The plane had just landed at Boston’s Logan airport. As we pulled up to the gate, the pilot announced, “Will the flight attendant please prepare the door for arrival.”

The guy sitting next to me said, “Um, would that mean ‘open it’?” Sounded right to me.

I turned on the TV at the hotel just in time for a commercial that offered, “Buy one complete pair of glasses, and get a second pair free for another member of your family.”

How does one buy a partial pair of glasses? Wouldn’t that be called buying lenses? Or frames?

I’m always concerned about language inflation. It has been especially noticeable since that abomination proactive appeared, displacing the perfectly useful preventive. I understand that they were looking for an antonym to reactive, but, really, I think they tried a little too hard on that one.

I just saw a commercial for “micro-sculpting cream.” I’m envisioning a teensy-weensy Michelangelo carving away on my face during the night. It’s not a pretty thought.

What language inflation have you been tracking?

Did you go somewhere over the long weekend, or did you save money and stay home? A recent CNN poll suggests that gas prices affected the travel plans of as many as 44% of Americans over the Memorial Day weekend. (CNN is careful to say that the poll is not scientific.)

More people may opt for “staycations” this year, an experience the Urban Dictionary defines as a vacation “spent at one’s home enjoying all that home and one’s home environs have to offer.” This neologism already has 44,500 hits on Google (though quite a few appear to be copies of the same AP stories), with tips on how to plan a successful one and at least one blog claiming the name. One site claims the word dates back to at least 2006, but it appears to have catapulted to possible Word of the Year status with this spring’s ongoing gas price hikes and the approaching summer.

Other summer neologisms include momcation and, my favorite, voluntourist.

Have you heard any other new words that bespeak our times — other nominees for Word of the Year?

Now that baseball season has started, it seems appropriate to review that baseball classic by Abbott and Costello, “Who’s on First?” Through the years there have been many parodies, but nothing beats the original. Enjoy!

On this date in 1944 the song “Mairzy Doats” by the Merry Macs sat atop the pop music charts. The lyrics are deceptive:

Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey.
A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you?
Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey.
A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you?

Then we get a few lines that make sense:

If the words sound queer and funny to your ear, a little bit jumbled and jivey,
Sing “Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy.”

The song takes advantage of a phenomenon sometimes called “mondegreens” and sometimes “egg corns.” People mis-hear words, often song lyrics, with often hilarious results:

• “The ants are my friend, they’re blowin’ in the wind” is a mondegreen of “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind” by Bob Dylan.
• “And there’s a wino down the road/I should’ve stole his Oreos” should be “And as we wind on down the road/Our shadows taller than our souls” in Led Zeppellin’s “Stairway to Heaven”
• “There’s a bathroom on the right” is a famous mis-hearing of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “There’s a bad moon on the rise.”
• One person misheard Will Smith’s “Gettin jiggy with it” as “Kick a chicken with it.”
• And a line in Nelly Furtado’s “Turn Off the Light,” “I looked above the other day,” sounded to one listener like “I licked a bird the other day.”

I once mentioned in class that I didn’t have much time for “points grubbers,” kids who will argue at excessive length for one or two points on a quiz. I discovered later that at least one student thought I was saying “point scrubbers,” which, actually, isn’t that far off.

What words or phrases have YOUR students misheard?

The following is taken in its entirety from a recent post by Kathy to the TechRhet list. An observation in a grocery store parking lot demonstrates an important truth: we English teachers/instructors/professors just can’t help ourselves. We approach language a little differently.

So, I was out and about, convincing myself that the air on this 50 degree day smelled like spring, and I had a “cosmic insight via a sign” moment.

There’s a store called Teacher’s Toolbox near where I shop for groceries. A few of the red letters of its sign, lit up in the early evening darkness, were burnt out, so that it appeared to spell “Teach To Box.”

This struck me as meaningful on several levels.

First, it’s rather true that being burnt out can make a person just a little too likely to lean toward the “fill the box” model.

Second, perhaps pugilism-or at least self-defense-is too seldom taught.

