Category Archives: A words

Ain’t

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Ain’t: contraction of am not, are not, is not, will not: e.g. if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Every three weeks I experience a ritual. Yes, quite predictable. Every twenty-one days, I get a note from some austere, tight-assed grammarian, commenting on my wording, syntax or style of expressing ideas. These people have three things in common:

  • They’re always sure they’re right.
  • They’re always sure I’m wrong.
  • They are affronted by my lack of understanding of proper writing and suggest that I go back to Hoboken or wherever I last mis-learned my craft.

My thought? The best way to get a pain in the ass is to sit on it too long doing nothing. Thus the critic.

I will tell you this: words are powerful when they communicate and useless when they don’t.

For instance, there are passages from the Good Book, which I am told is divinely inspired, which are incomprehensible. I will wager that most people who teach in English departments and promote the great works of literature have not read those volumes themselves but instead, rely on Cliff notes to summarize the material.

Let’s be honest: “I ain’t gonna study war no more” is the best way to express that sentiment. Other options, like, “I am not going to study war anymore” seem to lose some punch. Or how about this one? “The pursuit of studying war has lost its meaning for me.” I guess at that point it would change from being a Negro spiritual to a Harvard spiritual.

Even though my English teachers told me that the word “ain’t” should never be used and would eventually become obsolete, the truth is, the only thing that became obsolete were my English teachers.

Here are three quick criteria for good writing:

  1. It’s understandable.
  2. It tells a story.
  3. The story lives on.

Anything other than this is just an exercise in futility which doesn’t create muscles anywhere … except in your self-righteous ego.

Aim

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Aim: (v) 1. to point or direct an object at a target 2. have the intention of achieving.

“READY? FIRE!!”

There seems to be a missing step.

Matter of fact, as I looked at the definition of “aim,” I realized what is creating much of our social upheaval. People are deciding they are ready, and they’re just firing away.

The aim is not clear.

Whether it’s about politics, religion, abortion, pornography, drug use or even guns–we figure that as long as we are ready, we should be able to fire. No wonder so often we’re missing the mark.

There is no aim. There is no taking a moment to find out if we’ve actually got a bead on our target.

So it become all right in our culture to call “close” a “direct hit.”

People speak their minds and then get criticized for their comments, only to return the next day to apologize in pre-scripted contrition. Might it have been a good idea to aim–even though you thought you were ready to fire?

Can I give you three considerations we can use as human beings if we will practice the art of aiming?

1. Excitement is not passion.

You can get people excited about almost anything, as long as they believe there will be approval or money. Passion is finding the root cause and the value of our endeavors before we start pursuing the mission.

2. “Firing” places a bullet in the air which cannot be retrieved.

As I get older, I find myself less willing to pull the trigger, and having much more fun practicing my aim. When I was younger, I thought it was powerful to do as much as I possibly could until exhaustion rendered me useless. Now I realize that saving my energy for heavenly ventures is the guarantee for earthly pleasure.

3. Being sure is the only guaranteed path to ending up wrong.

The slight adjustments we make in the brief moment after being “ready”–when we aim before firing–alleviate most of the embarrassments that come through shooting the wrong target. And it’s just fun to slow down and then discover that your choice of delaying prevented tons of stupidity from having its day.

If life is a firing squad, it’s important to be ready. Clean your gun, load it and be available. But don’t ever fire off in some wild direction because your temper, your beliefs or your friends have forced you to do so.

  • Take aim.
  • Find out what’s important before you squeeze one off.

Because it’s much more difficult to swallow your pride and admit you’re wrong than it is to lower your weapon … and be grateful that you didn’t do something reckless.

Ailey, Alvin

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Ailey, Alvin: (1931-89) U.S. dancer and  choreographer. He founded the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater in 1958 and helped to establish modern dance as an American art form, incorporating ballet, jazz and Afro-Caribbean idioms in his choreography.

Being a writer carries with it a certain amount of arrogance. There is the contention that one has something worthy to be said, and therefore read, and also the annoying predilection to associate everything you hear and see into your own spectrum of thinking.

Yes, it’s truly overbearing.

And when I came across this fine gentleman who was so progressive in the art of dance, because I lacked a lot of personal experience with his work, and fearing that merely taking a journey through Wikipedia to impress you with minor details would be presumptuous, if not comical, I decided to sit down and ask myself what I thought of dance. Realizing that this may be completely irrelevant to you, it is my connection with this journeyman’s craft.

