Don't Dangle Your Date Like a Participle

     The movie "The Best Two Years" totally ruined my understanding of dangled participles. In an exchange between an over-confident missionary (Elder Van Pelt) and a nervous new guy on his first day (Elder Calhoun), the newbie asks, "Where are you from?" Elder Van Pelt says, "Well, where I'm from, we don't dangle our participles." "What does that mean?" "It means you shouldn't end a sentence with the word 'from.'" "Oh, I'm sorry, what should I have said?" A third missionary cuts in, "You should have said, 'Where are you from, moron?'"
     And thus, I spent the next ten years of my life thinking that dangling a participle was the act of ending a sentence with a preposition. Nope.
     It wasn't until recently that I learned what "dangling a participle" actually means. I had heard the rule, but I never knew its name. It's when a sentence begins with an introductory clause called either a participial phrase or a gerund phrase (meaning that it begins with an "-ing" word), and the initial subject isn't the one performing the action in the introductory clause. For instance, "Hiking up the mountain, the birds sang joyfully." The birds are now doing the hiking, therefore the participle has been dangled. Some more examples include, "Wishing that the parade would be over, the float suddenly gave way under his feet," "Giving it every last drop of energy, the finish line could not have seemed farther," "Speaking in Latin, Jennifer's jaw dropped at the man's linguistic skill," and many more.
     All of these sentences begin by referring to one person, but then they unduly switch to another without any sort of warning. Such sentences can be confusing, making you think that the float has all of a sudden come to life and is experiencing fatigue, that the finish line understands the importance of perseverance, and that Jennifer has miraculously learned a language she has never studied.
     Beyond confusing, these sentences are just dishonest. They seem to take you in one direction, but then they go in another one altogether. This behavior is called misleading, misguiding, and miswalkingbesiding (#mormonjokes). I fully realize that most people don't mislead through dangled participles intentionally, but there is another kind of deception with which I'm all too familiar.
     Having been engaged for the past fifty-two days, I am now off the dating market (notice the properly modified participial phrase). So I now speak for all of my friends, male and female, who still find themselves afloat in the dreaded tempests of the dating pool.

     Guys and gals, dating is the worst. It's the best of times and the worst of times, but mostly the latter until it works. I should probably clarify, when I say "dating," I'm talking about the trenches—the first dates, the awkwardity, the hesitation, the uncertainty, and all that absolute garbage. For those in committed relationships of any level, yes, you are technically still dating, but I will be pointing my comments to those still trying to find that spark.
     I have too many overused dating rants to include here, and I'm afraid that one will lead to another, so I'll try to be direct, concise, and clear. Also, I want to clarify that I have only ever dated women, so I don't know how guys treat girls other than what I've heard, and I know quite a bit about how girls treat guys from what I've lived. I'll try to be bipartisan, but I have an obvious bias. Please apply comments as relevant to your life, gender, and circumstances.
     Above almost anything else, I detest dishonesty in dating. People should be truthful no matter what, but especially when communicating with someone they care about or who cares about them. Many times in dating, I went out with girls who had little to no interest in me, but they either were afraid to hurt my feelings or they liked all the free food too much to tell me that they didn't care. Yes, it obviously hurts when someone you like doesn't like you back, but it's going to hurt no matter when that information comes. To tell a guy (genders interchangeable throughout) that you don't like him is like pushing him in the mud, but to drag it out as long as possible is to tie him behind your horse and run through muddy fields. Or, as my brother once put it, a direct letdown is like getting shot in the throat, but the prolonged agony of uncertainty is like cutting through the jugular with a plastic spoon. Both hurt, but one is torture. The kindest thing to do is to be honest.
     "The Best Two Years" features an example of such dangling in dating. One missionary, Elder Johnson, is practically engaged to his girl back home. To make a long story short, he finally receives a letter from her and an audio cassette tape (this movie takes place a while back). He listens to the recordings for several minutes, hearing all about her college life, her friends, their hometown, and her love for him. He continues listening to these daily recordings, and it's all gushy and adorable, as it should be. But suddenly she arrives at a day where she admits that she hasn't recorded in weeks and that she's met someone—a really nice guy ('cause that totally changes things. "Oh, he's nice? Well then, hope you kids have fun!") that she really likes, and now they're getting married. The missionary spends the rest of the movie trying to recover from this blow.
     Now, it's every guy and girl's right to break up with someone when they want. You don't need to justify your reason for doing so to anyone, but look at what this girl just did: instead of just making a new tape or starting over from the beginning, she keeps the tape rolling before delivering the blow. Those first sections of the tape were filled with love, excitement, and all the signs that she was patiently waiting for him to come home. He must have listened with relief, sure that everything was exactly the same. But it wasn't, and even if she didn't know that when she first recorded, she knew it when she sent the tape. That, my friends, is a major league dangle.

