Look Ma, I’m A Philosopher!

I may not look particularly deep but I do have an interest in philosophy. It’s a manifestation of one my deep-seated needs to appear profound and intelligent. The other deep-seated desires include wanting to be taller, to run a series of 42Ks and to be mistaken for somebody famous … but I digress. The other day, I went crazy in the bookstore (again) and bought a whole bunch of books, a number of which are rather philosophical. I figure this is a great start to my life as a philosopher. While I harbour no desire to throw on a toga, experience a gory public execution or be immortalised in paintings (well, maybe just that last one), I do want to be a philosopher, or at the very least, be somewhat philosophical.

So, this is my 8-Step Philosopher Game Plan:

1. Lunch on a steady biblio-diet of philosophy books. I confess the closest I’ve ever been to an actual philosophy textbook is my dog-eared copy of Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder, which I’d misplaced years ago, so I don’t have any real – for lack of a better word – training in this area. I do have more than three books of this category on my shelf though, so that’s not too shabby a start. Now, the only thing is to actually read them and in the cases of the ones I have read, to re-read them.

2. Be able to cite at least three philosophers. The mother of them all would be Socrates who questioned everyone so relentlessly that they thought he was the spawn of Satan and sentenced him to death by poison; there’s Sartre who believes that “Hell is other people” and that all human relationships are fundamentally ones of “conflict”; and agent provocateur Nietzsche who’s most remembered for his declaration that “God is dead”.

3. Be able to pronounce (and spell!) impossible philosopher names. From Descartes (DAY-kart) to Proust (PROOST), Goethe (GU[R]-tuh) to Nietzsche (NEE-chuh), Sartre (SAR-truh) to Dostoevsky (dahs-tuh-YEF-skee), this is very important especially if you’re a shameless wannabe like I am. The last thing you want to do is to quote Goethe and call him ‘Goth’ … unless the person with whom you’re talking doesn’t know any better, in which case you should just quote Woody Allen (WUU-dee A-luhn): “I’m not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

4. Adopt a philosophical principle as my life motto. For now, it’s Occam’s Razor aka the Law of Succinctness. I love it because – as people who know me can attest – I am a master at complex-icating things needlessly. While I think it’s amusing to drive myself (and other people) crazy at times, I cannot deny that there is beauty and truth in simplicity. Well, either this or I just like saying “Occam”. Occam, Occam, Occam.

5. Know a philosophical quotation or two. One of my all-time personal favourites is by Goethe: “We can always redeem the man who aspires and strives.” There’s just something so uplifting, comforting and hopeful about it; that all man’s transgressions can be forgiven as long as he’s constantly on a quest to better himself. I also particularly like: “Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily” by William of Ockham (see point four).

6. Question everything. The beginning of true wisdom is the acknowledgement that you know nothing. The more you know, the more you know you don’t know. There’s a lot of arrogance in claiming that you’ve figured out the Answers to Life just because a certain Book tells you so. You never know anything for sure. What is morality? What is courage? What is love? What is betrayal? What is mercy? The hunger to find out the answers to those questions is “to be an informed participant in the great conversation of mankind.” I want in on that conversation.

7. Converse with people more curious/intelligent/learned than you are. Talk to people who make you think. Sure, I enjoy chit-chat about trivialities just as much as the next person (eg. the best char siew pau, the latest nail polish shade, how to prevent split ends, why Bee Lian’s kid looks more like her gardener than her husband, etc), but these will never satisfy your Inner Egghead like a really good conversation can.

8. Understand the point of it all. And the point is, there is no real point. Being philosophical isn’t about being knowledgeable (though that can’t hurt); it’s a way of thinking. It’s a ferocious curiosity, a passion for knowledge, a reluctance to settle for an answer just because it’s conventional wisdom. It’s yearning to discover truths while understanding that, despite your endless questioning, you will never truly, truly know … because in the end, nobody does – not even those who claim so readily that they do.

All Blocked Up & Nothing To Write

I don’t like being stuck. In my head, that is, not in a cave or something like I was two years ago. I have Writer’s Block – it’s a condition I’ve been wrestling with since early this month. It began the moment I uploaded my last post. My mind just went blank. And it’s been blank until now. I swear I can hear crickets.

Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t bother me but for some reason, I’m getting a little antsy about it this time. For the sake of keeping my blog alive and not disappointing those of you who look forward to having something suitably shallow to read on a weekly basis, I shall now expend Herculean effort to eke out this post. The story today is – what else – how to fight Writer’s Block:

1. UNDERSTAND: As in understand why I’m suffering from Writer’s Block in the first place. I can think of several reasons. First up, I haven’t read anything interesting lately. I have several books I bought months ago, still wrapped up in shiny plastic, still virgins untainted by my fingers. Second, I’ve been too preoccupied with work and everyone knows that’s a real inspiration killer unless your blog centres around work-bitching (mine obviously doesn’t). Third, I’ve been suffering from bad hair days this past week. I don’t know about you but a bad hair day makes me not want to live, let alone write.

2. DISTRACT: As in distract myself from the norm, get out of my funk and do something totally different like … take up Thai boxing, plant asparagus or rear an exotic animal. Doing something new never fails to kick-start the creative OJ – at least that’s what these bespectacled writer-type characters tell me.

3. READ / WATCH / LISTEN: As in read / watch / listen to stuff. Any stuff. This does not include porn, btw.

4. MOVE: As in get in a bout of exercise to get the blood pumping or simply move yourself physically from the living room to the … kitchen. The change of scenery may do wonders.

5. DRINK: Writers and coffee go together like bread and butter, eyelash and mascara, teeth and gums. Research shows that caffeine can jolt the brain to life. It helps you focus and strengthens your short-term memory. If that fails, don’t fret. You will still look pretty hot lounging around in Starbucks with your laptop and an intense, frustrated expression on your face. It’s a very sexy look.

6. TALK: Call up the most interesting person you know and talk to him (or her). Tell this person about your predicament and how you need a dash of inspiration and how he’d better give it to you or else. You’d be surprised – he might just come up with some gems that’ll get you cracking again.

7. SHOP: Not only is the mall a great place for people-watching (an activity that might just trigger off some ideas), it’s also a great place for blowing off lots of money you don’t have. This will inspire you to get your butt back home and churn out something to earn back all that money you’d just spent.

8. JUST TYPE: lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum. Damn you lorem ipsum.

12 Super Weird Words That Will Confound You

I’m a bit of a word freak, as some of you can probably tell from a few of my past entries. Today, I’ve made up a brand new list of really weird words that have even weirder meanings. I’ve never used any of them in speech or writing (you have to be a bit nuts or hoity-toity to do that) but they’re so deliciously odd that I just had to write about them. So here they are: Weird words, what I thought they meant and what they really do mean.

1 Animadversion sounds like a movie genre, an animated movie. And the Oscar for the best animadversion goes to … drumroll … Avatar! I don’t care what those people at the Academy say. But guess what: It really means seriously harsh criticism. Like someone being all animadversionistic (is this even a word?) about your writing and how bad it sucks.

2 Bacchanal may sound like some Amish country’s version of the Cu Chi tunnel but it really means a very, very happening party. Wild, rowdy, gloriously debauched. Apparently, this word came from Bacchus, the Greek god of ecstasy, mad revelry and drunken orgies. What a cool, fun god. I think I like him better than the god of fire and brimstone.

3 Bildungsroman has gotta be one of the weirder ones I’ve heard. It sounds like – what else – Romanesque architecture. I’m thinking the Colosseum, the Basilica, Corinthian columns, majestic arches but nope, bildungsroman means a coming-of-age story. Who would’ve thunk?? Oh wait. I know who: Somebody with a way hotter vocabulary than I do.

4 Blandishment is when you whip out a sword or something equally deadly, you know, like a super sharp fork. It’s not too different from people running around brandishing knives. Sounds about right, except that you’re wrong. To blandish someone means to coax, flatter, cajole, persuade. So we should all be wary of being blandished into doing something unscrupulous.

