You know how when you’re driving, and some quarterwit is coming at you in the opposite direction with their brights on? Or their high-beams, or whatever you want to call them? For some reason I can’t stop myself from staring straight into it for a couple of seconds. Eventually I break the spell, and look away. But there’s always this weird inclination to go all-in on the impossible brightness. And I’m afraid that’s what might happen today, if I waddle outside my job during the solar eclipse. I could end up like the guy above, because I seemingly have no control over my own actions.
We’re only scheduled for a 72% eclipse, here in the Upper Emphysema Belt. Nancy and her passel of see-through children are traveling to one of the “totality” locations. I guess they’re all super-excited. Sounds about right… I remember when I was a kid Skylab was supposed to fly over, and all the nerds-of-the-day were similarly rock-hard about it. I was walking down the alley behind our house back then, and saw a kid lying on the roof of his garage, looking straight up through binoculars. I asked him what he was doing, and he said, “Watching for Skylab.” And I said, “Is the extra nine feet really going to make a difference? Why not just look from the ground?” He told me to leave him alone, and I continued with my day.
Of course, as we all now know, the eclipse is racist because the totality locations are either in areas where mostly white people live, or where there was a lot of slave activity back in the day. Here’s a short excerpt from the long essay:
Moving east, the eclipse will pass part of St. Louis, whose overall population is nearly half black. But the black residents are concentrated in the northern half of the metropolitan area, and the total eclipse crosses only the southern half.
I hope you’re sitting down, but the article was written by a college professor.
Also, here’s a piece about how the eclipse is favoring areas that voted for Trump during the last election. We’re very near the end of civilization, my friends. These are not articles on fringe blogs, they’re from The Atlantic and The Boston Globe. They’re politicizing a solar eclipse! Hey, if they can do it with a sandwich, they can do it with anything. Right?
Please bring us up to date on your personal eclipse experience. Do you remember any of the previous ones? Or the Skylab hubbub? What else has caused the nerds to get whipped into a high frenzy? Also, do you feel bad that the Man in the Moon is apparently a Klansman? I had no idea until yesterday afternoon. I’m a little shaken, to tell you the truth.
Also, you might have noticed I was hedging my bets when I was writing about somebody leaving their bright lights on in the first paragraph above. I’m always concerned I’m going to use a regional phrase that most people won’t understand. Is “high beams” regional? It feels like it might be, but how would I know? When you grew up in a region, it’s just normal. Personally, I just always called ’em “brights.” Is that regional?
When I was in Georgia I used to hear people refer to the accelerator in a car as a “foot feed.” That sounds spectacularly hick to me, and I’m glad I didn’t grow up with it and use it when I lived in Los Angeles. Heh. You’d instantly become Gomer Pyle.
What phrases have you spoken that turned out to be regional, and you had no idea? It’s happened to me a lot, and I try to avoid it. But it still happens, from time to time. Do you have anything on this? How about “call off?” That’s what you do when you’re not going to make it to work, right? But I hear all manner of variations: “call in,” “call out,” etc.
And I need to CALL it a day, my friends.
I’ll see you again on Thursday!
Now playing in the bunker
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Central Ohio, we say ‘brights’. High beams have completely different connotations.
High beams, 12-year old me is giggling.
I don’t recall anything about the eclipse in 1979. But I do recall that a lot of people had fog lights on their cars and trucks back then.
Small town Minnesota ca. 1950s…, “Let me see that, once.” After 3 months in the Navy, I rapidly dropped the “once” phrase tag. I recently heard this used in central Pennsylvannia…maybe a German/English slang thing…?
Yeah, the “once” thing must be German. My Grandma was German and I picked it up from my Mom. I still say it.
I tells ya, Marshall McLuhan tells ya, language creates culture.
Just saying.
jtb
A really hard rain storm was called a ‘gully-washer’ where I grew up in the deep south, but I heard the term ‘frog-strangler’ used in the Carolinas. Are there other terms for this?
Trash mover — eastern Oregon
I’m at about the 91% line, and the eclipse was spectacular from here. I stumbled out to my front porch in my shorts and t-shirt a little before 10:00 (yes, I’d just crawled out of bed — get back to work). It was a pretty typical Northwest morning — 72 degrees, all blue sky, no breeze — but something was odd: I can see about a hundred trees from my porch, and the detail I could see on them was unusual. I could make out individual leaves on the deciduous trees and not quite individual needles on the coniferous guys. I’m thinking, funny coincidence to have a 40-year acid flashback exactly on the morning of the eclipse: maybe there’s some phenomenon about the amount of reflected light going on.
