Seen on another exmo site:

    "...she had to soil her wild roots after years of mormon up-bringing..."

    In contrast to my title, this phrase does communicate the intended meaning, and is all the more memorable because of the mixing up of words, compared to the original, "sow her wild oats".

    <clears throat for yearly lecture>

    Most people believe that communication is simple: they find a word jar in their inventory, like 'wealthy' and ASSUME that their definition of that word is shared by everyone else.

    But it isn't.  When you say 'wealthy' to someone, that person does not get to look in your word jar.  Instead, he or she pulls their 'wealthy' jar from THEIR inventory, looks in it and assumes you intend the meaning therein.  Contretemps may arise.

    Famous example: Mom is concerned her 17-year-old is getting too serious with her boyfriend (the girl's boyfriend, not the mom's) and so she says to the daughter, "You need to cool it with Ziller, okay?"  Mom means, slow things down.

    But the 'cool it' jar in the daughter's inventory contains the meaning, 'stop it'. Outraged, the daughter fire-bombs their house, forces their dog and cat into a marriage of convenience, runs off with Ziller on a sex-binge of almost-Ziller proportion, all fueled by her white, hot anger, while at the same time engaging in a mail-box smashing rampage, snorting wet coffee grounds and then becoming an interior designer of outdoor BBQs...

    And it all could have been avoided by mom making her statement, and adding, "...by which I mean, not spend all your free time with the Z-man." The daughter could also have asked, of the initial statement, "What exactly do you mean by that?"

    Basically, stop assuming that people know what it is you think you're saying to them. Learn the art of paraphrasing.

    "...and by that I mean..." is your best friend when it comes to you getting people to understand you.  Because then when people rip into you, you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that they really did 'get' what you had to say.

    Likewise, when you hear or read something "important" to you, take the time, orally or in print, to ask, "are you saying that...?"

    And just to be clear, I'm only writing this because I'm bored out of my skull by the internet today, by which I mean to say, life is variable, enjoy it all you can.

Isn't preaching here against the rules? ;)

A Lot's Wife is against the rules, for sure!

Preaching is only really an outrage when it's to the choir.

So glad to have you back, you old dog, you!

Word.

Where would we be without our (irreverent) Jesus in his (streamlined) new incarnation but still wearing his (fetching) bolo tie and (rather silly) sombrero as he listens to (Steve Martin) mariachi music.

Please forgive my parentheses. I'm just trying to abide by Jesus's linguistic advice not to leave (even the most obvious) implication implicit.

"I can't believe I got a life sentence for a little insider trading."

"The judge called it "organ harvesting", but that's just semantics."

Whoever invented/discovered language had fun up his sleevery, and installed key people to augment the malapropisms.

That's Mrs. Malaprop to us kids!

The Bible tells us God created language, which makes my suggestion that our Jesus is Charles Dickens seem inadequate.

Yes, thank you.

It's lovely to have conversations in which you simply enjoy the playfulness of it all. No taking anything seriously.

No requirement for any of that. Enjoy, and see where it takes you.

His great wish was to be a Real Stud.

So when his wish was granted he spent the winter in a snow tire in the Rocky Mountains.

I spent several years in Hong Kong. Cantonese was the spoken language but Mandarin speaking Chine would come and neither could understand each other. So the solution was to hold out your palm like it was a writing pad and write out the Chinese characters with your finger. It worked pretty well. The written language was the same.

That is very interesting, Rubicon.

Elder Dog: you are too funny !!!

Haven’t seen you for years; since that meetup in Orange County…