Friends versus Acquaintances

From the Oxford American Dictionary:

Friend: A person with whom one is on terms of mutual affection and respect.
Acquaintance: A person one knows slightly.

I'll add two more:

Relative: A person who is related by parentage or descent or marriage.
Stranger: A person one does not know.

Wouldn't it be nice if relationships were this easy to define? I have relatives who are friends and relatives who are strangers. I have acquaintances that I trust more than some relatives. I have friends that are sometimes strangers. I have friends who know it all. I consider some of my friends in the relative category.

The husband and I spent the weekend with friends. We all know way too much about each other but there's a level of trust there. We also know (or know about) each other's children and parents.

The words "trust" and "love" didn't show up in any of the definitions. Guess we get to define that for ourselves.

Expressions I Dislike or Don't Understand

Many of us fall into the habit of using the same old expressions. I do it. Descriptive phrases should cause your mind to paint a picture. And sometimes, the picture is not one I want floating around in my brain.

A few examples:

"I've got a sh*t-pot full of work to do."
"You're sh*tting me." (This one also falls in the category of an expression I don't understand.)
"All grown up and haired over."

I dislike overused catch phrases. My current pet peeve is:

"It is what it is." I always want to respond, "According to whom?"

I understand some phrases in context but I can't quite wrap my mind around them. For example:

"Love a duck."
"Puttin' on the dog."
"Painting the town."

The husband tells a story that occurred during his service in Vietnam. I'll botch it but here's the gist of it. A serviceman was determined to need a mental evaluation. Lots of weird behavior. The base psychiatrist or psychologist was a little harsh with the husband because he had mentally checked off "crazy" in his mind. Turns out, they agreed the guy was nutso. I don't remember all of his quirks but the one that sticks in my mind is that he loved to read the dictionary. I think he had read it three or four times.

God is funny. The husband also thinks I'm nutso. Plus, I am rarely without a dictionary within reach.

A Degree in Political Science

The husband and I talk politics and government policies. Hangdog loves to discuss his time in the service during WWII. The Belle had an opinion on everything political. Wonder where the husband got that gene?

Geography is not my strong suit. But I have this compulsion to understand an issue and the locale. Just like my need to have a dictionary close by, I have gigantic maps -- one of the US and one of the world. (I actually bought them for the baby but ended up stealing them to my office.)

When I was in Journalism school, we were encouraged to have a second major. Journalism training teaches you to research, interview and hopefully, write in a coherent fashion. It does not make you an expert in anything with the possible exception of annoying people with questions.

For my second major, I chose Political Science. And, I loved it. We studied different regimes, here and abroad. We studied countries and how their governments have changed. This was 25+ years ago so we spent a lot of time on the USSR. We also studied quite a bit about the Middle East.

Fast forward 25 years. Most of these countries have changed names and boundaries. Some have been released from Communism. Some have become more communistic. The Middle East looks and acts like nothing I learned in college.

I watched the news this morning. I got out my gigantic maps. I am not educated in political science but I have a degree that says I am.

Corrections and Clarifications

I enjoy being corrected. No one likes hearing that they've made a mistake but I get over it quickly. I'm used to it. I've had it thumped into me from a very young age. My mother has a great command of the English language -- one of her friends used to call her "Lady Webster" -- and she knows all of the grammar and punctuation rules.

Think of this as page 2 of the newspaper. That's where they fess up to mistakes but they put it in teeny type.

For the record:
In the posting, "A Motherless Boy," I meant to use the word paternal instead of fraternal. I'm pretty sure my grandmother did not belong to a community of brothers.

In the posting, "Endearments," there's a comment about the stupid pillow with the Honey expression. Yes, my parents did buy it for the oldies.

I'm sure there are other areas with errors. I'll check with Lady Webster and try to get it right in the future.