I'd Hike That

     If the world is divided into beach people and mountain people, I fall solidly into the latter category. I have nothing against the beach, but I prefer to pad about a hiking trail instead of slathering myself in some high-grade, oily SPF. 

    These days, the desire to escape to the mountains may be due to heat fatigue as another month of triple-digit temperatures pound Texas. 

    So as this blog posts, I'll be hiding for a few days in a cooler climate, somewhere among the mountains of Colorado. 

    A couple of years back, my wife and I journeyed up here. As usually happens, we tried out a variety of different hikes. One morning, our favorite guidebook led us to the Alpine Tunnel Trail. The drive there featured an axle-busting bounce along a casually maintained logging road. It was easily as stressful as any sheer drop-off along the trail. It may dissuade a few. If you go, don't let the drive put you off. The hike was worth it--forests, meadows, wildflowers, and long-range views. 

    The Alpine Tunnel is an out-and-back hike unless you're the ambitious sort. Then, you can connect to the Colorado Trail and walk to the state border. 

A.L. Salzanski photo

Some folks hiked faster than we did and passed us on our trek. Others, we caught. Some traded places with us, back and forth, like race cars jockeying for position. Everybody showed a little fatigue. Only the accompanying dogs appeared unphased by the rock scrambling and elevation. 

    Among the common questions asked of writers is the source of our ideas. My common answer is to advise aspiring writers to keep their heads up and look and listen as they move through life. The inspiration for stories is everywhere. I've described before finding it in abandoned buildings and city streets. Sometimes it comes along in high places. 

    I am delighted to have my story, "The Ties That Bind," in the September/October issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. The tale had its genesis on the Alpine Tunnel hike. The pristine setting, the conversations with our fellow hikers, and the struggles of those who carved  a railroad line all niggled my thoughts on the return walk down. The trailhead begins in a ghost town and the terminus is a caved-in tunnel. The landscape is both a beautiful bit of nature and a graveyard for hopes and dreams. 

    I wanted my picture of the setting to come through in "The Ties That Bind." Good storytellers employ the location to establish a mood for the story, to reveal something about the characters as they interact in that environment, to suggest the conflicts of the story, and to hint at the themes. As we returned to the car, my mind's ear heard all those elements in the multifaceted piece of Colorado through which we traveled. The story that emerged, I hope, used the setting to accomplish a few of those goals.  

    As we looked around the scant remains of the old ghost town at the trailhead, I pictured the old saloon. That thought experiment led to an idea for another story that is currently scheduled to appear in print. Two stories from one hike. It must have been the lack of oxygen. 

    Until next time. 

Pet Peeves and Anachronisms

Do readers under forty remember the sound of chalk squeaking on a blackboard? Moreover, do they care if characters living in the Sixties, World War II, Tudor England, or the Roman Empire speak as if they lived in 21st century America? If anyone in that demographic reads this post, those questions are not rhetorical. I'd like to know, because I remember, and I care.

"I have feelings for you." I recently watched a TV episode set during World War II in which one character declared to another, "I have feelings for you." In 1980, when my current husband moved in and I went off the love market, that wasn't what people said when they felt emotionally attracted to someone. They didn't say "into you" or "not that into you" either, not for another three or four decades.

"I'm sorry for your loss." I remember the first time I heard this, on an episode of Judging Amy, a courtroom/ family drama that ran from 1999 to 2005. Before that, if you couldn't find something spontaneous and personal to say, you said, "My condolences." When I offer sympathy to bereaved strangers, or if I didn't know the deceased, I go with, "I'm so sorry," letting my tone of voice express my concern. The addition of "...for your loss," to my mind, distances the speaker, conveying, "I'm all right, Jack."

"passed away" for "died" I was brought up to say "died" and "dead." I don't know when the euphemism "passed away" took such universal hold, but it's ubiquitous these days, and as both a writer and a shrink, I believe it's a big mistake. Death is a fact for all of us, and being mealy-mouthed about it doesn't help. We're not skittish about anything else these days. Young women rock stars' favorite stage move seems to be writhing around on the floor in costumes in which they look almost naked. We're living in the run-up to either World War III or an unlivable planet without reaching a consensus about doing whatever it takes to stop it. But "dead" is too raw to say aloud.

If an analogy helps, it reminds me of a 1972 Luis Buñuel movie, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, in which using the toilet is a social activity but eating is done in private.

The present tense is used so frequently these days to tell a story that there's no point in rejecting it. If you're a fiction lover, it would be like throwing every third spoonful into the trash every time you eat a bowl of ice cream. No, what gets to me when some authors use the present tense is what a hash they make of the past tense. The transitions ought to be simple, smooth, and consistent.

