins into a rousing game of “Let’s Catch Little Suzie And Tickle Her ‘Till She Pees!” In her seven years on Earth as Todd Junior’s younger sister, Little Suzie has developed the survival skills of a ninja, so she locks all four boys in the basement and settles down to play Barbies with her cousins Brittany and Pammie.

The men carefully lower the turkey into the hot oil as Great Aunt Ellen falls to her knees and pleads for salvation. Aunt Meg tries without success to convince Grandma that mincemeat is not really meat, and besides they’re having turkey, which is really meat, so she doesn’t see the problem. Aunt Karen becomes a little hysterical when she realizes that you don’t get gravy when you deep-fry the turkey, but Mom and Aunt Meg calm her down by opening another bottle of White Zinfandel.

Carl the Dog, lying on the floor next to Grandpa’s chair, suffers a heat stroke.

And then, at last, the feast is ready. Uncle Stan and his girlfriend Stacey show up just as Great Uncle Charlie brushes the last of the white fire extinguisher stuff off the turkey and fires up the electric carving knife. After a fairly intensive cross-examination by Aunt Meg, it turns out that Stacey’s a veterinarian, not a vegetarian, and mincemeat pie would have been just fine with her – maybe even her absolute favorite.

As soon as Thanksgiving Dinner is over, Uncle Stan and Stacey excuse themselves to go celebrate Thanksgiving with Stacey’s relatives. Grandma won’t let them go to their second turkey dinner of the afternoon without sending along a bag of leftovers.

The women all hug and kiss Stacey goodbye, then they go to the kitchen to clean up the dishes and discuss how selfish she is to drag Stan away from his family on Thanksgiving.

The men retire to the living room, where the paint on the ceiling is beginning to blister, and sprawl about in nests of couch pillows and perspiration to snore through a couple of football games.

Little Suzie traps the boys in an upstairs linen closet, then joins the girls to resume the Barbies marathon.

And all is right with the world.

Copyright © 2005 Michael Ball

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Bring Me Back A Bambi Burger

First published November 11, 2005

A few weeks ago in this column I mentioned bow hunting for deer. I pointed out that the concept of the bow hunter as a kind of modern-day Hiawatha, gliding through the forest and slaying the noble beast with a hand-hewn weapon, is not quite accurate when Hiawatha’s hand-hewn weapon is equipped with a laser targeting system.

And now we’re approaching the highlight of the year for all the really serious Bambi Blasters out there – the firearm deer season’s Opening Day! Think of it! A million and-a-half guys in orange hats, a million and-a-half loaded weapons, and three million cases of beer – what could possibly go wrong?

Now please don’t think that I’m making fun of hunters. I make it a point never to make fun of people who have guns and who like to shoot things with them.

Besides, there’s nothing I enjoy more than tossing a nice venison steak on the grill, so I certainly can’t claim any philosophical or moral objection to hunting. I’m just way too much of a wimp to do it. When I want a hamburger, I’d rather not have to club the cow and grind it up myself.

So while I don’t hunt, I have nothing but respect for the average hunter. Here is an outdoorsman who can survive for a week or more on nothing but Twinkies, Slim Jims, and Bud Light. He can sleep in a drafty cabin filled with seven other snoring guys and a cloud of Slim Jim farts. He can get up before dawn, sit shivering in the woods all day without ever seeing a deer, then happily go back to camp for another night of snoring and farting.

And he looks forward to this all year.

Just this morning I ran into my hunter friend, Thor. “So,” I said, “do you have all your guns and ammo ready for Opening Day?”

“Nah,” Thor said, looking like he’d just lost his best Winchester. “I’m not going hunting this year.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Aw, my son’s getting married next weekend. In Maui. Darned kid.”

“That sounds expensive.”

“Not really. The bride’s parents are paying for the plane tickets, the room…”

“The whole shot?”

Thor looked pained. “Don’t say ‘shot!’”

“Sorry.”

“Anyway, we gotta fly out to Maui on Opening Day! And we have to be out there all week!”

“Don’t you like the girl?”

“No, she’s great. In fact, we kind of wonder what she sees in our son.”

“Wow, a week in Maui, all expenses paid, to see your son get married to a terrific girl. How inconsiderate can these people get?”

“I know it. Hey, do you suppose there might be any deer camps near Lahaina?”

“Maybe you should pack a gun or two. Just in case.”

Of course, Opening Day also means that there might be some nimrod out there who will get all tanked up and take a potshot at your Durango or somebody’s Schnauzer. But cheer up - sooner or later the basic principals of natural selection always weed guys like that out of the gene pool.

So for all you hunters who are trembling with anticipation, polishing your hollow-points and stocking up on Slim Jims, I have just five words:

Have fun, and be safe.

Copyright © 2005 Michael Ball

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Angel at a U2 Concert

First published November 4, 2005

She was probably a little too large to be a prom queen.

And her hair was probably a little too black, nothing like the beauty parlor blonde of prom queens. She had obviously had that too-black hair carefully cut and styled for the concert, but it was a short, sensible cut, not at all what a prom queen would require for a night at the Palace.

Her outfit was what you might call an “enthusiastic” shade of green. It was a color that the average prom queen would probably avoid in favor of pinks or whites or pastels.

She was at the U2 concert with a couple of girl friends, who were also probably a little to large to be prom queens.

And she was gorgeous.

She stood in the front row of the pit, as close as she could possibly get to where the stocky genius Rock Star marched up and down the stage in his bad haircut, purple shades, black jeans, sensible shoes, and leather jacket. She sang every word of every one of his brilliant songs in perfect synchronization with him, sometimes watching with a look that said that she could not believe what she was seeing, and other times closing her eyes and soaring into his lyrics, shaking her head from side to side with the music.

Every now and then the whole experience would seem to overwhelm her, and she would clutch the sides of her head as if she needed to hold it to keep it from embracing the beat.

But she never stopped singing.

It would be easy to dismiss her as nothing more than a girl with a crush on a Rock Star. But I have to believe that the story behind her angelic face has to be a lot better than simple hero-worship.

You see, in the thunderous symphony of sounds and spotlights spilling from the stage, her face glowed with an even greater brilliance than the show we’d all paid to see. It was a glow generated deep in the heart of a young girl who was completely and perfectly happy – completely and perfectly involved – with where she was at that moment.

Not far from where I was standing, a girl about the same age as the black-haired angel in the pit brushed lint off of her size-2 skirt and smiled indulgently at the activity on the stage and at her date. She had almost certainly been a prom queen at one time. She bobbed her head with the beat, she held her cell phone up and waved it in time with the music when everyone else did, and she even valiantly tried to lip-sync part of one of U2’s most popular songs. I’m sure she enjoyed the show.

But she didn’t live the show.

You know, I can’t help thinking about that angel in the pit with the too-black hair. I wonder if later, as the echoes of Bono’s voice and the ringing in her ears faded away, as all the prom queens reestablished their beautifully manicured domination over the real world, if she had some way to recreate the pure joy that wrapped around her as she danced in the edge of that stage.

And I wonder if she’s ever looked in a mirror and recognized in herself the radiant and pure beauty that she unselfishly beamed in the direction of the Rock Star – and me – on that night.

I hope so.

Copyright © 2005 Michael Ball

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