Category Archives: A words

Anchovy

dictionary with letter A

Anchovy: (n) a small shoaling fish of commercial importance as a food used for fish bait. It is strongly flavored and preserved with high amounts of oil and salt.

The dangerous thing about knowledge is that it rarely accentuates your pleasure, but rather, puts a pin in your balloon and leaves you with the reality instead of the misrepresentation.

There are many examples, but on this day, they seem to be embodied in the tiny anchovy.

Little did I know that they were bait.

Even though many of my friends like anchovies on their pizza (a taste, I have explained to them, which could just as easily be achieved by dumping a salt shaker on the crust) I really don’t think any of them know they’re eating fish bait.

But it should be obvious. Don’t the little things have hairy legs?

Now, I have on occasion eaten a pizza with anchovies because I was surrounded by individuals who thought it was a status symbol to prefer the little boogers on their Italian delight.

I have even pretended to enjoy it. Even though I pride myself, to some degree, in being a candid-type fellow, I am not without my pretense. And the specter of being the only person in the room objecting such a refined pizza-topping choice has left me succumbing to the mob mentality and participating in eating what I now know is fish bait.

  • I suppose I shouldn’t make the point that we wouldn’t eat night crawler pizza.
  • Anyone up for minnows and onion?

But truthfully, I have no problem with anyone who has a certain taste, unless they have selected it because they think it makes them more refined and sets them apart from the sausage servants and pepperoni paupers.

Now, if I run across one of them, I will inform them that they’re hooked on what belongs on a hook.

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Anchorman

dictionary with letter A

Anchorman: (n) the man who presents and coordinates a live television or radio news program

Can there be anything more awkward than the word “anchorperson?”

There are so many entrenched ideas in our society that when you try to edit them with more appropriate language, you end up looking like a buffoon.

But there are also so many talking heads on television of both genders, that we sometimes forget the voices and demeanors that are required to deliver the news of our day with the correct level of gravitas.

I think there are three preferred approaches. (Of course, I admit that this may be generational, and younger viewers may wish for a bit more variety. But I think sometimes what you get with variety is a lack of definition.)

What happens in our world is serious enough that we need the report imparted to us in such a way that we can be impacted without being destroyed, and educated without being influenced. (Once again, my opinion.)

So the three approaches I think work in this position–whether it be male or female–are:

1. Flat and monotone.

There are very few things in life that work with this blending, but I remember watching Huntley and Brinkley as a kid, and being totally convinced that neither one of them were capable of a frown or a smile, but that they had their features cemented in place prior to the broadcast, to ensure they would not communicate any emotion whatsoever during their assignment.

2. Fatherly.

Certainly Walter Cronkite comes to mind. Watching him was kind of like having your dad explain the facts of life to you, using a combination of scientific terms with generally accepted colloquialisms, while all the time patting you on the shoulder to comfort you over some of the more shocking details.

3. Bemused and sardonic.

I always find Brian Williams or Diane Sawyer to be this way. With the squint of an eyebrow, you feel that they are a bit confused about what’s going on with the planet, but the little smile at the corner of their lips tells you not to take things too seriously.

On the other hand, the new batch of anchor people, who sport anger, frustration, sarcasm, a political leaning or just disdain for anyone who disagrees with them, leaves me cold.

Yes, I think an anchor man, who often is a woman, needs to give us a chance to absorb what’s happening, assimilate it through our minds, and arrive at some form of conclusion … that resembles our own thinking.

 

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Anchor

dictionary with letter A

Anchor: (n) a heavy object attached to a rope or chain and used to moor a vessel to the bottom.

It was made of aluminum, about twelve feet long, with three wooden, bench seats inside, one of the perches broken.

It was my dad’s boat.

It more resembled a canoe with a thyroid problem.

But whenever my dad launched his vessel onto the great and mighty waters of Hoover Lake, he suddenly transformed into some sort of John Paul Jones, which to me as a boy, appeared as a nautical monster.

He began using the lingo of the sea and was perpetually angry with his crew–embodied solely in myself.

He explained that the best way to fish was to find a quiet, deep lagoon and drop your anchor so your boat wouldn’t move, and you would be present with your bait, to lure in the schools of fish. (Often we often must have arrived during some sort of fish holiday–because the schools were usually out.)