     You're not obligated to like someone who likes you. You don't have to give an explanation for why you're not attracted to someone. There may be many people on your list who fulfill every requirement you have for a significant other, but you simply just don't feel it. That's okay. It doesn't make you a bad person. You don't owe them affection. That said, I won't say you owe them nothing. Everyone should behave courteously. People deserve to be treated like they are valuable and worthwhile. If you have been the victim of abuse by that person, you don't owe them a thing, not even kindness. Get away from abuse. But if you like someone, and they like you, and they're good for you or even might be, don't run away just so you won't get burned. Hearts aren't only broken when they're taken and smashed; some of the worst pain comes from the heart never being received, never being understood, never being trusted.
     TL;DR: Be honest about your feelings, even if they're not what the person wants to hear. When the dust has settled, sincerity and communication will be far more appreciated than lies. You shouldn't have to lie to get what you want. If you're interested, say it. If you're not interested, be kind, but tell me. If you're still conflicted, I want to hear that, too, and then just keep me updated; I'll try not to pressure you.
     I want to give a shout-out to all of my many wonderful friends who play the dating game honestly, who do everything the right way and still can't find their one and only. I don't know what it's like to date for years with no results, but I can testify of God's love and power. If you're living the way you're supposed to, He will take care of you, no matter what that means specifically. There is always hope. Things will turn out.
     To everyone who's ever misled someone (so probably all of us), don't make the same mistake again, and please change if you haven't already. People deserve better than to be forced into a game of "Read My Mind" in dating. People deserve better than to be dangled like a participle.

From a beloved prophet, listen to President Gordon B. Hinckley talk about his decision

not to play a trick on a hard-working man, but instead to experiment with kindness.

And can anyone catch the dangled participle?

Less and Fewer

     There are few things I would like better than to have less homework and fewer assignments due. While certainly not above the priority of lightening my work load, hearing people properly identify the difference between "less" and "fewer" would also be pretty awesome.
     For a simple overview, "fewer" refers to a lower quantity of something you can count, e.g., "I ate six cookies. I should have eaten fewer." Meanwhile, "less" indicates a lower quantity of something you cannot count, a hypothetical amount, such as, "I ate so much junk food today. I should have eaten less." You wouldn't (or at least shouldn't) say, "I ate three junk foods today," nor would you say, "I had so much cookies." Cookies are counted, so there can either be more or fewer; junk food can be any amount, so it is either more or less. Another useful way to identify which is which is by seeing which word works best: "many" or "much." "Many" also refers to a specific quantity, a "fewer" category, as in, "There are so many lions in Detroit." Parenthetically, I have no idea why that was the first sentence that came to mind. Weird. Anyway, "much refers to a "less"-type word, something you can't count, such as, "There is so much ice in Antarctica." Thus, if there are many lions, there could be fewer, and if there is too much ice in the Arctic, there could be less (as inconvenient as that would be).
     Now, this isn't a huge issue, nor do I think that there is an inordinate amount of people who commit this mistake in most cases, but I overheard a conversation in the library recently that made me realize that every professor I've ever had has fallen prey to one of the classic blunders (following "Never get involved in a land war in Asia" and "Never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line): whenever they assign a paper, the requirements say, for example, "500 words or less." For some reason, this had never triggered any alarm bells in my mind, but when this girl in the library pointed it out, I felt like such a fool. Words are counted; therefore, there should be fewer rather than less.
     I don't think I've ever heard a professor say "500 words or fewer." It actually even sounds weird, which tells me that even though I know it's correct, my brain still isn't accustomed to hearing it that way. Everyone, even at the highest levels, has been saying it wrong all this time.
     Two works I've read recently have reminded me of the importance of doing with less: Robert Burns's song "For a' That and a' That," discussing society's frivolity and the true merit of a man's soul, and Henry David Thoreau's "Walden," featuring his motto, "Simplify, simplify, simplify." Prophets and expert economists alike frequently advise us to stay out of debt, to live within our means, and to be more grateful for what we have. Honestly, we shouldn't need either to tell us these things; they should be perfectly logical.
     Here's a great video that won't embed because it's not on YouTube, but it makes staying out of debt kind of obvious: http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/dont-buy-stuff/n12020

