A few weeks back, I was in the middle of a debate whether “superlative” meant “-est” only or both “-er” and -”est.”

Well, it seems that dictionary.com is no help on this point. It’s entry on ‘superlative‘ gives no comment on the “-er” ending.. but while attempting to come up with a term for the ‘middle-ground’, I’ve stumbled upon a few new words of my own making: if SUPER-lative is the highest, then the lower would be the Inferlative? Is that seriously a word? Or what about it’s cousin, ‘Infralative’? I mean, I wanna know; it could be fun to call someone the “inferlative of society” or what have you

In my curiosity, it looks like Latin is the source and solution to my question: there’s other fun words like supRAlative (motion unto above), deinfralative (motion from below), apudessive (at rest beside) and pertingent (at rest on).

So there ya go. I’ll leave you to your own devices for the use of such grammar.

Prayer: I don’t take seriously my role as a priest

Icebreakers: So what you’re telling me is that we all don’t have enough social skills, and we have to listen to someone who does

Bloggers: Bloggers must be deeply, consistently moved & taken to keep it up & be good & popular. I’m not that dysfunctional. No, I’m dysfunctional on other terms.

Pharisees: Pharisees kept legal over social. Which is why Jesu told them to love.

As a kid, i didn’t like that ice cream would melt when put on top of warm pie. I wanted the best of both worlds. Since then I’ve become more cynical about this world and have come to revel in melted ice cream over pie simply because there’s less and less good in the world and pie, even with melted ice cream, is as good as it gets.

My boss met Michael Jordan’s Mom.

I met Jessica Hagy (and bought her book!).

It’s still up for grabs who ‘wins’.

So my dad recently proclaimed his policy on television-watching: educate me, or make me laugh.

Now, my dad is a baby-boomer, who likes learning a thing or two every now and then. History channel stuff. He grew up pre-80′s when hippie/folk was the thing, and before the 80′s candy-simulacra*.

I came along somewhere, semi-insulated and listening to the voices around me which were mostly screaming “Here we are now, entertain us..” (HOW many times did I use that in conversation?!) Oddly enough, that 90′s cry was in parallel with the 60′s hippie dream, as a good man once said, “The 60′s dream turned into the 90′s nightmare.” Philosophically and sociologically, that makes sense.

Oddly enough, Nirvana was reacting against the 80′s simulacrum, which suggested all they do was be entertained. Entertainment is trivial, banal, fiat. Think of all the 80′s sit-com’s. Candy. They don’t exist anymore, ever wonder why? They’ve been replaced by super-real 24 and SVU.  The difference? The latter hold 2 elements: excitement (which is trivial) and intellect. They keep you thinking. Why is Trivial Pursuit the official 80′s game? And why is Cranium the theme of the early 2000′s? Banality vs. engagement. “Just be happy” doesn’t fly anymore.

The ball has bounced**, and we’re all on the other side. My generation has gotten over the entertainment pseudo-ideal and sold-out for plot-lines (again, one more thing 80′s entertainment lacked!). We’re more likely to critique the plot and overlook the sex-scenes.. critique the camerawork and artistic uses.. whether it felt ‘forced’ or the audience ‘manipulated’. Aesthetics and “reality” over simple like/dislike and escapism.
* simulacra: I refer to the 80′s end-goal of life: to live on a beach/resort/condo and do nothing, after having taken your kids to disneyworld where they were further removed from reality. Insulation.

** The ball being modernism. late modernism=pre-bounce, post-modernism being post-bounce.

sugar-coated advil, tylenol, etc is that it tastes so goo ya wanna let it dissolve in your mouth! Worse still, is that if you think about how it tastes (because marketing decided to make 4 new flavors!) then your brain is triggered to “food” mode, whereby chewing is usually a pre-req for swallowing. Ok, you can continue what you were doing now..