I broke Microsoft Word

I am currently writing a science-fiction novel, which has ballooned recently to 250 pages and 70,000 words (two-thirds done!). The other day when I was typing away on it a Microsoft Word error message popped up:

"There are too many spelling or grammatical errors in (document name) to continue displaying them. To check the spelling and grammar of this document, choose Spelling and Grammar from the Tools menu."

What this means is that I won't get anymore red squiggly lines under words unless I break up the novel into smaller documents. There are so many made-up words (alien names, planet names, etc.) that Word has stopped counting them--trust me, I'm not that horrible at spelling and grammar.

I have taken this error message as a compliment, since it shows I've written so much that even my computer can't keep up!

Canadians invade the zoo

A lot of Canadian currency has been showing up at the zoo. Just about every time I open a new roll of change to start the day, I will find at least one Canadian coin in it. Sometimes customers even give them to me, and in the past I've said "I'm sorry, ma'am, this is Canadian." Usually they are good-hearted about it.

I used to filter these coins from my drawer, figuring that the zoo people who count the money wouldn't accept them, but the Queen has been showing up so often that I don't really bother anymore. If Canadian pennies or dimes look like American ones, and no one ever notices the differences when they hand someone change, doesn't that make the coins just as good as American money? Both currencies are currently about equal anyway.

I rarely noticed this in past years. Are the people who roll coins getting lazy, or is more Canadian currency being spent in America?

Sherbert or Sherbet?

A few days ago I brought up the Mackinaw vs. Mackinack question. I reached the conclusion that most customers were really pronouncing the word the correct way and I was the one that was wrong. Congratulations, America.

But when it comes to sherbet all bets are off. Most people who order sherbet-flavored ice cream pronounce it "sherbert," as I did when I was a kid. This mispronunciation knows no age limits; people young or old will order "sherbert." I don't really have any problems with it, as the corruption is so common as to be accepted, but I really want to know where this mangled word came from. Is it because it gives the word a kind of symmetry? Is it because of the name "Herbert?" Did this form become commonplace after the Supreme Court decision Sherbert v. Verner?

(Actually, the Supreme Court case does give me a clue: if Sherbert is a surname, probably German, did the corruption stem from people confusing the flavor with someone they knew with that name?)

Google hasn't turned up a study on this. Maybe this is because this is something you can only track through speech and not the written word because no one ever writes the word as "sherbert." After all, spell check puts that red line through it. But someone must have pinpointed its first appearance in language.

Snowing on the inside

Two weeks ago some ice built up on the freezer door where we keep all the ice cream tubs. As a result, the freezer door could not close properly, and the moisture mixing with the below-freezing temperatures inside caused an unusual weather event: it was snowing inside the freezer.

That's right.

I wish I had some pictures or video to show you. When I opened the freezer door last week (the ice incident did not occur on my watch), you can imagine my shock at seeing a six-inch thick ice chunk on the floor and condensation building up on the top of the freezer. All of the ice cream tubs were covered with a fine white powder.

Hammers and chisels were useless on the ice. Maintenance was eventually able to turn off the freezer to melt the ice, but not after the valiant concessions workers moved out all 15 tubs of ice cream to auxiliary freezers. And once the ice melted, I had to mop up all the water from the freezer and the floor outside...not to mention move every ice cream tub back in the freezer.

The lesson here: winter will find you anywhere in Wisconsin.

Mackinac or Mackinaw?

There is a flavor at the zoo called "Mackinac Island Fudge." In recent days I've done an informal study of how many people call it Mackinack (pronouncing the hard c at the end) versus how it's supposed to be pronounced, Mackinaw. I was surprised that most people pronounced it Mackinaw as opposed to the incorrect way, which I'd been calling it. I suppose I thought the w-ended pronunciation was a regionalism. But I was wrong, because the Indians who named the place pronounced it Mackinaw. This has forced me to give some credit to the supposedly geographic-illiterate U.S., where even Wisconsin residents can pronounce a foreign-looking word correctly.

(But can they tell me what the capital of Ecuador is?)

Just a few more observations:

--I've seen more strollers in the past few weeks then I think I've seen in the preceding 22 years of my life. And I keep calling them "prams."
--A young girl came in today named Kennedy. I thought this was a strange name and wondered where it came from, and what kind of a parent would name their child such. Apparently, according to behindthename.com, Kennedy is the 110th most popular girl's name in America, right above Amanda (!).
--A different young girl, about 10 years old, came in and said the following: "Chocolate? I've never had chocolate ice cream before!" How, I asked myself, is this possible?
--Yet another young girl came in and said of her companion's choice of getting her ice cream in a dish: "You're eating ice cream with a spoon? That's funny." What is it with kids these days?

Ice Cream Happenstancery

As the zoo transitions into its Fall Hours, I have been shuttled to several different stands (no doubt to test their reactions to my awesomeness). The past few days I have been shoveling ice cream in the dairy part of the zoo. Here are some things I've noticed and experienced from my time there, and please note that some of these apply to the other stands at the zoo as well:

--At least twice a day I will hear a mother/father say to a child some variation on the phrase "you need a nap!" (the most common variation being "you're taking a nap as soon as we get home!")

--On the other hand, at the opposite end of the energy spectrum, you wouldn't believe how often kids are upset at the prospect at having to eat ice cream. "No, Mom, I don't want any!"

--This happens most often with Blue Moon: a kid will pick a flavor and her mother will give an "icky" face and explain that, honey, you won't/don't like that flavor. The mother will then usually end up picking vanilla or chocolate for the child. Now, I know it's none of my business, but I feel that on most of these occasions the mother is letting her own bias get in the way of what the child wants--she thinks Blue Moon tastes bad, so she won't feed it to her child. Not that Blue Moon isn't bad, mind you--it's a terrible, terrible flavor.

--I don't care if "ice creams" is a proper plural form, I still find it weird.

--The other day a very nice man walked up to the counter and said the zoo was one of the best he'd ever visited, and he'd "visited quite a few." He said it was very clean and the staff was very friendly. I suppose that counted as his tip.

Lastly: Please make sure you have change before you hand your money to the person at the register. Don't suddenly remember you have some after we've entered the cash into the drawer. Most likely we will try doing the calculations in our heads and you will end up shortchanged.

Grammatical craziness

OK, a little bit of politics. There was a political ad I saw on TV not a half hour ago that featured a glaring grammatical error:

RGA TV Ad: Tom Barrett - Wisconsin

The ad, critical of gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett, features two bar patrons arguing whether Barrett was responsible for "Higher Taxes" or "Less Jobs." I cringed when I saw this commercial, because the latter claim should read "Fewer Jobs." The word "less" refers to something that can't be counted, as in "I'm in less pain than I was yesterday;" meanwhile, "fewer" refers to something that can be definitively quantified, as in, "If only I'd taken fewer doses of epinephrine."

Way to go, Republican Governor's Association. A focus group thought of this commercial, editors approved it, and a bunch of actors read their lines without anyone noticing? Or were these naysayers dismissed for being too grammatically elitist like they came from the East Village or something?

And perhaps it wouldn't get my goat so much if "Less Jobs" wasn't screamed repeatedly throughout the ad, and featured in two additional TV spots where it is also shouted at the top of everyone's lungs. Come on, RGA.

This is what I get for reading the Language Log.