Gray, grey, grammar and gratitude

Though it includes a discourse on lead, this is mostly a light-hearted post

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Stepping right out

The consideration shown by this homeowner made me smile. No, actually, I laughed. The good steps are smooth concrete and have a sturdier handrail.

Spring

There went the equinox. It was last Thursday. Man, it sneaked up on us fast. The days were already getting longer, spring buds were starting to swell—and then Daylight Saving Time hit us with a sucker punch. And now, all of a sudden, day and night are parallel lengths.

The turn of the season brings joy, but also a tinge of tristesse. Next winter is that much closer. It’s time to hoard our longer days, make the most of them.

Goodbye, moon

In Portland, we missed the total eclipse of the full Worm Moon last week because of the clouds. Better luck next year. There will be another lunar eclipse on March 3, 2026.

Sneaky

You may have noticed I wrote “sneaked” as the past tense of “sneak.” I did that because the alternative, “snuck,” is such an ugly word. Generally, the “uck” sound is ucky (which spell check wants to change to “icky.”) Some examples: suck, cluck and the f-word.

The dictionary folks at Merriam-Webster say snuck is an acceptable past tense of sneak, but then include an article that cleverly puts snuck in its place:

No common verb follows the precise pattern of snuck: the past tense of leak is not luck, of streak is not struck, of creak is not cruck, of peek is not puck. It’s as if snuck just sidled on in and made itself at home in the language, and most of us took it for a native. Pretty sneaky.

AP Style

My proofreader and sometime consultant, my husband, Robert, is curious why I use the old-fashioned postal designators for state names, like S.D. instead of SD for South Dakota, or Ore. instead of OR for Oregon.

This is because I choose to follow Associated Press style. I’m used to it, after all, having first been introduced to it 57 years ago when I was the Saturday proofreader for the Tulare, Calif., Advance-Register. I was still in high school. The stylebook was then a 24-page pamphlet.

I continued to employ AP style during my three decades in The Oregonian’s newsroom. Meanwhile, the printed edition of the stylebook has ballooned to 528 pages (2024-26 edition).

Every year since I retired in 2008, I have dutifully subscribed to the AP Stylebook online, using it to solve meaty questions like: is the proper construction “compared to” or “compared with”? I had been using US as an adjective, but I just checked. It’s supposed to be U.S., with periods. So I’ll get that right from here on out.

The agony of sticking to principle

AP (no periods!) has been in the news lately because it won’t kowtow to the current administration’s efforts to single-handedly rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Not so fast, the stylistas warn. Outsiders don’t get to write the stylebook!

AP’s being punished by having its reporters denied access to the administration. No place on the press plane for them.

Grey or gray?

My daughter Lyza prefers the spelling “grey” to “gray,” arguing that it has a softer connotation. I agree. And in this case, AP doesn’t care. There’s no entry for either word. The Chicago Manual of Style, which I consulted in my work as a freelance editor of gardening publications for Better Homes and Gardens and Ortho, doesn’t mention gray/grey either. But I changed “grey” to “gray” when editing those books because it was in-house style at Meredith, the then-publisher.

Merriam-Webster, my other source, lists grey as “a less common spelling of gray.”

So use whichever spelling you like.

These buildings in downtown Portland are gray.

But this wall is more grey, don’t you think? Fran Gardner photos

Put the lead in

I’ve always wondered why the scientific symbol for lead was Pb, and now I know.

It’s elemental

Plumbum is Latin for lead.
Hence plumber and plumb line’s heavy weight.
Pb in the periodic table,
In nature, lead's heavy and gray.

Molten lead made up the type
That printed newspapers and books.
Oh, that was a long time ago,
When much that we read was the truth.

Stories

This week, many people told me their stories. Here are three of them.

Forgiveness

Monjie, a driver for the Trimet Lift service, used to work as a caregiver in nursing homes. One of his clients was an old man who was an avowed racist, a member of the Ku Klux Klan. At one point Monjie was sitting on the man’s bed. A nurse, aghast, told him nobody was ever allowed to sit on that man’s bed.