5 Confabulate reminds me of ‘commiserate’, so in the same way a bunch of people commiserate with one another (ie. whine over their misfortune together), another bunch of people confabulate with one another (ie. congratulate one another on their mutual fabulousness in a pretentious, frou frou, air-kissing kind of way). But confabulate actually means chat. So we can say, “Shall we proceed to indulge in an hour of confabulation?” when we really mean, “Hey, wanna go bitch by the water-cooler for an hour?”

6 Deus ex machina is such a sinister word, way up there with ‘venom’, ‘draconian’ and ‘luciferous’. Immediate picture that springs to my mind is: Arnie the Terminator. Steely-eyed, stoic-faced killer robot. But deus ex machine really means a timely solution to a problem. So it’s like a good thing. I can just hear this at my next meeting, “Come on guys, we gotta figure out the day-oos-eks-ma-keen-uh to this grotty problem!”

7 Dyslogistic sounds like a close cousin of ‘dysfunction’, so it probably means that the logistics of a project got screwed up. Like when someone is supposed to deliver fifteen pork buns to the seminar meeting room and sends twelve curry puffs instead. But it really means disapproval. As in, she gave me a dyslogistic glare when I suggested she go for a bikini wax.

8 Gorgonise is a pretty ugly word, isn’t it? To gorgonise someone sounds like a horrifying eyeball-gouging exercise. Oh lord, look how those soldiers are gorgonising the prisoners at the concentration camp. But it actually means to astound someone with your … beauty. You heard right: Beauty. The ability to gorgonise someone is, therefore, an ability many women long to have.

9 Luciferous is a no-brainer: Satanic, of course. It’s generally not a good thing when people think you’re the spawn of Satan, like you’re straddling the second highest rung of the Evil Ladder. But guess what: Luciferous really means illuminating, giving insight. Why they named something so positive after the arch enemy of God, I’ll never know.

10 Nugatory is where nuggets go after they die. That is, if it were pronounced nuh-ga-toh-ree. But it’s pronounced noo-guh-toh-ree, in which case it means where nougats go after they die. The level to which I will go to amuse myself is mind-boggling (and disturbing at the same time). But nugatory really means worthless. “Of all the nugatory tasks we’ve got to do here, swatting flies has got to be the worst.”

11 Pulchritude is another really ugly word and sounds like it’s got something to do with being repulsed. For instance, your pulchritude sickens me to the bone. But it really means … beauty. You heard right: Beauty. So, a sentence like, “Behold, thy pulchritude doth gorgoniseth me” would actually make a woman in a Shakespearean novel swoon.

12 Toothsome is another no-brainer: Of course, it would have something to do with teeth and plenty of ‘em! Perhaps it’s a description of somebody with a toothy smile, a mouthful of pearly whites, a straight row of spanking Chiclets. But it really means … beauty. You heard right. Again. A handsome woman, I can accept, but a toothsome one? So what is ugly? Toothnone. But hey, don’t take my word for it – look it up.

PS: If you feel like learning a few new words for no reason other than to amuse yourself (or laugh at me), click here.

Revolutionary Road

Why did I buy this book? First reason: I read glowing reviews on Amazon; reviews that went so far as to declare the book ‘flawless’ – high praise indeed. Written by American novelist Richard Yates in the 50s, the book never enjoyed commercial success in its time (purportedly cos it was too depressing; can’t disagree there) and its author, a gifted storyteller who was never given his rightful place in the canon of great American writers. The book is enjoying a lot more publicity now though, thanks to the movie adaptation … which brings me to the second reason I bought this book: Kate Winslet.

What’s the book about? A suburban American family – one man, one wife, two kids and a picket fence. The stay-at-home wife is once an aspiring actress while the husband aspires to be … nothing (he has a decent-paying but boring-as-hell job in a machine manufacturing company). They’re not really happy with their marriage and life in general – always feeling like there should be more – but are pretty good at keeping up the pretense of a typical happy American family.  Life goes on in its humdrum pace: there’s work every day (so boring the husband screws around with one of the receptionists just for kicks), meet-ups and dinners with friends (the friendships are a bit of a farce), occasional fights between husband and wife, after which they make up and make nice, sweeping the growing resentment under the carpet and move on.

