#764 Orthographic

Maybe we just have a bunch of anal-retentive folks in charge of our orthography (that’s a fancy word for spelling). Because sometimes I wonder about our language. It seems like there are so many possibilities for words and yet we keep coming back to the same ones.
Not only that, we use them to describe different things.
Like heinie. According to my spellcheck, heinie isn’t even a legitimate word. And yet we use it to describe beer, Germans and derrieres.
The other day someone was giving me some static over my desire to stay in the same place. To, in a word, remain static. A static state implies that one isn’t moving.
Yet static on the radio is the most energetic thing going. Buzzing and rasping noises going every which way at a gajillion miles a second.
So why would a language use a word to describe standing still and stationary and then turn around and use the same word to describe moving sound waves?
Or is static the sound we hear when there are no sound waves on our radio? No signal coming through the ether.
It’s just the sound of empty.
My gosh, sounds like a hook for a lonesome country song.
“I used to hear yore sweet voice in me, now I just hear the sound of empty.”
Static is being stationary. So why is the stuff we write on stationary? Is it because when we write on it or print on it, it needs to be stationary for best results?
Then I guess when we move it someplace else it’s no longer stationary. It becomes either a memo or the mail.
I don’t know. All I’m sure of is, it’s always comforting going to the stationary aisle in the store. You know things are going to be in the same place.
And, let’s face it, a moving aisle is kind of scary.
I remember going to the store once when I was changing residences and asking the clerk where the moving products were.
She may have been being a smart ass when she said, “They were in aisle B, sir—last time I looked...”
America, ya gotta love it.