I follow the trail of blood into the kitchen, where it drips from the rim of the sink and pools on the floor. The tiles were clean when I entered the room last night.

Instead, too many of them write:
I follow the trail of blood into the kitchen, where it drips from the rim of the sink and pools on the floor. The tiles had been clean when I entered the room last night.
or worse:
The tiles had been clean when I had entered the room last night.

I learned from submissions to the late Marvin Kaye of Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine to keep "had" to a minimum. It's a small word, but I've come to agree with Kaye that it's hardly ever needed.

Then there's the twenty-first tendency to use nouns as verbs, creating awkward phrases to replace perfectly good existing locutions. Nero Wolfe couldn't stand the use of "contact" as a verb. The erudite detective (who our own Eve Fisher has suggested might have been a descendant of the great lexicographer Samuel Johnson) once burned a dictionary for allowing "imply" and "infer" to be used interchangeably. "Gifted with" instead of "gave" or "given" would have made him reach for the matches, and "tasked with" instead of "assigned" or "ordered to" would have driven him crazy. I don't like it in a contemporary work of fiction or video. But I go bonkers when a Roman centurion declares, "The legions have been tasked with destroying the Druids."

English Chaos

Sketch of Gerard Nolst Trenité aka Charivarius

In the spirit of the ‘English, English’ article two weeks ago and recent essays about the madness of the language, I dug out a copy of ‘The Chaos’. Its author, Gerard Nolst Trenité, who went by the nom de plume of Charivarius, was a Dutch writer, traveller, law and political science student, teacher, playwright, and noted contributor to the English language. More than a century ago, he gathered some 800 trickiest English irregularities into a 274 line poem called ‘The Chaos’ as a practice suite for his students.

Subsequent versions were adopted and maintained by the Simplified Spelling Society. Abrupt lapses in style and occasional losses of mètre suggest others may have tinkered with the piece, much like a recipient ‘improves’ an email tidbit before passing it along. Trenité himself dropped and added words in subsequent versions, and popular stanzas have been restored by historians. Any way it’s viewed, the collection impresses readers a hundred years later.

Note: This rendition carries over the formatting and indentation passed down by Trenité. Originally staggered couplets hinted at senses of masculine and feminine as used in other Romance languages, and they can still be comfortably read with alternating male and female voices.

Here now is…

The Chaos

by Gerard Nolst Trenité writing as Charivarius

Dearest creature in Creation,

Studying English pronunciation,

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Susy,† busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy;

Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;

So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,

Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,

Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain

(Mind the latter, how it's written!)

Made has not the sound of bade,

Say-said, pay-paid, laid, but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as vague and ague,

But be careful how you speak,

Say break, steak, but bleak and streak.

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via;

Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,

Cloven, oven; how and low;

Script, receipt; shoe, poem, toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery:

Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,

Typhoid; measles, topsails, aisles;

Exiles, similes, reviles;

Wholly, holly; signal, signing;

Thames; examining, combining;

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,

Solar, mica, war, and far.

From 'desire': desirable– admirable from 'admire';

Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier;

Chatham, brougham; renown but known,

Knowledge; done, but gone and tone,

One, anemone; Balmoral;

Kitchen, lichen; laundry, laurel;

Gertrude, German; wind and mind;

Scene, Melpomene, mankind;

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,

Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.

This phonetic labyrinth

Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured

To pronounce revered and severed,

Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,

Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet;

Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

Blood and flood are not like food,

Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,

Which is said to rhyme with 'darkly'.

Viscous, viscount; load and broad;

Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?

And your pronunciation's okay.

Rounded, wounded; grieve and sieve;

Friend and fiend; alive and live.

Is your R correct in higher?

Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.

Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,

Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision,

Now: position and transition.

Would it tally with my rhyme

If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,

But cease, crease, grease and greasy?

Cornice, nice, valise, revise,

Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous,

Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,

You'll envelop lists, I hope,

In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You'll have it!

Affidavit, David, davit.

To abjure, to perjure. Sheik

Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library; heave and heaven;

Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven,

We say hallowed, but allowed;

People, leopard; towed, but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,

Between mover, plover, Dover,

Leeches, breeches; wise, precise;

Chalice but police and lice.

Camel, constable, unstable;

Principle, disciple; label;

Petal, penal, and canal;

Wait, surmise, plait, promise; pal.

Suit, suite, ruin; circuit, conduit

Rhyme with 'shirk it' and 'beyond it.'