What did I like about it? Book 1 and Book 3. The novel is written in three parts: Books 1, 2 and 3. I especially liked the first one – the first few chapters kept me hooked. I liked how it started with the less-than-stellar play followed by a good marital slug-fest … and I particularly liked the ending. Some people might’ve seen it coming a mile away but I didn’t, at least not until she made breakfast for him and was uncharacteristically nice the day after a huge fight. No spoilers here, don’t worry.

What did I not like about it? Book 2. Just like the middle child of any family, this was my least favourite. Probably cos nothing much happens. I confess to skipping a few passages here and there when my mind began to wander.

Reading this book made me want to … watch the movie. Which I did a week later.

Who’s Afraid Of Jane Austen?

Why did I buy this book? Being an aspiring pseudo-intellectual, I want to know about the literary greats even if I haven’t actually read their works. Despite the fact that I am not actually afraid of Jane Austen (I have read her – I’m a girl after all), I liked the book title cos there are some authors Hitchings talks about in there of whom I am a little ‘afraid’ – people such as Dante, Joyce, Proust and Tolstoy.

What’s the book about? A smart, witty insight into literary greats you should know in order to appear sufficiently knowledgeable. In addition to the writers mentioned above, the author talks about Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, Dickens, Cervantes, Dostoevsky; has a chapter on writers you should know today (Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie and Martin Amis, among many others) and scientists such as Darwin, Freud and Hawking whose books we all “know” about, have never read and most probably never will.

What did I like about it? The book lives up to its title: it gives you enough meat about each author and their most famous works – you know more than just plotlines, you understand its significance, central themes and a little analysis to boot. It’s easy to read and pretty funny too. This is going to make me look like the dimmest bulb in the chandelier, but until this book, I didn’t really know what Ulysses was all about (it’s a novel set in the 1904 about a writer and an ad salesman, and their lives over the course of a single day in Dublin). I thought it was about the Trojan War or some Greek god or something. Don’t blame me! Ulysses is Latin for Odysseus, who was the son of Laertes and the ruler of Ithaca and a Greek leader in the Trojan War and the protagonist in Homer’s Odyssey and Brad Pitt’s rippling thigh muscles … um, what was I talking about again?

What did I not like about it? I wish the book went on another 100 pages! Also, there’s no mention of Mark Twain or Oscar Wilde (except fleetingly and might I add, insufficiently) or F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Reading this book made me want to … actually read some of the books the author talks about, so I downloaded Ulysses and sampled the first few sentences. Wah lau, so damn ‘talky’. Surrender. For some reason – reading this book made me want to read … Frankenstein. Don’t ask me why cos he’s not mentioned in the book at all. I guess God works in mysterious ways …

Confessions (And Resolution) Of An Aspiring Bookaholic

I go nuts in a bookstore. In fact, I went nuts just two days ago when I charged into Borders and emerged with loot in the form of eight brand new books.

This is what I bought. Hmm, it’s most unfortunate that the book spine with the clearest typeface is the one with the word ‘bitch’ in it. I’m thinking this isn’t making me look very good right now.

Anyways, that aside, I hope you realise that this is a big thing for me, revealing my book purchases online. Cos everyone knows that “you are what you read” (some say “you are what you re-read” but let’s save that for another post). So if we are what we read, then I wonder what these say about me?

It can be scary to grant somebody a peek into your book shelf. (The pic above is just part of my bookcase; my copies of Ulysses, Crime And Punishment and Don Quixote are in the next room – yeah right!!) When I say that it’s scary to invite someone into your book shelf, I mean it’s scary if the person is a seriously bookish intellectual who can quote Kafka or Proust. It’s somewhat less scary if the person counts among his or her favourite authors JK Rowling, Sophie Kinsella or Stephenie Meyer (sorry, I couldn’t resist).