     But I think most of us understand this. Unfortunately, something far less easily managed and something with which I certainly struggle is how to stop spending time on things I can't afford. I'm a full-time student and part-time employee, I serve in my church, and I'm engaged. Each of these things is wonderful (especially the last one), but finding the proper balance of time can be frustrating and practically impossible. One of my favorite scriptures reads in part, "It is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength" (Mosiah 4:27). In a blessing given to me almost eight years ago, an inspired man quoted this scripture and counseled me to "accomplish a few good things each day, to be satisfied with these things, for they will all accrue to [my] good and be laid up as treasures in Heaven for [my] abundant reward at the last day." Rarely have I received counsel so applicable to my life and so transcendent of time--I was thirteen when this happened, and it's still true. So why is it so hard?
     This is one topic in which I don't know if I can come to a solid conclusion right now. I have no authority to tell anyone else what to do since I can't figure it out for myself, so the only thing I can really do in this post is brainstorm, hoping to discover the secret so I can fix my own life and then pass it one to others. I think one of the biggest reasons I overwhelm myself is because I see all of the things I'm doing as the bare necessities--they're just really time consuming. I have to study so I can graduate and get a good full-time job. I have to work for now so I can have money to support a family and (if I don't get scholarships) pay my way through college. I believe that above all these is serving God, so fulfilling a church assignment is extremely important to me. And don't you dare tell me not to be engaged! (unless you tell me to be married)
     So if I can't get rid of any of these things, do I just need to be quicker at homework? Better at multitasking? It wouldn't hurt. I also need to be honest with myself about my use of time. I often hear people say that they've bitten off more than they can chew, but I can easily identify several hours of their day that could have been put to more productive use. Isn't it so easy to recognize these things in other people? I need to be more vigilant in seeing those things in myself. Another possibility is to be realistic. A day will soon come when I don't have school, but I will be working full-time, and I will likely be a father by then or shortly after. Time will always be short, and sacrifice brings forth the blessings of Heaven. I need to remember that the purpose of this life is to be stretched and purified, and that will take pressure, stress, and discomfort. The only thing I can do is endure it well, with a smile.
     But I think the best thing to do is to stop focusing on the negative: "if I had fewer things to do, I would have less stress." Instead, let's accentuate the positive. In these trials, I can learn to have more faith, more patience, and more gratitude. I can develop more love for my fiancée, for my Savior, and for my fellowman. I can be more like Christ. I can learn to be more productive in my limited time. I can be more focused on the tasks before me until I complete them. I can be so much more than I am now.
     A friend told me yesterday that a gift isn't an object; it's the act of giving. So whether we receive blessings or trials, anything God gives us is a gift. What a beautiful lesson. I'm determined to spend less time and energy to complaining, to devote fewer moments to dwelling on the negative, and instead, as I still struggle to find the balance, to actively ponder, "How can I get more out of this?"

I love this song. The title says it all.

Pedestool

     You know it's bad when your college English professor butchers a word. This one in particular actually does this quite a bit, so it wasn't too surprising when he said "pedestool" instead of "pedestal." But it still drew my attention enough to write it down on my list of future blog posts, and it even beat out my many other, much older ideas, so this slip of the tongue must have really struck me.
     A pedestal is an elevated base on which something is mounted, like a statue, monument, or column. My favorite synonym of "pedestal" is "plinth," just so you know. And the phrase, "To put someone on a pedestal" means to hold them up, think highly of, respect, reverence, or even worship them. Obviously, we shouldn't worship anyone other than God the Father in the name of Christ, but we can certainly admire and emulate. We have been commanded to be examples of the believers and to let our light shine (1 Timothy 4:12, Matthew 5:16), and as part of that, we would do well to follow the examples of believers and find strength in the light of others. But sometimes we forget that we're all mortals, and none of us is perfect. So while God and Christ are perfect on their pedestals, us men and women often fall short. We try to be on pedestals in order to help those around us, but it becomes very easy to be scrutinized, criticized, and demonized for our human imperfections.
     When I hear "pedestool," it gives me the connotation of something not so elevated (like a stool). It feels low and demeaning. It feels cheap. It's where we put people when we think less of them because they failed us, or maybe simply because they're not perfect.
     I'm tempted to do this with an English teacher who messes up with English. I do, too, but they're professors. They went to college and got Ph.Ds. I would have thought I could expect more from them.
     But is it really fair to hold such high expectations over their heads? Can we demand perfection from anyone in this world, especially when we're so imperfect ourselves? Just because somebody lives in the spotlight doesn't mean we have the right to criticize every move they make. They will still always be imperfect humans. We don't have the right to people up to such imperfect standards of perfection.
     I've thought about this concept today in context of what we learned in the third and final hour of our church meetings: Joseph Smith. For those who think we worship Joseph Smith, we do not. I understand that it may be confusing, but we worship only God in the name of Christ. We don't devote much of our time talking about Joseph Smith, but when we do, we remember how instrumental he was in restoring Christ's Church to the earth in these latter days. Many people attack the prophet Joseph because of his imperfections, but to me, those very things endear me to him as the mouthpiece of the Lord. In a way, revering him as a prophet, we are placing him on a pedestal. And those who recognize (correctly) that Joseph was mortal and imperfect take those imperfections and demand that he be lowered onto a pedestool--a place where he can be reviled and shamed.

