Code Phrases And Cauliflower

January 21, 2015 / Diane Henders / 44 Comments

Before I begin, I’d like to note that I generally don’t criticize a man who’s washing dishes. I believe the correct response to a dishcloth-wielding male is a sincere ‘thank you’, possibly combined with hugs, kisses, ear-nibbling, and/or some friendly groping. (An aside to my dinner guests: This is why we turn down your offers to help with the dishes. It’s just one more little way we ensure we’ll still be friends when the evening’s over.)

But there are exceptions to every rule. (Okay, not to every rule. There are no exceptions to the “Don’t grope the guests” rule. It’s safe to visit us, I promise.)

Anyway…

A few evenings ago I watched the dishwater turn orange while Hubby scrubbed a pot with a steel-wool pad so rusty it looked like Ronald McDonald’s hair, and this conversation took place:

Me: “Maybe it’s time to either pull off the rusty part or throw the whole thing away.”

Hubby: “It looks okay to me.”

Me: “Let me put this another way: Don’t use that thing on my pots!”

And that got me thinking about the subtle little code phrases that develop in marriages. For example:

Me: “Do you want some of this (food item)?”

Hubby: “I’ll have some later.” Translation: “I will never eat that. I will continue to say I’ll eat it ‘later’ until it grows legs and walks itself to the garbage.”

Me: “Were you using the (whatever tool I’m currently looking for)? Do you know where it might be?” Translation: “Goddammit, I can’t find the goddamn tool that I know I put away the last time I used it! Stop stealing my goddamn tools, goddammit!” (Yes, I’m a writer. You can tell by my extensive vocabulary.)

Either of us: “What’s that smell?” Translation: “Did you fart, or is it time to search the fridge for rotting cauliflower again?”

Yes, there’s a story behind that.

One day Hubby and I were in the kitchen making lunch, and I smelled something. Something vile. Something remarkably reminiscent of gasses better released in other, more private areas of the house where food is not being prepared.

But I didn’t say anything. I mean, sooner or later we all let one slip, right?

But it happened again. Then again. At last I demanded, “Did you fart?”

Hubby denied it. He thought I’d been dropping silent-but-deadlies the whole time.

We agreed that something must be rotting in the fridge, but we both dug through it and found nothing that should be emitting that stink. So I tore the fridge apart, washed the shelves and crisper drawers, and checked the drain pan underneath to make sure nothing hideous was growing in there.

Nada. But the smell persisted.

After several days of futile searching, Hubby finally traced the offending vapours to a glass container containing raw cauliflower. It had a locked-tight lid with a silicone seal and the cauliflower looked fine inside, which was why we’d missed it in our previous purges. But the stench was so fearsome it had come right through the sealed lid. Yikes.

The whole episode reminded me of a long-ago friend’s father when he encountered his wife’s er… effluvium. He sucked in a deep breath and then boomed in the heartiest of tones, “Well, hello, cabbage-ass!”

Yep, he was a master of subtle code.

Any code phrases or tales of festering cruciferae in your household?

* * *

P.S. Cool news: I did a promo with Bookbub over the weekend, and Never Say Spy hit #1 on the Kindle Free Bestsellers list. For a short time it was the best-selling book in the entire Kindle free store, fiction or non-fiction. Of course, it was only my fifteen minutes of fame and it had dropped by the next day, but it’s still #1 in Women Sleuths. The best it had ever done before was #9, so I’m pumped! Woohoo! 😀

My fifteen minutes of fame

Beware: Killer Raisins

November 5, 2014 / Diane Henders / 33 Comments

By now everybody knows I suffer from what I prefer to call ‘attention-deficit dyslexia’ (because it sounds better than ‘I read too fast and my twisted brain spits out weird stuff’).

That’s been happening frequently of late, probably because I’ve been stoned to the eyeballs on muscle relaxants and my brain function has slowed to the speed of a crippled snail on downers. I thought being stoned would be more fun than this, but at least my misreading has kept me entertained.

