Day: December 25, 2019

The Elephant and the Cat

Fandango34 Comments

0053C41E-A8B1-4A17-AA8D-5227E759347D.jpeg“Do you mind?” the elephant said to the cat when he saw him sitting on a rock in the stream. “I’m taking a shower here and I don’t need or want an audience.”

The cat looked up at the elephant and said, “I’m curious. Why don’t you just lick your fur with your tongue. That works for me. I hate getting wet.”

“First of all, I don’t have fur,” the elephant, who was getting quite irritated, said. “Second of all, I enjoy spraying myself with the water I gather up in my trunk. Third of all, you should just mind your own business. Now go away so I can finish my shower, dammit.”

“Aren’t you curious about what I’m doing here?” the cat asked the elephant.

“I couldn’t care less why you’re here,” the elephant responded. “I just want you to go away and leave me alone!”

“Fine,” said the cat, “because I’m not really here anyway.”

Now it was the elephant’s turn to be curious. “What do you mean you’re not here?” he asked. “I see you right there, sitting on that rock and looking up at me. Of course you’re here.”

“It may appear that way,” the cat said, but that’s not actually true.”

The elephant was getting very angry at the cat. He leaned down to the water, filled his trunk with water, lifted up his head, aimed his trunk at the cat, and blew a torrent of water directly at the cat. But the cat didn’t move at all.

The perplexed elephant said to the cat, “I don’t understand what just happened. Why are you still here?”

“That’s the thing,” the cat said. “I’m not here. I’ve been photoshopped onto this image, so I’m not really anywhere near you, elephant. And I never have been.”

Written for Sadje’s What Do You See? prompt. Photo credit: yo.

One-Liner Wednesday — Happy Generic Winter Holiday

Fandango12 Comments

461658BE-B138-48FD-B467-036C3D796A33Merry Christmas to all of my Christian friends. Happy Chanukah (or is it Hanukkah?) to all of my Jewish friends. Happy New Year everyone.

And to one and all, no matter what holiday you do or do not celebrate at this time of year, Happy Holidays.

Written for Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday prompt.

Fandango’s Provocative Question #54

Fandango25 Comments

FPQWelcome once again to Fandango’s Provocative Question. Each week I will pose what I think is a provocative question for your consideration.

By provocative, I don’t mean a question that will cause annoyance or anger. Nor do I mean a question intended to arouse sexual desire or interest.

What I do mean is a question that is likely to get you to think, to be creative, and to provoke a response. Hopefully a positive response.

My provocative question last week was about music as the universal language. This week, it’s about verbal and written communications. It was triggered when another blogger — I’m sorry that I can’t remember who — featured this quote from Alan Greenspan, an American economist who served as chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States from 1987 to 2006.

“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”

Greenspan’s quote got me thinking about human communications. The purpose of communications is to convey information from one person to another. We use both spoken and written words to communicate ideas, concepts, emotions, thoughts, and opinions.

Communications are effective when the recipient of a thought, whether by listening or reading, understands the meaning intended by the speaker or writer.64A6BA61-8D0B-48BC-AB5E-5529A0753CFBUnfortunately, miscommunication is common, where the listener or reader fails to understand what is said or written.

Scientists say that humans began speaking about 100,000 years ago, and writing began around 4000 B.C. Prior to written language, humans used pictures (e.g., cave drawings) to communicate. These drawings evolved into word symbols. The evolution of language from pictures to words suggests that the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” is false, since it’s almost impossible to convey conditional, complex, or complicated ideas with a simple image.

And yet these days, people seem to be leveraging emojis more and more on electronic communications to convey ideas, concepts, emotions, thoughts, and opinions.

So, with that background, the provocative question this week is simply this:

Do you believe that, in social media communications, people are going overboard in their use of emojis? Why or why not?

If you choose to participate, write a post with your response to the question. Once you are done, tag your post with #FPQ and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments. But remember to check to confirm that your pingback or your link shows up in the comments.

FOWC with Fandango — Frost

Fandango14 Comments

FOWCWelcome to December 25, 2019 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). It’s designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt.

I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (US).

Today’s word is “frost.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

The issue with pingbacks not showing up seems to have been resolved, but you might check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.