I noticed the birds, who had been active when I first walked out, were making less and less noise. It didn’t seem to be getting darker — it never got dark (I could have played catch with the kid in the neighborhood who always throws the ball too hard with no problem, although there’s a possibility that someday his brakes are going to mysteriously fail going down 30th street hill) — but it was a little like watching television at 16 frames per second instead of 30. Everything looked exactly right, and everything looked a little bit off.
It got cooler. How much? I’m not Fred Fahrenheit or Ed Centigrade; I suppose it got down to 60 or so; I shivered once or twice.
The whole neighborhood looked like it was celebrating Ray Charles’ birthday in their cool two dollar glasses. I have a pair, and, by coincidence, unless you’re staring directly at the Sun, you get to see exactly what The Genius saw every day. I suspect we are entirely unaware of our relationship with the Sun until it goes away, or almost does. There was a sort of living out-of-time feeling when I looked at the sliver of the Sun, but that’s a crappy description.
The eclipse lasted for something like an hour. I kept trying to explain how the moon and the Sun were moving in relation to the Earth’s rotation, then I tried to explain it to myself, then I realized I was trying to solve the three-body problem, then I realized that I had no idea whether the eclipse was close to simultaneous across the country, or moved with the Earth’s rotation, or moved faster or slower than the Earth’s rotation. then I forgot whether Kansas was east or west of Missouri, then I forgot which way water circled the toilet. It was disconcerting, but I realized once again that, had I been born five centuries earlier, I would have been the guy washing Newton’s windows rather than the man himself, although I might have been able to invent his cookies. Nope.
It was an hour of enjoyment and contemplation well spent. You shoulda been there.
I have no idea as to why Jeff is talking about politics so much these days. Yeah, I know: you elect an unbalanced person and all of a sudden the Sun goes behind the moon. I gotta say, I don’t blame it.
love,
John
And in honor of the events of the day, I post this important and applicable video from the 1995 Norwegian television show Lille Lordag. I’ve only posted it a half dozen times on this site in the last twelve years, and it’s only been viewed by something fewer than a billion people, so this might be new to you. I don’t know why Wednesday being “Little Saturday”, a chance to drink heavily twice a week, should be an arcane concept to this crowd. It’s like the eclipse: it makes no sense. What’s on the TV tonight, Erma?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K64ipl_xwqY
as always,
John
‘I have no idea as to why Jeff is talking about politics so much these days’
Pot meet kettle.
If you promise to use double quotation marks as required by English punctuation rules, I’ll explain irony.
jtb
John…….
I haven’t noticed Jeff talking about politics lately, or at all. But I certainly wish that you could refrain from doing so.
Just a thought.
Sincerely,
JS
British usage calls for single quotation marks, with doubles being used for quotes within a quote.
Yup, I should have said American English. Basket is, by context and political tilt, obviously American. In any case, it was an accurate, if slightly cheap, hit. After writing a long comment on the eclipse, I didn’t feel like writing another full page explaining irony and self-induced confession.
Thanks for the clarification.
jtb
I’m outside Seattle….I thought it all looked weird too. I felt a little buzzed, like I was a half bubble off.
Totally agree about the insanity of the Atlantic article. And all such filtered ways of looking at things.
I’m getting sick of it.
Just saw the totality a while ago and it was far more than I could have imagined. It lasted 2 minutes where I live. The buildup, where the sun becomes a smaller and smaller crescent, is interesting, but the real thing with the glowing corona that you can look at without the glasses is an absolutely different experience. There is no comparison. I wouldn’t travel very far to see 90% or even 99%, but totality is something else altogether. I never would have believed it.
I call in.
What honks me off is “go with” and “on accident.”
Around here, people use the phrase “ON tomorrow” – when they mean, bluntly TOMORROW. People from all education levels (including TEACHERS!) use the phrase.
“Honks me off” is a new one for me! I like the sound of that!
I call off and use brights.
In St. Louis where I am (that north/south thing is sorta true), hoosier isn’t some Indiana term of endearment, or whatever. Hoosier refers to a city redneck and is not complimentary.
I use high beams and high test. The high test throws the youngins.
The neighbor ladies and I walked to the beach for a 98% eclipse. It became twilight I guess but the light was really weird. Hard to explain. When I was little a partial came through and Mom got a bunch of negatives, the blacked out parts at the end of the strip, and stacked them up. It worked and I’m not blind. I used that trick when one came thorough in DC back in the 90’s. I saw Skylab fly over in the 70’s and the ISS a few years back. I’m a nerd.