You may have come to expect my misreads to be of the off-colour variety, but apparently my sexlexia is (mostly) under control these days. Only a couple of my latest finds fall into that category: I read ‘Last time for a Night Screw’ instead of ‘Last time for a Night Crew’ and ‘Elevate the status of old spanky’ when it actually said ‘Elevate the status of an old standby’. (I’m not even going to speculate as to who or what ‘old spanky’ might be. Sometimes the nobility of my restraint astounds me.)

Then this inspirational title gave me pause: ‘Ambulance doesn’t follow giving until giving becomes its own reward’. I’ve heard of ambulance-chasers, but that seemed to be carrying things a bit too far.

The title actually read ‘Abundance’, not ‘Ambulance’, but even with the correct wording I’m not sure how to interpret that headline. At least I don’t have to look over my shoulder for an ambulance the next time I donate to a cause.

Apparently I have a mental block against the word ‘plan’, because I read it wrong in two separate headlines within a day. First I read ‘you need a pun’, and then ‘7 signs you need a gun’.

Both those articles would have been much more entertaining if they’d explained why I needed puns and guns instead of plans, but I guess that’s too much to hope for in your average business magazine. (Though now in my drug-induced haze I’m imagining trade journals like Clown World and Assassins Weekly. Or better yet, guns and puns together in The Assassin Clown’s Handbook.)

Standing in line at the supermarket, I did a double-take when I glanced at one of the tabloid headlines and saw ‘Killed By Raisins’. At least I thought that’s what it said. When I looked more closely at it, I was disappointed to discover that it actually said ‘Raised By Killers’. I was totally bass ackwards on that one.

And speaking of food, I got a giggle out of one of the invitations from my Meetup group. It announced ‘A waistline is available for Steak Night’. Padding somebody else’s waistline instead of my own seemed like an excellent idea, but it was too good to be true. In fact the only thing available for Steak Night was a waitlist.

After that spate of misinterpretation, I barely blinked at the spam email that mentioned ‘colorectal feathers’. I re-read it, fully expecting to find it said something else. But no; this time it wasn’t my eyes playing tricks on me. It actually said ‘colorectal feathers’.

The mental image cracked me up. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t help picturing a guy with a gaily coloured feather duster stuck up where the sun don’t shine.

My back is much better and I’m looking forward to ditching the drugs soon, but at least I got a laugh from killer raisins and poop-chute plumage.

Any other ‘creative readers’ out there?

Canadian, Eh?

July 2, 2014 / Diane Henders / 37 Comments

Yesterday was Canada Day, so just for fun I’m going to ‘speak Canadian’:

Canada Day is one of our favourite times to celebrate! We had a nice hot day yesterday, so we could finally take off our tuques¹ and kick back in the shade with some Freezies², which was a nice change after the long winter.

Contrary to popular belief we don’t actually live in igloos year-round, but if the hydro³ goes off in the winter we’re hooped⁴. All we can do then is huddle in our houses and hope for a chinook⁵. So we love summer!

And Canada Day is a great excuse to break out the hooch⁶ of your choice, whether it’s a mickey⁷ of screech⁸ , a forty-pounder⁹ of ta-kill-ya¹⁰, or a two-four¹¹ of beer. But we don’t want to look like a bunch of hosers¹² lying around in our gitch¹³ collecting pogey¹⁴ and building our Molson muscles¹⁵, so most of us settle for a poverty pack¹⁶ when we’re celebrating. And that saves us a hangover as well as some loonies¹⁷ and toonies¹⁸, so it’s a win-win.

No celebration is complete without food, and the unhealthier it is, the better it tastes! Whether it’s burgers or Eggs Benny, your Canada Day fare can always be improved by adding peameal bacon¹⁹. And if you’re really looking for a way to harden your arteries, nothing fills the bill like poutine²⁰. Donairs²¹ are a good choice if you’d like to spice things up a bit, but dieters could eat fiddleheads²² instead if the season is right.

