Spell-Check

Years and years ago while married to Bill (for 21 years), he often told me I would be a good proofreader.  Seriously.  He would catch me circling (with red-ballpoint pen) any typo in whatever book or magazine I was reading at the time.  And he meant it as a compliment.

Today I’m doing well if I can complete my own sentences without spell-check, having become a bit of my mother.  The more languages she learned, the worse speller she became.

A month ago Petra wrote about the Charm of Mnenomics, remember?  When I read her post, I chuckled because I was already forming these thoughts after that quickie trip to Ireland two weeks earlier.

Look at that elegant, artistic font above from a book in the Old Library at Trinity College in Dublin.   Don’t you wonder how those scribes of yore corrected typos without spell-check or white-out?!  Or did they?

Take MISSISSIPPI, as a mnemonic example.  I bet you learned to spell it as M-I-crooked letter, crooked letter-I-crooked letter, crooked letter-I-humpback, humpback-I.  HA!  It has a sing-song rhythm you could never forget.

To put me in my place, I remember terrible spelling snafus I made while growing up.  My name happens to be Virginia Louise but my family called me Bootsie for short (long story).  Somewhere along the line, when I obviously thought my powers of logic were exemplary, I decided the ‘sie’ at the end of Bootsie was the same sound as the ’ise’ at the end of Louise.  You don’t want to know how long I called myself (on paper) Virginia Lousie (lousy!) before I nearly died in horror on the spot.  Jeez Louise takes on new meaning, right?!

Further demonstrating how those powers of logic did not elude me, I’ll never forget the day I was singing a Daily Vacation Bible School song…”We’re going to the mansion on the Happy Day Express.  The letters on the engine R-J-E-S-U-S”…and suddenly “got” it.   Though I had sung it correctly, of course, it hadn’t computed.  Yup, very embarrassing.

This, of course, is totally aside from the they’re-there-their, your-you’re, lose-loose, then-than, its-it’s, led-lead, etc. quirks.  For some reason, those were always easy-peasy for me.  I understood that kind of logic.

Growing up we had a guy in our church, one of the biggest brainiacs I’ve ever known, who went to MIT.  I remember being aghast by letters he’d write home filled with spelling errors.  Later I learned that Einstein had dyslexia and he, too, was a terrible speller.  In fact, the list he’s on has quite an impressive line-up.  Long before spell-check!

Bottom-line, don’t you wonder if spelling is relevant at all, as long as we’re communicating?  Have we made it more important than it needs to be?  What does it say about us when we turn our nose down at typos and those who make them?  Especially if it has nothing to do with one’s intelligence!

Gotta love Winnie-the-Pooh, my guru, when it comes to these spelling things:

You can’t help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn’t spell it right;
but spelling isn’t everything.  There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn’t count.
(from The House at Pooh Corner, 1928)

My spelling is Wobbly.  It’s good spelling but it Wobbles,
and the letters get in the wrong places.
(from Winnie-the-Pooh, 1926)

How can you possibly dispute the logic of that!

Our Shoppe Gallery

While celebrating our weekends, and in the spirit of our global collaboration and community of support, we are featuring our personal art as 'Vision to Verb' notecards.

 

Our hope is that they'll inspire you to join with us in our support of KIVA - empowering people around the world with start-up business loans.

Manipulation as Art

I’m talking about Vision, of course, but also about Verb...which I’ll get to in a minute.

Many eons ago, back when digital photography was first taking off,  I had a most interesting conversation with sister Ruth about pure, unadulterated photography vs. the kind of manipulated photos we see nowadays using textures, blurs, selective coloring, HDR, etc.   Photography like what you see above (from the Budapest subway).

[I’m not talking about basic tweaks with straightening, contrast, shadows and sharpening.  As a professional photographer once told me, that’s not considered “manipulation.”  It’s…expected.]

As Ruth and I talked back then, she made no secret of the fact she was not a fan of photo manipulation.  At all.  Furthermore, she mentioned that our big-time photography nephew agreed with her…back then.  Pure, unadulterated photography.  That’s the real photography.

As one terribly prone to being swayed by “what people think,” I was devastated.  Here I was, older sister and aunt and wannabe photographer, succumbing to the evils of cheap art.  I nearly nose-dived myself into a hellish depression.

How epiphanies come out of the blue (do they?), I don’t know.  But within short order an AHA! came that, thankfully, pulled me out of my slough of despond.