Nevertheless, he yelled at me to drop anchor, which was a forty pound cube of cement block, which he had put together by pouring it into a plastic bucket and then destroying the bucket to free the cement once it had hardened. Attached to this heavy clump was a rope.

Now, you must realize–we only had twenty-five feet of rope on our anchor–which is fine is you happen to be perched in twenty-three feet of water. But as I lifted the huge mass over the side of the boat and dropped it into the water, I was never sure if it actually hit the bottom.

So after an hour or so, my dad would look up from his fishing pole, where he had frozen his eyes intently, and realize that we had floated far from our desired spot.

This initiated a whole new tirade of “captain-to-deck-swab” complaints. I tried to defend myself by explaining that we did not have enough rope to reach the bottom of the lake, but he never seemed to quite comprehend that if the anchor doesn’t land on the bottom, it really doesn’t keep you in place.

What great symbolism.

After all, if our anchor is floating along with society’s ideas and standards instead of landing firmly on solid ground, we, too, tend to drift from our preferred placement.

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Ancestor

dictionary with letter A

Ancestor: (n) — a person, typically one more remote than a grandparent, from whom one is descended.

I certainly am glad that all my ancestors decided to have sex, so they would set in motion the possibility of my existence.

After all, it’s pretty miraculous. After working twelve-hour days in the fields, planting, cultivating and harvesting, they were exhausted after sunset, and must have had pretty good libidos to have worked up the energy to culminate the day with hanky-panky.

So for that I am grateful.

I know there are people who are very sentimental about their lineage and pay good money to acquire information on their family tree. But honestly, if I had known my ancestors, I would be very disappointed because they probably wouldn’t like me.

  • Their work ethic was stronger than mine–mainly because they had to survive. And I talk about words like “success.”
  • They died much younger than me from exhaustion and lack of healthy choices and medical care. During that shortened life span, they probably suffered more pain due to overexertion.
  • They had bigotries and prejudices which I would have found annoying or ignorant, which they might have misinterpreted as rude behavior.
  • Their spirituality was peppered with superstition instead of salted with knowledge and faith.
  • They controlled their lives through morality, which was regionally defined, and also locally monitored and enforced.
  • They weren’t in favor of new-fangled gadgets, often resisting them until such discoveries were forced on them by city councils or national laws.
  • My ancestors revered ignorance as a badge of honor and the symbol of their faithfulness to a God they truly did not understand.

There was much good about them. Their hard-headed, strong-willed and determined natures made it possible for them to survive the wilderness, which I now call a freeway.

But the disregard for the progress of history and the rights of people would have rendered me a radical and a renegade in their midst.

I believe it’s possible to be grateful and at the same time, fully aware that I was born in the right time and the right place to do the right thing–so that my descendants will not have to look back and giggle too much … at my stupidity. 

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Anatomy

dictionary with letter A

Anatomy: (n) — the branch of science concerned with the bodily structure of humans, animals and other living creatures, especially as revealed by dissection.

“To thine own self be true.”

I think the quote is attributed to Shakespeare.

Pursuing that path of candor, let me tell you that I often do a terrible job keeping up with my own anatomy.

For a season in my life, I went to the doctor regularly, as good Americans should do. It is also the only passage of time when I went to the hospital, took tons of medication and became overly concerned about my mortality.

It is also my understanding that normal people go to the dentist every six months for a good check-up. Fearing your condemnation, I must honestly inform you that I go to the dentist if I have a toothache.

It’s not that I fail to respect the complexity or fragile nature of my human anatomy. I am fully aware that disease, conditions and difficulties can arise without my knowing it from merely peering in the mirror. Cancer can even be growing in my body at this moment without me having placed an order or granting permission.

It’s just that I’ve reached a certain age … where I’ve reached a certain age.

What I mean is that in some ways I have exceeded my expectation for longevity, believing at one time that by now I certainly would have taken the “Great Leap” into the abyss.

But I haven’t.

And I do know that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life discussing medications, consulting with my doctor or going onto web sites to track my symptoms.