Let’s not forget dessert! Canada Day is a great time to break out the gooey and delicious Nanaimo bars²³. And speaking of sweet treats, be careful if you get a loaded beavertail²⁴ – it’s hard to eat them tidily, and if the toppings fall off onto your Arborite²⁵, it’s into the garburator²⁶ with them… and that’s just sad.

There are always lots of Canada Day celebrations to attend, but our favourite is the fireworks. We don’t go very often because we don’t like fighting the crowds, but we felt like keeners²⁷ this year so we decided to go. We thought we might be able to deke²⁸ into a parkade²⁹ and walk to where we could see them, but that didn’t work out. When we discovered we’d have to go to a golf course and fight the crowds after all, we bailed at the last minute and went to bed instead.

Guess we’re just getting old, eh³⁰?

Tuque – a knitted cap (called a watch cap in other places).
Freezie – a brightly coloured frozen treat in a clear plastic sleeve.
Hydro – everybody else calls this ‘electricity’ or ‘power’.
Hooped – screwed.
Chinook – a warm dry wind.
Hooch (also hootch) – booze.
Mickey – a 375 ml bottle of liquor, often conveniently curved to fit in a pocket.
Screech – Traditionally, cheap, high-alcohol booze from Newfoundland, often moonshine. Now also a brand name for rum.
Forty-pounder – a 40 ounce bottle of liquor
Ta-kill-ya – tequila
Two-four – a 24-pack of beer.
Hoser – a drunken oaf, but the term isn’t too derogatory – it’s kind of like calling somebody a goofball.
Gitch (also gotch or gonch) – underwear of any kind, men’s or women’s. (Where I grew up, gitch was women’s underwear and gotch or gonch was men’s).
Pogey – unemployment benefits.
Molson muscle – beer belly.
Poverty pack – a six-pack of beer.
Loonie – a one-dollar coin.
Toonie – a two-dollar coin.
Peameal bacon (Also back bacon or Canadian bacon) – cured boneless pork loin, originally rolled in ground yellow peas, but now rolled in cornmeal, though the name ‘peameal’ has stuck.
Poutine – french fries sprinkled with curds of new cheese and covered with hot gravy-like sauce.
Donair – spiced meat wrapped in a pita with lettuce, tomato, onion, and sauce (I like sweet sauce best, yum!).
Fiddleheads – baby ferns.
Nanaimo bar – a chocolatey dessert square with vanilla filling (traditional), but there are lots of other flavoured variations.
Beavertails – a deep-fried pastry topped with various forms of yumminess.
Arborite – a brand name for plastic laminate. The name is often used instead of the words ‘plastic laminate’, like ‘Formica’.
Garburator – a garbage-disposal unit that fits in the sink drain and grinds food finely enough to be washed down the drain.
Keener – someone who is overly eager. Can also be a derogatory term meaning ‘suck-up’, depending on the usage.
Deke – dodge or make a sharp turn. Also ‘deke out’ – to fake or feint successfully: “I deked him out”.
Parkade – parking garage.
Eh – the quintessential Canadian interjection. Turns a statement into a rhetorical question that assumes the other person agrees.

How many of these Canadianisms did you recognize? What oddball words do you use in your neck of the woods?

* * *

Woohoo! I’ve finished the final edits for Book 8: Spy Now, Pay Later, and it’s off to final proofreading! I’ll let you know as soon as there’s a release date on the horizon, but for now I’ll just say “Coming VERY SOON”. 😀

I’m Amused

July 24, 2013July 24, 2013 / Diane Henders / 32 Comments

In the vagaries of the English language, I’m “amused”. I’m also amused by the vagaries of the English language, but that’s not actually what I mean.

No; if “amoral” means “lacking morals”, and “atonal” means “toneless”, and “achromatic” means “without colour”, then I’m “amused”. As in “lacking muse”.

Which is a fancy way to say I don’t know what to write about today.

