Crick

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Crick: (n) a sharp painful spasm of the muscles, as in the neck or back

We listen for it very carefully.

For you see, if we are not bigoted by color nor prejudiced by culture, we certainly become the Ku Klux Klan when it comes to word usage.

I have had the honor of traveling all over the United States of America many, many times. I am never ashamed of my education nor embarrassed by my lack of knowledge, but I am fully aware that if I decide to use certain terminology in certain regions of the country, I am certainly judged.

There used to be about four dialects of the American English language.

There was the Southern accent, the Midwestern homogenized version, the West Coast speed-talk, and the East Coast Brooklynese.

Of course, there were other accents you could encounter, but those four endured nearly everywhere.

And each culture, tongue and pronunciation was fully aware of itself, and could tell when any syllables or phrasings were introduced that came from a “foreign” United States.

Yes, a United States that was part of our country in map only.

For instance, if I went to the West Coast and said, “I have a crick in my neck,” all the people around me would assume I was a raging conservative, against all plans to aid poor people and that I traveled with a huge King James Bible in my suitcase.

Likewise, if I was traveling in the South, eating at a truck stop, ordering “Twelve Lookin’ At Ya’” (which is a dozen eggs sunny-side up) and then requested a Mocha Latte, I would suddenly be surrounded by whispers.

People from Brooklyn are not, generally speaking, vegan extoling the wonders of humus, but rather, talk about “picking up a slice” on the way Uptown.

In the South, “picking up a Slice” would mean resurrecting an old canned, carbonated drink and before heading toward the softball diamond.

Each culture has its own little way of saying thing,

But there are words that are certainly forbidden in nearly every quarter. Therefore, I do not know many places where discussing a “crick” in anything would be accepted—unless it was complaining backstage at the Grand Ole’ Opry while eating a pulled pork sandwich with Memphis barbecue sauce, while sippin’ your Jack Daniels.

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Crib Notes

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Crib note: (n) a translation, list of correct answers, or other illicit aid used by students while reciting, taking exams, or the like

Perhaps two of the more frightening words in the English language are “spontaneous” and “improvisation.”

Working in the theatrical community over the years, I have discovered that certain actors, directors and even writers extol the value of being spontaneous or applaud the introduction of improvisation into the set. Let me explain that the only people who think that spontaneous thought or improvisational input is clever are those who are doing it.

Most of us realize that if we’re listening to someone and we know they are going “off the cuff” or using crib notes they’ve written on their shirt sleeve, or they’re referring to an index card palmed in their hand, it’s just goddam nerve-wracking.

You have to start rooting for them, hoping they don’t implode into meaningless babbling or nonsense.

The truth is, if you have something that you want to come off with a flair of impromptu, you should memorize it.

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Cribbage

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Cribbage: (n) a card game for two, three or four people

Yes, this is one of those words.

There are many of them: words or terms that are brought up in front of me which I do not know–neither what they mean nor how they are played or applied.

For instance, someone in my presence might say:

“Well, a couple of us were playing cribbage…”

At this point I notoriously nod my head. The reason? Nobody else in the room looks bewildered—they are also covering up their ignorance, and I don’t want to be the one to ask, “Cribbage? What’s that?”

I do it with other words, too. Honestly, Cherries Jubilee is like that for me. I know there’s a fire involved—which is enough to make me want to back off, considering that I’m a bit intimidated by a flaming dessert.

Something topical? The census.

I kind of have an idea what it is, but I’m afraid to speak anything out loud because the whole room may turn to me with one perplexed glance, as if to sneer, “That’s not the census…”

I can break out in a cold sweat if people start talking about constitutional amendments.

I would probably faint if I were suddenly challenged by a woman asking me to explain exactly where the clitoris is.

Sometimes you shut your mouth.

Because the minute you open it, all your stupidity and ignorance come pouring out like the fizz in a two-liter bottle of Coke, uncapped, on a hot day.

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Crib

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Crib: (n) a child’s bed with enclosed sides.

For those aggravated souls who believe that life has no sensibility or purpose, I would have to offer the example of babies.

Just simply consider what it would be like if newborns came out talking.

As horrible as it may be to hear them cry, their needs are so easily achieved that the possibility of going back to sleep actually exists.

On the other hand, if you were walking up to the crib and hearing your new son or daughter explain to you in vivid detail their level of discomfort, along with a lamentation about how little you care because of how long it took for you to get there—well, that would be absolutely insane.

Certainly there would be more crib death.

Fortunately, they learn to poop, eat, crawl, stand, walk—and then talk.

It is so beautiful—because by the time they talk and start becoming demanding, you can look at them and say:

“Go get it yourself.”

 

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Crew Cut

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Crew cut: (n) a haircut in which the hair is very closely cropped.

