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Freak Speak

Part 2 of “Time to change the way we tell time”

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Humor Post #50 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Well, here’s part two of that much needed tirade against how we measure stuff. In this case, it’s time. Specifically, it’s the months of the year. This won’t take long. Just go back to the last post about the days of the week and I’m sure you’ll agree they could use some new cooler names. Now it’s time to show you 12 reasons or at least close to that many why we need new names for the months as well. Quickly, here’s a rundown of how all our months got their names. (Note: If you think they’re silly at the start, wait till you hit the last four stinkeroos. Unbelievable!)

January — named for Janus, the Roman god of beginnings. Not that bad, I guess, but no one’s believed in this guy for a couple millennia.

February — apparently, this was named for Februa, some ancient festival they had in Rome. C’mon, ask anyone in the world the last time they celebrated Februa. . . Find anyone who has? I didn’t think so.

March — named for someone at least I’ve heard of. It’s Mars, the Roman god of war. Yeah, that’s great: a month named for war. And where’s the month named for peace? Nowhere, that’s where.

April — Well, maybe this is the antidote to Mars. A couple places I looked up says this is named for Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. Kind of a stretch, but if true, very nice, I’m sure, but who in the world knows that? What good is a cool month like Love Month if  no one knows when it is? I bet if you asked people they’d say February was Love Month because of Valentine’s Day.

May — Another one nobody ever heard of, unless you’ve heard of Maia or Maiesta. For me it would be better if it was named for “May I have a big helping of pizza?”

June — for Juno, wife of Jupiter. ‘Nuff said.

July — for Julius Caesar, that guy who got himself stabbed to death in the middle of Rome back before Jesus was born. At least he got to have an affair with Cleopatra before he took that dirt nap.

August — for Augustus Caesar, another Roman leader who came in the first century. Does anyone see a certain influence a certain city has over all our American months? Why do we still let the Romans tell us how to tell time?

September — Here it gets even dumber, if that’s possible. September comes from septem, the Latin word for seven because it was the seventh month way way back. HUH? And October comes from the Latin word for 8, November comes from the word for 9, and December comes from the word that meant 10. Oh, I get it. Our name for the ninth month is THE SEVENTH MONTH, our name for the tenth month is THE EIGHTH MONTH, and so on.

People, when is the world going to wake up? This is pure silliness. Why can’t we take control of our own lives? It’s not like the Roman gods are going to come back and attack us or anything if we create some new better names. And even if they did, boy, would that ever be exciting. I’d be watching CNN 24/7. I bet those ancient washed-up dudes would  never be able to beat our smart bombs, lasers, and radioactive poop blasters. (Admission: I made that last one up, but it sounds like a good weapon to me.)

So once again, please listen to Crankenfuss and let’s get someone started on fixing our ways of measuring time. Just be sure to give me credit when the world catches up to my modern way of thinking.

from Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

The names of our days have me in a daze

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Humor Post #50 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

I’ve been watching the calendar lately. It’s almost spring break time and I keep gazing at that thing trying to make the days go faster. But it doesn’t work; it never does. Seems like there’s always going to be 24 hours in a day. (But in the future that might change, if people listen to me. More about that in a later column.) But all that staring got me to thinking. How did our days get their names?

“That’s an interesting question,” I said to myself. “Good for you, Crankenfuss!” (See, I like to give myself an occasional pat on the back. Cheers me up, you know.) So I went to my trusted friend Wikipedia and some other sources and found out something very uncool. The names of our days are stupid out of date. (I’m trying to be nice here, for a change.) Oh sure, the names were fine, like one or two thousand years ago, but isn’t it time we modernized them just a wee bit? How out of date are they? Let me show you seven reasons they should be canned, deep-sixed, whacked, you name it, whatever makes them go away.

Let’s start with Sunday, our official first day. Anyone out there know how it got its name? “Uh, from the Sun?” you answer. That’s right, it goes back to when people worshiped the Sun. And if you don’t believe me, consider where Monday got its name. It’s not from money or monarch or monsoons or mongoose or monkey or Monopoly or monster, all of which certainly have their good points. (Ooh, Monkey Day, where we all get to act like monkeys. Or Monopoly Day where we all get to stay home from school to play games.) Nope, you give up? Well, you probably already figured it out. It’s short for Moon Day, back from when people worshiped the Moon.