I call in and use brights. (Calling out means hollering.)
Back home, the word “sweetheart” is used across the board for everyone, and is generally sarcastic. Idiots used to be known as ‘tahds, but that has gone by the wayside over the past 20 years or so.
Friggin’ is used for everything from curse replacement to a verb. (‘Friggin with’ means ‘messing with’ – usually an attempt to repair.)
On the first night of work in college, I was told to ‘sweep the carpet’. Despite finding it odd, I got a broom and complied.
I never lived it down.
Of course you got a broom; sweeping is done with a broom. I have since learned that some people say “sweep” when they mean “vacuum.” I wonder what they say when the mean “sweep.”
Another weirdness like that is “carry” meaning “give me a ride.” As in, “can you carry me to the airport next week?” I’ve never heard this myself, but I have reports of it.
West of the Blue Ridge, people carry. I’ve only lived here 30 years, so I give people rides.
I call in sick. “Carry me” in place of “give me a ride” is common here in the south. As is “mash” instead of “press” (one mashes a button). I also put my groceries in a buggy, not a cart, at the supermarket. I would like to clarify for all the non-Southerners that y’all is always plural. We would never refer to one person as y’all as is portrayed in movies. Yonder means “over that way.” I’m often “fixing” to do something when I’m about to do it. I reckon language defines us in many ways.
Around here, we ‘carry’ people places, too. We also use ‘mash’.
We ‘cut’ the lights on and off rather than TURNING them.
I’ve lived here for close to 23 years, and some phrases still feel weird in my mouth.
“I reckon language defines us in many ways.” I agree. Did I mention that language creates culture? It doesn’t just affect how others see us and how we see ourselves. Along with our genome, biome, family, and cultural ambience, it determines who we are (or who we is, depending where you are or is).
John
Some of my NJ relatives own a Hoover sweeper. They also own pocketbooks, or rather pockerbooks.
I call in sick; it’s important to use the S-word, because “call in” by itself makes no sense. My car has high beams. The number identifier things from the DMV are plates, not tags. Because they are made of metal. Texas-isms from my mom: Buildings can be kitty corner from each other; if a thing is crooked or out of order in some way, it may be said to be cattywompus or “all cattywompus.”
I stepped outdoors for the eclipse; we got maybe 70% here in DC. I got a couple of looks through borrowed eclipse glasses, and it was indeed pretty cool. I even got a shitty picture on my phone. We got another partial like that some time in the 1990s.
Nerd mania… First, I should mention that it still feels odd to type ‘nerd.’ In college the word meant a person who was constantly studying, as opposed to partying. We always spelled it knurd because it’s, you know, the opposite of drunk. I tend not to notice nerd-ons unless they pertain to something that I too am excited about, and in that case I’m part of the problem.
Number 1, HO-LEE SHEE-HAT, an honest to God Nancy sighting in an update!
As for the eclipse, we were at 97% here, and my wife took the kids to a college campus slightly north of here to experience “totality.” I know I’m in the minority here, but I thought it was a really cool experience. Granted, yesterday was a ball-masher at work (tm Jeff Kay) so I went outside for about 5 minutes, looked, and got right back to these fucking spreadsheets.
Did everyone see the other big event yesterday? Every unfunny sumbitch you’ve ever met rushing to Facebook to make the same hackneyed “eclipse glasses for sale” joke as soon as the eclipse passed?
As far as unintended regional phrases, most I have known were regional before using outside of the south. The only one that caught me buy surprise was when I told a buddy in Ohio that I’d make rotel for a football game. It’s just melted Velveeta mixed with rotel tomatoes (brand name for tomatoes and green chiles) but when I said it I was met with a look like you asked your dog to do a math problem. Apparently they call it salsa con queso and I’m just a dumb hick.
Rotel is a brand of middlebrow home audio equipment. Until reading Griff’s comment, I had never heard it used as a name for a food.
Amazon sells both. If you’re traveling with your fancy man, you can set up your Rotel in your no-tell hotel and listen to the Motels while chowing down on Rotel. Right from the can.
John
Oh hell, I’ve owned a Rotel but never eaten Rotel.
It got cloudy here right before the eclipse and cleared up right after. It got a little dark – looked like it was going to rain but that was it. I didn’t have protective glasses anyway. I’ll be more prepared in 2024 when New York is supposed to get a really good view.
As far as regional, I’ve heard a lot of people (my family included) pluralizing YOU – but there are 2 pronunciations. There’s the “yuz” (soft u) as in “Do yuz wanna get a pizza? And then there’s the ooo sound as in “Do yooze two want to get your asses home?” We talk amongst our friends and family like that but switch to the proper English when in public. Odd phenomenon.