     We make no effort to hide Joseph Smith's flaws, and he is not the subject of our worship. He was no more than a man, but he was no less than the prophet of God. But we don't think that men have to be perfect to be prophets. Even anciently, prophets were just men trying to figure out how to lead God's people. They were incredibly spiritual and righteous, but they were imperfect and relied heavily on the Lord's grace. Moses killed a man; Paul (as Saul) ordered the executions of all Christians; and Peter cut off a guy's ear and was earned the rebuke, "Get thee behind me, Satan," from Christ Himself. Yet somehow, we expect Joseph Smith to uphold a level of perfection unprecedented by any other prophet in history.
     To that, I echo the words of an Apostle, Elder Neil L. Anderson: "For now, give Brother Joseph a break! In a future day, you will have 100 times more information than from all of today’s search engines combined, and it will come from our all-knowing Father in Heaven (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/10/faith-is-not-by-chance-but-by-choice?lang=eng).
     Thanks to the work restored by the prophet Joseph Smith, we have the promise that families can be together forever, we know about the doctrines of resurrection and our pre-mortal existence, and we know the steps God would have us take in order to reach His kingdom. Joseph was not perfect, but he was called of God to bring forth a mighty work, and that's exactly what he did. Thanks be to God for the prophet Joseph.
     Christ taught that we will know men by their fruits. One of the main fruits of Joseph Smith in The Book of Mormon, available for free from any missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and you can ask for one on mormon.org. Joseph Smith was no more than a man, but he was no less than a prophet of God. His teachings bring me closer to Christ, and for that, despite his imperfections, I will never disregard him by putting him on a pedestool.

The testimony of another Apostle, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, regarding The Book of Mormon:

The

     Nobody likes the word "the." You may read that statement and disagree, but it's true. Nobody appreciates it for what it is. Nobody treats it the way it deserves to be treated. Here are some examples:
     Some see it as expendable: I have often heard students say that if the word count on your paper is too high, just cut the "the"s. "Almost all of them," they say, "add nothing to your paper."
     Some take advantage of "the:"

                                                                                                                                                          as a means of beefing up their word count. That's like inviting someone to third wheel just because you're not allowed to be alone with the girl you like, then ditching them once you get to the party. Shame on you.

     Some belittle "the:" think about it. Who here like the Lord of the Rings? How about the Chronicles of Narnia? Does anybody think Leo will finally win for his role in the Revenant? Does anybody notice the problem? The word "the" is part of the titles of each of these movies (and waaayy more), but it doesn't get capitalized with "Lord" and "Rings," for instance. If it were in the middle, like Percy Jackson and the Olympians, that would be different; articles like "the" and "a" don't get capitalized in the middle of a title, but the should be when they're the first word--that's how we know where the title begins. Otherwise, "the" just gets forgotten as it were never there, which leads me to my next point.

     Some forget "the" altogether: I wrote a paper last semester about Avengers 2. Later that month, I went to the midnight premiere of Force Awakens. Then I went to California, where I relived the good ol' days by watching Sandlot. "The" is also part of these titles, but we forget to say it at all. Or worse, we choose not to! How would you feel if you worked on a movie but then didn't get your name in the credits? I actually know some successful actors who got slighted in one of their films by a director who didn't want to share the glory, and they were ticked. It wasn't pretty.

     Let me tell you something about "the." There are over one million words in the English language. To categorize, there are nine parts of speech: noun, adjective, verb, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, interjection, and article. If English were a Socialist language, each part of speech would contain roughly 113,901 words. Articles, however, have 3: a, an, and, obviously, the. That, to me, tells me both how special "the" is and how much we need it in order to communicate. We couldn't speak without "the." Try writing an essay without it. You can't do it while being grammatically correct. We need "the." Depending on the source, you'll find that the word "run" has 645 meanings, making it the word with most definitions in the English language. The word "drunk" has the most synonyms, with 2985 (Benjamin Franklin wrote a book about it. Also, all 2985 synonyms technically tie with "drunk" for having the most synonyms). But "the" means one thing and is the only thing that can mean it. There is no synonym of "the," and there is no alternate definition. It has one job, and no word even comes close to replacing it. Now that's a monopoly!

