Three things from DAH.
DAH is me, David Anthony Hance. Why not?
First up this week, Naughty …
Why isn't Santa's list clearly and consistently focused on bad and good, rather than naughty and nice? Perhaps Mr. Claus thought it too harsh to judge children bad or good. But naughty and nice … those behaviors are a bit lightweight, aren't they? So long as nobody is hurt, a little naughty is a lot of fun.
"My baby does the hanky panky" sounds naughty, of course. But, also, rather more a good time than a dreadful moral crisis. I expect that Mr. Claus, in his younger days, was occasionally naughty. It's likely one of the things that made him attractive to Mrs. Claus. Oh, Santa! Such a naughty boy.
Being naughty is nothing to be ashamed of – it's a vital life skill
Second up this week, Nice …
The word "kind" appears in definitions of the word "nice," but I find little kinship. I have two books before me:
The Power of Kindness, by Piero Ferrucci, and
A Year of Living Kindly, by Donna Cameron. Would you find them similarly compelling as
The Power of Niceness and
A Year of Living Nicely? I take pains to be nice, or pleasant, to most everybody. It feels polite to be nice. Am I kind in every situation? I may seem so, because I'm being nice. My heart, however, is not always as open with loving kindness as I would like. Growing up, many adults called me a "nice" young man. By which I knew they meant that I appeared to be polite and inoffensive. I saved my naughtiness for later, outside their awareness. Even when naughty, though, I think I am kind.
Being Nice vs Kind – What's The Difference? (8 Experts Explain)
Third up this week, Neologisms …
A last-moment Friday morning replacement. Yesterday I wrote about appropriating the word narrowband as a humpty-dumptyism ("When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean"). In today's wee hours I experienced an epiphanette (a really tiny personal epiphany) and realized, "that narrowband thing isn't working." Long ago I thought I'd invented the word epiphanette, but I expect someone got there before me. Not that I've any way to tell. In any case, "epiphanette" is or was a neologism, a newly coined word. Neologisms help me solve daily communication issues. "What's the word I want?" Unless it comes to mind I'll make something up. A short (sometimes long) term placeholder. Usually a mistake, I find. But I try to think more like Anne Shirley (in L. M. Montgomery's
Anne of Green Gables): "Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?" And so here we are.
What Is a Neologism? (with Examples)
And a bit more:
Choices, by Tess Gallagher
I go to the mountain side
of the house to cut saplings,
and clear a view to snow
on the mountain. But when I look up,
saw in hand, I see a nest clutched in
the uppermost branches.
I don’t cut that one.
I don’t cut the others either.
Suddenly, in every tree,
an unseen nest
where a mountain
would be.
And that's all for this week.
From Mary Oliver’s poem
Sometimes …