Whatever

First Things First

Fandango9 Comments

08E0431E-46A8-4E7D-8E34-DBC9704B96A2The blogger at The Extra..aaamile, whose name is Savio, I think, because, in his About Page, he wrote, “I love my name ‘Savio’ …in Italian it means clever or bright,” challenged me (and a number of other bloggers) to something he calls “First Things First.” It’s a game where you say the first thing that comes to your mind when someone says a word. Savio has given us two examples to illustrate how this game works:

~If I say “Love” …what’s the first word that comes to your mind?

~…and detest? [it is a stronger word than hate – so answer carefully]

Finally, Savio suggests that we “don’t think too much” when we play this game. I think I’m highly qualified to do that! 😉

So let’s do this:

~Love — This is a tough one. I’m torn between ‘blogging’ and ‘family.’ But just in case anyone in my family reads this, I’ll go with ‘family.’

~Detest — Donald Trump

~Red — Sunburn

~Money — Stock Market

~Commitment — Pledge

~Home — Shelter-in-place

~House — Home

~Honesty — Integrity

~Beautiful — Stunning

~Passion — Heat

~First glance…what do you look at? Male and Female — Eyes

~Woman — Beauty

~Sunset — Calm

~Heartbreak — Pain

~Experience — Wisdom

~Ageing — Experience

~Past, Present, or Future? Why? Timeline. Why? Because a timeline often shows the past, present, and future. Duh!

~Vulnerable — Weak

~Time — Magazine

~Date — Blind

~Relaxation — Meditation

~Death — The end

~go to person…besides family/spouse, etc. — I don’t know. Maybe Rachel Maddow?

~Childhood — Innocence

~Gift — Present

~Regret — Sadness

~Foundation —Base

~If you were to rewind? And fast forward – what’s the one thing you’d want to witness — Unless I could alter the past or change the future, not a damn thing.

So thank you, Savio, for tagging me. If any of you wish to play this game, I tag you.

Time to Write a Poem

Fandango8 Comments

09C450E1-B82F-4E62-9267-BA968ADACB91There was that time
I decided to write a poem
Whenever others read it
All they could do was to groan

Written for Teresa Grab’s Poetry Challenge. Teresa explains that there are more than 100 different poetic forms and she asked us to find one form and to use the picture from Susan Cipriano from Pixabay as inspiration. The form of poetry I chose is FFFP, otherwise known as Fandango’s Free-Form Poetry. And although Teresa said that there is no such thing as a bad poem, I think my poem has just proven her wrong.

Historic Article

Fandango36 Comments

C3D5CE8D-F3A6-429B-B8A1-EBC128F1BEA8I saw an article that popped up on my iPhone’s news feed this morning. It was about the U.S. and the Taliban having signed a peace agreement and it contained a sentence that read:

After a week-long “reduction in violence,” the US and Taliban have signed a historic agreement Saturday, which would set into motion the drawdown of US troops from Afghanistan and potentially pave the way to ending America’s longest-fought war.

My post, by the way, has nothing to do with that “historic agreement.” It does have to do, as the image at the top hints, with historic articles, though.

When I read that sentence, I was struck by the phrase “a historic.” Way back in my school days I was taught that the article “an” should be used before the letter “h.” After all, you wouldn’t say “I’ll meet you in a hour.” You’d say “…an hour.” Likewise, “It would be an honor,” not “a honor.” Right?

So the sentence in the article, based upon what I had learned, should have read “…have signed an historic agreement….”

Now I’m second guessing myself. Was I taught the wrong thing? Am I misremembering? Did I dream the whole thing up?

So, of course, I Googled it. Most of the sites I found said that “a historic” is correct. As one site explained:

The article “an” is correct before historic if the word is pronounced “istoric.” “A” is the correct article if the word is pronounced “historic,” beginning with an h sound. In print, at least in the United States, where the word is normally pronounced with an h, the correct written form is “a historic.”

Another site put it simply:

Here’s the basic rule: If the word begins with a consonant sound, the correct article is “a.” If the word begins with a vowel sound, the correct article is “an.”

So was I taught the wrong grammatical rule in my formative years, or did I just misunderstand how to apply the rule? In any event, “a historic” sounds awkward to me, while “an historic” sounds right.

What about you? Do you use an “a” or an “an” before the word “historic”?

#JusJoJan — New Phone Case

Fandango10 Comments

Linda G. Hill, the blogger behind the weekly “One-Liner Wednesday” and “Stream of Consciousness Saturday” prompts has a new daily challenge for the month of January. It’s called Just Jot It January, or “JusJoJan.”

Linda explains that “the ‘jot it’ part of JusJoJan, means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list), counts as a ‘jot.’ If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!”

For today’s JusJoJan prompt, Linda has asked us to post “a picture you’ve taken in the last week.”

My wife got a new smartphone last month and she ordered a protective case for it, which arrived on Tuesday.8AFCD5C6-BF4C-4E28-83BA-567E59B46235She loves it. It suits her. So I took this picture of her new case and this is my JusJoJan post for today.