     The value of "the" cannot be overstated. I dare say no language could exist without some form of "the" (many languages have two, signifying either male or female objects, e.g., "el" and "la" in Spanish). So let's not neglect it.

     Sadly, I can think of several people in my life whom I have under-appreciated. I had no idea that they would be so influential to me, that something they said would stick in my mind for years to come. I'm so sorry that I didn't treat them the way I ought to have treated them. Many of them are gone. They have probably forgotten me. I hope they don't resent me.

     Everybody deserves to be treated as a valuable piece of life's puzzle. As C.S. Lewis reminds us, "It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship...There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal." Words have meaning, and words have purpose. So do people. Everybody. There is something to learn from everyone around you, even if it's learning from what they do wrong what you should do right. Don't take for granted the potential gods and goddesses at your side.

     In summary, all of the above-mentioned offenses against "the" can (and should) also be applied to people. People are not expendable. Everyone has unique value. Don't take advantage of people, don't belittle them, and don't forget about them. People matter. So does "the."

Here's the first video in a series about two brothers who learn to appreciate 

each other over the years. Get your tissues handy!

I Luv U

     Happy Valentine's Day! Even if you're not in a committed relationship, this is a day of love. Everyone needs love, and everyone can give it. So I hope you can celebrate regardless of your Facebook status!

     Shortly after I got home from Chile nine months ago, some friends introduced me to the concept of the five love languages: physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, service, and gift-giving (those are mine in order, by the way). Now, I don't know if it was a new concept, by which I mean that it had come out in the two years I was gone, or if I had simply never heard of it before, but it revolutionized the way I looked at relationships. It completely changed the way I treated people. I knew easily enough how I wanted to be treated, but, like I say in my post about the Golden Rule (http://the-angel-in-the-marble.blogspot.com/2015/11/love-greater-than-diamonds_15.html), one step higher is to treat them the way they want to be treated. And now I had an easy measuring system.

     That's not to say that I immediately had stellar success with the lady folk, but my patience and understanding increased manifold. I suddenly recognized that when a girl didn't want to hold hands as often as I did, it didn't necessarily mean she didn't like me, and the phrase "I don't care what we do as long as we do it together" took on an entirely new significance. Learning about love languages was the best thing that happened to my love life.

     Luckily for me, I'm engaged to the most amazing human being on earth, Konrie. I won't bore you a cheesy declaration of love—I can do that to her face. But even luckilier (not a word) for me, we speak the same love languages in the same order, so we're always on the same page in giving and receiving affection. It's great. I know that that's not the case for everyone, nor does it need to be, nor should it be all the time. Differences serve to help people recognize their need for one another, not tear them apart. Differences keep us humble and remind us that our way and the highway are not the only ways. And despite having identical love languages, and despite our bilinguility (not a word) of English and Spanish, my fiancée and I still speak another language completely differently: texting.

     As you can imagine, my texting language is pretty much the same as the way I write on here. Okay, so it's identical. I don't compartmentalize my writing. I just speak through my fingers. Konrie, however, goes for the classic, faster option. She abbreviates. She says, "U" instead of "You," "Ur" instead of both "You're" and "Your," and sometimes she types words without vowels so the message is more concise. Mind you, there's nothing wrong with this. It works perfectly. But it's not the way I speak, and it has taken some getting used to. Knowing this, Konrie even added shortcuts to her keyboard so that "U" turns into "You," etc. I'm not sure now if she's just typing the condensed, automatically expanding versions or if I've corrupted her. Probably the former.

     I know that she loves me. I know that her time-saving techniques reflect no ill-will or desire to be done with me as quickly as possible. It doesn't mean that she doesn't care to invest enough time in me to type the message out "properly," as I see it. I mean, really, the fact that she would create the shortcuts at all should tell me how much she values my happiness. I'm very grateful to her.

     But to be completely honest, it was tough in the beginning. I used to say that one of the requirements for my future wife was that she know the difference between "your" and "you're." That requirement lasted even after I got rid of the demand that she be able to sing well (Konrie does, by the way). Poor text speech has been a turnoff for me for years, as shallow as that may seem. But it was a big deal to me, and I had to work hard to overcome that mental block. But I did, and now I understand that I've been overthinking the whole thing.