I have thought long and hard about doing this – about writing about reading, that is. Specifically my reading. I’ve always felt a little embarrassed that for someone who’s supposed to be mildly ‘intelligent’ (my mother and at least two other relatives have told me that I am), I do not read enough. Of course, I have no idea what ‘enough’ is – a book a week at least? And reading, to me, is books. Actual books with pages. Newspapers, magazines, direct mailers, Coco Crunch boxes, Facebook and Twitter updates don’t count! So as far as reading actual books is concerned, I’m pretty damn near abysmal. Why, you ask?

Well, for one thing, not only do I not read enough, I can’t remember half of the stuff I do read. It’s frustrating cos what the heck’s the point of reading Milan Kundera – which made me feel damn smart during the process – and not being able to talk about it several months later? You know, not be able to properly answer profound questions like, “So um, what’s the book about?”. Of course, the fact that nobody has ever actually asked me that question is beside the point. Well, once, a colleague did say he was impressed that I read Kundera. Actually, come to think of it, he said he was impressed and surprised. Bugger, what’s that supposed to mean??

Anyways, back to my abysmal reading life: there are books that I feel, as a mildly ‘intelligent’ person, I should read. Unfortunately, I don’t and this results in my suffering from a serious case of book guilt. I confess that I tried reading Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy once and could not – for the love of god – finish it. I tried really hard but in the end, I … just … couldn’t. I felt like an utter failure. So I went out and bought Without Feathers by Woody Allen and finished it in one sitting. Not much of an accomplishment considering it was only 221 pages long and consisted mostly of plays. Oh the shame!

So in 2010, I resolve to get out there and read plenty of books and then, write about them on my blog. Knowing me and my propensity for fluff, these are hardly going to be in-depth analyses. Instead, they will be brief descriptions of what the books are about and whether I liked them or not … and in some cases, whether I even understood them in the first place!

Hmm, why do I have a feeling I’m about to look incredibly stupid next year?

Pardon Mwah French

Sure, we know that all languages borrow (read: steal) from one another all the time, craftily slipping a foreign word into its lexicon, changing one tiny letter and then, tacitly claiming ownership. After a while, the word is so commonly used that we think it’s English when it’s not.

Of course, there are words we all know had been so obviously dragged kicking and screaming from another language. Words such as habitué (French), raison d’être (French) and dénouement (French again!). The accented letter … the difficult pronunciation … the blatantly high level of pretentiousness you exude whenever you use them … these are all killer giveaways. But there are those that aren’t quite so obvious. Like who knows ‘memorabilia’ is Latin, ‘honcho’ is Japanese and ‘wanderlust’ is German? Okay okay, so some people probably do but I certainly wasn’t one of them. Here are 15 more that I have – until recently – thought were English.

1   Alibi (Latin)

Means ‘excuse’ but in a more serious, witnesses-required kind of way. It’s like when your boss asks you where the hell you were all day and you tell him/her you were at a meeting and drag a colleague in to back you up. That’s an alibi. Without your witness, you’re just plain lying.

2   Angst (German)

Means ‘fear’ or ‘anxiety’ in a very severe, troubled-soul, on the verge of self-mutilation kind of way.  It’s not the same kind of ‘anxiety’ you experience when you catch a rat scampering wildly around your kitchen or when you’re about to give a speech in front of a bunch of people.

3   Camaraderie (French)

Means ‘comradeship’ and ‘fellowship’, just in a prettier way. It’s like when you’ve enjoyed a 10-year relationship of trust with your colleague. It’s nicer to call it camaraderie instead of ‘comradeship’ (as if you’d been serving in a Communist regime) or ‘fellowship’ (as if you’d been in a church choir).

4   Chagrin (French)

Means ‘great annoyance’. It’s like when somebody finishes all the water in the water dispenser bottle and doesn’t put in a new one and you have to do it yourself … much to your chagrin (!!!!).

5   Critique (French)

Means a ‘measured assessment’ – it is objective, well-thought out and balanced. Somebody who comes to you and tells you that your work sucks to high heaven is not critiquing your work. He/she is criticising your work.

6   Diva (Italian)

Means ‘accomplished female singer’ but the word has expanded to include men, actors, athletes, celebrities, makeup artists, hairstylists, supermodels, wrestlers, chefs, architects, writers, doctors, bakers and butchers. Basically, anyone who is egotistical and insufferable.

