what do you smell like?

Today in class we were talking about American hygiene (which the Brazilians thought was border line dirty and the European thought was possibly over the top), a student asked me if American men wear cologne.

I had to pause to consider my answer. Yes, they wear it. But I think there's something about the 5 foot rule- if you can smell the cologne from more than 5 feet away, it's too strong...or something like that. I told him that yes, they wear it, but it's usually not very strong. He was wondering because someone actually said this to him in the mall the other day:

girl: Hey, are you gay?
male student: Um, no. Why do you ask me this?
girl: Because I can smell you from a mile away!

There's really no response. Who says something like that to a total stranger?! Now this student happens to be from a country where men typically were cologne and a lot of it. The more important the occasion, the stronger he smells. He doesn't always wear it for school (which may tell you something about why his grades aren't so stellar), but I've noticed that when he wears it, he wears it. You can smell him from the other side of the room. It usually smells nice enough, but not being a perfume wearer myself due to the instant headache no matter the quantity or quality, I usually keep my distance.

I like the idea of perfume. I like smelling the little sample sticks that come in magazines. I like looking at the lovely bottles and thinking about old fashioned perfume pumps (my grandma used to have some of those). I just can't handle walking around all day with a fuzzy brain. Even scented lotions sometimes bother me.

My sister usually wears perfume or some kind of body spray when she dresses up. My mom wears it all the time. My dad wears cologne for special occasions? or possibly all the time. I'm not sure. My grandpa smells like aftershave. My grandma smells like Tide and Bounce. But I couldn't recall smelling perfume on many of my friends. What do you guys smell like?

If you get enough people to say you're right, does that make you right?

What will happen if Palestine convinces the world to declare it a state? Will it actually work?

May I draw your attention to the "Books I've been reading lately" list. If you've paid any attention at all to my list, you may now notice that something is missing. Something that has been on the list for far too long. After 2 long years (2 summers actually) I have finally, FINALLY finished Harry Potter e il Principe Mezzosangue, aka Harry Potter #6. In Italian. It took me many moons and the all-too-constant assistance of a dictionary. But I finished.

Finalmente!

A jaunt to DC

Last week was fall break and being as I was dying to go somewhere, we finally used our Delta vouchers that have been sitting around for months (that's the only reason I'd willingly choose to fly delta) and hopped on a plane bound for DC. Why DC? Well, it was one of the only places too far to drive to and cheap enough to use our tickets; most of the activities were free; the metro is relatively reasonably priced and goes almost everywhere; we had an offer of a place to stay from our lovely friends Brooke and Max. Who could pass up such an opportunity?

Day 1: Arlington Cemetery. Tour of the capitol. Air and Space Museum. Below is the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington.
In the afternoon, we met up with T-rav's old roommate RyRy.
Day 2: Torrential rain (and no jacket- what was I thinking?!). Holocaust Museum- what to say about that. You can't really say it was great- moving, perhaps? Depressing? Educational? Museum of American History.

Posing by the very famous leather jacket worn by The Fonz.
They were filming a movie while we were in DC and we stumbled across this in a parking lot in Chinatown.
In case you don't recognize the truck in the picture, this might help.
Day 3: The Washington Monument- I swear it was swaying in the wild gusts of wind. Lincoln Memorial. WWII, Korean War, and Vietnam Memorials- I thought it was interesting that each war memorial seemed to fit the war it represented. Some were large and stately and full of triumph (WWII) while others were small and quiet and situated off the beaten path (Korea). National Archives- the Declaration is much more faded than I anticipated! The National Cathedral- a little bit of "medieval" Europe right in our nation's capital. A Haunted Tour of Old Town Alexandria- wasn't terribly spooky, but fun just the same. Maybe one day when I have dollars coming out my ears I'll buy a teensy little house in one of those neighborhoods and hunt for ghosts myself.
View east from the Lincoln Memorial
Vietnam Veterans Memorial .
National Cathedral. Bob gave us a great 1/2 hour (actually turned into 1.5 hours) tour and showed us a moon rock embedded in one of the stained glass windows and all kinds of other random coolies things (we found the Darth Vader gargoyle all by ourselves). This church is ginormous. And beautiful. If we ever need to get married again, I'm booking the children's chapel for the wedding.All in all, a lovely trip. I'm hoping we have lots of reasons to go back in the near future.

tie or tide...the results

So. It seems that you people prefer tide to tie. And I'm perfectly ok with that. You say tide, I'll say tie, and we'll all just get along.

However, what baffles me is what determines which one you say. Is it that you say what you think you hear and 1/3 of the population doesn't hear the -d on the end? Or is there actually a pattern in location, gender, age, etc, that is obviously missing here from such a small survey sample. In my family, for example, my mom, sister and I (New Yorkers) all say tie me over; my dad (Utahn) says tide me over (my brother probably doesn't say either, as he spends most of his time cursing). Where's the pattern in that?

Another question that I still have is where exactly did the expression tide me over come from in the first place? Now I'm no etymologist, but my theory lies in the meaning of an obsolete form of the word tide, which, according to the OED (thanks for the byu access, sister!) means:

tide: To carry through (an undertaking); to enable (a person) to surmount (a difficulty, etc.) as on a swelling tide.

The earliest use of this form of tide occurred in 1626 and the last in 1870 and, coincidentally, coincides with the first appearances of the expression tide me over.

to tide over: to get over or surmount (a difficulty, time of stress, etc.) as if by rising on the flowing tide, or by taking advantage of a favourable tide

And, surprise! (to me, at least) an alternate and modern definition of tide is:

tide: To carry, as the tide does

If you consider tide in this way rather than thinking solely about waves flowing to and fro, I think it makes quite a bit of sense where our expression originated.

Alas, the OED has no information concerning tie over (at least that I can find), so I can't answer when, why, or how it emerged into the English language. But I will say that as a descriptivist, and maybe also because I myself say the alternate expression, I can't condemn the use of tie. It's just the way language evolves, folks. Take it or leave it.

breaking news

A new language has been found!! Although most of you probably don't care two shakes, here's an article about the world's most recent language discovery. If I could, I'd fly right over to northern India to hear it for myself!