So I shall resort to poking fun at the English language. If the prefix “a-” indicates absence or lack, then why doesn’t “acute” mean “ugly”? Why doesn’t “along” mean “short” and “alike” mean “hate”? And if I amend an item, am I actually ripping it apart?

After coming up with a few other examples, I just couldn’t resist messing around with some flash fiction:

Flash Fiction: Afoul Play (On Words)

Setting my torch alight, I stood blinking, blinded by the sudden blackness. When the vague outlines of the hallway emerged from the dark, I crept forward. The groan of a loose floorboard underfoot made me flinch, my heart drumming against my ribs.

Glad to be alone, I turned to Jim. “Man, why did we let Rick talk us into this? And why are we still doing it when he didn’t even bother to show up?”

Jim replied with his usual unintelligible mumble before pressing his lips tightly agape, but I didn’t let it bother me. He always spoke aloud.

Behind me, Lucy whispered, “Light the torch. This is too creepy. Maybe we heard Rick aright. After all, it was two weeks ago. Maybe he meant twelve noon, not midnight.”

“No, I’m sure he meant midnight,” I argued. “He said we had to sneak in when it was dark, and he teased me that I’d probably arouse at eleven and sleep through the whole thing.”

A few minutes of stealthy tiptoeing later, Lucy hissed, “Oh, gross! Do you smell that? There’s something alive here. It smells like it’s been rotting for weeks!”

“Probably just a dead mouse or something,” I said with more confidence than I felt.

“It can’t be. It’s too strong. It smells like something…” Her voice trembled. “Something big.” Her nails dug into my shoulder. “What’s that aloft? On the floor under that big table?”

I swallowed hard and peered through the dimness.

“Light it! Light the torch!”

Jim’s shout startled me so much I nearly dropped the torch. It bobbled dangerously and Lucy’s shaking hands clamped over mine, pulling the torch atilt to prevent the oil from spilling out.

My lighter clicked. Flames flared high, revealing the reason why Rick hadn’t joined us tonight.

“Rick! Ohmigod, Rick!”

Lucy’s screams echoed in my ears as my stomach lurched. My knees gave way and I arose to the ground, the impact jarring me asleep…

Which means awake… but “awake” actually means asleep.

Which would mean I was awake to start with…

Which means I was sleeping…

So did this really happen, or was it a dream?

Well dang, it looks as though I’ve written a blog post after all. Maybe I wasn’t as “amused” as I thought. But I still think English is a very funny language!

* * *

Addendum: It seems WordPress has been having difficulties lately, and sometimes when you try to leave a comment you get a page that says “This comment could not be posted” or some other error message. If that happens to you here, I’m sorry, and thanks for trying. If you want to try again, here’s what has worked for me on other blogs:

Type your comment as usual, but before clicking Post Comment, highlight the comment and press Ctrl-C on your keyboard to copy it.
Then click the Post Comment button.
If a page comes up saying “This comment could not be posted”, click the Back button to return to the page
Then press the F5 button on your keyboard to refresh the page.
Paste your comment back into the comment box by pressing Ctrl-V.
Click Post Comment again.

Usually the second time’s the trick, but sometimes it wants a couple of tries. It’s a huge pain in the butt and I hope they have it resolved soon, but in the mean time, thank you for trying.

I’m Not A Cunning Linguist

July 17, 2013 / Diane Henders / 32 Comments

By now you’re probably all familiar with my tendency to misread words. But if you’re relatively new to my blog, you may not have read about the fact that I also tend to misspeak – often with embarrassing results.

A while ago I was getting ready to buy groceries in preparation for houseguests, and I called to ask what type of milk I should buy. When informed that 1% was the concentration of choice, I blurted out, “Oh, that’s new. Phill and Michael were always the homo guys.”

For the record, they’re both confirmed heterosexuals. And I think I’ll say ‘whole homogenized milk’ instead of ‘homo’ from now on.