7   Hubris (Greek)

Means ‘arrogance’ but not your everyday arrogance. It’s the kind of arrogance where you think you are God and own the planet. Then one day, God gets tired of your hubris and strikes you dead. So hubris is arrogance followed by God coming to bite you in the backside.

8   Idiot savant (French)

Means ‘learned idiot’ – somebody who’s a complete moron in some areas and a complete genius in another. For instance, a person who can’t tie his own shoelaces but can remember the birthday and vital stats of every boy band member since the birth of mankind.

9   Incommunicado (Spanish)

Means ‘solitary confinement’, which can be involuntary (like if you’re in prison and beat someone up and then get locked up away from everyone as punishment) or involuntary (like if your colleagues are driving you crazy and you go to Penang to be incommunicado).

10 Malaise (French)

Means ‘feeling sick’ but not in a physical way. It’s like when you work in a really ugly office with fluorescent lighting and mud-brown carpeting. Everybody who works there is in a general state of malaise – just feeling ill at ease all the time.

11 Maven (Yiddish)

Means ‘expert’ and is a word that’s used way too often in women’s magazines. Everybody is a style maven. The qualification? Carrying an eight thousand dollar box clutch and being able to pronounce Yves Saint Laurent without flinching.

12   Pique (French)

Means ‘wounded pride’ at its worst and ‘stimulate’ at its best. We (and by ‘we’, I mean me) tend to over-use it in the shamefully unimaginative “pique one’s curiosity” instead of “he was piqued by his agent’s lack of enthusiasm over his work.”

13   Spiel (German)

Means ‘sales routine’, obviously used in a pejorative sense, of course. It’s like when you go to what you think is a free all-you-can-eat buffet only to find yourself forced to listen to some guy’s spiel on timeshare vacation packages.

14   Vendetta (Italian)

Means ‘blood-thirsty revenge’ and is as horrifying as it sounds, at least in its original meaning. Of course, today, we have personal vendettas against everybody and more often than not, they consist of nothing more than giving someone the evil eye and praying for a wart infestation.

15   Furore (Italian)

Means ‘excitement’ but with a dash of outrage thrown into the mix. It’s like when you think all the shoes in the bargain bin are 70% off when they’re really only 50% off. That’s when a furore is unleashed. Frenzy! Rage!! Uproar!!!

10 Words That Don’t Mean The Way They Sound

Remember how I used to be a dork and would read the dictionary and print out words I didn’t understand and UHU glue them into my spiral notebook and draw pictures next to them? No wait. I still do that. Anyway, I was leafing through my word journal the other day, on a wild Stabilo highlighter rampage, when I saw words that used to flummox me. Unlike some that reveal their meanings simply by the way they sound, these do the complete opposite:

1.        ESCHEW

I thought maybe ‘eschew’ meant some special style of chewing, as in “he eschewed the turkey” or maybe it was chewing gum-related … until I read a sentence that went something like “the wife eschewed her husband” and I thought, whoa, that can’t be right (unless it was a report on cannibalism, in which case it made perfect sense). ‘Eschew’ really means to avoid or to shun. Even after I understood what it meant, every time I hear ‘eschew’, I still picture two pieces of gum being pulled apart (hence the avoiding) but still connected by the sticky elastic strands that’ll stretch as far as you can pull them. Whatever God has joined together, let no man put asunder. Haha.

2.        SOPORIFIC

I first heard this word from a friend who’d said, “I’m feeling so soporific” while we were walking back to the car in the parking lot. First, I thought, who talks like this??? Next, I thought, ‘soporific’ sounded like ‘horrific’ and something soppy-related – a horrific fear of the soppy, perhaps? It was daytime, we weren’t in a reenactment of P2 so it wasn’t a particularly nightmarish experience and it wasn’t raining, so nothing … um, sopped. Later that day, I dictionaried the word and found that it meant ‘sleepy’. My first reaction: such a big word to mean such a simple thing! My second reaction: thank god it wasn’t a disease or anything cos I’d earlier agreed with my friend – without knowing what it meant – that I too, had been feeling somewhat ‘soporific’.

