Perspective from the 19th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write. I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf. The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie. And it is where you want to be on a golf course.
In all aspects of my profession, I used words to deliver a result.
That’s one of the reasons why I like words better charts, graphs, or even photos.
So, as the director of the Department of Words Matter, I open the department, one of five I run, to consider the following.
Example #1: The word eleemosynary
Yes, hard to pronounce, but it is a word. It means supporting charity. Such as in this sentence: Her focus was to emphasize her eleemosynary work.
I had never heard the word until I worked at the Capitol in Salem, Oregon as a lobbyist. I came into contact with it in relation to my work on major health care policy issues where, besides government funding, charity care was also a key ingredient then and remains so now.
At that time, the strange word prompted me to advise my associates that, if they managed to use the word in formal testimony to legislators, I would buy them dinner as a reward.
No one ever managed to take me up on it.
But it is still an open invitation.
Case #2: Words Known By Dogs
Have you ever found yourself spelling out “w-a-l-k” or “t-r-e-a-t” to avoid sending your dog into a frenzy? If so, you know that dogs can understand at least some of what we say, even in terms of spelling.
But how many words do dogs know?
Experts report that most dogs understand around 80 and100 words, but some highly trained dogs can learn hundreds.
Our dog at home – Callaway (yes, I named by golf clubs after him) – knows the words “walk” and “treat,” if not a number of others. He never tells us which one he knows because he would rather surprise us. I think he also knows how to spell certain words when we use that strategy to avoid alerting him to what’s coming.
Several studies have shown that dogs have an ability to understand words at a level similar to that of human infants.
Our experience show that is true.
Case #3: “Back and forth?”
As my wife and I were walking early this morning, I found myself uttering the phrase “back and forth.”
Then, with nothing else important to do, I wondered why we say that.
Shouldn’t it be “forth and back.”
Because you never go back first.
See, in retirement, I have found time to ask questions about all sorts of words.