Some time later, I was enthusing to my friends about the Calgary International Blues Festival. I go just about every year to soak up the sunshine, beer, and blues music. It’s a long day outdoors and if one remains properly hydrated (or beer-drated, as the case may be), nature calls frequently.

If you attend by yourself, you have to decide whether to temporarily abandon your stuff while you sneak off to pee, or else haul everything with you into the cramped and increasingly icky porta-potties. In music-festival euphoria, most people choose to trust their neighbours.

Last year, a photographer sat near me. When he asked, I cheerfully agreed to watch over his camera gear while he did what needed to be done. After a long day and multiple trips, he charmingly bought me a CD in thanks for my onerous duties.

Expounding to my audience at the pub later, I summed up the preceding paragraphs as follows: “He asked me to watch his equipment while he peed”.

After a couple of beats of silence followed by uproarious laughter, one of my smartass friends asked, “Did you hold it for him, too? No wonder he bought you a CD.”

I’m not the only one in the family with linguistic (or lingual) issues. A couple of days ago, my sister and I were talking about her upcoming budget presentation at the Christian radio station where she works. And this came out of her mouth: “…that may vary depending on what the fucktuations…”

We both burst out laughing.

And I told her, “If you try to discuss income fluctuations in your meeting, you’re either going to say ‘what the fucktuations’ or you’re going to start giggling uncontrollably. Either way you’re doomed.”

My sister also coined one of my favourite non-words: ‘depissitate’. She was describing miserable rainy weather that was starting to clear, and her tongue got tangled between ‘precipitate’ and ‘dissipate’. And the phrase ‘It’s starting to depissitate’ was born: The perfect way to describe a sleety rain shower.

It’s nice to know that she and I share the same language difficulties. Or, as she once accidentally said when describing a different trait that runs in the family (I can’t even remember what the trait was now)… “It’s a genital thing.”

To this day, the word ‘congenital’ makes me snicker. And I never use it. ‘Cause I know if I do, it’ll come out as ‘genital’.

I’m just not a cunning linguist.

* * *

Many thanks to my good-natured sister and the radio station where she works for giving me permission to publish this. As she said herself, ‘what the fucktuations’ was just too good not to share.

In Praise of Piss

May 15, 2013 / Diane Henders / 39 Comments

*F-BOMB ALERT* – CONTAINS (more) COARSE LANGUAGE (than usual)

I’m a connoisseur of rude and vulgar language. I collect it, use it frequently, and occasionally dust off some of my truly one-of-a-kind pieces to lovingly share with the world.

Hey, everybody needs a hobby, right?

But I started thinking about the nature of obscenities the other day, and after considerable reflection, I just don’t get it.

Why do we designate certain words as “offensive”?

They’re just collections of syllables and sounds. I mean, normal phonetic sounds. I could understand it if there were swear words that included, say, fart sounds or something – those would be offensive. But there aren’t any words like that.

Though now I’m feeling inspired…

Back to my point: “Ay”; “ee”; “oo”; whatever; as long as you’re not including “pbphltttt” as a phonetic building block, they’re all pretty innocuous. We use them in millions of different sequences, so why should certain combinations make people blush/titter/freeze you with a look of outrage?

I know, I’m zooming past the obvious. It’s not the phonetic sound that offends, it’s the meaning behind it. I see how someone with strong religious views might have a problem with exclamations they consider blasphemous, so I’ll leave that topic aside for now.

But what about our good old Anglo-Saxon four-letter words? Shit, piss, fuck. These babies have been around for a long time. They’re short, simple words for perfectly natural body functions.

Why should “shit” be more offensive than “bowel movement”? Seriously, the words “bowel movement” make me cringe. And what about our other euphemisms? Drop a log, pinch a loaf, take a dump – they all sound pretty vulgar. By comparison, “shit” is quick and tidy.

Ditto “piss”. What’s so doggone special about the word “urine” that makes it somehow less offensive? It’s still the same stuff. And I’m sure those folks with the surname “Uren” would prefer people to use the Anglo-Saxon alternative when referring to bodily functions. I’ve never met anybody with the surname “Piss”.