“Think about it this way,” I said to Ruth back then.  “You’re a poet in your own right.  A published poet.  A lauded poet.  Loved by many.  But some of us don’t always like it, ‘get’ it, or read it.  Sometimes it takes too much energy.  We just want the pure, unadulterated written word.  The real conversation as it happened.”

That’s when it dawned on me that poetry is language manipulation.  Isn’t it?  It’s not always easy on the eyes or clear or understood or swallowed whole.  Or it IS, depending on the eye of the beholder!  It’s an art in its own right, whether we like it or not.  The lucky ones go down in history as our heroes and mentors.  Ruth is becoming one of them herself, truth be told.  And the more I read her, the more I understand her…just as I do some of you who have the gift.

Actually, my guess is that many photography purists dabble in digital manipulation these days, having gotten over the hump, like Ruth, venturing into their own path of “tools of the trade.”  It’s not that we/they have to “get with the program” as much as just acknowledging we’re not living in the same world anymore. 

Which reminds me of brother Bennett (who died in 1996 at age 47), a professional film photographer before the age of digital who did his own manipulations in the dark room with the solarisation technique.  I still remember his negatives becoming silk-screen templates placed on top of each other to create one image.  He was a master at film-photo manipulation. 

Maybe when it comes down to it we’re all manipulators in one way, shape, form or another?  It may not be digital or verbal, premeditated or controlled.  But deep down I bet something very creative, artistic, human and soulful guides us skillfully to alter and edit Life as we know it in order to navigate this world today. 

Sometimes, if we admit it, we just do it because we can and because it’s fun.

Don’t you wonder what it all will look like a few years down the road…if we get to live that long?!

The Language of Windmills

This wasn’t what I had planned for today…but after the Dutch Prince Friso unexpectedly died two weeks ago, I switched gears.

The short version is that after being buried by an avalanche while skiing in Austria a year ago February, Prince Friso went into a coma and never regained consciousness.  He was 44 when he died.  Besides leaving behind his recently “retired” Queen Mother (now Princess Beatrix), his King Brother Alexander and younger brother Constantijn, he also left behind his wife and two adorable girls, ages 8 and 7.

It so happens Prince Friso was Protector (“guardian angel”) of the Dutch Windmill Association (just like his father Prince Claus before), and, out of respect to him, all Dutch windmills were at “standstill” from his death to his funeral this past August 16.

  

The “standstill” position of a windmill is what you see above from our De Hoop windmill here where we live.  It’s the eleven/five o-clock position--the position marking death and mourning.  It would be similar to hanging our flags at half-mast.

Not all windmill language is about death, of course.  In fact, far from it!

First of all, windmills in the Netherlands turn counter-clockwise when you face them.  I say “when you face them” because from the backside they’re turning clockwise.  It’s the way they’re designed, mainly for right-handed millers who will furl/unfurl the sails with their right hand.  [Ireland is the one country where they turn clockwise.  Maybe Catherine knows why?]

It’s a huge thrill for me to see a windmill turning because it means IT’S  WINDY.  But did you know that to maintain status in the windmill association, you hope to God it’s windy because your windmill is required to make 200,000 revolutions a year, whether it’s a working mill (draining water, sawing wood, milling grain) or for show!  So, yes, a meter counts out the turns.  If you make the mark, you receive subsidies to keep your windmill painted and in working order, which is of utmost importance to a country dependent on the charm of this historic icon.

When the windmill is not turning, the sails are left standing in one of 4 positions, more or less telling you what’s going on in that miller’s life:

1. If the sail is in the one/seven-o’clock position, the message is JOY.  It’s in the so-called “coming” (yup!) position before it reaches the highest point and usually signifies a celebration:  Marriage.  Birth.  Graduation.  Birthday.  A flag often accompanies this position from the highest sail.
2. In the midnight/six-o’clock position, or the vertical/horizontal position, the windmill is at “short rest” during a work period, like in milling grain, and will turn again as soon as the wind picks up.
3. After passing the highest point, midnight, the sails are then “going” and reach the eleven/five-o’clock position of death and mourning, as in the case of Prince Friso above.
4. In the ten/four-o’clock position, with sails at a 45-degree angle to the vertical, forming a St. Andrew’s cross, the mill is at “long rest,” allowing the miller to perform maintenance chores in and around the mill, often during the summer months.
   
   
   

There are 1150+ Dutch windmills in working order as we speak, more than any other country in the world, and with a database giving details on every single one.  They are still turned to wind by hand and use canvas sails.  None are motorized.

I always knew windmills were soulful to me but…talk about Vision and Verb!  Who would have thought a windmill could say so much!