Author: SydneyHM

I know I am the daughter of Robert L. Hanson when my mind wanders to words in strange and playful ways that probably seem weird to the rest of the world, but which I find very entertaining.

For some reason this morning I started thinking about words that end in “ist”.

For some words, the suffix “ist” indicates a person who does, makes, practices, or is an expert in something, such as in the words “realist”, “artist”, and “pianist”.

But for certain words, “ist” indicates someone who specifically practices prejudice or discrimination, as with the words “racist”, “sexist” or “ableist”.

But what if all “ist” words followed the logic of the second group of words rather than the first? Then we would come up with words like the following:

People who discriminate against teeth are dentists.
A person who doesn’t like butts is an assist.
Someone who doesn’t like certain internal body parts is an organist.
A person who hates endings is a finalist.

Yes, I know it’s silly and wrong (grammatically speaking), but just going down this road of thought sent me into peals of delight-laughter.           

My father, who sometimes signed his letters “Robber Tell Hand Son”, would understand.             

I just posted a song that I wrote a year or two ago.

When I first moved to Lacey, I met a person named Kahlei (is that the spelling?), and it made me think of the Lewis Caroll poem “Jabberwocky”.

I thought it might be fun to turn that poem into a song for children, but I had forgotten that it features a beheading.

As someone who has gone through Jungian therapy, I can appreciate the symbolism of decapitating a monster. But as someone who knows children are still developing their capacity for figurative thinking, I wondered if it was an appropriate subject matter for kids.

So I decided to rethink Caroll’s world a bit. His poem addresses bravery, and making a parent proud through skill and decisive action.

In my rethinking, the child’s bravery comes in forming his own opinion instead of automatically accepting the prejudices of his father. The child’s decisive action comes in the form of whole-heartedly accepting another person. And the father’s pride comes from knowing that his child is developing the ability to see the truth with his own eyes.

The Baha’i teachings emphasize unity as being of the utmost importance for humanity’s current stage of development.

It occurred to me today that the need for unity is cooked into our language.

Machines, humans, families, societies, and everything created involves the coming together of different parts. The simplest of conjunctions of parts is a pair – two parts together. If any two parts within the whole become disconnected, those parts need to be re-paired in order for the whole to be fully functioning again.

So the word for fixing things reminds us how healing and return to full-functioning often happens, even in a complicated creation. “Re-pairing” is needed.

Unity is what repairs the world.

Spring and summer have commanded much of my time and attention, and adding to my website has gone to the wayside. Even my journals* have seen little in the way of writing other than to make lists of things I need to do or to draw sketches of features I would like to add to my yard and garden.

The project for the next couple of weeks is to finishing painting the pergola above our backyard patio and then add a clear (gray tinted, really) roof to it. September can bring rain with it, so we’re trying to finish up by the end of this month – 8 days to go!

I would like to start up my 5 of 5 practice again. I have accomplished 3 of 5 so far this morning: 5 minutes each of stretching, reading sacred writings, and praying. When I was about to begin writing in my journal, I came across a journal entry from 1/23/21 which I found amusing. It’s three jokes that use spelling in the punchline.

Is there a name for that kind of joke? It’s a form of wordplay, but I don’t know if it has a specific name, or if people even use it as a type of humor. Maybe it would be considered a type of pun, but if so, it is different, if only because it needs to be seen spelled out to be understood. Or maybe it doesn’t, and I just prefer it that way.

Anyway, here are the three examples:

Q: What do you call a long-necked animal who thinks something is funny?
A: A giraugh.

Q: What do you call a baker who arranges bouquets?
A: A flourist.

Q: What is that person from northern Spain doing lying in the sun?
A: Basque-ing.

It’s time to go water the garden and paint the porch.

*I have 2 journals going at once right now, because one fits in my purse, and because I occasionally misplace one and can then resort to the other one, if I can find it.