Tag Archives: dictionary

Acupuncture

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acupuncture: (n.) a system of complementary medicine that involves pricking the skin or tissues with needles, used to alleviate pain or treat various physical, mental and emotional conditions. Originating in ancient China, it is now a widely-accepted practice all over the world. 

“Widely accepted practice.” What does that mean?

Sometimes I think books like the dictionary or magazines—or even newscasts—want to appear hip and cool by portraying that oddities are actually not quite as odd as we might first think.

Recently I watched a report on television about how over half the world considers eating grasshoppers to be a great source of nutrition. Grasshoppers, they reported, have even more protein than steak. I must be candid. I had absolutely no inkling to go out, fire up the grill and barbecue myself twelve ounces of locusts.

It’s the same way I feel about acupuncture. I realize that I risk coming across ignorant—maybe inflexible.

About three years ago my daughter-in-law suggested that I go to one of those locations where they perform acupuncture, to alleviate some of the pain in my knee. She had a coupon.

That’s the first thing that struck me as humorous. How does one acquire an acupuncture coupon? But I digress…

She explained that really normal people have begun to have needles stuck into their skin at very intricate places, so as to stimulate healing and relief of pain. Here’s what I think: I think one of the most uncomfortable things in the world is anxiety, and the idea of having someone from China putting needles in my skin makes me a bit anxious. So through my fits of terror, how would I know if I was any better??

Now, I realize this is not a very enlightened view, and I’m sure as time goes on, we will discover that acupuncture has great benefit.

But in the barnyard of life, I would rather cower in the stables or chicken out in the coop than be one of the initial guinea pigs.

See what I mean? I’m going to wait for all the recommendations to come in, and probably for them to come up with an ACME Home Acupuncture kit before I participate.

I think I hurt my daughter-in-law’s feelings. She probably thinks I’m a stubborn old man. But make that a stubborn old man MINUS needles in his skin.

Accuracy

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Accuracy: (n.) the quality or state of being correct or precise.

There they go again! The dictionary makes the assumption that “correct” and “precise” are the same. They aren’t. Because in defending the accuracy of my statements, I can often prove that something is correct and yet completely avoid precision. In other words, once I cross the fifty percent point on correct, I can prove it’s true, even though 49% of what I represent is not true–and therefore not exactly honest.

This happens so much that we have a series of phrases for it:

  • little white lies
  • promo talk
  • political speech
  • disinformation
  • embellishment
  • padding your resume

It has become so much a part of our society that the word “accuracy” tends to bring a smile of cynicism to the universal lips of every American hearer. After all, nowadays everyone brings their own statistics to prove their point, to convince you of their accuracy, when the other side of the coin flips over with contradictory numbers, which are supposed to be equally valid.

It has given me pause.

There are many things in my life which I’ve lied about, which at the time of speaking, I would have insisted were accurate, but not precise. In other words, there was a story behind each and every proclamation to give credence to the idea–if you understood my reasoning in the first place.

We hate accuracy because deep in our hearts, we are all ashamed of where we are. When we were younger, we had great aspirations and set out on a journey to achieve them, only to run out of funds in Buffalo on our way to New York City. So we sit in Buffalo and try to pretend that we’re still heading for New York  City–or that we’ve already been there–or that Buffalo has become our New York City.

You know what the problem with such inaccuracy is? A deceiver is the most deceived person in the room. Why? Because he or she knows the real truth. The rest of the people present are only guessing.

Yes, the worst victim of lying is the liar. He or she knows that the truth was available when the audience listening is stuck with the story presented.

I don’t know if I’m completely cured of promo talk, embellishment, disinformation and the like. I’m sure in a pinch I will squirm and come up with some sort of representation of my truth which is more pleasing to the ears of those who surround me. But as I’ve tried to become a more accurate person–precise on the details–I have discovered that most folks don’t really care one way or another, but they would certainly like to trust my portion of the truth for which I am responsible.

Remember–the boy who cried wolf ended up getting eaten by his previous lies. Why? Because nobody came. If you lie enough, people expect you to lie, so even when you come up with something important, which comes from a place of quality, no one is listening.

So here’s to accuracy, which is the pursuit of “precise” minus the ambiguity of “correct”–because being politically correct is only good if you’re looking for votes. If you’re looking for friends or the favor of God, you have to go one step further.

 

Ablaut

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Ablaut: n. the change in vowel in related words or forms, e.g., in Germanic strong verbs (for example swim, swam, swum)

Come on. This one is easy.

What we’re talking about here is the glory, beauty, simplicity, joy, practicality and application of a vowel movement.

Did I miss something? I understand that the dictionary may lack some sense of humor or fear being considered gauche, but that’s really the best definition for this word, right? Ablaut means that we have a vowel movement.

It only occurs when we have adequate fiber, faber, fuber.

It demands that we sometimes make a commitment to the cause, cise, cose.

But in the long run (pardon the expression) we free ourselves of the constipation of ideas and allow for past-tense and future-tense to open us up, as it were.

Ablaut–a satisfying vowel movement, which changes the meaning of a word.

Hell, I don’t think I’m alone here. I think I’ve had vowel movements that have actually changed my life, lofe, lafe.