     I think all of us have things like that—either discrepancies in love languages or unrealistic expectations for our loved ones. It's an inescapable element of human nature to idealize the world in your own favor, but (maybe unfortunately) we're not the only people on this planet, me, myself, and I. We all have to learn to live with each other and communicate. I would say that we have to learn to make do with what we have, but it's not quite like that, either. We're supposed to prosper, to develop, to progress. We won't succeed in life without relationships (romantic or otherwise), and we'll never have relationships unless we learn about, with, and from one another.

     So whatever language you speak, however you say it, "Yo te amo," "Eu te amo," "Je t'aime," "Ich liebe dich," a hug, a plate of cookies, or an evening out, let's all learn to understand that we're all saying the same thing: "I luv u."

I've posted this video before, but I still love it. It's so cute!!!

Tomato, Tomato, Potato, Potato

     English is not a passive language.
     Take one look at the image above and tell me that English is easy. I used to hear as a child and teenager that English ranked as one of the most difficult (if not the most difficult) languages in the world, and I didn't really believe it. English just came too naturally to me, and I could never understand why nobody wrote "your" when they meant "you're" and things like that. But then I learned Spanish. Oh my gosh, Spanish is so easy. At least, it's far easier than English by a long shot. First of all, there are rules. Second, the rules make sense. Third, the rules are consistent. But not in English. English takes rules, chews them up, and spits them out. And then your teachers just don't acknowledge the problem. "Smile and wave, boys."
     Hear our sum examples: (sea watt eye did their?) "Are, Our, Hour." Now, one of these things is not like the others, but which is it? Some of you will pronounce "are" and "our" the same, while others will say "our" the same as "hour." This has no respect to accent, region, or even upbringing. Everybody just says these things differently.
     Next up, "neither" and "either." For one thing, people change them up, like "Me either" when it should be "Me neither," but that's not what I'm after. These two words can be also be pronounced two different ways: "NEE-ther" and "EE-ther," or "NIGH-ther" and "EYE-ther" by the end of it. And, crazily enough, I have often heard people mix the two, saying "NEE-ther" at the beginning of the sentence and "EYE-ther." And it doesn't make the slightest difference to Americans, except a few people who get crazy about non-issues, which is most of America, so never mind. Some people care.
     The list is endless: Caribbean (I say cari-BE-an in the context of the movie or Disneyland attraction, and car-I-be-an when talking about the sea), New Orleans (or-LEANS for the Saints and the song from "The Princess and the Frog," OR-lee-ans for almost everything else), and a whole bunch of other tomato, tomato, potato, potato debates. I hope you realize how silly all of this looks in writing, but in spoken word, supposed mispronunciations can cause quite a stir at the snack table. Trust me.
     Beyond pronunciation, we English-speakers have another shameful secret which we prefer to brush under the rug: I before E.

     Couldn't've said it better myself. That last sentence makes me want to discuss double and triple contractions, but I have whole other post set aside for that, and I think you get the point. I hope so. If you have learned anything thus far, it's that English is stupid.
     Okay, so maybe it's not stupid, but I think we can all agree that it's complicated. But for those of us who were born in the United States and/or raised in America, it comes second-nature to us. It should, after all. We've been doing it and exposed to it for so long. But there are two things that I want to glean from the above principles:
     First, as I think I've said before (it's hard to keep track of my ramblings), when something doesn't matter, don't freak out about it. Just because you do something some way, that doesn't mean that everybody else has to do it that way, especially when the way you pronounce "our" makes absolutely no difference. Let it go. Let it go. You know the rest.
     The second and main point is this: be patient and considerate with other people. The direct relationship with this post suggests understanding with those who are learning English and have to suffer through all of these horribly inconvenient and untrue rules (guidelines), but a broader application implies consideration for anyone learning something new. Just because you've known how to do something for your entire life, that doesn't mean that anyone who fails in their first attempts is a failure. Struggle, failing, falling, getting up, dusting off, and trying again are all part of the American Dream. Failure is meant to guide us. And if people laugh at us for what we're bad at, we're going to stop trying to improve, and we'll never dare show what we think we're good at. Such shame in learning breeds only insecurity and pessimism.
     To those on the flip side, don't compare your weaknesses with their strengths. You will simply never match up that way. Instead, look for ways to improve, and maintain a true vision of who you are and where your value comes from. Some may think that looking up is the only way to climb, but you'll never be able to find your own footholds if you don't focus on the step you have just in front of you. So be patient with yourself, and be patient with others. We're all just trying to learn, one tomato and potato at a time.