3.        LARCENY

Say ‘larceny’ and I think of a style that harks back to the prudish and musty Victorian era. Say ‘grand larceny’ and I think of um, an extra elaborate style that harks back to the prudish and musty Victorian era. You know, all fluff and flounce – the crinoline cage skirt and frou frou petticoats, ridiculously tight corsets, the frilliest and daintiest umbrellas and a bunch of ladies who speak like something’s crawling up their butts. Ah, what a purdy picture. But what it really means is theft! Go figure.

4.        HITHERTO

‘Hitherto’ is another one … except that it didn’t even sound like a word in the first place. More like the name of a really hunky Spanish guy. Antonio! Ronaldo! Roberto! Cristiano!! Fabio!!! You know, some Adonis archetype on the cover of a tacky romance novel – wild mane of hair flowing in the wind, chest practically bursting open because of his ginormous stallion-like pecs. But really, ‘hitherto’ really means ‘until now’ … as in “she had hitherto been unemployed and feeding her seven kids on Giant food coupons” … or something like that.

5.        MALAPROPISM

If I had to venture a wild guess, I’d have thought ‘malapropism’ was the art of creating secondary stage props. Perhaps a prop of secondary importance, you know, like the Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil in a play about Adam and Eve would be the main prop (alphapropism) and the shrub would be the secondary prop (malapropism). “Hey, where is the malaprop?? Get the malaprop out here pronto!!!” But what ‘malapropism’ really means is an unintentional mix-up of similar-sounding words. So inarticulate (read: dumb) people can suffer from malapropism, like suffering from a disease.

6.        CHOLERIC

Speaking of disease, that’s what I used to think ‘choleric’ was. I imagined all the characters in the movie ‘Love in the time of Cholera’ to be very, very, very … choleric. You travel to certain parts of the world like South America, Africa and or Asia and you become choleric and you can like, you know, die right? Wrong. A person who is choleric is a person who’s extremely irritable, easily angered, like she’s on the verge of being pissed off all the time. In other words, she suffers from a severe case of bitchiness. It’s a trait that, unfortunately, can’t be cured by restricting your travels only to first world countries or by avoiding raw seafood (or raw anything, actually). Come to think of it, maybe being ‘choleric’ isn’t that much different from having a disease after all.

7.        SEMANTICS

I imagine ‘semantics’ to be a group of people who pray to insects. They wear ankle-length skirts in the drabbest of colours, balance towering bouffants on their heads, have blank expressions on their naked faces and make a career out of breeding children. No wait, that’s the women of the FLDS. But isn’t that what ‘semantics’ sounds like anyway? Like some kind of cult or at least a field of theology, like apologetics. Or the study of insects. It sounds like everything except what it really means: the study of the meaning of words. It also means the language used in order to elicit a certain response (like how that copywriter used certain words to con you into thinking that his product can help you lose 10 pounds in 12 minutes).

8.        SOBRIQUET

I love ‘sobriquet’. Read it in a magazine years ago and was struck by how pretty it sounded. I imagined it to mean a fancy type of sorbet you could only find in Paris. A big beautiful bouquet made up of a dozen mini sorbets – from minty green to candy floss pink, lemon yellow to snowy white … little frozen bulbs of colour. So purdy. Its real meaning has nothing to do with a frozen dessert though. ‘Sobriquet’ really means nickname (cue sound of balloon deflating – pffftttt). Nickname as in, my name is Pierre Antonio Ng and my sobriquet is Ah Kow. Talk about a major disappointment.

9.        ERSATZ

There’s something about a word with an ‘s’ and a ‘z’ that’s just especially glamorous … I love it. Can easily imagine the word up in lights on a huge billboard, flashing brilliantly for all the world to see. What ‘ersatz’ really means though, is an inferior imitation, which is weird cos it sounds way more exciting than ‘original’. I’m thinking fancy haute couture brand … Emilio Ersatz, Yves Ersatz, Emporio Ersatz. Isn’t it weird to think that an ersatz director – which sounds way fab – is actually derogatory? That means Petaling Street is replete with ersatz branded goods!

