Americanische Sprache Uber Alles

The titles was intended to make you think of Hitler; his motto was, "Deutscheland uber alles" the German sentiment that the world would be a better place if Germany ruled. Now, your writer has the distinct understanding that the constitution of the state of Illinois is based on the "American language"

Not having an "official" definition of the American Language,I will feel free to (Oops, dunno where Google put the tool bar to remove the italics that my fickle fingers gave me)express my impression of some of its characteristics. First, its pronunciation is conscientiously phonEtic. This has the advantage the spelling is pretty straightforward. There are of course a few glitches, for which Bill Gates and his minions do not always have the right answer. Nevertheless, the beginning of the college year is when your reporter is apt to spot notices in the Student Union saying "Roomate wanted" to which he habitually inserts another "m" and the addition, "preferably one with a spell-checker". Phonetics are justified by my big brother who was amazed to find that his obviously bright daughter was not learning to read. Her teacher was using a California education fad called the "look-say" method. He taught her that using the alphabet, one could sound OUT the words. She has never looked back and now she teaches him how to use his computer.

The gentle reader may object,"Isn't that just English you are talking about?" I say, "Mercy, no!!" The Englishman says the third ingredient in his Bloody Mary is "Wooster sauce" We American Speakers use a 4-5 syllable word to marinate our steaks, called Worcestershire sauce, (which is five syllables, if we say the word "ire" is two syllables.)

The range of the American language is about the six midwestern states; to Illinois, we add Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin and Minnesota, but eccentric variations can be found in any of them. My brother-in-law grew up in southern Indiana, with a scrupulous ability to change his own crankcase "orl" and playing cards "according to Horle". Fifty years ago, Chicago denizens all sounded like Arthur Godfrey (pronounced by us Spoonerism practitioners, "Odfur Garthe")Eastern speakers can fail even to communicate. In the early days of the space program president JFK was saying "I have not spoken to Nasser today" and I am wondering, what does the leader of Egypt to do with the space program? Some day when the reader has me face to face, I will demonstrate how Californians get all the vowels wrong in saying "Cow Palace".

And on this evening of "Trick or Treating" and falling back with all the clocks, The Bay Bridge is closed indefinitely, and I leave you with this bit of wisdom I just thought up. "Rocket Science is easy; It's getting to your desk that is tough.

Imitation is the puest form of flattery

Very little of my lifetime output has been purely original. Of course, the really creative can get away w ith quoting themselves. Was it not George Bernard Shaw who said, "I often quote myself. I find it adds spice to my conversation" He allegedly is also the guy who responded to his long time lover, who wanted to conceive their baby, saying, " with your brains and my beauty, it would be a wonderful child!" GBS responded, "But what if the child had MY beauty and your brains. What then?

Well, you see, one of my blessings is a long term memory for funny thinking, by anybody who wrote it down. Evidence of this will keep cropping up. Today, we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of an earthquake that fortunately killed only a couple of dozen people. It is sometimes called "The World Series quake", also for its epicenter "Loma Prieta" a location near the modest sized town called Santa Cruz. Damage from the quake was widely scattered. There were no cell-phones in those days, so it was a couple of days before my sister was able to hear from her eldest, at the UC branch there, that mostly all was well. She had to do without hot Water for a couple of days, as the water heater had capsized in her rooming house, . There were long distances between damage, for example, the SF-Oakland Bay Bridge had a non-cable section which broke loose on one end, closing the bridge for a couple months and necessitating that we outsiders get to the City via the Golden Gate, if we must drive, but to get to a convention in the downtown convention center, I drove to the Concord stawtion and got onto the light rail.

But, you may be asking, where is the imitation here? Ain't any. My excuses were apt to be composers of the classics. After all, Bach kept using the same tunes and changing the orchestration. Besides Ravel, several composers have reasonable takeoffs on Mussorgsky's piano piece, "Pictures at an Exhibition", Ashkenazy did a pretty good one, to my mind. I think Stokowski had a good try to his credit. Charles Ives' "Variations on 'God save the King", which we call "America" in the USA, also, "My country 'tis of Thee", which he wrote for organ, are an almost unalloyed delight. Those interested in such fun trivia are recommended to use the internet to call up "SF Gate", "Columns". Jon Carroll, and then in his archive, an item called "Mondegreens" This is really recommended, until i write something really profound or "Hold-your-belly funny".

Why do I write? Why not a book

Down thru the years, a number of people have allowed as how they find my writing amusing, a source of wisdom, or other flattering attention. As I count, I guess I have written about four lengthy manuscripts. To get a phD, is electrical engineering, I wrote a dissertation "Effects of Electron Beam Confinement on klustyron efficiency. For courses i was teaching, put together extended notes to use in lieu if textbooks; the first was "Sound, Acoustics and Noise Pollution."
Then I wrote "Electromagnetics with Design". Finally, for a publisher, I did "Circuit Design for High Frequencies and Microwaves" Worldwide, the latter has sold SEVERAL HUNDRED COPIES!!, meaning that I have yet to be paid minimum wage for the work.
Instead, I think will I get some fulfillment out of posting very small bites of old wisdom I have come upon, or occasional new insights which occur to me. I have borrowed other peoples' insights down thru the years. The first person who really spoke to me was Charles Schultz. His Peanuts comic strip spoke to me a lot. Maybe the midwestern background was a large part of his appeal to me; Like Charlie Brown, I have never place-kicked a football; however I can throw a Frisbie backhaND and taught my #1 son how. which stood him in good stead until he learned to throw it f0rehand at Onterlochen Internati0onal Music camp, leading to world-wide travel to tournaments in Ultimate(soccer with a Frisbie) tounaments in St.Andrews, Stuttgart and Honolulu. I guess the wisdom insight as that you can never predict the consequences of seemingly trivial choices.

We begin

Those wondering about the title of this blog will be informed by the following. I was travelling in Europe with my sister Autumn, having recently put her boyfriend, now her husband, Gary onto the plane to take him home, while Autumn and I took the car, a 1966 Volvo, which we had driven 6000 miles, to those who would ship it home. An egregiously aggressive driver cut me off from my intended progress and I exclaimed "Bilgers Blaggers Blog" whereupon Autumn said, "My, that surely isn't what I expected you to say."