Brights. Definitely brights.
South Puget Sound region of the Great Pacific Northwest. . .
High Beams (didn’t hear “brights” until middle age)
You can call in sick, call in well, call in with an urgent need to address the yips, but you can’t call out or call off with regard to taking a day off work. You can call off your dog (from attacking some of the older ladies in the neighborhood), you can call out the neighborhood bully (if you can put him down with one punch while clutching a roll of nickels), but you have to call in to work before you can talk to anybody.
We call the accelerator the gas pedal.
And nobody has addressed the soda/pop question. It’s one of the areas in which I caved. I grew up drinking pop (in reality, my parents were pretty strict about sugary drinks, so it was usually just a gallon of A&W on payday. Nobody I knew called it soda. Nobody. Then, in the mid-sixties, Boeing, Pacific Car & Foundry, and Weyerhaeuser exploded, and the population of my region nearly doubled in a decade, mostly from the Midwest, but some from the south. Pretty soon I was in a substantial minority of twenty-somethings calling sugar water “pop”. So I switched to soda.
The little streams are called creeks here, rather than cricks.
I don’t think there’s a formal name here for sport fuckin’. People obviously do it — just as they do in Dallas, and the home of sport fuckin’, Fort Worth. Next time I run into somebody young and attractive, I’ll ask him or her, but I wouldn’t count on much from this crowd. There’s a level of social justice pervasive hereabouts which precludes giving name to culturally awkward human activities.
Taverns are where beer and wine are sold. Cocktail lounges, always associated with restaurants, are where hard liquor-based drinks are sold.
There must be thousands more.
jtb
I think high beams somehow morphed into brights. I distinctly remember my grandfather and father saying HIGH BEAMS but when we started driving, they were considered brights.
We have bars, not taverns – serving beer, wine and hard liquor. I prefer the term tavern. Sounds like the patrons would be a lot nicer.
There are no standalone bars here in Virginia, and it’s a sadder place for that. A restaurant is allowed to have a bar, but they have to make at least 50% (I think) of sales from food. “Tavern” seems like a term of art, or just marketing. But is a friendly-sounding word. I like “pub” too.
Around here, at least to me, “pub” looks like loosened ties and Gucci shoes and smells like after shave; “tavern” looks like jeans and mid-range sneakers and smells like sweat. I’m sure this varies state to state, community to community.
While we’re distinguishing, a good bar is darkish with jazz and blues on a juke box that doesn’t have to be turned up loud to sound good, and where the bartender free-pours.
John
It’s Coke, regardless of brand. The Coke aisle at the grocery store has Pepsi, Sprite, and Dr Pepper, but as a group they are Cokes. We also have gas pedals.
God, what a collection of idjuts.
Successful trip to see totality in SC. My 8 year old enjoyed it very much. She is not translucent.
High beams. Low or dipped beams being the opposite.
Brights And Dims sounds like a Red State/Blue State sitcom starting on NBC this fall.
I am quite thrilled to read about Nancy and her awkward offspring and I hope to read more.
By the way Jeff, pretty cool picture you found of Rodney Dangerfield!
Heh! He looks pretty strung out there.
I’ve never understood where people came up with “anyways”. There is no such word and it drives me crazy to hear it or see it written. It seems this is a common word up North rather than in the South, where people are fixin’ to do something.
Call in sick, don’t call out. Calling out would be yelling, which would piss the boss off whether you were sick or not.
Soft drink, not soda or pop.
So glad the damn eclipse is over with. I was getting tired of all the hype surrounding the event. It was cloudy where I live so no eclipse for me. It was thundering and pouring rain; then suddenly the sun came out and it was still raining like hell. Guess that was our excitement for the day rather than the big black out.
Just donated to your crowdfunding. Have enjoyed your column over the years. Especially since you originally hailed from these parts. For some reason – I couldn’t comment there.
“Going to” is “fixing to” becomes “finta.” As in, I’m finta post this comment.
Also, asking what “y’all dudes are up to” upon moving to San Francisco was quickly addressed.
All sodas are “cokes” here, but after moving around the states I now say soda.
Ohio had the most regional language quirks of anyplace I’ve lived.
In parts of New England (where I now live), a soda is called a tonic; or as they’d say, ‘tawn-ic’. Where I grew-up in New Jersey, a pizza was a pie. You could order a large pie with pepperoni and mushrooms. And having to show proof of age (or ID) was simply referred to as ‘getting proofed’.