10.     REPLETE

Speaking of ‘replete’, this was another word that surprised me. At first discovery, I thought it meant to empty or to reduce. After all, it sounded a lot like delete or deplete. How was I supposed to know that just a change of one letter could make such a huge difference? ‘Replete’ really means abounding, filled to satiation and, my favourite definition, gorged (now here’s a word that means exactly the way it sounds)!

The Art Of Cussing @#&@%#$!!!

I’m going to come clean (or dirty, depending on how you see it). I’m a big advocate of cussing. Just like fruits, vegetables and exercise, cussing is good for your health and helps you cope with life.

I’ve always known this and now, I have the evidence to prove it: a bunch of psychologists at Keele University in Britain put two groups of students thru a bit of pain and discovered that the group that was allowed to cuss like sailors had a higher pain tolerance than the group that was only allowed to say things related to a table. Read more here.

I can certainly vouch for that. I swear that cussing has helped me through some seriously rough patches. Having said that, cussing isn’t something you just mindlessly do. Just like any other skill or art form, it requires thought, careful practice and discipline – especially if you want to reap its benefits.

1. Never over-cuss. Cussing should only be saved for special occasions (ie. when you’re super-pissed). It’s not for regular everyday conversation like, “Hang on, I gotta go park my f***ing car and put some f***ing coins into the f***ing machine.” Hello, you’re not in Pulp Fiction, you know. When you over-cuss, there is no impact and it becomes ineffective.

2. The grandma rule. You never cuss in front of your mother or grandmother. It’s also generally not acceptable in front of your boss or client or during a business presentation.

3. Do not abuse the cuss. You don’t cuss when you’re happy or excited as this is cussing out of context. Cussing wasn’t invented for you to express happy thoughts. “That shepherd’s pie was f***ing fantastic!!!” is just wrong.

4. Always about, never at. You cuss about somebody; you don’t cuss at somebody. That’s just asking to start a fight. And that’s dumb, especially if you’re a 100-pound weakling and can’t even wrestle a lollipop away from a two year old baby.

5. Be selective. There are tons of cuss words out there and each one was specifically invented to serve a different purpose. So, always use the right cuss word that accurately reflects the degree of rage that’s bubbling inside.

For instance, mild options like ‘damn’ and ‘crap’ are appropriate when you drop a donut on the floor. ‘Shit’ and ‘hell’ are appropriate when you drop a donut on the floor and somebody steps on it. ‘F***’ (and words of the Cantonese variety, most of which are too filthy to appear on my blog) are for when you drop a donut on the floor, somebody steps on it, slips, crashes into you and causes you to fall and throw your back all out of whack.

6. Keep it real. To cuss is to be honest, so when you do it, you have to do it with gusto, let it rip, hold nothing back. You have to have the right facial expression and physical force to go along with it (you don’t say a cuss word; you spit it out). Only then will you truly enjoy the benefits of cussing. If not, you’re just a poser and there’s nothing worse than a wannabe-cusser.

7. Cussing loves company. When cussing in front of people, make sure they’re the right people. They must be people who cuss too and won’t go all bug-eyed and judge you. Cussing in front of non-cussers is demoralising and you’ll wind up depressed and want to stab yourself with a butter knife.

My Favourite Pompous Quote

There’s nothing I love more than a mean-spirited insult cloaked in the most pompous of languages, uttered by the most arrogant of men. And this, in my opinion, takes the cake.

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“… He writes the worst English I have ever encountered. It reminds me of wet sponges, tattered washing on the line, stale bean soup, college yells, dogs barking through endless nights; it is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it.
It drags itself out of the dark abyism of pish and crawls insanely up to the topmost pinnacle of tosh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash …”

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That’s so beautiful it’s music to my ears. It was penned by American writer and satirist HL Mencken on President Warren G Harding’s inaugural address in 1921.

Too bad it wasn’t physically possible for him to live long enough to witness President Bush’s inaugural address. I bet he’d have something interesting to say about that!

My personal favourite part of the quote? The topmost pinnacle of tosh – hahaha, that cracks me up! Now if I can only find an occasion to use it.