profound question

Now as my friends know, I am what you might call "challenged" by the English language. Oh, ask me to write and I'm just fine as long as a English teacher doesn't get to grade my work. Then there are all these red circles and crossed out words and notes in the margins about "run on sentences" and "dangling participles". So what's wrong with that? Our entire nation would be healthier if there was more running and dangling.....(hmmm, I probably need to rethink that business about the dangling....sounds like something that should be censored). It's strange because the people that like my writing give me the same reasoning why they like it that the English teachers give me as criticism...I write the same way I speak.

The only area of English that I'm as challenged as I am in the structure of the English language is pronunciation. If they had created "Hooked on Phonics" when I was a kid, I would be the part of the control group that flunked the testing. The only way I can get hooked on phonics is if they use a very large fish hook. I've often thought that part of my problem is this "auditory discrimination hearing" problem that I have. I think I wrote in an earlier blog that I have problems hearing the difference in sounds. So red and dead sound pretty much the same to me. That used to make hospice work interesting. Anyway, I'm getting to the point, or the question I have, about sounds.

Now, as I understand it, phonics refers to the sounds that create the word. But what I'm having a struggle with is how different areas of the country can have such different sounds, otherwise known as accents. How can making an "i" sound in one part of the country sound like an "a" sound somewhere else? How can you say "car" with a hard r sound in one state, and up north, they call it a "ca" with no r sound? Or more to the point, how can Texas and Louisiana use the same version of Hooked on Phonics?

Today I had to deliver a check to this man, who gave me the best directions he could. But because I've been here long enough now, I really don't expect to understand every word that is said. My objective is to understand enough to get me started in the correct general direction, and to make certain that I have the telephone number of the insuree easily available. I bet sometimes they feel like a air traffic control tower the way they have to guide me in to their run-way....I mean driveway. So he tells me to go down this highway, across a little bridge, and turn on *&/%# street. It sounded something like Carl street. Although I did miss the turn the first time, I did figure out quickly that I was supposed to turn on Carroll Street. I don't know about you, but when I say Carl and when I say Carrol, my mouth doesn't move in the same way. (Try it) Anyway, the check got delivered with only two extra phone calls.

Then I talked to the next person to whom I was delivering a check. She was meeting a friend for lunch and I agreed to go to the restaurant. "No." I told her, "I'm not familiar with that restaurant, but I'll find it". Actually, when she told me that she was meeting for lunch at Imperial Top Pick, I thought that might be a steak place, and I'm always looking for a good rib-eye. It was a good thing that I had the first word in the restaurant's name correct, or I would have driven past "Imperial CHOPSTICKS" without stopping.

I really don't know how much of this is my hearing and how much is their accent. But the next time you see me, look directly at me and talk in slow, clear sentences. By then, I will probably think that you've lost your mind. But at least, I'll understand you!

Louisiana Observations

Yes, I know....I've been missing for a while again. State Farm wants all the claims closed by December 20, and so things here are a little busy. Just because our claims will get closed doesn't mean that the job is over. In fact, to some degree, it will be really getting started. You see, there are going to be almost as many "re-opens" as there were original claims. That means that the claims get opened back up, due to price increases in materials (the insured can't get the work done for the original estimate), or damage is found at a later date that wasn't included in the original claim. So there is plenty more work to be done here. It is still a compliment to State Farm the amount of pressure they put on to get claims closed as fast as possible. I've heard of lots of people here that either haven't seen an adjuster from their company, or have just seen them for the first time in the past week.

But I have had time to think about some further observations that I wanted to pass on about the strangeness of Louisiana. Of course, maybe I shouldn't refer to it as strangeness as I may return to Texas and have picked up some of their characteristics. Like some speech patterns. I have a tendency to adopt some of the speech patterns of whomever is around me. I don't really mind this when I am in some civilized place, like England or Canada. But God help me if I pick up Louisiana. I don't think I will pick up much of the Cajun accent, because I can't ever understand them anyway. But as a state, they have this annoying habit of leaving out a word or two in simple sentences. "How are you?" becomes "How you?". "We came through the storm fine" becomes "We fine". I thought at first that this was because they are so slow about movement (unless they are in a car!), that they left out words to speed up their sentences. But then I discovered that at other times, they can make one word into multiple syllables. Just in case you have a sensor on your email account, let me refer to the most common word yelled when people are surprised or falling off a ladder, and is also used for a body function. It begins with s and ends in hit. Well, in Louisiana, that word requires a full 15 seconds to say. She......itttttttttt. And since it is said often, I guess that is why they leave out other little words in their sentences.

I was asked about how Thanksgiving went, especially the food. Thank God, for the most part, Lana cooked and so I had mostly normal food like turkey and cornbread dressing. But some friends that came over for the Thanksgiving meal insisted on bringing gumbo for an noon snack until we ate at 4 pm. Sounded good for me. And when they walked in with a big pot of seafood gumbo, the smell was wonderful. The other big pot they carried in was potato salad, just like we get at any Texas BBQ place. I assumed this was for Thanksgiving dinner, and that was a little different from any tradition I knew of, but I was pretty accepting. Until they fixed everyone a bowl of the seafood gumbo and plopped a big spoon of potato salad into the middle of it. That's the way they eat gumbo.....with potato salad. I tried it, just to be nice. But let me tell you, it just ain't natural.

I think the moral of this story is that if you ever decide to move to someplace, don't just look at the cost of living, the landscape/beauty of the area, or whatever. Take a temporary residence and live there for a few months. Because I now know that Louisiana is off my list of retirement areas.

Hope you fine.