What do I want from my anatomy? What do I desire my body to do for me?

1. Respond to my actions.

If I eat a double pepperoni pizza, my body is allowed to have revulsion over the concept. But if I eat well, I certainly anticipate quid pro quo.

2. Help me to exercise sufficiently for a man my age without believing that a shot of testosterone will turn me into a twenty-five-year-old male stud.

3. Be so kind as to warn me before killing me.

Yes, if my body would just send an eviction notice, giving me thirty days to “raise the rent,” I would greatly appreciate that.

4. Help me learn how to do “me” better.

I’m not telling you I will never go to a doctor. But case in point: upon arriving at a car dealership, it is very difficult to leave with your old vehicle without somebody trying to either replace it or update it.

The same is true with medicine. They are good at what they do, so they find things wrong with us.

It’s just that if it isn’t a “sickness unto death,” well … maybe I don’t need to know.

 

 

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Anatomically Correct

dictionary with letter A

Anatomically correct (adj): {of a doll} having the sexual organs plainly represented.

Humans share two things in common:

  • the need to have something bigger than ourselves
  • and the desire to always be bigger.

It is a mental infestation.

Because in trying to find something bigger than ourselves, we usually come up with some sort of god-figure who is more cantankerous than helpful.

And with the penchant for wanting to be bigger, we often become petty and fussy with one another.

I remember junior high school locker room during shower time–even though the guys sincerely tried to make it clear that they weren’t “gay” or, as we called it at that time–“queer”–we all had a tendency to peek over to see what manly bestowal had been granted to our neighbor.

I guess with girls it revolves around the breasts.

Of course, in junior high school, some guys had bloomed earlier and others had a similar wee-wee to what was afforded them right out of the womb.

So self-conscious, nervous, frustrated and almost paranoid energy permeated the steamy room. And the worst part of it was that the only comfort afforded to your being was discovering someone smaller than you.

Therefore I’m a little bit put off or even intimidated by the notion of “anatomically correct dolls.” Even though they are inanimate objects, in their own way they seem to scoff at me from their pre-determined status.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s saint or sinner, priest or penitent, or prophet or porn star. We are all unnecessarily preoccupied with our presence and prowess in that limited region beneath our belt.

Matter of fact, the criterion for maturity may be a successful ability to ignore such instinct and push past it, creating something of beauty that just might be everlasting.

Here’s what I think about my anatomy:

If it’s working and not trying to kill me, I really don’t want to give it too much attention.

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Anathema

dictionary with letter A

Anathema: (n) something or someone which one vehemently dislikes.

I wonder if that’s what’s necessary? I mean, I’m curious if there is a requirement for a certain amount of vehemence, anger, intensity and frustration to well up in the human soul before we actually decide to change anything.

Let’s take the old-fashioned word repentance.

It’s not old-fashioned because it’s out-dated. but like many valuable words, it’s lost some of the frequency of use because it’s not quite as pleasant to current thinking.

But I’m not sure repentance is possible until we become totally disgusted with where we are. In other words:

  • Will racism ever leave our world until it becomes anathema to our lives and even our breathing?
  • Can I lose weight without, in some way, shape or form, despising my way, shape and form?
  • Do we ever become free of our addictions until we nearly literally vomit them from our existence?

Are there really only two gears in the human vehicle–drive and reverse?

I don’t know.

But without anger and protests, most wars tend to go on indefinitely. Without some teaching of abstinence, promiscuity, disease and unwanted pregnancy begin to creep into society.

And without constantly reminding ourselves of our ancestors owning people as slaves, we just might forget to think about how we’re enslaving people today.

What is an anathema?

It is whatever we decide to do that takes away the power of other folks to do what they decide.

Yes, I guess that’s worth a few minutes … of uncomfortable reflection.

 

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Anarchy

dictionary with letter A

Anarchy: (n) a state of disorder due to the absence or nonrecognition of authority.

Is there really order if the people or the powers that be in control have created emotional anarchy in those around them?

In other words, if people aren’t discovering freedom or contentment, is there any order? Or is the general disorder of being insensitive to humanity leaving the door open for necessary dissent?

And if that’s too difficult to understand, let me simplify it: if it ain’t workin’, why work it?