As a lad I didn’t dance at all because my church believed that it was the devil’s two-step. One of the deacons in my congregation insisted that it led to lust. When I explained that at fifteen years of age, merely saying a girl’s name aloud could produce great fantasies and tremblings, he didn’t think I was funny.

So it was after I left home and began working in the music field, and decided to compose a Broadway show that, I began to think about choreography, movement and dance. Matter of fact, for my first production I hired a bunch of freelance musicians and singers to perform–all with an amateur status. Failing to realize that just because someone can sing a tune does not mean their feet will coordinate with each other, on our opening night, one critic deemed our staging and dancing to be “collisionography.”

Later on, I tried choreographing myself. Even though I am built more like a water buffalo than a graceful deer, I pranced around stage, learning my steps, acting as fluid as I possibly could, trying to discover my “center,” which ended up being very large because of my midriff.

But I enjoyed every minute of it.

I was thrilled with the audacity of daring to erupt in front of other people, while projecting emotion and ideas through the gyrations.

So when I look at the work of a man like Alvin Ailey, I realize that even though some folks think such shenanigans are evil, despicable or lascivious, life without movement–often purposeful–is bland and motionless.

Matter of fact, there are times when I have jobs to do and I choreograph every single endeavor to produce desirable results.

We come into this world, squeezing through a tiny opening, landing on our butts, learning to walk, so that hopefully … someday we can dance.

Ail

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Ail: (v) to trouble or afflict someone in mind or body: e.g. exercise is good for whatever ails you.

Feeling “puny.”

That’s my favorite.

Since I’ve never had the pleasure of being small and thin, just being able to use the word “puny” to describe how I feel is a plus.

I don’t like the word “sick” because it has “ick” in it. But I guess it’s very representative.

Then we have the safe statement, where we proclaim that we’re “under the weather.” I don’t know exactly how that one got started. Basically, we’re all under the weather all the time. If you do succeed in getting over the weather, please contact me.

But probably my least favorite term for not feeling well is “ail.” Not only does it sound old-fashioned, as if you need the call the doctor three counties over and he’ll ride in on his favorite pony, toting some pills, but it’s also a little melodramatic.

It’s one of those examples of how “by our words we are justified and by our words we are condemned.”

Actually, you tend to get yelled at in our society if you don’t report your bumps and bruises, and also if you talk about them too much.

So what is the correct amount of conversation that should ensue over the fussy, physiological sensations that plague us from time to time?

All I know is that “ail” is much too serious-sounding to actually be taken seriously.

I guess I have to come back to “puny.” Even though the term isn’t very masculine, I can envision myself as possessing at least three of a six-pack.

AIDS

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

AIDS: (n) Acquired immune deficiency syndrome, a disease in which there is a severe loss of the body’s cellular immunity, greatly lowering the resistance to infection and malignancy.

Honestly, when the first reports came out on HIV, I didn’t take it very seriously.

Why? Because there’s always some new disease or bird flu they’re trying to frighten us with, to procure our listenership on some news broadcast.

Even when it was obvious that many people were contracting the disease, and famous folks like Rock Hudson were passing away, I still didn’t quite grasp the concept.

Truthfully, it was a little difficult to get past the “screamers.” You know what I mean by screamers, right?

You had the gay community, which insisted that no one cared because the disease was manifesting itself within their conclave.

And the Moral Majority, proclaiming it to be the “gay plague.”

So I don’t think the brunt of the reality of HIV and AIDS hit me until I received the phone call. It was a young lady who had performed in one of my plays years previously. She was in tears. She explained to me that she was HIV positive and was married to a man who was the same. The reason for her call, though, was that she had discovered she was pregnant and wanted us to pray that the baby would not be born infested with the virus.

Here in the confines of one family was nearly every conceivable way to contract this affliction. The girl had become infected by heterosexual sex, the man, through homosexual contact, and the baby was being threatened by merely exchanging blood with its mother.

Suddenly, the full impact and horror of the infestation was brought home to me. Even though all of these people I mentioned are still alive due to progress made with pharmaceuticals, my heart is always softened to the notion of a person touched by this horrendous condition when I remember the three of them.

Perhaps that’s the way we all are.

Until something jumps over our white picket fence and lands in our yard, we feel we can repel it or ignore it. I guess we can be critical of that, or we can be fully cognizant that God is no respecter of persons:

Just as blessing comes to all b… so does trial and the tribulation.

