Carlene

Girlfriend, yo be fixin' to be one hot mama, iffin' yo learns to talk trash with the homies from yo hood. Ya know what I'm sayin'?

Sometimes people DO see (and hear) what they want to. But other times, it's not a choice. Do you see the arrow in the Fed Ex logo? Most adults can't, unless they specifically look for it, and sometimes not even then. Pre-school children almost always spot it. Know why? Because they can't yet read.

This is so true. Every day, I play games and participate in Internet forums with people from all over the world. I have done this for a long time and I can tell you that the climate has changed drastically! We (Americans) are no longer looked up to as we once were. The USA is no longer the place every foreign national hopes to visit one day, or better yet, live. My Internet friends and acquaintances used to say to me, "I wish I had been born in America!" Now they struggle to explain that it's not me, personally, they abhor, it's our foreign actions and policies - our incredible arrogance! Nobody died and made us the boss! We do not get to rule the world just because we have more stuff than anyone else! I am speechless when people talk about how "moral" George Bush is. Show me an example of this man's morality and I will show you a dozen instances of hypocrisy, lies, cruelty, and total disregard for human life and basic rights. He is the most IMMORAL president ever to occupy the white house! Clinton's dalliance with Monica Lewinsky was NOTHING compared to torturing people, holding them in jail for YEARS without a shred of evidence, and ordering the bombing of a nation that had never raised one finger against us.

Another example of totally improper, but wonderfully colorful colloquial English-speakers - the Cajuns. My sister-in-law was married to a Cajun (aka "Coon Ass") and I spent lots of time in some tiny little towns on the coast of Louisiana, where the accent is as thick as gumbo. We were visiting one weekend when Autry, my BIL's brother, asked for a ride to the store. "I thought you bought yourself a car," I asked. "What happened to it?" "Well," said Autry, "Let me told you. You know there ain't but one telephone pole between Cameron and Holly Beach, don't you?" I agreed that that sounded right. "Well, me, I found the son-of-a-bitch," said Autry. That's the way they talk, often with bastardized French inter spread for good measure. "Hey, ney," is how they greet one another. And always, laissez les bons temps rouler - let the good times role. And boy, do they mean it. Shrimping is hard work, but on Saturday night, after 5 o'clock Mass, everybody gets together to drink beer, eat seafood, and play Bouret (pronounced boo-ray), a Cajun card game played for money. On Saturday night, they put their kids to bed with dirty feet and enjoy themselves like no group of people I have ever known. Both my BIL and my SIL are dead now. Cameron and Holly Beach were literally, totally destroyed by Hurricane Rita. They say that big resort companies are buying up all the land where family-owned bars and "camps", as the Cajuns call them, were once lined up on the beach, raised high on rickety wooden stilts against the ever-threatening Gulf waters. The plan is to build huge hotels and spas - a Cajun Riviera. I think it sucks and I will never, ever go there. I did see Autry at my SIL's funeral last year. Just listening to him talk brought back so many memories. I think it would be such a shame to insist that people like Autry speak only "proper" English. There is nothing proper about the Cajun culture, I can tell you, but that's part of their charm. And it's who they are. Who are we to try and change them?

Ebonics is a psuedo-language spoken by black kids. It identifies them, they think, as being tough and hip. It will pass. Every generation has it's own vocabulary. It means nothing. The 20's spawned the hep cats, the 60's gave us hippies. I have a 14 year old granddaughter who live with me. She communicates in middle school English, even though she is an honor roll student. It's the way her friends talk, and anything else would brand her as an outsider. Every day I hear, "I am so going to get her for that", or "He was like running down the hall and Mr. Austin like told him to go to the office, and dude, he so didn't. He is going to like be in so much trouble tomorrow." NOT proper English....but I don't think it will hurt her chances of getting into college. She is smart enough not to talk like that to anyone who might be offended, if they have control over something she wants. Our latest battle is over "freakin' ". I do not like it. I do not want to hear it come out of her mouth. If I hear her say it, she's like grounded for the whole day. Dude! That's like, such a bummer!

My surgeon is banded and I asked him if he had ever done his own fills and he said blind fills (without fluoro) are a bad idea and he would not do them on anyone - himself or a patient.

TOM....I have come to the conclusion that you just like to argue. Not that there is anything wrong with that. My mother used to say that I would argue with a fence post. I'm sorry she never had the opportunity to meet you. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. LOL...