Or take “pee”. (No, I didn’t say “take a pee”. Well, unless you need to. In that case, fire away. Though I’ve never really understood why we say “take” when we really mean “leave”, either.) But digressions aside, why is it cute when little kids say “pee”, but everybody gasps if they say “piss”? What’s so cute about “pee”?

Many talented folks have already outlined the versatility of “fuck” as verb, noun, adjective, adverb, interjection, and so on, so I won’t belabour that point.

But think about this: “Somebody fucked up the copier” is instantly comprehended by virtually every English-speaking person on the planet. We hear that, and we know we won’t be getting any copies of our document today.

But if we eliminate “fuck”? Look out. How about: “Somebody had sexual intercourse with the copier”?

Bystanders flee screaming, faces contorted in horror. Those with sensitive stomachs vomit into the nearest receptacle. Scrub your hands, bleach your brain, stuff yourself into a haz-mat suit and never, ever make copies EVER AGAIN.

A simple F-bomb could have averted that entire disaster.

They’re all perfectly good words: short, easy to spell, and universally understood. And we’re not supposed to use them.

I just don’t get it.

Pbphltttt.

Kiss-Ass Typo!

April 3, 2013 / Diane Henders / 49 Comments

I don’t know whether it’s my eyes, my twisted mind, or simply the fact that I’m usually pushed for time and skimming text, but as I mentioned here and here, I misread phrases all too frequently.

Here are my latest malapropisms:

I was looking for a chuckle the day I clicked a link to YouTube, but I started laughing before the video even started to run. Why? Because I misread its title as ‘SNL Digital Snort’. It was, in fact, ‘Digital Short’. But I think they should go with ‘Snort’ – it’s much more appropriate for funny videos.

Spam is always fertile ground for misreads, probably because it’s so poorly written that I lose the context. For example, a few months ago, I read ‘I got a wedgie’ in one of my spam comments.

“Well,” thought I, “Thanks for sharing, but that’s a little too much information.” On second glance, though, it actually said ‘I got a webpage’. Good to know.

Far more disturbing was ‘…they will be penetrated from this website’. Yikes! Remind me to steer clear of that one.

But no, wrong again. It was ‘…they will be benefited from this web site’, which was less alarming, though slightly grammatically mangled.

And then there are headlines.

I was cheerfully skimming the tech news one day when I discovered the following damning headline: ‘Cisco leaves the consumer networking market after selling monkeys’.

Well, those bastards. I should think they’d slink away from the public eye after stooping to such a low. Where the hell was PETA when this was happening?

You guessed it. It was another Diane Special. The headline actually read ‘…after selling Linksys’.

Oops. My bad.

I knew I must have read this link wrong: ‘Big secrets of how to sell women’ . I didn’t even bother to get wound up about that one. Sure enough, it was ‘How to sell TO women’. Whew.

I ran across the next one on somebody’s blog (I think), but I can’t remember whose. Up front, I’ll offer my abject apologies to whoever posted this. They’ll probably need to slap me if they ever read my perversion of their words.

But I couldn’t help it. It was a slightly blurry photo of printed lyrics. The title was Hero and I read that with no difficulty, but I’m pretty sure the body of it said ‘Herpes’. Twice. Even after peering at it, I had to really concentrate before I could see ‘Heroes’.

The latest in my list would have made me laugh if I hadn’t been so certain it was just another case of my mixed-up reading. On a music website, I read ‘kiss ass guitar’.

By that time, I’d become used to my own screw-ups, so I didn’t even permit myself a snicker. I mean, obviously it was ‘kick ass guitar’, right?

Wrong.

I looked at it again. Then again.

It really did say ‘kiss ass guitar’. Talk about an embarrassing typo.

I guess I should have sent them an email and gently pointed out the mistake, but it didn’t occur to me until well after I’d clicked away chuckling, and by then I couldn’t remember where I’d read it.