It was a simple time.

People were determined to keep it that way, even though freedom, complexity and disruption were on the horizon, threatening to alter the beige tint of society with a flash of paisley.

In that brief moment, I lived and breathed and had my childhood.

One of the common things that was completely understood in my small town was the issue of men’s hair.

There were only three choices.

Some very bold youngsters started growing their hair to where it flirted with touching the top of the earlobe. They were subject to ridicule and made a grower of such a frock worthy of mock. They were deemed “hippies” and were considered part of the counterculture threatening to make America diverse.

The second type of hairdo was referred to as “the regular.”

This was where the young man was to get his hair cut as far away from his ears and collar as possible, leaving atop a tiny patch resembling crab grass. Even though it was not hippie, those who sported the regular haircut were suspicious. They were possibly Democrats or homos, which in our village, were both abominable.

Although it was never stated out loud, the only truly acceptable haircut for anyone under the age of eighteen was the crew cut. Matter of fact, if you peruse old rock and roll albums, many of the singers still sported it. It was the same kind of head shaving you would get if you went into the military. It was uniform, with a tiny berm of hair in the front, greased down so as not to become flyaway.

You knew this—whenever you encountered a person with a crew cut, you were staring into the face of a true American who loved God, hated sin and was determined to keep America whatever America was at that particular moment.

At one time I considered getting a crew cut.

However, my face was so chubby I was afraid my cheeks would puff out and I would be caught up in a wind gust and carried away. So I maintained my regular haircut until my senior year in high school, when I began to grow hair on the sides of my head that was long enough to be combed down to cover the tips of my ears when I was away from adults, and combed back to barely pass muster in grown-up world.

It was a foolish time in this country.

A dangerous assertion persisted–that human beings could be stopped and immobilized, avoiding a hairy situation.

 

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Crew

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Crew: (n) a group of persons involved in a particular kind of work together:

It is very difficult to imagine or even conjecture on what a gentleman living in the late eighteenth century might have envisioned or believed since people from that era were partakers of nearly everything—from opium to residual witch burning.

So when our modern politicians and scholars sit down and discuss the Constitution, this disadvantage immediately comes to the forefront.

Here is the document they left us…

… And what in the hell does it mean in relationship to our country and our lives going forward?

I certainly think we suffer the same entanglement and mystery when it comes to the Bible. I can’t possibly ascertain what a Moses or Paul might consider appropriate if he found himself viewing our present society.

But one thing that is true in both the U. S. Constitution and the Bible, which we can pretty well hang our three-corner hat or our nomadic robe on, is that these predecessors thought we were to be a crew.

The way they set up the government and the way the scriptures lay out commonality among the masses certainly beckons us to find the crew, join the crew, contribute to the crew and don’t try so hard to escape the crew.

The problem with politics is that it has become an island to itself.

There is no crew, just chiefs seeking titles and position.

And the problem with religion is that the adherents and faithful jockey for position for God’s favor instead of being happy to be part of a crew as His children.

I do not trust anyone who feels he or she is too good, too enlightened, too experienced, too educated, too racially superior or too manly to be part of a general crew, equals working in a common direction.

I seek such a crew.

I desire to get behind those who can do what I do as well or better.

In the pursuit of freedom, we have promoted individuality to an extreme.

Because of this, we have no crew to get the work done.

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Crevice

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Crevice: (n) A narrow crack, fissure, or cleft.

I guess I find it easy to be candid in my writing because I’m not going to be sitting over dinner with any of you, being curiously peered upon.

I am a fat person.

As a fat person, my body is constructed a bit differently than the average human form. I have an overhang at my stomach—what you might consider a fleshy awning.

It’s not something I enjoy revealing or find to be one of my better attributes. But those who have this overdraft certainly know that underneath is a crevice.

Oh—it is a fussy place.

In the summertime, when it gets really hot and friction sets in, you have to be careful that you don’t start making some human gravy down there. Why? Because it mingles with dirt, and you get stingy and it hurts and it’s ugly, and I’m already beginning to feel like “why did I start talking about this in the first place?”

So it is necessary to clean that crevice and make sure it stays dry. It is also a great reminder when you occasionally you don’t have the motivation to lose weight and decrease the arc of your crevice—because the problems caused by this little get-away bungalow can assuredly provide fresh energy to push away from the table.

I have a crevice.

And now you know the story of my entire underbelly.

 

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Crevasse

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Crevasse: (n) a deep, open crack

“It’s just about eight feet.”

God, I hated those words.

Growing up, I was the chubby, endearing, intelligent and funny friend. If you put me in a room watching Chiller Theater or listening to music or eating pizza, I was the star of the show.

But every once in a while, I got myself trapped into doing activities that blubber-boys should never participate in whatsoever.