I agree. My grandmother was born in 1887 in a small farming community north of Ft Worth, TX. She went only as far as the 8th grade in school because there was nothing locally available thereafter. I have many letters and postcards written by her to family members over the years. Her spelling and punctuation, sentence structure and capitalization are impeccable. Her handwriting is perfectly legible. I am amazed - shocked, actually - that her one room country school house education may have been superior in some respects to what children receive now, over 100 years later.

I had EKG, chest x-ray, vitals, and blood work.

I couldn't agree more. I grew up in Texas, where people are famous for going "over yonder" and always seem to be "fixing to" do something . We don't put things away, we put them up. We have a colorful, descriptive way with words around here. A tough looking woman appears to have been rode hard and put away wet. If the neighbors have a smart-mouth kid, they need to have a come to Jesus meetin' with that boy. And one of my personal favorites, whenever someone is really full of himself, we say we'd like to buy him for what he's worth and sell him for what he thinks he's worth. My mother had the greenest thumb around. Surveying my backyard one day, she said, "You need to do something about that lob lolly over yonder and move this tree before the roots get into your sidewalk and make it all catty wampus. Have you got a bill doogie?" Huh? My DH had no idea what she was talking about. But she got my full attention too when she announced that we had "a dead man" buried under the crepe myrtle tree. "What do you mean there's a dead man buried under there? How do you know?" For the uninitiated, a "dead man" in this context is a large piece of treated wood, approximately the same size and shape as a coffin. It is attached to a guy wire to keep it taut and buried 6 feet underground. Now, with underground utilities being the norm, there are probably fewer and fewer homes around with dead men buried in the backyard. It was a real conversation stopper, and I will definitely miss them.

You teach college English???? Where were you when this thread started? PS...I had one particularly great comp teacher. I was intimidated by him, by the fact that I was one of those old people who ruin the curve in a classroom full of kids who were majoring in fun, and by the size of a full-scale university (I spent as many years as I could at community colleges. They finally made me file a degree plan and kicked me out.) The Prof and I did not communicate all semester, except via the work I turned in and the remarks he wrote in the margins of my papers before he handed them back to me. His standards were high, so high that a lot of kids dropped his class. I cherished every little word of praise. They were my gold stars. I learned from him that ideas, opinions, instructions - whatever you might be writing at the time - are more than just words. When they are well and thoughtfully put together, they are powerful. And if you write well, people will listen to you. They might not agree with you, but they WILL listen.

LOL, Green...I think we have all experienced out-source frustration. It makes me CRAZY. And it's not even the gerunds, although that is pretty much a dead giveaway that I'm not really talking to "Bill from the Cleveland office". And don't make them lose their place in the script by asking too many questions, or not responding per their training. They will just start all over again! It makes me want to SCREAM, "Listen, A Plus, I know what the hell I'm doing, now can we just move on to the REAL problem - your crappy product?" My DH volunteered my services to one of his buddies - a retired aircraft mechanic who doesn't know RAM from ROM. He couldn't access the Internet via his new ISP. I worked on it for an hour or so and decided it was their software, so I called support. Sure enough, in no time at all I was talking to a guy in India who said his name was Abraham Lincoln (I swear). After a LOOOOOOOOOONG time, he finally agreed that the software was bad. His suggestion was that I go to my house, or a library, or an Internet cafe, and download a newer version, save it to a floppy disk (or other media), then take it back to the home of my DH's friend and install it. "Couldn't you just mail him a new CD?", I asked. "That would take too long", said Mr. Lincoln. I did the guy a huge favor and canceled his service. Then I signed him up with another ISP, which works, but I have no doubt that if he has problems with this one, the Support scenario will be pretty much the same. Maybe I'll get Bill Clinton next time. I always did want to talk to him.

