Phrases I Hate

 

A long, long time ago I did a series of posts here at the Recovering Hopper entitled “Words I Hate.”

 

These were (and still are) linguistical objects that, for some reason I’d try to explain, somehow would hurl out a harpoon into the thick adipose tissue of my eardrum. And once snagged, would wiggle back and forth, hooking deeper and deeper with accelerating and accumulating levels of annoyance. So much so that I’d lose focus of the original thought the writer or speaker was trying to impart. An earworm, albeit of the nastiest, parasitical kind.

 

Well, since I’ve been watching a lot of videos on the YouTube and listen to all sorts of Zoom and Teams calls second hand, my attention has been called to a number of Phrases I Hate.

 

Here’s the first, and probably the most prolific one I’ve noticed:

 

After a number of explanatory sentences, the speaker utters an apologetic, “Does this make sense?” often in a faux self-deprecating manner, as a kind of Final Boss grammatical period at the paragraph’s conclusion.

 

Does this make sense?

 

Ugh, forgive me, but that’s an illustration of the heinous phrase in action.

 

Anyway, I utterly hate this lazy phrase. I encourage you to surgically incise it from your verbal lexicon immediately and with brutal efficiency.

 

Boiled down to its logical skeleton, the phrase Does this make sense? can literally mean one of two things:

 

1) I am such a poor communicator that I need to periodically confirm, several times in a conversation, whether I am getting my point across to you, no matter how simple it may be.

 

or

 

2) You are a retard and can’t be trusted to understand possibly very simple ideas.

 

Both explanations assume a lowest-common-denominator, dumbed-down approach to communicating. If 1, why be so hard on yourself? If you truly are a poor communicator, for God’s sake man take some lessons or hone your skills with a speaking coach. Or if 2, then please stop communicating until you learn to treat the person you are in dialogue with respect.

 

So I beg of any users of this dopy phrase: Do better. Please, for the sake of Hopper’s poor thick adipose tissued ear drums.

 

Grrrr.

 

(This message brought to you after a well-meaning podcaster – I assume, since I give the speaker the benefit of the doubt – just used the phrase twice in the span of three minutes giving his for-the-everyman interpretation of a speech given by a Catholic bishop.)

 

The Worst Feeling in the World

 

Is when you excitedly crack open a book newly purchased …

 

… and discover that the prior owner has graffiti’d it all up with either a highlighter, a heavy-handed black pen, or both. It’s even worse if the highlit chunks are pink.

 

I’ve been an avid reader all my life, and I’ve probably bought somewhere in the neighborhood of four hundred books over the past 25 years. The vast majority have been used books, since I only buy new for the best and the keepers. When I consider a used book I do give it a thorough examination, checking the spine, the brittleness or lack thereof of the pages, the smell (can’t have a moldy book, mind you), dog-earedness and, most importantly, if it’s been marked up.

 

Three times I’ve failed this most important of tests.

 

The first was a thick but flexible introductory book on the Revolutionary War. I found it at a library book sale and scooped it up for a few bucks. It felt good in my hands. This was in the first phase of my military history interest, sometime around 2012 or 2013. I anticipated learning about the main players, the battles, the tactics and the strategies that enabled the United States to secure its independence from Great Britain. It sat on a shelf for a little while as I finished up my current reads and then I cracked it open … to that pink highlighter! Some high school or college kid marked up the early chapters which somehow didn’t reveal itself to me in my initial scan. I was crushed. I simply could not read it. I think I donated it to Goodwill.

 

The second was purchased at a thrift store on Hilton Head where my mother-in-law volunteered. This place has an enormous selection of books of all sizes, shapes, genres and age levels – several aisles’ worth. The family always scored there when we’d visit. I found a thick paperback biography of Albert Einstein, which instantly leapt off the shelf and into my hands. Excited, I paid the few dollars and, opening it to page one on the ride home, discovered some dude both yellow highlighted and black pen underlined most of the opening chapters (about 70 pages) covering Einstein’s youth and his scientific thought. I was crushed and again could not read it. However, it sits to this day in my closet atop my dresser. Not sure why, but I haven’t given up on it. Though I probably won’t read it.