But it is not hard to tell

Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular; gaol, iron;

Timber, climber; bullion, lion,

Worm and storm; chaise, chaos, chair;

Senator, spectator, mayor.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour

And enamour rime with 'hammer.'

Pussy, hussy, and possess,

Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants

Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.

Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,

Cow, but Cowper, some, and home.

Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker,

Quoth he, 'than liqueur or liquor',

Making, it is sad but true,

In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,

Neither does devour with clangour.

Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,

Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic,

Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.

Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,

Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,

Make the latter rhyme with eagle.

Mind! Meandering but mean,

Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny,

You say mani-(fold) like many,

Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,

Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring

Rhyme with herring or with staring?

Prison, bison, treasure trove,

Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald

Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.

Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,

Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don't be down, my own, but rough it,

And distinguish buffet, buffet;

Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,

Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling

Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.

Evil, devil, mezzotint,

Mind the Z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention

To such sounds as I don't mention,

Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,

Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included,

Though I often heard, as you did,

Funny rhymes to unicorn,

Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely,

I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.

No. Yet Froude compared with proud

Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial,

Tripod, menial, denial,

Troll and trolley, realm and ream,

Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely

May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,

But you're not supposed to say

Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid

Worthless documents? How pallid,

How uncouth he, couchant, looked,

When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,

Paramour, enamoured, flighty,

Episodes, antipodes,

Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don't monkey with the geyser,

Don't peel 'taters with my razor,

Rather say in accents pure:

Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,

Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,

Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,

Wan, sedan and artisan.

The TH will surely trouble you

More than R, CH or W.

Say then these phonetic gems:

Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,

There are more but I forget 'em—

Wait! I've got it: Anthony,

Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit

Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;

With and forthwith, one has voice,

One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger;

Then say: singer, ginger, linger.

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,

Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very,

Parry, tarry fury, bury,

Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,

Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,

Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners

Holm you know, but noes, canoes,

Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little,

We say actual, but victual,

Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,

Put, nut, granite, and unite.

Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,

Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,

Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,

Science, conscience, scientific;

Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,

Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,

Next omit, which differs from it

Bona fide, alibi,

Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,

Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,

Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,

Dandelion with battalion,

Rally with ally; yea, ye,

Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever,

Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.

Never guess– it is not safe,

We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary,

Crevice, but device, and eyrie,

Face, but preface, then grimace,

Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,

Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;

Ear, but earn; and ere and tear

Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the O of off and often

Which may be pronounced as orphan,

With the sound of saw and sauce;

Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?

Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.

Respite, spite, consent, resent.

Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even,

Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,

Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid vapour,

S of news (compare newspaper),

G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,

I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers,

Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.

Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,

Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation– think of Psyche!–

Is a paling, stout and spiky.

Won't it make you lose your wits

Writing groats and saying 'grits'?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel

Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,

Islington, and Isle of Wight,

Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, rather,

Saying lather, bather, father?

Finally, which rhymes with enough,

Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough?

Hiccough has the sound of 'cup'.

My advice is: give it up!

^† ‘Dearest Creature Susy’ is believed to reference French student Susanne Delacruix.

I Don't Say Eye-ther (Nor Nigh-ther, Nee-ther)

  

I love language and all its oddities, and one of its quirkiest quirks has always fascinated me. (It has also probably frustrated anyone trying to learn English as a second language.)

I'm referring to words with more than one acceptable pronunciation. I can't think of a huge number of those, but here are some, off the top of my head.

NOTE 1: I'm not talking here about words that are pronounced differently when they do double duty as nouns or verbs, like tear, object, wound, dove, desert, lead, etc.

NOTE 2: Not that it matters, but my personal preference for each of these is the first pronunciation listed.

either -- ee-ther vs. eye-ther

neither -- nee-ther vs. nigh-ther

data -- dayta vs. datta (both of them work, but I still think datta sounds hilarious)

envelope -- inn-velope vs. onn-velope

caramel -- care-amel vs. cahr-amel (rhymes with car) 

aunt -- aint (rhymes with faint) vs ahhnt (rhymes with font)

horror/horrified -- hah-rer/hah-rified vs. hore-er/hore-ified

vase -- vaise vs. vahz

pajamas -- pah-JOMas vs. pah-jAMmas

length/strength -- linkth/strinkth vs. lenth/strenth (I'm not sure why that 'g' is sometimes dropped)

schedule -- sked-jull vs. shed-jull

leisure -- lee-zure vs. leh-zure 

tournament -- turnament vs. toornament  

apricot -- ay-pricott vs. app-rickott

foyer -- foy-er vs. foy-yay (always raise your nose and your eyebrows if you say foy-yay)