Abilene

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abilene: 1 a city in east central Kansas; pop. 6,242. It was the first terminus of the Chisholm Trail.  2. a city in north central Texas, an agricultural and oil industry center; pop. 106,654

Darned tootin’ if Abilene doesn’t need a song.

Phoenix has one–Seattle, too. Los Angeles has several. New York, Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans…all of them have got tuneful tributes.

It seems to be my duty to write Abilene a song. I guess I will start with the A, B, C formula. In other words, go through the alphabet and find words that rhyme wiht Abilene so as to find possibilities as to where this composition might go.

Let me see now… A, B, C.  Nothing there. D gives us Dean. I don’t know what we’ll do with that. E, F… then there’s G.  You get green and glean. Possible.

H, I, J, K… they’re all a wash. L. Lean. Of course, you’ve already got that in the name of the town–Abilene.

M. Mean. Not much use. N, O. Well, I guess n-o. No.

P for preen. How would you work that in?

Here’s one! Queen! Of course, I don’t know if they allow queens in Abilene.

R has nothing. S–Seen. Either the s-e-e-n or the s-c-e-n-e. So maybe I could make the scene in Abilene with my Queen named Jean. Hey, I forgot the J, for Jean. You see how it’s building??

Teen. That’s dangerous. Because my Queen, Jean, should not be a teen, or you’re in danger of statuatory rape.

U, V. Nothing there. Again.

W has ween. That’s frightening. Of course, X, Y and Z is just like the tail that never shakes off anything of value.

So what did we end up with?

Queen Jean who’s a teen from Abilene, who makes the scene and isn’t really mean, although she spends too much time in an attempt to preen. But her looks are never obscene.

Oh, there’s an O.

You see how it works? Genius HAS form and reason to it.

But even as I look at the results, I have to admit that the Abilene song may have just about as much promise as the city itself.

It’s not my fault. I tried.

Abide

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abide: 1. v.  accept or act in accordance with a rule, decision or recommendation 2. unable to tolerate: “I cannot abide…” 3. of a feeling or memory–continue without fading or being lost

As is often the situation when I hear the definitions for these words, I realize that I have created my own mental dictionary of what things mean, frequently having absolutely no basis.

I always thought “abide” meant to hang around, like three guys on a Saturday afternoon sprawled across the room, telling stories about what they wish they could do, will probably never do, but will insist someday when they’re old that they did.

I thought abiding was what faith, hope and love did because they were built into the woodwork and history of the framework.

Abiding is NOT hanging around. Abiding is hanging in there.

I realize that’s what’s missing from my life, and maybe the lives of many Americans. As long as you want us to just “hang around,” we’re fine. But the minute you define the cause, point out a specific direction or demand a commitment, we put into practice our well-rehearsed list of excuses and go “splitsville.”

Hanging in there is a tough thing.

I remember once playing a football game, and at the end of the first quarter our team was down 32-0. The prospects of victory were slim. We were unable to stop the other team from scoring and only felt satisfaction that we were bolstering their egos and padding their stats. But you see, it was the end of the first quarter. There were three more of them to come. The danger in football is that if you play the game halfway, you’re much more likely to get injured. So it was definite that even though we were going to get smeared, we would have to see the game through to the end.

So we set some small goals. For instance, hiking the ball and handing it off without fumbling. Another one was tackling the opponent before he gained twenty yards. And certainly the most important aspiration that kept us “hanging in there” was to make sure the final score was not 128-0.

We lost the game 64-0, having held them to 32 points in the final three quarters.

Although humiliating, we left the field uninjured and just a little bit tickled that we survived such an absolute cataclysmic event without committing suicide.

Abiding is hanging in there–which only gives us one major goal: find something worthy of our hanging.

Abacus

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter AAbacus:  An oblong frame with rows of wires or grooves, along which beads are slid, used for calculating.abacus

I’ve heard of these things. I’m not so sure I’ve ever actually been in the presence of one. Listen to me go on. . . “Presence of one…”

It’s not exactly an alligator or the Queen of England. I always thought the Chinese used it for calculating–and since my society universally believes the Chinese are good calculators, I guess an abacus is quite efficient.

It looks complicated. It looks like one of those games advertised by Milton Bradley, with moving pieces that have seven pages of directions and you find yourself baffled by the second paragraph.

Can I be the first one to say that I think the calculator may be one of the greatest inventions ever known to man? It comes in second behind the fork. Never underestimate the power of that utensil.

Boy, that got me thinking. I gave such an importance to the fork, and left out toilet paper. I sometimes get picky about toilet tissue. It’s amazing how valuable it is, though,  even if it’s a second cousin to sand paper.

Anyway, back to the abacus. I was never good in math. I mean, I did great with long addition, subtraction, division, multiplication. But then, when it had to be explained instead of ciphered, with algebra, geometry, and we shall not even mention calculus, I started feeling like the last monkey staring across the plain at a group of humans building a fire. In other words, I saw the need, appreciated the effort, but had no way of fathoming the process.

I probably should go out, find an abacus and enlighten myself on its value, but instead, I think I’ll just go to the store and purchase a calculator.