It gets better, people. Tuesday started out as Tiw’s Day. “Who’s Tiw?” you ask. “Some cool rapper?” No, it’s even more surprising. He was a one-handed warrior god from Norse mythology or something people believed in up in Sweden and Finland, places where they actually eat reindeer steaks. Why would we go along with people who eat poor Rudolf? And Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday come from other gods and goddesses from those way-up-north ancient religions: Woden, Thor (that thunderbolt dude), and Frige (or Frigga or something like that), the goddess of love. I guess that’s why Friday night is such a heavy date night.

And Saturday, my favorite day of the week comes from Saturn’s Day. Saturn comes from Roman mythology and he was the son of the Earth and the Sky and his wife was named Ops. I guess when he was wanting her to feel good, he’d call her Special Ops. (Okay, you can stop your moaning.) Anyway, they were the parents of Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto.

So I think you’re probably ahead of me in all this. “Why in the heck are our days still named for dudes who are, to say the least, yesterday’s news? If they were singers, they’d be doing gigs in rest homes.” You’re right and let me compliment you for that rest home joke. That was good!

Now I haven’t gotten around to thinking up better names for our days, but just let ol’ Crankenfuss put on his thinking helmet — it helps prevent concussions from thunderously awesome thoughts — and he might get back to you. But in the meantime get out the word about how dumb our days’ names are.

Unless, of course, you think we should bring back animal sacrifices and naked Olympics. (Yes, they were!! I promise you!)

From your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Your Star Elite with his Genius Complete,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

How can nursery rhymes be so famous when they’re so stupid?

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Humor Post #49 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

All right, it’s time for another in my series of “Who Made Up All Those Stupid Nursery Rhymes?” I was at the library the other day and there was a book of nursery rhymes out on a table. So curious student and historian that I am, I looked through it. Lucky I hadn’t had my lunch yet or I would have had to pay for a barfed on library book. How do these things stay famous (and popular??) for so long? Hasn’t any parent ever bothered to read these things to see if they make any sense? If this is all it takes to go down in history, my gym socks should be in all the textbooks. They definitely have the main requirement. They STINK!!

Now I’m not saying all nursery rhymes are that bad. Let’s look at Baa, Baa, Black Sheep, for example.

Baa, baa black sheep
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir. Three bags full.
One for the master
and one for the dame.
And one for the little boy
who lives down the lane.

Now this isn’t exactly The Hunger Games, but it’s not that bad (if you’re around four years old, that is). Someone asks a sheep a reasonable question and the sheep gives a reasonable answer. And yes, I know sheep don’t talk, but hey, little kids might think they do especially after seeing all those cartoons on TV. And I’ll forgive the old-fashioned language because, hey, this poem is — how shall I put this? — old. It’s got a decent beat and the rhymes are decent. All in all, I give it 2 1/2 stars out of 4.

Okay, you ready for a venture into the land of dumbicity? Better get out the diarrhea medicine. Check out the next one, Hey Diddle Diddle:

Hey diddle, diddle.
The cat and the fiddle.
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such a sport
and the dish ran away with the spoon!

Excuse me?? This thing makes absolutely no sense. Okay, it starts with a cute sound. Nothing wrong with “Hey, diddle, diddle.” But the second line is there only because it rhymes with “diddle.” It’s not like anything happens to the cat and the fiddle. Shouldn’t it say, “The cat played the fiddle”? At least that would go with the line #3. See, two impossible things happen at the same time and that makes the dog laugh. But then the dish runs away with the spoon? Not logical, people. We’re all involved with these dumb animals and then here comes a dish running away with a spoon. Huh?

The best you could say about this poem is that it was written by a poet with severe ADD. I mean, nothing connects. I give it one star out of four. And that one star is mostly out of pity.

For one more super-stupid example, let’s peruse — ooh, I just learned that one — one of the most famous rhymes out there: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

Twinkle, twinkle little star.
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high.
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle little star.
How I wonder what you are!

I got nothing against the beat or the rhymes in this magnificent masterpiece of literature. It’s just that the author is such a box of rocks! Not once, but TWICE, he — I assume it’s gotta be a guy, but who knows, I guess a lady could be this dumb — wonders what a star is. “How I wonder what you are.” It sounds like this dude (or dudette) has spent quite a bit of mental energy (like maybe 80% of their capacity) contemplating this great mystery.