mentor -- menter vs. men-tore (I like both of these--I go back and forth)

route -- rowt vs. root

root -- root (rhymes with food) vs. rut (rhymes with foot)

adult -- ah-DULT vs. ADD-dult

often -- awf-tunn vs. ahh-fun

coupon -- coo-ponn vs. coopun

roof -- roof (rhymes with proof) vs. ruff (rhymes with tough)

celtic -- selltick vs. kelltick

candidate -- canndah-ditt vs. canndah-date

advertisement -- ad-ver-TIZE-ment vs. ad-VER-tiz-ment

crayon -- cray-un vs. cray-yonn

syrup -- surr-up vs. seer-up

Sunday -- Sundy vs. Sun-day

Caribbean -- Cah-RIB-ee-un vs. Care-ah-BEE-un

Missouri -- Mizzoorah vs. Mizzoo-ree

Nevada/Colorado -- Ne-vodda/Colla-rodda vs. Ne-vadda/Collo-raddo

Oregon -- ahra-gun (sounds like bargain) vs. ore-a-gun (sounds like organ)

Florida -- Flah-ra-da (sounds like far) vs. Flore-a-da (sounds like floor)

Some pronunciations, obviously, are usually regional--that list follows--and I confess I will continue to use the first pronunciation listed on these, whether it's right or not. Examples:

dog/frog/coffee/dawn/lawn -- dawg/frawg/cawfee/dawn/lawn vs. dahg/frahg/cahfee/donn/lonn

class/glass/pass/ass -- uses a "mash" sound vs. a "mass" sound

pecan -- pah-CONN vs. PEE-cann

praline -- praw-leen vs. pray-leen

handkerchief -- haink-erchiff vs. hann-kerchiff

oil/boil/coil/soil -- uses an "aw-ull" sound (two syllables) vs. an "aw-ee-ul" sound (three syllables)

school/cool/pool/fool/rule -- ool (one syllable) vs. oo-wull (two syllables)

can't -- caint (rhymes with paint) vs. cant (rhymes with pant)

On the subject of regional words: I've heard people say rurn for ruin, arn for iron, herrikin for hurricane, crick for creek, pitcher for picture, etc., etc., but I doubt many folks would consider them acceptable pronunciations. And I won't even get started on the stupid ways a lot of people--including newscasters--pronounce New Orleans. By the way, if you haven't read it, check out my fellow SleuthSayer Jim Winter's column here yesterday, on regionalisms.

Here's a bit of trivia. Aluminum (al-LOO-min-um) is not only pronounced (al-loo-MIN-ee-um) in England, it's spelled aluminium. So the same chemical element is both spelled and pronounced differently in America and in England.

One more thing: Two other "optional" pronunciations are ta-mayto vs. ta-motto and pa-tayto vs. pa-totto--but I didn't list them because I've never in my life actually heard anyone sober say ta-motto or pa-totto. Maybe that's just me.

How about you? What words have you heard that can be pronounced two or more different ways, and all the pronunciations are considered acceptable? What are your personal preferences, with those? Also, have I listed any words that you feel should have only one acceptable pronunciation?

Or are you hah-rified by all this dayta? I think I am.

See you in two weeks.

Do You Speak the Language?

 I've been an editor for Down & Out Books now for about nine months. One of the challenges has been dialect. I apply the normal rules of editing to each manuscript, though I'm not nearly as dogmatic about it as some. For the most part, I've only had to worry about foreign variants of English. I downloaded a trial version of PerfectIt to handle a manuscript from an Australian author. Not UK. Australian. Yes, there's a difference.

But Australian English, like UK or American English, is a formal dialect. It evolved in a certain country with its own rules and variations. Likewise, Canadian English is not American English, and if you use the wrong word choice, you hear about it. Boy, do you hear about it. (BTW, editing tool makers, I have yet to read an American writer who writes "leaped" instead of "leapt." Whoever's programming your AI needs to back off a bit.)

But then we get to local dialect, usually evidenced whenever a new actor becomes the Doctor on Doctor Who. Of course, the real explanation for the Doctor's sudden change in speech is Patrick Troughton did not talk like Tom Baker, who did not sound like Christopher Eccleston, who did not sound like Peter Capaldi. In fact, the most hilarious reaction to Jodi Whittaker's turn as the first female Doctor was, "Really? We go from Geordi to London to Scottish and get a Yorkie?" Past actors have tended to waffle between the RP, London, Scottish, with the odd detour to Northern England. (Hence, a few of them sound like Geordis. So... Brian Johnson of AC/DC is a Time Lord?)