But maybe it’s better that way. Might as well share the joy – that website made my day!

Seen any good typos lately?

Let Me Rephrase That

February 29, 2012 / Diane Henders / 26 Comments

My mouth keeps me in trouble. As I mentioned in an earlier post, sometimes words fail to come out in any kind of useful or intelligible manner.

Other times, words come out of my mouth with mortifying clarity. To wit:

My step-mom has cordless phones in various parts of her house so she can easily pick up without having to make a mad dash when the phone rings. One day, some of the phones went dead, and I discovered one of her incoming lines had malfunctioned. I solved the problem temporarily by redistributing the base units and extra handsets to maintain coverage until the repairman arrived. The conversation went as follows:

Me: “I’m just going to move your master base unit…”

Her: *Silence*

Me: “Please tell me I didn’t just say ‘masturbate’…”

But it doesn’t end there. At the pub a few months ago, I loudly and clearly informed the gang that “I take it from both ends”.

My friends do not have my step-mom’s restraint. A chorus of whoops, guffaws, and snorts greeted my announcement, and I was forced to wrap myself in the pitiful shreds of my dignity to explain that I was talking about getting ice cream out of a 2-litre carton as efficiently as possible: open one end, scoop it out to the halfway point, and then open the other end to finish it off.

Sadly, the effectiveness of the explanation was spoiled by the fact that nobody was listening anymore; they were too busy holding their sides and laughing.

My unfortunate affliction isn’t limited to verbal gaffes. I’ve left the house carrying a grocery list that specified “booze & pot”. No, not “pot” as in “cannabis”. I was getting ready for a party, and I needed to pick up some wine and a large pot for boiling lobster. I shredded that list, just in case somebody got the wrong idea.

Other readers of my lists might erroneously assume I’m a stage performer. One of my more recent scraps of paper read “taps & hat”. I don’t know how to tap-dance. And if I did, you wouldn’t want to see it. I meant “taps for the kitchen sink”, and the hat was a gift for my step-mom.

Most recently, I distinguished myself in conversation with a group of people I’d only known a short time. We were sitting around the kitchen table enjoying a quiet beer when I discovered one of the guys collected coins. Something was said about his coin collection, and I turned to him and innocently asked, “Oh, do you have a big one?”

Did I mention I didn’t know these people very well at the time?

Most people would have wisely shut up at that point, and let the innate good manners of the others force them to bite their tongues and pretend nothing untoward had been said.

Unfortunately, dignity and propriety have never been my strong suit. I burst out laughing and added, “Let me rephrase that…”

I guess they know me a little better now. Whether they wanted to or not.

Anybody else have an obstreperous tongue? Or do I just have the world’s dirtiest mind? Or both?

Sometimes I Speak Swahili

January 25, 2012 / Diane Henders / 29 Comments

Sometimes I speak Swahili. It’s the only possible explanation. Except for the fact that people who speak Swahili can’t understand me, either. So maybe sometimes I speak a heretofore-unknown but terribly clever secret language.

Yeah, that’s gotta be it.

Has this ever happened to you? I’m standing in front of somebody flapping my gums, and I think I’m being perfectly clear. Then I see the glaze of bewilderment in their eyes.

I try harder. I explain it a different way.

If they’re nice, polite people, they try really hard, too. They frown in concentration. They watch my lips. They try to read my body language for a clue. And incomprehension spreads across their faces like local anaesthetic during dental surgery.

Eventually, we give up by tacit agreement. They nod and pretend to understand. I nod and pretend to believe them. We walk away frustrated, brains feeling like wrung-out sponges.

Or, if they’re not particularly polite, their eyes dart sideways before they sneak a glance at their watch and exclaim, “Geez, look at the time! Gotta go!” And then they flee.

Frankly, I don’t blame them.

I hate it when words fail me. The problem is, they don’t fail me in the sense of refusing to come out of my mouth. They fail me in the sense of refusing to come out of my brain in any kind of useful pattern.