If you feel like you're struggling, especially if you feel alone in doing so, please watch this video. God will not leave you comfortless, and there are always good things to come. Please don't give up.

Supposably

     I keep trying to come up with a hook, but then I realized that I probably sound really condescending in these posts. Am I condescending. I'm sorry. I really don't mean to be. All I seek to accomplish in blogging about language and life is to teach—to teach about communication, which I think is one of the keys to a functional society. I apologize if you take any of these posts to be offensive. Please let me know what I can do to make them better, whether it be a change in tone or content or whatever. Thanks.
     Anyway, I think it's great when people say the word "supposedly," because I only know a handful of people who say it properly. The "ed" seems to be the root of the problem, often taking the form of "ab" instead. I don't have a clue where that comes from, but it's there. Oh well. Nothing to do about it. In my desire to be unoffensive, I want to clarify that it's not a big deal, nor does it change the conversation at all, but I heard my fiancée say it this way last night, and I had a thought. So will you indulge me for a bit? I think there's just enough difference to teach us something.
     To say that something is "supposed" means that you are in fact supposing it. To say that something is "supposable" (which is actually a word, just not the word you're looking for), means that it has the potential—is able—to be supposed. It's the same loophole in the Scout Law of the Boy Scouts of America, where is says, "A scout is trustworthy." Sometimes people say, "A scout is honest." Trustworthy and honest are similar, but they're not the same. You can be worthy of trust without being trusted, you can be trusted without being worthy of it, and you can speak the truth without anyone finding you worthy of their trust, whether or not you deserve it. In short, there is a difference between being able and actually being.
     In my major, I can't tell you how many times teachers have told me that yes, I can have great ideas and great writing skill, but I'm not a writer unless I actually write. Just because you register to vote doesn't make you a voter; going to the polls and casting a ballot does that. I could go on, but I think you understand. Being qualified is not the same as taking action.

     As a child, I was always puzzled by Christ's Parable of the Talents, found in Matthew 25:14-30. If you're not familiar with it and you don't want to read it, a man about to embark on a journey gives three servants each a different amount a money with absolutely no instruction, based on their ability. Ability in what, we don't know. Nor do they know why they have the money. He just gives it to them. One gets five coins, and he goes and trades, eventually ending up with ten total. Another receives two coins and trades them for two more, making four. The last servant receives one coin, and he buries it out of fear that he will lose it before his master returns. Upon the arrival of their lord, the three men give account of their dealings. The men with ten is blessed for his faithfulness, as is the man with four. But the man who hid his talent was rebuked for his wickedness and slothfulness.
     It took me a long time before I could make any sense of this punishment. It always seemed so harsh to me! The servant didn't break any commandment that we know of; his master never told him what to do with the coin—he just gave it to him, left, and asked for it again when he returned. The servant protected the coin and returned it to his master. That's everything that was asked of him, right? It seems that way.
     But God sees more in us than we see in ourselves. Just as Christ taught not to hide our light under a bushel (Matthew 5:15), He doesn't give us things with the expectation that we won't use them. He doesn't give us gifts for no purpose other than for us to put them on a shelf and say, "God gave me that." God didn't put us on earth so that we could come back into His presence unchanged. Inherent in His giving of a gift is the instruction to be fruitful and multiply. This ancient commandment doesn't just refer to married couple having children; it's applicable (and essential) to everything that we do. God gave all of us gifts, and we are to develop them. And even in areas where we are not gifted, He still expects us to work on what we can.
     For instance, faith is listed in the scriptures as a gift of the Spirit to some, but to all, God commands us to have faith. This may seem unfair, but all of us have our individual struggles. We're all fighting against a different head of the hydra, and we shouldn't feel down on ourselves when we see other people as having what we want, when the opposite is almost always true. One of the great lessons I learned from Joe Pesci while watching Lethal Weapon 4 on T.V. one time (I specify that it was on T.V. because I don't watch R-rated movies) is that people aren't necessarily better than one another; they're just different.