A certain amount of anarchy is necessary to create change.

As long as we are satisfied, lining up in straight columns to follow the existing standards, what chance is there for an inkling of insight to wiggle its way into the conversation?

  • Where is there injustice?
  • Where are there platitudes without purpose?
  • Where is there practice without reason?
  • Where do commandments get proclaimed without commanding us to improve our lives?

I think anarchy is one of those words created by people who love to maintain the status quo, making anyone who disagrees look like a renegade.

Actually, there’s no such thing as anarchy. There is legitimate change and illegitimate stupidity.

If we need it, it is not anarchy. If it is counter-productive to the human race, then it’s just dumb.

By this definition I would call myself an anarchist when it comes to organized religion.

I am an anarchist about the two-party system in our country.

I think the electoral college itself is anarchy.

I think the way men and women have allowed themselves to be segregated is anarchy manufactured by religion, politics and entertainment in order to plump up each existing demographic.

George Washington was an anarchist.

Abraham Lincoln certainly promoted anarchy.

Franklin Roosevelt’s work programs, were pure anarchy.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is anarchy born of spirit.

Nothing is going to happen in this country until anarchy has a chance to speak up without being cut off at the legs for being radical.

It’s time to review what we call “holy”… and see if it actually is making people whole.

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Ananias

dictionary with letter A

 

Ananias: (New Testament) the husband of Sapphira who was struck dead because he lied.

If you don’t find out what’s really important, you can end up doing a lot of stuff that is not only unnecessary, but possibly useless.

I am learning this more and more everyday.

Truthfully, most of us human beings have two major goals:

  1. To look good
  2. To have people notice we look good.

It’s what makes us obnoxious, devious, dishonest and even dangerous to our fellow-travelers.

The law of averages tells us that if there are five good possibilities that could come out of an endeavor, we will be fortunate to find one. Then we have to decide how to justify the other four.

  • Are we going to cover up, lie and deceive?
  • Or develop a sense of good cheer, allowing us, in a jocular way, to admit our inadequacy?

Yes, I am perceiving more each and every day that this whole experience of being a human being will boil down to whether we are able to stand tall and tell the truth, hell to pay.

We admire it in each other. If we really want to look good, being the first one to admit our weaknesses and be candid about them is a fabulous way to receive acclamation. But we still think that appearing to be Top Dog–while we are actually lost puppies–won’t turn around and bite us in the ass.

Ananias lied.

That’s what the Good Book says. It wasn’t about the style of his lie; it had nothing to do with the content. Certainly severity wasn’t taken into consideration. He thought he could lie to another human being, and ended up fibbing to God.

It cost him his life.

That sounds rather dramatic, but if you think about it, every lie we tell, every time we skim the truth and remove the quality of candor, and each and every occasion that we choose to misrepresent our situation … well, a little bit of us dies.

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Analyze

dictionary with letter A

Analyze: (adj) relating to or using analysis or logical reasoning.

Perhaps we should print signs.

It may be a bit cumbersome but certainly would be helpful in reminding us what exactly is the right procedure in a given situation.

One sign should read: Analyze

The other sign should warn: Please do not analyze.

Mixing these two up is what creates some of the more awkward and even tense moments in our day.

For instance, if you come home and your ten-year-old is sitting in his soccer uniform, dejected and pouting, and you use your laser insight to realize he must have lost his game, it is probably not the best time to sit down and become analytical about the game of soccer or go outside to practice kicks and moves. It is time for a bowl of popcorn, a hug and a funny video.

Likewise, if you were to return to your abode and your wife asked you to sit down and discuss a problem she was having in the household, it would be unfortunate to decide to launch into a tickle-fest.

Do we analyze or do we just allow ourselves to feel? The right answer brings understanding; the wrong one lends itself to retaliation.

For after all, trying to be flippant over things that need an analytical touch makes us appear calloused and useless to those who are hurt or abused.

  • War — analytical
  • Kissing — not
  • Abortion — analytical
  • Parenting — not so much
  • Finance — a little of both

So you can see, the true definition of maturity is knowing when to be analytical and when to allow yourself to escape the prison of logic … and run free as long as you possibly can.

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