That happened to me the other day on a blog. I wrote a comment. I checked the comment over and edited it, because I’m anal and that’s just what I do. Then I posted the comment. When the blogger replied, it seemed words had failed me again.

Written words are worse than spoken ones. When you’re standing in front of somebody, your voice and expression and body language combine with your speech to get your message across. But a few black squiggles on a white background can’t do that, and when I read them again, my words didn’t say what I really meant to say. I felt like an idiot.

So I posted another comment, explaining what I’d really meant, and apologizing if I sounded like an idiot.

Then I felt like an idiot apologizing for being an idiot. Sheesh.

Life would be so much easier if we could just do a Vulcan mind-meld. Then we could understand each other completely, bang, in a single moment. Imagine the time and frustration it would save.

Then again, I’m not sure anybody would want to mind-meld with me. You really don’t want to know what’s lurking inside this skull. Maybe Harry Potter’s Pensieve would be a better solution. Just yank out the specific thought you want to convey and pass it on.

Hmm. Nice idea, but I don’t know where to get a Pensieve. Maybe I’ll just get a T-shirt that says, “I’m not really an idiot, I just sound like one sometimes.”

At least I hope it’s only sometimes.

Did any of this make sense?

I’m Canadian, I Swear

July 27, 2011October 2, 2018 / Diane Henders / 30 Comments

*F-BOMB ALERT* – CONTAINS (more) COARSE LANGUAGE (than usual)

Think I’ll get that printed on a T-shirt, along with a maple leaf.

Studies show (and I want to know who got paid for this one) that Canadians swear more than Americans, Brits, or Europeans. We’re not merely foul-mouthed, we’re world-champion spewers of profanity and obscenity.

Unless we’re around people we don’t know. Then we wouldn’t say shit if we had a mouthful of it. ‘Cause, well, we’re polite, eh? (Unless we’re rioting after hockey games, but that’s different.)

If I had a nickel for every time I said something vulgar, profane, or obscene in front of my friends, I could quit my job and live forever more on the proceeds. But if I’m with strangers, I don’t swear. There’s some bizarre internal filter that simply won’t let that language out. Instead, it all gets saved up for the next time some fucking moron cuts me off in traffic.

I’m not the only one who does this, either. The same study showed that it’s a Canadian trait to be restrained in public but a potty-mouth when with friends. Guess they weren’t listening the day our Culture Minister publicly referred to Canadian television as “shit”.

This blog is an exception to the “not in front of strangers” rule. We’re all friends here, right? And I wouldn’t want the language in my books to come as a complete shock. But still, I post the F-bomb alert. Other bloggers just let ‘er rip, but I’m too… Canadian.

I’m not sure why we collectively possess such a deep well of profanity. Maybe it’s because we’re trying so hard to be polite to every dipshit we meet that it just has to come out somewhere.

Maybe it’s the beaver jokes. As you may know, the beaver is our national animal, causing no end of hilarity to those with dirty minds (which would be most of us). It’s really hard to avoid a little coarse language under the circumstances.

Or maybe it’s our weather. Let’s face it, when you live in a country where a third of the land mass has continuous permafrost, profanity seems like an unavoidable consequence. In the southern areas, schools close when the temperature dips to -40 degrees Celsius. If it’s only -38, well, suck it up, ya pansy-ass kids, and walk to the bus. The swearing habit starts early here.

For those who aren’t familiar with Canada, I should mention that we do, in fact, have summer. You can tell it’s summer when the grass turns a funny green colour, and enormous squadrons of mosquitoes attempt to carry you away if you venture outside. But that only lasts about ten minutes, and then it’s back to fucking winter.

I’m exaggerating. We actually do have other seasons on the prairies, called “goddamn hail again”, “holy shit, tornadoes”, and “sumbitch heat and humidity”.

Or, if we don’t know you: “How about that weather, eh?”

Any other potty-mouths out there? What are the seasons in your neck of the woods?