And then we come to America. Like it's big neighbor to the north, America is big. Really big. People who do not live in North America assume there are only three accents on the continent: Midwestern, Southern, and some bastardized Scottish accent where people say "aboot" and "Eh?" I invite you to talk to someone from the Maritimes or Quebec. Tell me someone from Georgia sounds like a Texan or one of those old Tidewater families in Virginia. While Californians definitely speak with Midwestern accents, you can tell you're not in Cleveland or Chicago. In fact, just within the state of Ohio, the accent changes every two hundred miles or so.

Clevelanders have this nasally accent, the product of a lot of Slavic and Irish immigrants in the last century. Cincinnatians have a slight southern accent due to their proximity to Kentucky and speak slower than their northern counterparts. In the middle of the state, you have Columbus, which, while having a larger population than Staten Island in New York, is somewhat isolated. Unlike the two big cities at either end of the state, Columbus did not spawn a megalopolis with its neighboring large towns and smaller cities within sixty miles. 

But it was Dana King's The Spread that challenged me. Dana lives in the Pittsburgh area, and his Penns River series is set in that area. Pittsburghers speak a dialect called "Yinzer," as in "youins are." It's a mix of East Coast, Pennsylvania Dutch, Slavic accents, and West Virginia dialect. So the dialog had to break rules. It's a tightrope. I would never want to edit Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins series or the late Bill Crider's work. Both wrote in that clipped East Texas dialect, which has more in common with Huckleberry Finn than Raymond Chandler. My editing brain tells me to yank out 75% of the apostrophes. Bill, whom I knew fairly well for a time, would have been offended. Mosley would give me a lecture about disrespecting not just Easy and Mouse's past, but even a lot of the white people from that region. It's as much their identity as anything else.

Even more of a shock, I discussed editing with a potential client from the same area as Dana. Her husband did a sports podcast in Pittsburgh. I mentioned I learned to adjust for "Yinzer." Had I permission, I'd copy one of her emails here as her rendition of the local speak was even more dead-on than Dana's toned-down version, which was clearly written for a wider audience. (Incidentally, The Spread is an awesome book from Down & Out.)

Even milquetoast Cincinnati, where everything (according to Twain) happens ten years after everywhere else, has it's verbal ticks. You can literally tell the Eastside from the Westside by the accents, references, and even personalities. But Cincy has its own speak. For instance...

 

"Please?" - I haven't heard this in about a decade, and even then, only on the Westside. But this Cleveland boy had to learn to respond to people saying "Please?" instead of "I beg your pardon?" or "What was that?"

"Three-way" - Notoriously uptight Hamilton County has had its share of sex controversies, but three-way actually refers to Greek meatsauce on spaghetti with cheddar cheese piled high, aka Cincinnati-style chili. A four-way is with either beans or onions. A five-way is beans and onions. There are two six-ways: jalapenos on top (Blue Ash Chili) or fresh garlic (Dixie Chili.)

"Pony keg"/"Drive-around" - In most places, this is called a drive-through, as in a drive-through store, not a fastfood joint. Drive-around seems to be a Kentucky-derived term, but pony keg is the more common phrase for that sort of convenience store.

"Big Mac Bridge" - I-471 traverses this wide bridge supported on either side by two large yellow arches. Starting with former traffic reporter John Phillips, locals started calling it the "Big Mac Bridge" (actually the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge) due to its resemblance to the McDonald's logo. Sidenote: I totally stole this when I wrote Holland Bay. 

"Cut-in-the-hill" - The cut in the hill refers to the man-made trench leading from Dixie Highway and the large bluff overlooking the Ohio River into Covington, the riverfront city across from Cincinnati. It's a mile-long steep grade which sees semis slow to twenty-five miles an hour uphill. There is a second cut in the hill that refers to an excavated gap along I-71 leading into Kenwood, a northern section of suburban Sycamore Township. That one is often called "the Kenwood Cut in the Hill."

"Warsh" - Wash. Whereas New England flattens out all the Rs, Cincinnati tends to add them.

"Up the pike" - Often said alongside "up the street" and "up the road." Many roads here are called "pike," such as Princeton Pike, Springfield Pike.

"CVG" - The airport code for Cincinnati Airport. The code stands for "Covington." The airport is actually in Hebron, Kentucky, one county over from Covington and most definitely not in Cincinnati.

"Where'd you go to high school?" - How to identify a fellow local's background. Elder/Seton are dead giveaways for Westsiders.

"Carryout" - Carryout is not only food you pick up, it's the corner store, like a pony keg. Or a drivearound.

