Category Archives: B words

Broken

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Broken: (adj) damaged and no longer in one piece

I walk with heavy hooves.

So recently, when I was passing through a lobby, I felt some of the tiles creak under my feet.Dictionary B

It was a bit embarrassing.

I looked down and there was no evidence of damage. In other words, nothing was broken.

But because I felt that “take from my give,” and heard that sound, I had to believe there was a weakness in those tiles. In other words, somewhere along the line, one of them was going to break because I passed by.

Or maybe not.

Perhaps that particular tile was just too tight or had some unnecessary stiffness which was merely relieved by my passing.

How do you know when something’s broken? How can you be sure that it requires repair?

Because I have been sick and performed at a top-notch rate.

I have sprained my ankle and still gotten around from place to place.

So I guess the definition is pretty simple: something is truly broken when it stops working. It ceases to perform the function it was intended to achieve.

There are many things in our society that have been broken for decades, which we continue to pretend are just fine–free of the need for repair.

  • Religion
  • Politics
  • Marriage
  • Child custody
  • Abortion
  • Murder

Well, I could go on and on.

These are things that are obviously broken, but because we have people hold them in great regard, we promote their strength.

Sometimes it’s good to admit something’s broken.

Because I am often astounded … how quick the fix.

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Broke

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Broke: (v) past tense of break

“If it ain’t broke…”

Almost everyone in America, down to the youngest lad or lass, could probably finish that idiom.Dictionary B

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

It’s one of those statements which was hatched decades ago–probably by a lazy husband arguing with his wife over a repair that seemed unnecessary because there were no dangling wires, frayed cords or very much chipped paint.

Truth is, we fix things all the time that aren’t “broke.”

We take precautions when we see wear and tear.

We provide general maintenance on vehicles and appliances.

And if we see a little spot on our clothing that’s beginning to pull a seam or two, we retrieve the needle and thread so as not to be caught in the middle of a social situation with an unsightly rip.

But this particular axiom about “broken and fixing” has permeated our thinking so much that we leave many things undone that could sure use some tender, loving care.

We know what’s involved in carrying on a relationship between a man and a woman, but because no one complains, we ignore kindness and consideration in favor of seeking our own will or avoiding feeling silly.

We know to say “thank you,” but we’d rather insist we already did.

We know to say “I’m sorry,” but are convinced that people would feel awkward if we offered such a trivial piece of consideration.

We certainly are aware that “I love you” makes the world go around, but are equally willing to stop the globe to keep from uttering it.

Long before something is broken, it’s damaged–and if we’re able to catch it in its weakened state, it doesn’t need to break.

If we worked on teaching about marriage and saving relationships, we wouldn’t have such a god-awful custody system in this country, dividing children up with the “sword of visitation.”

If we understood that decisions will always be greeted with unexpected results, we would never choose up teams, wearing red and blue jerseys and thinking that the coloration empowers us.

Some people would say America’s “broke.”

I would say there’s some surface scratches and dents.

But if we don’t tend to it and take care of the little blemishes, in no time at all, we could end up not being what we’re cracked up to be.

 

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Brochure

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Brochure: (n) a small book or magazine containing information or pictures about a product or service.

Dino-words.

These are words which are extinct from the lexicon because they’ve been replaced by other terms and inventions, rendering them useless to the common man or woman.Dictionary B

Two that quickly come to my mind are “tri-fold” and “rubber cement.”

Come listen, my children, and you will hear…

Of what it was like to advertise in fear.

What were we afraid of? Putting together a tri-fold brochure that needed to be typed or, God forbid, type-set, and then cut out and rubber cemented in perfect symmetry onto panels, hoping that when it was shot with a printer’s camera, it would look somewhat like what you originally envisioned.

It was so easy to get things crooked.

The rubber cement was so messy.

And once you glued something down twice, to pull it up and glue it again created wrinkles, bumps and missing pieces of black ink from the letters.

Printers would encourage you by saying, “It’s nearly as good as the original…”

The idea of digital, which allows you to duplicate the original in perfection, was decades in the future, as you took your tiny knife and trimmed the paper down to just the right size, hoping that the corners you glued would not print off shadows. Of course, to achieve that, you had to make sure you didn’t shoot it too dark–or your original layout of printing would appear as a box instead of just words.

The brochure seemed necessary. It was a way of communicating that you were a prosperous organization which had the time and money to put together a pamphlet which explained who you were and therefore gave you credibility.

