| Life is a Bike©...and...About Something© | |
| Where everyday you coast.™ | |
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Wit, Wisdom and Wanderings © Now at The Bicycle Exchange, Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com,
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Gianna Bellofatto Reid is writer, columnist, playwright and public relations specialist whose work has appeared in The Nyack Villager, 201 Magazine, Modern Collage, The Record, The Italian Tribune, One Voice, Hudson Valley Life and Collage. LIFE IS A BIKE© essays, (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize 2001) use the bicycle as a metaphor and can be enjoyed by bike enthusiasts and non-riders as well. Popular essays include: Ten Laws of Bicycling; Born Again Cyclist; Bike-illogical; Joy Ride; Romancing the Bike; Fish Ride; Cycological Youth, and many more, with over 75 titles. A selection of Life is a Bike essays was published in "Wit, Wisdom and Wanderings" by editor, Jim Joyce (The Bike Exchange). See more details on this site. ----------- Her bicycling essays have appeared in: The Bicycle Exchange.com, MasterLink Newsletter (Bicycle Touring Club of North Jersey); Spoke ‘n Wheel Newsletter (North Carolina), Fish on a Bicycle (UK); XL Newsletter (Texas); Veloware Newsletter (Delaware); Mason’s WireDonkey Zine (UK); Total Bike.com; Pascack Press; The Community Life; blog.wenxuecity.com (Chinese site); Geometry.net; MSN Spaces Gokuraku (Japanese site);and have been been broadcasted on Rockland World Radio.com (NY). ----------- Original plays produced for off-off-Broadway include "Soul Painter" "The Waiting Room, The Last Word, and The Jobless Chronicle. Her columns include About Something and Life is a Bike. See the latest entry on this site. Editors, want a fresh humorous column? Contact: joan.reid@yahoo.com * (a.k.a. Gianna Bellofatto, Joan Bellofatto Reid) |
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ABOUT SOMETHING is a quirky humorous philisophical column that is about overheard words on the street...the proverbial 10 pounds you want to shed...the plight of being a lefty...or watching paint dry. Readers will find the columns entertaining with all topics fair game. Essays include: Who is Listening? Happy Non-Birthday Left is Right Whatchamacallit Foley's Follies and more ... About Something has been published in: Our Town - Ohio Rancho Bernardo SUN - CA Our Town - New York Bristol Pilot - PA Gainesville Times- VA Westside Community News - Indiana About Our Town - NJ Diamond Gateway Signature - CA Contact: joan.reid@yahoo.com |
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ABOUT SOMETHING© "The Whatchmacallit" by Joan Bellofatto Reid What’s that again? The thingamabob is rubbing against a doohickey? No problem. Except, experiencing a loss for words at an inopportune moment. Typically it occurs when we attempt to explain to a mechanic what is wrong with our car or an appliance. Thank goodness mechanics are born diplomats and detectives. They smile patiently—nay, patronizingly, at our feeble guesses and misses. They know what we’re talking about even if we don’t. The mechanic already knows the proper terminology and names of parts. They’re able to decipher our baby-babble faster than we can say doodad. So, just what are the names of stuff and oddities of the real world that have become so common we give little thought to what they’re called? For instance, what do you call the plastic tubes at the end of shoelaces? What’s the name of the hoozywhat that sends your deposit to a teller at a drive-up window? I know I’ve called it a few names when I couldn’t open it. While we’re pondering the mysteries of modern living, what is that round metal piece inside the CD player? And why is the sky blue? Believe it or not there is a word which describes the use of slang when we cannot summon the right word. According to Flexner & Wentworth’s Dictionary of American Slang “place holder words” are known as kadigans. And the use of them is not unique to the English language. The French Quebec use the word gogosse to describe “a thing.” Italians prefer roba which literally means stuff, and coso, related to cosa or thing. Germans sport a variety of kadigans as in English, and contain the element Dings, Dingens Dingsbums, sometimes even Dingsdabumsda. God bless you. I have the utmost respect for people with mechanical aptitude, and especially when I am at their mercy. I marvel at how tech-speak rolls off their tongues like ice cream. It sounds so sweet, intelligent and reassuring. I feel secure that my mechanical problem is in the hands of a qualified competent individual. Yet, what if, say the car industry initiated a whole new trend by providing easier names for parts so that the average Joan could remember. The catalytic converter could be called “the cat convert.” The exhaust manifold could be called “the man.” That way you could say to a mechanic, “I think the cat convert is rubbing against the man and causing friction to my motor.” Yes, and what about the radiator petcock? (Hey, that’s not my creation.) But I certainly wouldn’t want to ask my mechanic about it by its proper name or pseudonym. I read that many mechanics appreciate when customers describe a problem using sound words rather than struggle with names of parts. Words such as grind, tap, ping, squeal, chirp, bang, boom, rattle, knock and rumble make auto troubleshooting so much easier for the mechanic. Oh sure, I can hear myself now. “I hear a grind bang boom when I’m driving.” Someone, please pass me the jigamabob, thank you. And so the watchamacallit is a catch all term that breezes us through most obstacle courses of mechanical mayhem. I happen to own many watchmacallits and variations thereof. Let’s see there are the thingamajigs in the garage, the diddlybob by the furnace and that little knobbydo next to the fuse box. I sure hope they never break down all at once. |
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