Cincinnati is not the only city with its own language, as I discussed with Yinzer speak out of Pittsburgh. Seattle has a local dialect even more distinctive and hard to pick up for outsiders.

 

The Ambassador's Fancy Boots

 It happened that a certain Janus Imperial of Genoa lay slain."

                                                – Coroner's Inquest Report, City of London, August 27, 1379

At first glance it appeared that the altercation began over boots.

Like these, perhaps?

By the time the dust had settled, two London juries, the royal government, the city of London, London's powerful trading elites, the king and his uncle/chief advisor were all involved, and what had first seemed a street fight over boots quickly showed itself to be a bloody skirmish in a vicious economic war.

For starters, the victim was not just any Genoan. "Janus Imperial" (in Italian, "Giano Imperiale") was actually Genoa's ambassador to England. And the two thugs detained and charged with his murder weren't just any street toughs: they were rough-and-tumble street merchants. More on that in a bit.

First, the particulars of Imperiale's murder, then the background which showed it to be vastly more than a killing during a street brawl.

The altercation started in front of Imperiale's London residence, located in St. Nicholas Acton Lane. Imperiale was seated in front of his house, when two local men, John Kirkby and John Algor, crossed in front of him, once, twice, and finally a third time. Each time one of the men trod, supposedly innocently, on Imperiale's fancy boots. According to later court testimony, Kirkby "went past Giano Imperiale's feet and came back three time, on each occasion stumbling over his feet. for the sake of picking a quarrel between them."

The third time was the proverbial charm, and a brawl broke out between the two men and several of Imperiale's retainers. Imperiale was cut down, stabbed twice in the head, the coroner's report noted the cuts were "seven inches long and deep into the brain."

Imperiale, as it turned out, had come to London on a safe passage guaranteed by the government of King Richard II, in the person of the king's uncle and most influential courtier, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. The purpose of Imperiale's visit to England was a diplomatic mission. He had come to London to negotiate a new trade agreement between the merchant guilds of Genoa and Richard's government. And since the king was a minor and his uncle influential (if not particularly well-liked), the Duke of Lancaster would be negotiating on his nephew's behalf.

A highly speculative portrait of John of Gaunt commissioned two centuries after his death.

The agreement was intended to cover the export of England's most lucrative product at the time: wool. The Duke of Lancaster was intent on cutting out the wool trade's middle men (in this case the established merchant guilds in London) as part of an on-going feud between the duke and his supporters within the royal government and not just the merchant guilds, but the city government of London itself.

The merchant guilds and their leaders had become vastly wealthy as a result of their participation in the exportation of wool. John of Gaunt found these captains of industry–who provided the royal government with massive loans intended to financially support the English crown's on-going and decades-long war with France–far too independent for the country's good. Worse, as many of these "lords of wool" did their civic duty by holding elective office within the city of London, they also infected the city government with their "independent streak." The root of their feud with the Duke of Lancaster was at their determination to keep the Duke from interfering in London's city government, and in Lancaster's equal determination to involve himself in the city's government whenever and however he saw fit.

"Gold on the hoof"

Lancaster's plan to cut his opponents out of the wool trade involved a treaty with Genoa calling for that trading city's merchant vessels to cease sailing up the Thames River and calling for their cargoes at the port of London. Instead they would call at the smaller, more easily controlled port of Southampton. Said agreement would be more convenient (and thus more profitable) for the Genoese and the  English crown would directly receive the cut of the trade London's wool merchants had counted on as their own for more than a century.

This all came to naught with Imperiale's murder. No Genoese ambassador, no trade negotiations, and therefore, no new trade deal. And the answer to the question of cui bono pointed a finger straight at London's merchant elite.

Throw in the fact that Kirkby and Algor were eventually run to ground, tossed in jail, and indicted on murder charges arising from Imperiale's death. Two successive London juries found the two men not guilty of murder. The fix was clearly in.

After nearly a year of legal maneuvering, Gaunt managed to have the two "street merchants" taken from London to await a trial before the duke himself and a picked "jury" of his closest allies among the English nobility. Dragged before this assemblage of lords after nearly a year in jail, Algor cracked.

The two men had acted on orders of London's governmental and trading elites, Algor said. Recruited through the very guilds which sponsored and protected men such as themselves, they had been sent by their masters to target Imperiale because a number of wealthy and influential men in London had begun to hear rumors of the deal the Genoan was negotiating with the Duke of Lancaster, and "in the event that he could bring his plans to conclusion, Giano Imperiale would destroy and ruin all the wool merchants of London."