Ahoy

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Ahoy: (exclam.) a call used in announcing the sighting of land from a ship.

Perhaps if I had lived during the time of the Spanish Armada, I would have appreciated the word much more.

Even if I had been an extra in a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, like the H.M.S. Pinafore, this term would have had great significance.

But the word “ahoy” to me, only conjures an association with chips–a delicious cookie I never purchase anymore for fear of overdosing, and being found dead in a puddle of my own milk.

Yes. “Ahoy” has been ruined by Nabisco. Chips Ahoy.

It is not a word of salty brine and billowing sails, but rather, cookies lined up, carefully broken in half to create dipping possibilities in my every-clumping milk products.

It hardly seems fair. And I really can’t recommend it.

I think we have to stop with the word “ahoy” and cease to taint perfectly good units of the language by limiting them to the consumption of food products.

  • For instance, I’m against “Alleluia Crackers.”
  • I don’t think we should manufacture “Jesus Hotdogs.”
  • And it is completely out of the question to put on tap “Loyalty Beer.”

Is there nothing sacred?

So my apologies to those who have sailed the seven seas, but my “ahoy” has to come in chocolate bits … or maybe even peanut butter.

Ahead

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAhead: (adv.) 1. further forward in space: e.g. he looked at the road ahead  2. further forward in time: e.g. he contemplated the day ahead.  3. in the lead: e.g. the Broncos were ahead at halftime

He is “just so ahead of his time.”

I’ve heard that said about me on so many occasions that I now realize it isn’t a compliment, but rather, a wistful expression of regret.

We don’t like people who are ahead.

Honestly, there are very few individuals who run a race and when they come in fifth, ease up to the winner’s side and give him a big hug. Why? Because he’s ahead of us. We don’t think it’s fair.

And if you have the audacity to be ahead of your time instead of blending into the scenery, matching your coloration with the acceptable taupe, you are not really a blessing. More like an aggravation.

Yes, that may be the first step in becoming a human being. Realize that every blessing at first appears to be an aggravation, and when we adjust to that, we can open the door to see what lies behind the inconvenience.

Matter of fact, someone recently asked me how I came up with my ideas which make me so “ahead of my time.” I shocked the individual by telling him I was a student of history.

I think he believed that studying the past might be the worst way to consider options for the future. But the same ignorance that existed in Eden is still present in our garden variety.

A similar amount of stubbornness, arrogance and inflexibility that promoted murder and mayhem in the past is still lurking in the hearts of the present batch of the sons and daughters of Adam.

Yes, the best way to get ahead is to learn what worked in the past and maneuver it through understanding into a blueprint for the future.

It’s why I never have a problem discussing the importance of equal rights–because my history book tells me that every time we try to limit the personal freedom of any group of people we have been wrong–and end up looking like numbskulls.

This is also why I’m fully aware that laying down religious or moral law onto society through prohibition is equally as comical. Since we’re all the children of God, we are all trying to get away with stealing candy from the pantry. Rules won’t stop us.

So if you want to be ahead of your time, consider what lasts.  An old, apostolic philosopher once said there are only three things that abide: faith, hope and love. In other words:

  • Believe in good things and don’t give up.
  • Think up a good thing of your own and pursue it
  • Love people–and when you can’t, leave them the hell alone.

That’s how to get ahead of your time. And it’s also how you end up buying stock on the ground level with Apple Computer … instead of making fun of those “new-fangled gadgets.”

Aha

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAha: (exclam.) used to express a range of emotions including surprise, pleasure, sympathy and realization.

My “aha” has been ruined.

As a young man I remember it as an exclamation given in the middle of a murder mystery to expose the killer and point out that some recently discovered clue has enlightened one and all to the guilt of the participant.

“Aha!”

A chill went down your spine when you heard it. You realized that Sherlockian investigation had just uncovered what was considered to be a well-disguised clue, revealing the murderous ways of a once-thought-to-be innocent bystander.

And then here comes Oprah.

She–or one of her guests–thought it was cute to refer to simple, quaint and may I insert my opinion by stating, often silly, decisions as “aha moments.”

Here’s what I know about such disclosure: every time I think I’ve discovered the secret of life, what I really find out is that I peeled back the onion to discover yet another layer of onion.

There are not “aha moments.” I’m sorry, Ms. Winfrey. What really happens is that we finally acknowledge something that’s been obvious all the time, and it becomes a stepping stone to even greater understanding of our misconceptions.