Hello! Message to author: A star is a big, hot ball of flaming gas. Sort of like you, you science-challenged ignoramus. They taught me this like in the third grade. Maybe it was even the second. I know this poem wasn’t written by a kid. So where were you when your second grade teacher was teaching you this?

I can’t take this anymore. These things get world-famous and yours truly Dr. Crankenfuss can’t even get a private meeting with the President to let him know about how he could make our country better. I know cause I wrote the White House and all I got was a computerized reply with a picture of the President and the First Lady. And it must have been an old picture cause I saw him on TV the other night and his hair is a lot grayer than that now.

So that’s all for today. I gotta rest. Nursery rhymes can make a grown boy cry.

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Let’s all be like Leonardo DiCaprio

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Humor Post #31 from Middle School’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Sometimes I like to watch these old black-and-white crime movies where the bad guy points a gun at somebody and says something like, “Touch my dame, ya’ big lug, and I’ll pump you full of lead.” And most of the guys in those movies have short names like Sam or Joe or Max — you know, cool, tough, punchy names that mean business: Ed or Jim or Roy or Al or Giovanni or Federico or… HOLD IT!! Just hold it right there, bub! Giovanni? Federico? Where’d they come from?

Europe, that’s where? Actually, Italy, to be exact. Apparently in Italy they don’t have names like we do. Their names are all foreign and fancy sounding. Like here if your name is Jake and you moved to Italy and you wanted to sound normal so people wouldn’t look at you funny when you told them your name, you’d call yourself Giacomo (ja KO mo). That’s their name for Jake.

Now I admit I’m more used to the American-type short names we always use. (And no, I’m not including “Crankenfuss.” You know that’s not my real name. It’s my nom de plume. (Don’t know that one, do you? That’s pen name in French.) I also know some people who have some pretty European sounding names, like Isabella and Olivia and Christopher. So maybe we’re changing to be more like them.

Well, I can think of someone who’s already used that tactic and it sure hasn’t hurt him. That would be Leonardo DiCaprio. He could be just good old Leo, but no, he likes being Leonardo. And you can’t argue with the results. I mean, practically everyone in the world has seen Titanic and for girls, that would be about six times each!

So I got interested in this and I did some web research to show how you can make your name turn into a really fancy sounding name by translating it into Italian. I put the European names first and made it where you can hear someone say them. (That someone is Daniel, who agreed to help me, and I said okay ’cause I didn’t know anybody else who could come even close to saying those names right. So if he says them wrong, it ain’t my fault, okay?) Then I made it so you have to guess what the American translation is for each name. I think you’ll be pretty surprised at how much cooler the European name sounds than the American one. Can’t help it, but that’s the way it is. So if you have one of those names on the right, maybe you should think about changing it. Just trying to be helpful.

This is super high tech, so I’ll tell you how it works. Read the Italian name on the left to yourself. If it’s kind of hard, just click on the name to hear how to pronounce it. Then guess what that name is in English. Click on the ???? in the English column to find out if you were right. I think you’ll be very surprised. And if you happen to have the exact name that comes up on the right, you’re in luck. Your new Italian name is all ready to go.

P.S. I know #6 (Louis la Colle) is in French. That’s because I couldn’t figure out how to translate the English name into Italian and the French translation was so cool, I used that instead.
BTW, thanks to Google Translate for helping me on this. And thanks to Maureen for setting up the source code.

FANCY  ITALIAN NAME ITALIAN NAME IN ENGLISH
Giuseppe Verdi ????
Federico Letto ????
Matteo Piatto ????
Michele Bicicletta ????
Francesco Banca ????
Louis la Colle ????
Maria Pelosa ????
Téodoro Testa ????
Milles Cocodrillo ????
Speranzina Cretine ????

So all I’m saying is if you got a name like Hairy Mary, maybe it would do you some good to change it to its Italian version, Maria Pelosa. It might even help you get a date. (Probably your first one, I would guess.)

from your I’ll-do-the-cooking-and-you-just-sit-back-and-enjoy-your-fancy-meal advisor and Truth Teller,
Dr. Crankenfuss