Algor also named names, including that of the serving lord-mayor of London, the popular (and very wealthy) Sir John Philpot. It had been Philpot himself who, acting in his capacity as lord-mayor, arrested both Algor and Kirkby for Imperiale's death.

Because he provided evidence against several of his masters and his accomplice, Algor's life was spared. He reminded in jail until released in 1384, after which he disappeared from the public record. 

As for Kirkby, he was dragged still protesting his innocence to the gallows, where he was hanged, drawn and quartered-the traitor's death. This was Gaunt's final card to play. Plotting against a diplomat who enjoyed the Crown's protection was not just criminal, he insisted, but treasonous.

And while Philpot and the rest of the wealthy wool elite of London never faced any formal charges of treason, they were tarred with the same brush, and the taint of "treason" on their parts undermined these men and their peers in their public positions, making it more difficult for them to continue to rule in London.

The Duke of Lancaster celebrated this victory over the City of London, but it proved to be a short-lived one. Within two years Gaunt would be barred from holding direct royal authority as a result of his mismanagement of the on-going war in France, his own person ambitions to win the crown of Portugal for himself (in a disastrous and expensive military operation financed by the nearly bankrupt royal treasury), and his part in mismanaging the royal government's budgets. War, after all, could prove very expensive, especially losing one, as he did in Portugal.

So, in the end, the whole fracas was not over shoes, but over wool, which is to say, over trade, which, in turn is to say, over money, and the power it brings.

And that's it for me. See you in two weeks!

The Search Committee

 

A few years ago I submitted a one-act play to a contest.  It didn't win so I ran it here.  This year I submitted again, being a glutton for punishment, and got the same result.  So here is the new play.

 

THE SEARCH COMMITTEE

 

___

Cast of Characters

Chris

Tracy

They can be any gender and any age, but should be of roughly the same age, so they are more likely to be partners than parent and child.

Scene

Interior.

Time

The present.

SETTING: On the stage are many cardboard boxes and, if convenient, a few cabinets with drawers and/or closed shelves.  Also a couple of stools for sitting when opening the boxes and cabinets.

 

CHRIS enters, frantic, followed immediately by TRACY.  Throughout the play they keep opening boxes and cabinets, turning boxes upside-down, etc.

 

CHRIS

It’s got to be here somewhere.

 

TRACY

I can’t believe you lost it.

 

CHRIS

Me?  Who says it was me?

 

TRACY

Well, it belongs to you.  God knows you won’t let anyone else touch it.

 

CHRIS

Like I would trust you with it.

 

TRACY

So what are you saying?  That I lost the damned thing?

 

CHRIS

Don’t tell me you’ve never noticed it.

 

TRACY

Well, sure.  You practically force it on people, you’re so damned vain about it.             

CHRIS

I most definitely am not vain.  I just believe in sharing my good fortune.

 

TRACY

That’s right.  Everywhere you go people say, “There’s Chris, the famous philanthropist.”

 

CHRIS

It’s better than what they say about you.

                                                                            TRACY

Excuse me?

                             

CHRIS

Never mind.

         

TRACY

What do they say about me?

    

CHRIS

Not important.  Keep looking.

 

TRACY

No.  You’ve got my interest up now.  Do tell me what the world is reporting.     

 

CHRIS

That you’re lucky to hang around with me.  But that you should to be more careful with my stuff.  Where the heck is it?

 

TRACY

Where was it the last time you saw it?

 

CHRIS

If I knew that I’d look there, wouldn’t I?

 

TRACY

Well, where were you standing the last time  you remember seeing it?

 

CHRIS

     pauses

Right over there.

 

CHRIS walks over and opens a box.  It’s empty.

 

CHRIS

Damn.

         

TRACY

And when exactly was that last time?    

 

CHRIS

It was a Tuesday in late February.  The church bells had just rung midnight.  A hot  wind was blowing across the Serengeti Desert.  How the hell am I supposed to remember?

 

TRACY

Well, since the thing is so damned precious to you I thought you might have fond memories of it.

    

CHRIS

Since I didn’t know I was about to lose it I didn’t bother to take a picture of it in its natural habitat for my scrapbook.  Look, if you were to put it away—

 

TRACY

Which I didn’t.

 

CHRIS

Humor me.  Where would you have put it?

 

TRACY

Oh.  Good question. 

looks around, then heads to one corner

Ah!  Over here!

 

CHRIS

Oh, give me strength. 

 

TRACY

What now?

         

          CHRIS

You’ve never put anything there in your life.  On the rare occasions when you do put something in its proper place – and let me say that that happens so infrequently that each one deserves a party to celebrate it – you never go over there.