(Yes, this is the guy from Home Alone)

     So with those differences, God wants us to work together, and He wants us to be open about both our strengths and our weaknesses. If nobody ever admitted that they were sick, how many more people would die of disease? Contrariwise, if no doctors ever admitted that they could practice medicine, then how many of those desperately seeking treatment would go unhealed? We need to help each other, but first we need to know what we're working with.
     We were put on this earth to be better. We can help each other in some ways, and in other things, we need to do it ourselves. Either way, growth come only after seeds have been richly nourished. Progress stems from sincere and earnest effort.
     On the subject of divine grace, Brad Wilcox says, "No unclean thing can dwell in the presence of God, but no unchanged thing would even want to." We would be ashamed before our Maker if we had done little to nothing in our lives to expand upon the ground He had already allotted us. He wants to see us succeed, and He wants to help us return to His presence and see Him as He is, and in that moment, He wants us to be like Him. That's why burying a coin is such a great offense. We might think it's just a coin, but our act is a symbol of how we treasure (or not) the gifts that God has given us.
     I'm not good at everything I try. I'm not even passable at some things. But the key is that I try. Giving up is the leading cause of failure. Any additional excuse is just noise. God made us mortals and put us in a mortal world to do mortal things, but He wants to see us put on immortality, and that won't happen because of our potential. It will happen because we've put that potential into action. We can't get to Heaven without Christ's help, but, in matters of this seriousness, He only helps those who help themselves. He can save us, so supposably, He will. But we have to follow Him first and match His terms. Only then will our salvation be supposed.

Here's a video about Tyler Haws, an LDS basketball player who shows the importance of 

actively developing his gifts in an effort to better himself. Super inspirational:

For a full dramatized version of Christ's telling of the Parable of the Talents, watch the clip below:

Bad Lip Reading

     This post is less about when we mess up in communicating and more about when other people mess up in communicating with us. Actually, it's probably more so that we mess up in listening. For the sake of full disclosure, the only reason I'm writing about this topic today is just so I can embed my new favorite video.

     What do you do when you don't understand? In a classroom setting, it can be embarrassing to ask a teacher to repeat something you fear everybody understood besides you. But let's say you ask and they repeat. What do you do if you still don't understand the second time? And the third?

     For the sake of social normalcy, I hope that all of you have had the experience of Socially Awkward Penguin. If you're at all like me, this is actually just about as common as understanding something on the first try. So what do you do?

     Our brains are trained to pick up clues in what people say (or don't say) that hint at meaning. To one level or another, we're all psychologists and linguists. We naturally interpret speech patterns and writing patterns. For many of us, we don't even really notice when anything is off at first. Our brains just fix the problem. I get kind of tired of these posts popping up on Facebook every day, but this is what I'm talking about:

     As it says in the message, we don't actually read every letter anyway, and I'm sure we don't even listen to every word either, especially not prepositions (in, on, of, etc.) and conjunctions (and, but, so). Brains have to process a lot of information, and I'm sure that our brains could read every letter and listen to every word, but it has learned that there are far more efficient ways to operate. So it seems that our brains' communicative functions run mostly on context. SO when we haven't paid attention to what is actually being said or the context in which it's presented, that's when we get into trouble. In my case, there are many times when I forget what I said or what the topic at hand is at all, so when I hear somebody's response, it's just noise. But after I process and remember what I last heard, I rework the response in my mind and figure out what the noises meant to communicate. It might just be that my brain is wacky, but I've seen other people with the same look I think I have when I have to go back and contextualize a comment.

     Hopefully after contextualizing a statement, we can figure out what's going on. But if even then we don't get it, we still have to contextualize the situation as a whole to know how to respond. I mean, we could just say that we still don't understand, but that's awkward, can be interpreted as rude (or racist in some cases), and takes more effort than we really want to give. So we gauge everything—mannerisms, posture, gestures, mood, etc.—before we select a safe, non-specific answer like, "Uh huh."

     Alright, so this is the way we are (at least the way I see us), but we also know that humans are fragile. We have issues. We're a confusing, flawed people. So what happens when we use those amazing brains of ours and come to the wrong conclusion? Misunderstandings can be hilarious, especially in the above-mentioned new favorite video:

     Bad Lip Reading and the people behind it are geniuses. But like all comedy, there is an element of truth to it: we so often form our own interpretations of something, and we can be drastically incorrect. Just a minor alteration of sound, word, spelling, or movement can transform our good intentions into insults, incoherent comments, or empty insights.

     So I guess the moral is this: be careful with what you say and what you choose to hear. Don't jump to hasty contextual conclusions, and be patient with people as they try to understand or re-explain. When people speak, give them the gift of your attention. Try to understand what people really mean. And above all, watch out for the chicken-duck-woman thing in the bushes! (If you don't understand that, you haven't watched the video yet. What's wrong with you?)

Here's a great talk about how just a slight alteration can lead to drastic changes:

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/04/a-matter-of-a-few-degrees?lang=eng#watch=video