I was thirteen years old and was asked to go on a hike.

I cannot lie—I went on the hike because at the end of the hike we were supposed to have a cookout over an open fire with marshmallows. They did not explain that there would be a five-hour death march preceding it.

I was panting within fifteen minutes, melting with sweat within a half hour—my legs so weak at the end of fifty minutes that I could barely stand.

This in itself was problematic.

But then we came to the Brave Man Crevasse.

The grown-up in charge of the expedition had mentioned it the night before with starry eyes, nearly breathless over the joy each of us would have in taking what he called “The Great Leap.” Struck by stupidity and still dreaming of marshmallows, I had failed to consider the impact of his statement.

About three hours into the hike, with me praying for death or the second coming of Christ, we arrived at The Crevasse.

Very simply stated, it was where the path ended and then resumed eight to ten feet over on the other side, with a drop of about fifty or sixty feet in the middle

The major problem was that before I could even consider what we were doing or how I personally was going to achieve it, many of my friends boldly took the jump and landed safely on the other side. Applause followed.

Pretty soon it was down to Lance and me. Lance was considered to be the coward of our troop—afraid of every type of bug, and really somewhat terrified of dirt. Lo and behold, Lance decided to choose this day for his epiphany of courage. He jumped up in the air and landed, his foot slipping at the last moment, nearly falling, but grabbed by some nearby buddies, who then alternated with pounding him on the back for his courage and clapping wildly.

So there it was—that universal turn of nine heads in my direction.

Their faces were full of encouragement, nodding as if to send good vibrations in my direction.

I thought about following Lance’s example, then realized I was not born stupid. So instead I stepped to the edge and looked over at the craggy hillside, filled with rocks and bushes beneath. My first thought was, “I wonder if I could survive a fall and get the hell out of here in an ambulance?”

But it seemed unlikely and certainly painful.

The delay was apparently unnerving to my cohorts, because they began to express verbal exhortations, which gradually became more ferocious and even challenging. That’s when the dastardly statement came to be.

“Come on! It’s just about eight feet!”

You see, they were wrong. It was a crevasse. There was no place for feet at all. If it had been just eight feet, I could just walk across. But it was eight huge spaces of nothing but air.

Spurred on by a combination of humiliation, edification and (still) the prospect of dinner, I leaped.

But I did not do it feet first. Instead I leaped with the top of my body toward the ledge, barely catching it with my hands, my feet dangling and kicking, and me ready to fall.

Blessedly, all of my friends who had made it safely to the other side grabbed me by whatever they could reach and pulled me up to safety.

My heart was pounding. It didn’t stop its thumping for a solid twenty minutes.

Every single one of the people who leaped across chose not to talk about it.

I think they were terrified that they nearly lost me in the Great Crevasse on the overly lengthy hike in pursuit of toasting a marshmallow.

 

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Cretin

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Cretin: (n) a stupid, obtuse, or mentally defective person.

We attempt to balance the entire philosophy of humankind on the head of a pin. Maybe that’s why we have so many pinheads.

But the truth of the matter is, knowing the exact amount of mercy to extend to the human race and the correct punishing judgment is virtually impossible to achieve.

There is no balance.

There are times when people appear to be well worth the effort, and on other occasions, jungle desires overtake each and every one of us, and we all look like high-minded monkeys.

The word “cretin” is different.

The term connotes that there is an awareness—even a memory—of what is appropriate and beneficial, but it is ignored in favor of the devious and the devilish.

There are people who do not want to win unless they can cheat.

They do not want to gain positions of power, but rather, powerfully position themselves to degrade others.

These individuals are not our adversaries nor are they our friends.

They are our enemies.

And to become an enemy of Earth and those who dwell on Earth, all that is necessary is to ignore everything you know to be true, in favor of rewriting the rules with your own magic marker.

 

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Crestfallen

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Crestfallen: (adj) dejected and discouraged

It is astounding to me how many words have been exiled to the “Island of Unwanted Syllables.”

They used to be popular–then somebody or a bunch of nobodies got together and decided they sounded old-fashioned. Of course, that was their death knell. Anything that sounds old-fashioned to a younger generation is immediately rejected and becomes a code word for uncool.

Crestfallen is certainly a better term to describe what occasionally happens to us humans, instead of falling back on dimmer terms, like depressed, bummed out, or under the weather.

I guess we favor the term “depressed” because it seems to have a clinical, physiological component to it, instead of just being us, greatly disappointed and discouraged. I suppose I could even give you a list of things that leave me crestfallen, which make me wish that life was different or that circumstances were changed, or people were more enlightened.

But sharing these pains and frustrations with you would only end up being depressing, with me unable to use the more effective term of crestfallen.

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