Q. Are all place-names with h or k sounds automatically funny?

A. Yes, and then again no. Hoboken, New Jersey, is always funny—and not the New Jersey part. So is Hackensack and also Weehawken. As a matter of fact, if you throw in Secaucus—which is not a bad thing to do—and Hohokus, you’ve got quite a state there. But, on the other hand, Camden isn’t funny, and Hasbrook Heights has never doubled up anybody. Elsewhere in the country, Kalamazoo and Oshkosh are always good for a laugh, as is Cucamonga. Out there, of course, the whole state of California gets more and more hilarious. Still, Kansas isn’t humorous and, goodness knows, Hell’s Canyon is no laughing matter.Honolulu is somewhere in the middle—of the Pacific Ocean, I mean. Blandings, Florida, is about the best place for a rest.

Q. Where does the salt go when evaporating ocean water lifts up in droplets, which fall again somewhere as pure rain?

A.     Most but not all droplets are distilled, leaving their heavy salt particles behind on the surface of the sea. But a minority of droplets retain light molecules of salt and are still able to rise up and form little-known “saline cumuli.” These clouds tend to group together over the Antarctic, where they discharge themselves as roaring salt storms. Some people, especially geodetic personnel who have been stationed down there too long, believe that they are ordinary snow storms; but they definitely are not. Snow falls, it does not pelt or knock you down. And it never makes very great noise by itself. As for hail, it simply does not occur in extreme southern latitudes for some reason. What we’ve got is sodium chloride, all right, no two ways about it. The proof is penguins. They have been obviously victimized by the fury of periodic salt-ball bombardment, accounting for their unsteady gait. If they could talk, what they would say! On the other hand, if they really could, they might only ask where the party is.

Q. I recently heard the expression, "I find the whole business are cane." Shouldn't it be "is cane?"

A.     No, it’s “are cane”—although nowadays you’ll find it abbreviated or, as the grammatical experts say, elided. In its original stage it had an apostrophe, “ar’cane,” which closed up into the modern “arcane.” This modern elision effectively conceals its earliest usage in Jamaican sugar fields, where it referred not to sweetness, as some ignoramuses think, but to the dense obscurity of the thick cane breaks. “Ah’m not goin’ into the ar’cane” was the common expression then, signaling fear of the lugubrious and unknown—now applicable to fields of any mysterious or unpenetrable endeavor. In any case it is never singular, though it is unexpected.

Q. I feel bad that I don't know what a "broomschlager" is.

A. We are not allowed to deal with emotional problems.

Phenomenal Farewell

From the embrasure of their evergreen fellows

deciduous cottonwoods and aspens—

a Montana cast of thousands—more like hundreds—maybe tens—

call loud attention to themselves, wedging in Douglas fir, poking around

and slipping through cedar and pine, their yellows

clapping, their reds a cheer, all their leaves hallooing,

the desperate trees themselves about to bound

from the stage of autumn into tiers of October sun.

            Wait a minute: nothing so fanciful teaches

truth. Things are not what they seem

if what they seem overreaches

so much. Actually, they’re not applauding

back at us or pushing fir aside, they’re done,

that’s all—

I mean the leaves. What we’re seeing, hearing, lauding

is the end of one more season in our heads, another curtain call

for minds over-kindled by vivid sunbeams.

It just so happens that they most wear well

in show-stopping glory, dry-leaf phenomenal farewell.

Moral: Don’t exaggerate, unless absolutely convenient. Or unless you’re into fables.

Otherwise, speak plain...like:

Goodbye is—goodbye.