Wait'll you hear this

I read in the New York Times this morning about a housing complex built with state and federal funds in Tempe, Arizona.  Intended to provide a comfortable community for the hearing impaired, it was designed by an architect who is deaf. It includes such amenities as video phones, lights that flash when the phone or doorbell rings, and a mechanism to allow loudspeaker announcements to be piped right into residents’ hearing aids. It’s called Apache ASL Trail (ASL as in American Sign Language). 

All 75 units are occupied -- there was a waiting list even before it opened last year -- 69 of them by persons who are deaf or hard of hearing.

And now the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has concluded that this first-of-its-kind innovation in housing for the deaf is in violation of federal law. The government says they are discriminating against people who have different disabilities or, I guess, none at all.

Your tax dollars at work.

Shtrange

Over a period of several centuries (roughly 1350 to 1700) in England, the English language went through what linguists call "The Great Vowel Shift."  That's basically where our long vowels came from -- A changed from ah to ay, I changed from ee to eye, etc.  Nobody knows what caused it, but these things happen.  Languages are fluid.

I think that American English is in the midst of another change.  Over the last 40 years or so, I have noticed changes in the pronunciation of the short vowel sounds for E and A, so that "better" sounds more like "butter," and "slap" sounds more like "slop." 

One consonant sound is changing too, but this one hasn't been around more than a few years.  People have started to change the S sound to SH at the beginning of words or syllables that start with STR, like "shtrong" or "inshtruct."

This is all very gradual, of course, and not all native English speakers have changed, yet.  I've done a little searching on the Internet to see what other people have to say about it, and I've found nothing about the vowels and only a few complaints about the SHTR thing, mostly from Michelle Obama's detractors.

Nobody has offered an explanation, but I think it's easy to see what's causing this.  Pay attention to what your lips and tongue do when you say "bet" and then "but."  Everything loosens right up, doesn't it?  Do the same thing with "hat" and "hot," and then with "sss" and "shhh."  It takes less energy and movement in each case.

Maybe several centuries from now this will be known as "The Great Lazy Mouth Shift."

Ekshtraordinary.

What's that you say?

My tiny dog is going deaf.  I have experimented calling her name when her back is turned or she is asleep, and only if I shout loudly does she respond, and then she thinks I'm mad at her.  The vet has examined her ears and finds no physical problem, so it seems that, like me, the dog is just getting old.  She's eleven now.

There are times when communication is essential, so I have decided to teach my tiny dog to recognize hand signals.  The one I'm working on first is the signal for "let's go outside and pee pee."  I rotate my fists around each other the same way a basketball referee indicates a traveling violation.  She seems to be getting it.

Signals used by officials in football or baseball don't work as well because those are mostly abrupt, one-motion movements, like the right-hand up for a strike, or grabbing the wrist to indicate holding.  I'll stick with basketball since there are signals that are smooth, repeated motions, like the ones for travelling, over-and-back, or a double dribble.  That one might might be appropriate for "come get your supper."

And if she gets out of hand, I can always T her up.

Today's new thing

My partner and I were watching the Cubs-Rangers game today.  In the bottom of the second inning, Luis Valbuena swung at and missed a fast ball from Alexi Ogando, which moved way inside and ended up actually hitting him in the knee.  To our astonishment, he was not awarded first base.  It was called strike two.

According to Rule 6.08b of the official MLB rules, a hit batter gets to go to first if he is "touched by a pitched ball which he is not attempting to hit."  In other words, if he does not swing at it.

I never knew that.  I knew the batter was supposed to try to get out of the way, which most players don't do very convincingly, but I never heard of that bit about not trying to hit the ball that hits you.

Neither had my partner, and we agreed that that was undoubtedly because we had never seen it happen before.  And we're talking about well over 100 years' worth of watching baseball between us.

So, we learned something today, and saw something that is obviously  quite rare.   And, Valbuena went on to hit a single into right field that scored the runner on third, who would not have come home if Valbuena had been given the free base.

Something for everyone.  That's Cubs baseball for ya.

M I C - K E Y

When "The Mickey Mouse Club" premiered on ABC television on October 3, 1955, I was glued to my television set just as I would be every weekday afternoon for the next couple years.

That year for Christmas I asked for (and got) a wristwatch, so I would be able to know the time when I was outside playing. I didn't want to be late to see my show. I also remember having to sprint all the way home on Tuesdays after my piano lesson so I wouldn't miss a moment.

My fourth-grade classmate Diane Robinson and I spent an entire Saturday afternoon writing a fan letter to Annette, our favorite Mouseketeer, and, I think, most everybody's favorite. I admit to having had a very big crush on her.

Annette Funicello died today at the age of 70. I'm not sure I thought about her more than a few times in the last several decades, but still, I feel like I've lost a friend.  It is the end of yet another era.

Well, Annette ... Now it's time to say goodbye to all our company ... C you real soon. Y? Because we like you.

No foolin'

Since it's April Fools' Day and also the first day of National Poetry Month (as declared by the Academy of American Poets), let us start out with a little Robert Frost:

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee,
And I'll forgive Thy great big joke on me.

Frost wrote a number of little poems like that of two or three lines.  Some are playful, some are deep, most are both.  Where a lesser poet, even if a similar idea had occurred to him, would have tried stretching it into at least eight lines, Frost got to the immediate point and quit.

For evidence that Frost was a master of the succinct profundity, look no further than his poem entitled "Happiness Makes Up In Height For What It Lacks In Length."  Although I like the poem very much, I've always wondered why he bothered to write it -- the title says it all.

Happy (high and long) April to all.