Off the Mark

I’m afraid that I may be diving too deeply into word issues, and with bad tools to hand. This early warning was only the tip of the iceberg of my word issues lately.

find the line, find the shape
through the grain
find the outline,
things will tell you their name

Suzanne Vega. Night Vision. solitude standing.

thank(ful) you

I’m in the process of writing an important thank you note. [Damn, I guess that's definitionally true; especially if you're getting one from me!] Anyway, I want it to be some version of “correct,” while immensely heartfelt. How do you tell someone that you hope they know that they are idolized by “generations” of students? That they are an inspirational professional role model?

I truly do have some things people to be thankful for lately. It’s been noticed that I’ve sounded “discouraged” lately in my blog posts. I think that is (was?) an accurate assessment. I have had friends making loving comments here, emailing me, IMing me, offering me gifts of music, checking in with me …. I feel cared for; I truly do. These times of year are always difficult for me. But I’m getting a plan together which may lead to inspiration (and a bit of knowledge along the way). Movement, forward movement, seems possible.

crossword puzzles

As I’ve said before, I wake up and go to bed doing crossword puzzles. I sometimes do them at other times of the day. Been doing it for years. Mostly New York Times Sunday or Saturday puzzles. I have some fairly strong “remembrance” for past puzzles. I often fairly quickly recognize one I have done before. I don’t mind so much re-doing them–there are only so many–but I do not like knowing words because I can “see them” locationally instead of (very loosely) definitionally. That. Bugs me.

Seems my newest NYT Omnibus has a massive amount of recognizable ones lately. They can only be repackaged so much without running into them again. It’s just been a bad streak.

what things “are” vs. what they are “about”

I’ve been facing word (and concept) issues in serials cataloging lately. There are a few examples that my brain, bless it’s heart, is not allowing me to think of at the moment. They are enough mental work at work. One of the bigger issues the last few days has been the distinction between what something “is” and what it is “about,” or more accurately what it “is” if it isn’t “about” anything?

I am trying to catalog a commercial catalog selling video recordings of select, small genres of movies to individuals. Trying to come from LCSH into DDC for a class number is causing me fits. I do not like the current tools. And trying to piece it out leads to a seriously deep rabbit hole of words. A deep hole with no help at the bottom.

Another issue was the One Family newsletter. UN NGO for planetary citizenship. This one took too much time. Can I please have meaningful tools? That are user-friendly?

I won’t use words again
They don’t mean what I said
They don’t say what I said
They’re just the crust of the meaning
with realms underneath
Never touched
Never stirred
Never even moved through

Suzanne Vega. Language. solitude standing.

Thesaurus visualization issues

There’s this thesaurus … and at the moment, I have almost no entry into the data or its structure (terms, relations, …). There is a nice visual output of the thesaurus for the user, but this is a very flat view and if something isn’t related already then there’s no way to “see” that. I see it as a wonderful tool at the user level, but it isn’t giving me much to work with. The other reports and views are even less useful. Overall they don’t add up to much more.

As much as I dislike MultiTes at least its reports could, in combination, give you some idea of the structure, quality, breadth, depth, etc. of your thesaurus. I feel like the little Dutch kid with his reputed finger in the dike. I believe that there are systemic and structural issues, but I can only see the word in front of me.

Word escapism

So I decided to watch other people with word issues. I returned 2 movies tonight and got (ahem) a few more, including Word Wars (Scrabble) and Spellbound (1999 National Spelling Bee).

Word Wars is a pretty good documentary, but knowing words just as objects and combinations of specific numbers of letters on lists is a seriously bad “word issue” to have. I’ve enjoyed some Scrabble in my day, but that is a wrong reason (and way) to know words. As Joel Sherman says, this should be the theme song of Scrabble:

Words are flowing out like
endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe

…

Thoughts meander like a
restless wind inside a letter box
they tumble blindly as
they make their way across the universe

Beatles. Across The Universe. Let It Be.