I guess it’s popular to look for a “come to Jesus” juncture in our lives so we can state once and for all that we’ve been saved from our previous stupidity to walk in “newness of life.” But when you put the thing to a test, what you really comprehend is that each little nugget we find as we pan for gold has more rock in it than riches. It doesn’t mean we should stop panning and it certainly does not mean there’s no gold in the rocks.

I would just suggest that we might be more successful in our journey if we started appreciating rock more than gold. And if we could have a truly “aha moment” over the subtle differences in stone, we would find ourselves happier than by being mere prospectors.

I will stick with my “aha moments” being uttered by detectives who remove the baffling parts of the crime to unveil the perpetrators. For I know this–everything I think I’ve learned today, which has transformed me to a new level, will quickly be replaced with the need for more revelation … on the morrow.

Aground

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAground: (adj & adv) in reference to a ship running on or onto the bottom in shallow water.

Shallow.

There you go. Thus the problem.

We used to believe that “still waters run deep,” until we realized that the adage doesn’t apply to a generation of people who refuse to speak because of the vacuous nature of their thoughts.

I am not cynical of our time or particularly gloomy about our future. Yet I do not think it is the job of people who write articles or who are creatively bent toward sharing wisdom to always kiss the rear end of the person in front of them.

We just need to realize that we have created so much shallowness that we have run aground–and as you well know, when a boat runs aground, it can neither float nor can it sail from its perch.

So where have we run aground?

  1. By telling everybody they’re great, we’ve eliminated the word “great.”
  2. By electronically connecting ourselves to the world, we have emotionally disconnected ourselves from one another.
  3. We have replaced actions with speeches, thinking that merely stating our intentions is sufficient to prove our willingness.
  4. We foster the present bigotry as intelligent study, even though historically, every rejected piece of prejudice took a similar profile.
  5. We promote a war between men and women while simultaneously using sex to sell everything.
  6. We foolishly think there is a permanent solution to problems rather than a gradual revelation in our everyday reality.
  7. We value critique–one of the more useless human endeavors.
  8. We accept mediocrity, hoping that others will accept our rendition.
  9. We want to believe we are exceptional, even though every nationality that has pursued that particular philosophy has ended up being declared tyrants.
  10.  We think that problems can be solved corporately, when nothing ever happens in the human family without individuals repenting.

It’s really quite simple. When you take away personal responsibility, the need for humility and you add in the arrogance of uniqueness, you get people who have a common spiel–which they use to promote a nasty disdain.

Here’s the good news: for each one of these ten that we address and change, we can double our potential.

God is good because He doesn’t demand much change from human beings … for mountains to move.

Agriculture

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAgriculture: (n) the science or practice of farming, including cultivation of soil for growing of crops and rearing animals to provide food, wool and other products.

“The good old days.”

I am not a proponent of such foolishness. I realize that the good old days were the bad new ways for the former good old days.

Old people pine for the past because that’s when they felt young and virile. It has no conscience for the morality, prejudice or lack of scientific development that may have existed.

But I will say aloud that we have lost something in our culture by moving from an agrarian society (agriculture) to one of manufacturing and now, basically confined to service.

Matter of fact, last year when I was sending little gifts to my grandson, I included, with one of my five dollar bills, a request that he take his daddy out to a store and buy tomato seeds, go into their back yard and plant the little miracles in the ground and see what happens.

Of all the tasks I gave him to accomplish with a donation attached, this one probably was the most memorable.

First of all, he was astonished at how quickly the tomatoes grew. But then he was shocked by how all these little bugs came along and decided they wanted to eat up his tomatoes before he got the chance to pick ’em.

This young man, who is growing up in an urban area, was suddenly treated to the wonders of rural life–and also to a life lesson of planting, nurturing, growing, protecting and harvesting.

I think we have forgotten where things come from. Because of this, we are demanding instead of being more cautious about our requests because we have good comprehension about the amount of work it takes to acquire blessing.

When I was a kid my father grew strawberries. I thought it was a great idea because I loved to eat strawberries. What I failed to understand was the season that the magical fruit units required for growing–and then, because the vines are so close to the ground, the need to get down on your hands and knees to pick them.

I not only gained a greater appreciation for the strawberry itself, but was also more reverent in my consumption, knowing that every pint I ate would take another twenty minutes of my life to regain.

In some form, if we’re going to continue to be a society that has relegated farming to a chosen few, we will need to teach our children the earth process that goes into making something beautiful … from the seed of an idea.