Now such a simple little task can be achieved in five or ten minutes on a computer and zonked out through your printer–with machines that will even fold it for you.

Progress is a beautiful thing–as long as you remember what you did before progress, and never lose the childlike sense of appreciation for being freed from monotony and meticulous, meaningless maneuvers.

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Broccoli

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Broccoli: (n) a variety of cabbage bearing green heads, widely cultivated as a vegetable.

I don’t remember ever seeing broccoli until I was sixteen years old.

I’m not denying its existence–it’s just that for some reason, our family did not participate in broccoli. Perhaps in my era it was not as popular, but more than likely, there was a silent vote taken among family members, without my knowledge, prohibiting the odd vegetable from entering our home.Dictionary B

The first time I did see broccoli and ate it was at a Chinese restaurant, where I was embarrassed because a girl had to explain to me what was perched in front of me with a green head, staring right into my eyes.

She was sufficiently overbearing and condescending, while baffled by my ignorance.

She told me that it was a very healthy thing to eat and that people of culture had consumed it for generations. I quickly realized that she was insinuating that I was not one of them, so I quickly took my fork and cut into the stalk, having the sensation, for some reason or another, of being a tiny lumberjack.

I liked it pretty well. Now, that might be because it was in a sweet ad sour sauce, surrounded by so much goo that it had little chance of diluting the delight.

Since then I have become an avid eater of broccoli even though I will admit to you that the word “avid” does not necessarily fit into that sentence.

I well remember, however, when the first President Bush confessed to the entire nation that he did not like broccoli, there was a collective gasp of horror and disbelief that the leader of the free world would be anti-florets.

But it is an acquired taste.

As with all vegetables, you have to wrap your mind around the fact that you are actually consuming something that normally would be chewed on by a cow or dried up by a summer’s drought.

 

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Broad-minded

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Broad-minded: (adj) tolerant or liberal in one’s views and reactions

Presumably, to be a Christian is to possess the mind of Christ.

At least, that’s what the Good Book says.Dictionary B

So that begs the question, what is the mind of Christ?

356 denominations in the Protestant movement meet together every week to advertise their concept of Jesus’ mental status. No wonder we have confusion. It’s a bit surprising that it hasn’t turned into a theological Demolition Derby.

What saves us from murdering each other is a common understanding of a few attributes of the personality of Jesus which are universally accepted.

  1. He loved people.
  2. He wasn’t pretentious.
  3. He had a servant’s heart.
  4. He was willing to die to save the world.

Without these, we would probably have just as many sects of terrorists as the Muslims.

For even with the predilection to shun particular lifestyles, every denomination is still stuck with the warning from Jesus: “Judge not lest you be judged” and “Those that are not against us are for us.”

So what does it mean to be broad-minded? The definition is very simple, but more complicated in application.

To be broad-minded is to acknowledge that some things are just none of our damn business.

The only debate is: which ones and how many?

 

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Broaden

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Broaden: (v) to widen

Searching until one finds a moral certainty.

It used to be the goal of the human race. Obviously, we never achieved it. Otherwise we wouldn’t have burned witches, hated people of different colors or put leeches on sick folk to heal them of pneumonia.Dictionary B

Often moral certainty is an interpretation of a code of ethics printed in a book–whether it’s the Bible or “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” We scour the material to find the commandments that assure us that we are on the high ground.

The difficulty with this procedure is that simultaneously, the inclusion of other lifestyles suggests that we broaden our outlook on morality–often to the detriment or even deterioration of some of our certainties.

When I was a boy divorce was bad. Now it ranges from being painful to necessary, but obviously common.

Things like abortion, homosexuality and marijuana smoking were condemned and even prosecuted. Now we have been asked to broaden our definitions of acceptable behavior to counteract what was once considered to be a certainty, and instead, deem it a transition in our understanding.

Because we are broadening ourselves so much, we are definitely yanking at the seams of the moral conscience.

So what is immoral?

Without doubt, the denigration of another human being for the satisfaction of our pleasure or religious fervor is immoral.

The purposeful bullying or intimidation of an individual or group of souls falls into the spectrum of unseemly.

But are there carnal acts or deeds that we consider immoral?

Stealing, for instance, is permissible if done on a corporate level instead of a “pauper” one.

Sexuality has to have justification and mutual adult consent to be given license.

And the immorality of indifference to the plight of others can even be disguised as a political maneuver.