Third, sometimes teachers who are moving online feel a little too boxed in, a little too much like they’re teaching to a box instead of teaching people, and that’s a sad thing, too. Some illumination is definitely wanted there.

Seemed like I could have pondered that sign for a long time thinking about all of the possible metaphors and messages-you could think of baseball, of ears, of tv, of those great big booming radios people used to shoulder before more private and inward music technologies took over, of cool sounding holidays that aren’t really celebrated in the U.S. much, of the fancy seats where the well-off crowd gets to sit, of black bugs with reddish orange markings that sun themselves on the sides of buildings on cool and sunny fall days, of soap and sermons, of Pandora, of flowers blooming at the window, of ballots slipped or stuffed, of compartments in cars that seem to hold everything except gloves, of assorted vulgarities, or of bread and the size of all things as relative to its container, though I haven’t seen a bread box in ages.

Eventually, I realized that the burnt out letters spelled “loser,” so I stopped. “Roles” almost made me start again, and “sorel” perked me up a good bit, but sometimes you just really can’t go on without a v.

And that is my story about the riches and dangers of literacy for today.

How many of these facts did you already know?

• The English word with the most consonants in a row is latchstring.
• Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning “containing arsenic.” The only word in English with all five vowels in reverse order is subcontinental.
• The only word that consists of two letters, each used three times, is deeded.
• Rhythm and syzygy are the longest English words without vowels.
• The longest one-syllable words in the English language are screeched and strengths.
• The longest words that can be typed using only the left hand are stewardesses and reverberated. The longest word that can be typed using only the right hand is lollipop.
• No words in the English language rhyme with orange, silver, month, or purple.
• Indivisibility is the only word in English with only one vowel which occurs six times.
• Bookkeeper and bookkeeping are the only words in English with three consecutive double letters.
• Only four English words end in -dous: tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

Special thanks to Jay Paulovicks!

Which punctuation mark best represents you?

Semicolon ( ; ) - You are pretentious and over-informed, or at least seem that way. Others view you as highly literate and thoughtful, but be careful of your mistakes. One false move could expose your charade to other semicolons if you’re just pretending.

Question Mark ( ? ) - You are cautious and always questioning. However, this means your decision-making process is much more informed, which helps keep you safe. Friends and family value your advice and your ability to find deeper meanings. You are most likely to clash with the Period, who rushes quickly to judgment, whereas you are more hesitant.

Period ( . ) - You are decisive, complete and final. You always have the last say and are often seen by your peers as grounded. This makes you a popular choice as a friend. You speak with conviction and can be blunt, but your straightforward tone makes you easy to understand, unlike the Comma, who has a difficult time knowing when enough is enough.

Quotation Marks ( ” ” ) - Do you ever have your own thoughts or opinions? You often seek advice from others and tend to be a crowd-follower; however, you give credit where credit is due, and this makes peers view you as warm and friendly. You were voted “most likely to avoid plagiarism” in high school, mainly because reciting movie quotes and revealing their origins too quickly was your forte. You have a deep appreciation and understanding for the thoughts and ideas of others.

Exclamation Point ( ! ) - You are easily excitable, loud and passionate. You are often the attention-getter as you seek to inspire enthusiasm in others. Your peers view you as motivated and vibrant; however, your good intentions are sometimes seen as pushy and brash rather than heartfelt. You tend to reason more with your heart than with your head.

Comma ( , ) - Your personality shows you are the glue that holds most relationships together, even though you feel you are often forgotten and misunderstood by your peers. Friends tend to turn to you too much (or not enough), causing you to feel used or underappreciated at times. In order to cope with this, you always seem to be adding more, more, more and more to your life.

Apostrophe ( ‘ ) - You are possessive.

Ellipsis (…) - You tend to be lazy and were voted “most likely to skip” in high school. Your conversations are never dull because of your many random thoughts, though you often trail off before finishing sentences or ideas. You may not have your life together, but you have the uncanny ability to pull the thoughts of others together, creating logical, new and often intriguing points of discussion…