"I am wanting a car" IS a badly constructed sentence. I can't think of a single instance wherein "I am wanting" would be grammatically correct. I hear similar usage all the time, though. On King of Queens the other night, Doug's wife said, "I'm not hatin' it." Now if that's not going all the way around the vocabulary farm to get to the outhouse, I don't know what is. Does that mean she likes it, but stops short of loving it? That would be my interpretation. I guess "I like it" would have been too uninspired. As for "running"....it still depends on the context, no matter the form of the word. I am running in the Boston Marathon. I was running when he hit me with the bottle. Our concept of good English changes with time, so maybe part of the problem is that us old people just don't always "get it". I have heard a number of people complain that the HBO series Deadwood was great, but the dialogue sometimes made no sense. The scriptwriters went to great lengths to use the vernacular of the times, just as Shakespeare did, and sometimes that makes for a tough read in 2006. Our high school kids would probably appreciate Romeo and Juliet a lot more if Juliet had cried out from the balcony, "Romeo, Romeo....you best be gettin' your sorry self over here 'fore I open up a can of whup ass on you."

I suppose that legally, this woman is entitled to have as many abortions as she wants, but it's a sad, sad thing. Kind of like drowning litter after litter of baby kittens because it's easier than having your cat spayed. There are just some sorry ass people in this world, and that's the truth.

I walked 4 miles.

There are any number of instances where "I am running" would be better than "I run". For example: "I am running for office; God help us all." "I am running the Water for your bath, so get your sorry behind in here." "I was running a poker game in the back room when the cops showed up and busted me." "I was running around the house naked before you got here." "I am running to the store after breakfast"...now there's another sticky wicket. Am I literally going to jog to the store, or will I be driving? If I'm driving, then why would I say I'm going to run? "I'm loving it" is just more appealing as an advertising catch phrase than "I love it". It's hip and different, which is what advertising is all about anyway. And it sounds more immediate....I am loving it = I love it right now. "I love it" is passive. "I'm loving it" is active. I think it beats "you deserve a break today", don't you?

These doctors will band Mexican patients. Neither is a band surgeon. Dr. Maese is a cardiologist and Dr. Dobson is a cosmetic surgeon. I have heard a rumor that Dr. Maese does not use Huber (non-coring) needles. I do not know if this is true or not, but I would ask before scheduling a fill with him. <TABLE class=datatable cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=selected>Dr Fred Maese, Board Certified Cardiologist, Complete Bariatrics of Dallas</TD><TD>6170 Sherry Lane, suite 200, Preston Cardiology & Wellness Center, Dallas, TX 75225</TD><TD>214-234-0330</TD><TD> </TD><TD> </TD></TR><TR><TD class=selected>Dr Walter Dobson, Board Certified General Surgeon </TD><TD>647 S. Great Southwest Pkwy., Grand Prairire, Texas 75051</TD><TD>972-660-3188 or 817-992-5656</TD><TD>janadob@swbell.<WBR>net</TD><TD>$150 per fill. $250 with fluro. Full Aftercare program designed for all surgeons patients </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Is it your experience that Dr. Dobson will not do a fill without a surgical record?

My point was exactly the same as yours...abortions do not prevent child abuse because "bad" (abusive) parents do not have abortions, as a rule.

In the 110s...WOW! How tall are you? My goal is about 116 and I am not quite 5 feet tall. I have about 10 pounds to go.

Actually, poor women have fewer abortions, per statistics, than their more well-to-do counterparts. Abortion has virtually no impact on child abuse or neglect. In order to actually see a correlation you would have to force low income women to have abortions. In other words, make abortion the penalty for being poor. (Not that I think you are suggesting such a thing. I'm just saying that's the only way to actually link the two.)

I am really sorry you were offended by this phrase. Where I live it's like "cowboy up"...it just means working up the courage to do something you don't really want to do. I use it with my DH all the time....."Put on your big girl panties, Bob, and just do it." My granddaughter thinks it's hilarious.

Tami... With friends like Cleo, who needs enemies? I know that old chestnut is kind of a no-brainer, but it really fits your situation. Cleo is an opportunist. Do not give her another chance. She has no intention of changing. That should be evident, since she has expressed no remorse for her sneaky behavior - nothing but excuses. You have the right idea. Move to another apartment complex and avoid this vulture like the plague!

What a hypocrite this guy is!!! The following is from MSNBC News... Foley, as chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, had introduced legislation in July to protect children from exploitation by adults over the Internet. He also sponsored other legislation designed to protect minors from abuse and neglect. "We track library books better than we do sexual predators," Foley has said. I saw an interesting movie recently wherein the plot turns around a young girl who seeks revenge against an Internet stalker/pedophile. It's called "Hard Candy". I think a lot of men would find it very disturbing, but I was rooting for the kid, let me tell you!