N is for News, nouns and nicknames

***I’m going to try to post something every day in the month of November. I definitely may not- it’s just a goal and I’m not going to be upset about missing it! Hopefully in my spare time, I can come up with a post per day. My prompts are going to be the letters of the alphabet. I will write about something that starts with the day’s letter- think Sesame Street meets the blogsphere. Of course there are more days in the month of November than there are letters in the alphabet. I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it!***

News- I have heard people online and in real life talk about how they don’t pay much attention to the news. How it is depressing to hear about the tragedies and injustices that occur daily and so it's easier to ignore what is going around in the world. I understand that mentality, but I don't subscribe to it. I want to know what is going on even when it's terrible news. My political ideology is not the dominant one in the major institutions in America- in the media, in academia, and pop culture, the views that I believe to be the correct ones are not espoused. In fact, they are mocked and people with my views are accused of hating others and being against democracy. I believe the personal attacks are for a couple of reasons. One reason is that it's much easier to say terrible things about a person or group of people whom one doesn't agree with rather than to defend a position, especially when that position is morally and intellectually very difficult to defend. Also, calling a person or groups of people haters make it easy to justify taking away rights and treating those people terribly. 

I think it's important to know what is going on even when a lot of the news is depressing. I'm not in a position to do much except to tell the truth to those closest to me. To do that, I have to know what is going on. I can't bury my head in the sand.

I read news stories from a variety of sources, from mainstream media to media outlets whose views fall more in line with mine, to international news outlets. I think I will always have a curiosity about what is going on around me! 

On to a lighter topiced word that starts with the letter N: 

Nouns- A few days ago, I wrote that I could tell that the person who wrote on the back of a photograph was a native German speaker even though the writing was in English. That was because the "S" in the word "ship" was capitalized. In German, the first letter in each word that is a noun is capitalized. That is, of course, in contrast to English where just proper nouns are capitalized. 

One thing I have noticed while subbing in middle school is that many students consistently do not capitalize proper nouns when they write. I know that the designation of some words as proper or not can be confusing but the "biggie" proper noun categories should be obvious: cities, countries, states. names of people, store names, pet names, etc. 

I also know from when I used to sub in younger grades that students are taught as early as second grade the rules regarding capitalizing letters including capitalizing the first letter of proper nouns. The students would do worksheets where various words were written and the students would identify if the words were proper or not. If I remember correctly, most students easily successfully completed those worksheets. Yet somehow knowing the rules of capitalization when it came time to doing a worksheet devoted to the topic did not translate to applying the rules once the worksheets were complete and a writing assignment was given.

There may be some deep lesson there about applying what you learn but I can't articulate it. All I know is, our school district, supposedly one of the best around academically, consists of many students who, in middle school, anyway, don't capitalize the first letter of proper nouns when they write. (Or they do capitalize the first letter but only after a teacher/sub/grammar check points it out to them.)

Maybe we should have copied the Germans and made a rule about capitalizing the first letter of all nouns. Of course, then you'd have to worry about students being able identify nouns- seemingly easy in practice but may be difficult in practice a la proper nouns seem to be.

Nicknames- I think about nicknames from time to time. I think about them because I use nicknames a decent bit with my own kids. Jacob, not so much, except when he was a baby. We started calling him Jacob and nothing else by the time he was in preschool. When Jacob got a little bit older, I think it was around middle school, he started to want to go by the name Jake. I guess he thought it sounded cooler, or maybe just different or maybe he wanted to differentiate between him and the three other Jacobs in his class (sorry, Bub- oh, yeah, I do call him Bub sometimes. OK scratch that, I have a nickname for all the kids). But regarding Jacob, I do call him Jacob most of the time.

Abby is short for Abigail so we use a nickname for her real name 100% of the time. But, the name Abby gives natural way to many shortened or variated names like Abs, Absy, Bee, Absy Kadabsy (obviously not shorter but super unique and cute (in my opinion!)). 

The name Alyssa practically begs to be shortened, right? Lyssa, Lyss, which gave way to LyssByss, Lyssy LuLu and now we call her a nickname that has nothing to do with her real name. I rarely call Alyssa, Alyssa. She just has too many cute nicknames!!

Speaking of nicknames and Alyssa, here is a story from long ago. When Alyssa was less than two and not saying many words at all- she had a name for all of us in the family and she said a few words outside of our names but not much more, she started saying an odd word. The word sounded like the words "bee" and "do" combined. She was saying "beedo." That is obviously not a word and we could think of no noun, verb or adjective that beedo could possibly be. She seemed to say it fairly randomly and it stumped us. Then I noticed that she'd say beedo more when she was in the car with me and I was driving. Finally, I was able to note the circumstance under which she would say beedo in the car. That was when, near us, in the car or the parking lot, we would see a certain vehicle brand. That brand was BMW. Alyssa was saying, "beedo" for BMW. (Should I capitalize the B in beedo? It's a made up proper noun, lol).

Donnie had recently traded in his Camry for a used BMW. Alyssa likely heard people say the word BMW around us. For instance, family members likely asked Donnie how he liked his BMW, what kind of gas mileage did the BMW get, etc. So Alyssa associated Donnie's new car with the word BMW. Then she must have noticed the BMW logo on his car. When she saw other cars with the BMW sign or logo on the hood, she was pointing out that she saw a BMW, or her word for it, "beedo."

Naturally, we started calling Donnie's car the "Beedo." As in, "Our we taking the minivan or the Beedo?" (If it was just Donnie and I going somewhere (rare!), 99% of the time, it would be the Beedo!) The Beedo was a good car and how cute would it have been for the Beedo to be Alyssa's first car? Donnie drove it for close to ten years until Jacob was sixteen and then handed the key fob over to Jacob. It lasted close to 200,000 miles but died well before Alyssa turned sixteen and could drive. Ah, but the Beedo lives forever in our hearts as it reminds us of a red haired toddler and the mystery of an unknown word!