 

The last was a book I ordered online. Don’t remember the title, but it was a one-volume history of the Catholic Church that was fairly well received. I ordered it from a local used book store (most likely right here in Dallas) and only because the condition was marked as GOOD on the website. Well, I supposed “good” is now a loosely subjective term. When it arrived in the mail I hurriedly opened it, only to observe that some prior reader had underlined sentences and whole paragraphs throughout the entire book in pencil. An irrational thought popped into my head: I could just erase it! Sure, it wouldn’t leave any indentations and wouldn’t take any longer than six or seven hours – but I’d still have a potentially awesome read ahead of me – then I slapped myself hard and yelled “STOP IT!” The book is a lost cause, man, put it down. And slowly I did.

 

So on that last book I was sorta deceived, and don’t count it against me.

 

It’s not the money – I think I’m out maybe $20 thanks to these three charlatans. It’s the smothering blanket of disappointment that envelops you, tamping down joy and hope and the promise of adventure and discovery.

 Sample page from my Einstein paperback biography, taken in my closet where the book resides for some reason. How can one deface a work of art such as this?

So … don’t mark up a book, unless you intend to keep it forever.

 

This public service message provided by Hopper, Lifelong Reader.

 

Fishing

 

Okay, here’s something a little unexpected and unusual.

 

I’ve never been an outdoorsman. Had I lived in medieval times I’d probably have been a cleric enclosed in a monastery or a hermit in a Carthusian cell. Or I’d be an apprentice to a merchant, stocking shelves by day and reading scrolls by candlelight at night in my tiny attic room. What I would not have been would be: farmer or a hunter. I have no natural affinity for the Great Outdoors, for Mother Nature, roaming the great plains or the tundra or lush forests or sailing the deep seas. I am not an outdoorsman. Don’t have the genes.

 

Like home repair and auto mechanics, that gene has passed me by. In fact, whatever genetic propensity I might have had for that particular love skipped me and was passed on to my younger brother, who has it in spades. I mean, he’s currently an automotive technician, and as a teen was an amateur taxidermist and considered a career as a forest ranger.

 

It was not for lack of trying – on my father’s part. Yes, I did have a shotgun license, thanks to my dad. But I enjoyed the clay pigeons about as much as I hated tromping through the bushes hunting rabbits, pheasants, and grouse. And fishing – forget that! I would much rather read the Merriam-Webster dictionary than cast a line off a bridge waiting for a bite. (That is not an exaggeration – I once purchased a 25-pound M-W at a book fair and I was enraptured.) True story: I read chapters 4 through 8 of The Fellowship of the Ring in a rowboat in the middle of the lake while my father and brother fished for sunnies.

 

All right, now we come to the unexpected and unusual part: I’ve been binge watching fish and wildlife law enforcement videos. 

Now … hear me out.

 

It’s more law enforcement than fish and wildlife. Basically, Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) officers pull aside boaters and bust them for all sorts of violations. From poaching to catching over the limit to not carrying registrations and licenses or having the requisite number and type of safety jackets, fire extinguishers and even horns. Mix in the occasional boating while intoxicated or smoking by a fuel pump at a dock, and you have a recipe for some quite interesting videos.

 

Most of the perps are contrite and, well, a little embarrassed and taken aback at the seriousness of which the FWC regards these infractions. After all, who thinks taking an extra four or five fish helps deplete the coastal population? But some go crazy, some get irate, and once in a while one gets arrested.

 

Yes, it’s a current fad because I’m bored with everything else on YouTube and am sick of the death and destruction filtered into my head from the news media. But my accounting job requires the analysis of spreadsheet after spreadsheet, and most of us at work listen to some form of music or videos on headphones to make the clock hands move quicker. This week for me it’s FWC enforcement videos. Next week, who knows?

 

But, rest assured, you won’t find me perusing fishing rods and reels at the sporting goods store. The closest I’ll come to a fish is my next reading of Moby Dick or Jaws.

 

Note: As a non-outdoorsman and non-fisherman, I am not responsible for the accuracy of any outdoors- or fishing-relating content in this post. Thanks!