    

TRACY

Like you would know about parties.

 

CHRIS

Excuse me?

 

TRACY

This is why no one ever invites you to any parties.  Because you make speeches like that.

 

CHRIS

I’ve been to more parties than you have lost wallets.

 

TRACY

What, have you lost your wallet too?

 

CHRIS

No, that’s your specialty. It’s why you have the credit card cancellation number on speed dial.  Damn and blast, where did it go?

 

TRACY

Take it easy.  We’ll figure this out.  It’s always in the last place you look.         

 

CHRIS

Don’t say that!

 

TRACY

What do you mean?

 

CHRIS

Of all the stupid cliches that has to be the worst.  Of course it’s in the last place you look.  Do you know why?

 

TRACY

I suppose because if you knew where it was—

 

          CHRIS

No! Because when you find it you stop looking!

 

TRACY

     pause

 Well, sure.

    

CHRIS

So why do people keep saying that gibberish as if it has great meaning?

 

TRACY

Because we’re all very stupid and live for the pleasure of annoying you.

 

CHRIS

You’re an idiot.

 

TRACY

And yet somehow you’re the one who lost your--

 

CHRIS

I didn’t lose it!  I think you did!

 

TRACY

We’ve already been over this.  I never touch the blasted thing.

 

CHRIS

Well, I’m glad to hear that.  Because you’re careless with your possessions.

 

TRACY

While you know where everything you own is.  Right?

 

CHRIS

Absolutely.

    

TRACY

You don’t even hear yourself, do you?

 

CHRIS

Look.  Stop everything. Tracy, look at me.

 

TRACY puts down a box and looks at CHRIS.  They are practically eye to eye.

 

CHRIS

Are you really  a hundred percent certain, absolutely, guaranteed, in your heart of hearts, that you couldn’t possibly have thrown it away by accident?

 

TRACY

dramatic pause

Yes.

 

CHRIS

furiously

How can you possibly claim to know that?

         

     TRACY

     talking over

If I couldn’t know why did you bother to ask?

         

     CHRIS

I can’t stand it.

 

TRACY

Want me to leave?

 

CHRIS

No!  Listen, Tracy, I do appreciate that you’re trying.

 

TRACY

Anytime I can help...

    

CHRIS

…Would be the first.

 

TRACY

Excuse me?  What did you say?

         

CHRIS

Woodby the First.  He was a famous king.  Some people don’t know their history.

 

TRACY

Some people are looking to get crowned.

 

TRACY starts looking in a different part of the stage.

 

CHRIS

Don’t.

 

TRACY

Don’t what?

 

CHRIS

Don’t bother looking over there.  I would never put it over there.

    

TRACY

You sure?

 

CHRIS

Absolutely.

 

TRACY

Absolutely, a hundred percent, guaranteed, in your cold little heart of hearts?

 

CHRIS

Just look somewhere else.

 

TRACY moves back.

         

CHRIS

Not there.  You already looked there.

         

TRACY

So let me be sure I am clear on this.  That’s the place you are likely to have left it, but I can’t look there because I already did.

 

CHRIS

Right.

 

TRACY

And I can’t look over there because you would never put it there.

 

CHRIS

Now you’ve got it.

         

TRACY

I’m running out of options.

 

CHRIS

I’m running out of patience.  Just keep hunting.

 

TRACY starts reaching around high in the air

 

CHRIS

What are you doing now?

 

TRACY

You’ve forbidden me from looking in the tangible places so I thought I’d try some imaginary ones.

 

CHRIS

You are an idiot.

 

TRACY

You’re repeating yourself.  Look, maybe it doesn’t even exist, have you thought of that?  In that case imaginary places would be the best place to search.

                        

          CHRIS

It’s real. You know it’s real.  Please, keep searching.

 

TRACY

I think we have long passed that point.  I think we have established beyond the laws of probability that your precious McGuffin, your ring of power, your veritable Maltese Falcon, has vanished forever and will no more—

 

TRACY is looking in yet another box.

 

TRACY

Well, fry me a banjo.

 

CHRIS

What?  Have you got it?

 

TRACY

Look!

 

TRACY pulls an object out of the box.  What it is hardly matters, except it should be large enough for the audience to see, and obviously one-of-a-kind.  I imagine a brightly colored hat with feathers and bangles.

 

CHRIS

You found it!  Thank you so much!  I’ve been looking—

 

CHRIS is holding it now.

 

CHRIS

This is the wrong one.

 

TRACY reacts.

 

CURTAIN