I am not a great advocate of moral certainty–but I will tell you that merely broadening our horizons does not guarantee that we see the truth.

 

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Broadcast

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Broadcast: (n) a radio or television program or transmission.

Like any good, red-blooded American, I reserve the right to have my own personal definition for words.Dictionary B

You can contradict me with Webster’s realities, but I will explain to you that the intimacy of my experience allows me to screw around with the vernacular.

Such is the case with two words: illusion and delusion.

An illusion, to me, is something I am pursuing which I do very well, and I am waiting for the rest of the world to acknowledge my excellence.

A delusion is something that deep in my heart I know I’m not very accomplished at doing, but I am hoping I will luck out and make a lot of money from it anyway.

When I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1992 so that my children, who were now aging out of their teen years, could settle in and find lives of their own, I maintained one little piece of my vagabond creative persona by initiating a radio broadcast which aired five minutes a day on a local station which had its headquarters in a building about the size of six outhouses.

I was under the illusion that my talent was strong enough and my ideas so clever that they would draw listeners to this little forsaken location on the AM radio dial, and make myself well-known as an innovator.

Matter of fact, I did well over a thousand episodes on this particular outlet before sitting down one day and coughing up a hairball of delusion.

I admitted to myself that I was being clever in a vacuum.

Nobody was listening–and if they were, their appreciation was quite silent.

It was then that I had to define the word “broadcast.”

Broad in the sense of covering much territory.

Cast, referring to being thrown out there.

In the purest sense, my effort was certainly “broad” and “cast.”

But literally, it was more small and spilled.

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Broad

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Broad: (adj) an ample distance from side to side; wide.

We are a peculiar people.Dictionary B

Every July 3rd in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, we commemorate Pickett’s Charge, where thousands of Southern gentlemen attacked a wall of cannon at the bequest of an aging general who was in the midst of having a minor heart attack due to the summer’s heat.

But for some reason we call that brave.

We paint the picture of humanity with broad strokes.

We weep over acts of patriotism or occasions in which hundreds of thousands of us merge into a common trough.

But I am personally stalled by the warning from a Nazarene from two thousand years ago, who stated, “Broad is the way to destruction.”

It is shoulder-to-shoulder that we march to hell–unaware of our destination, but satisfied that we are right…because we are not alone.

What foolishness.

The best decisions of my life always happen absent human hovering.

When I’m on the “strait and narrow” of my passion, angels of authenticity are prompted to whisper in my ear.

If not, I am inundated by the bad breath of baffled Bohemians.

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Broach

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Broach: (v) to raise a sensitive or difficult subject for discussion

All cancers are birthed and thrive in a climate of silence and indifference.Dictionary B

If there were an awareness, every soul would be on the lookout for such a killer. But for some reason, it becomes more important to maintain the illusion of good health than to actually confirm it.

So it is with our society.

Because we possess an irrational fear of being found without merit, or even weakened by vice, we fail to discuss the things in life that would make us stronger, wiser and more valuable.

We don’t know how to broach the subject.

It leaves us startled, insisting that a tragedy has beset us … one that was actually well-planned through the rigorous efforts of our dumbstruck apathy.

 

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Brittle

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Brittle: (adj) hard but liable to break or shatter easily

I recently celebrated a birthday, which made me a year older than I was before.

In my youth I never noticed such transitions, assuming I would continue to be indestructible, Dictionary Bwithout blemish (except for acne) and to some degree, eternal.

Now I am of a particular vintage which has gained full body but also must consider itself “old wine.”

You see, I’m still tough as nails–it’s just that I need to avoid the pounding.

I planned an extravagant holiday season with family, and even though I was able to pull it off with much aplomb, I did suffer with a cold, coughing and fatigue as retribution for ignoring the passing years.

Men are so afraid of losing their virility and women their attractiveness–but in our later years we discover that when confronted with the realization of our “brittle,” we should just stop arguing and do the best we can with the strength that remains.

 

Donate ButtonThank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix 

 Don’t let another Christmas season go by without owning Jonathan’s book of Christmas stories

Mr. Kringle’s Tales …26 Stories ‘Til Christmas

Only $5.99 plus $1.25 shipping and handling!

An advent calendar of stories, designed to enchant readers of all ages

“Quite literally the best Christmas stories I have ever read.” — Arthur Holland, Shelby, North Carolina

Only $5.99 plus $1.25 shipping and handling.

"Buy