But the old man said it was all right. After the nurse left, he told Monjie that he was sorry for his life, his deeds. He asked Monjie to forgive him and to pray for him. Then he asked if he could have a hug. He had never hugged a Black person before.

They embraced. Monjie has never forgotten the love and forgiveness that flowed between them. The man died a few days after the hug.

Perseverance

On the way to an appointment, I encountered a fresh-faced young man, Dave, with whom I had ridden the paratransit bus before. Dave walks and talks with marked hesitation because, as he describes it, he suffered a traumatic brain injury. He was rock climbing when he was hurt.

Despite this, Dave still practices climbing. In fact, he was taking the bus to a training session at a gym that is sponsoring him as a climber. He told me that he holds a national title in his category and attended an awards ceremony in Oakland, Calif., last year. Despite his disability, he is upbeat, articulate and grateful for his life.

Mourning

I met so many people this week! One of them was a woman in assisted living who said she was mourning the sale of her house. Her grandparents had lived in this house, as had her parents, herself, her late husband and her children. The house had been in the family for 80 years. Now that she will not be returning home, her family sold the place.

I can only imagine her sorrow.

Small world

I keep having synchronicities, encountering old friends and acquaintances. Last week, in Starbucks, I ran into a woman, Rochelle, who reminded me that she had been the caregiver for my friend Carol Holland when Carol and I lived at Rose Schnitzer Manor. Carol, who had a career as headmistress of a private school in Connecticut, came to Portland after suffering a stroke. Despite her difficulty speaking, she was cogent, intelligent and very, very funny. She moved to Arizona last year to be close to relatives and passed away soon after. Rochelle now works in assisted living at another facility, Willamette View Manor.

A good price

I keep getting things for free. The barista at Less & More Coffee on the Transit Mall downtown took one look at my cute little Hydro Flask 6-ounce cup and said, “the coffee’s on the house!”

When I was last at the coffee kiosk in Kaiser’s Westside Medical Center in Hillsboro, it was two-stamp Tuesday. That filled my card, and I got my drink for free there, too. Too bad I asked for it in the tiny cup! It tasted marvelous regardless—and was just the right size.

Finally!

For years—decades!—the fast checkout lane was restricted to 10 or 12 items “or less,” while purists tore their hair. If you can count the items, the proper word is “fewer.” You buy fewer gallons but less gasoline.

I made peace with the usage, especially after I enjoyed a wonderful movie, “10 Items or Less,” with Morgan Freeman. You can stream it for free on Hoopla or Kanopy through your public library.

But now, to my delight, the Market of Choice on Southeast Belmont in Portland has gotten with the grammatically correct program.

Old joke

A woman opens her refrigerator to find a rabbit inside. Startled, she asks what it is doing there.
“Is this a Westinghouse?” asks the bunny.
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m westing.”

Resting

Put your brain on hiatus,
Unplug your ears
Empty your sinuses and breathe.

There now, feel better?
Pretend you’re a bird
Secure in your well-hidden nest.

The feathers of your breast
Cover a yearning heart
Breathe into that yearning, close your eyes.

Let the world fly past you.
There, now, feel the joy of it?
Just here, just now, just rest.

Let me know

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Hats

I wrote a couple of times recently about my newsboy hat, made by The Hat People in Talent, Ore. Each time I did that, I thought about “Do you like my hat?”, a line from the fun children’s book Go, Dog. Go! by P.D. Eastman. My children learned to read from this book.

Repetition is important when learning to read.

A little more humor

Every time I pass this sign on Northwest Broadway, I think about those 69-year-old nude bodies. Let’s celebrate cellulite!

Update: Riding the bus past the sign today, I see that Mary’s is now celebrating “71 years all nude revue”. Way to go, nude ladies.

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