Nerd Alert

How about a post about something other than our trips or Adelyn?!?! Many of you know that I majored in Linguistics at BYU. While there I bought this book about the origin of certain words and never really read it. Well I was flipping through it this morning (after putting it the bathroom for some potentially dull moments) and came across "OK." Since I have heard the word OK in every country I have travelled to, I got curious. And just in case you all are curious, I thought I would share the entry.

America's greatest contribution to the English language and indeed to languages all over the world is a joke. Or at least that's how it began. In the summer of 1838 newspaper columnists in Boston thought nothing funnier than to reduce a phrase to its initials (with an explanation in parentheses). To add to the humor, columnists sometimes misspelled the abbreviations. One 1838 example was O.W., meaning "all right," with blatant misspellings of both initial letters. That set the stage for an even more outrageous misspelling in March 1839: O.K. translated as "all correct." The joke was that neither O nor K was correct.

O.K. might have died out if "Old Kinderhook," President Martin Van Buren (born in Kinderhook, New York), hadn't been running for reelection in 1840. "O.K. clubs" supporting him were established throughout the country. Old Kinderhook lost, but O.K. won a permanent place in American English. Until about 1900, however, O.K. remained obscure. But the twentieth century turned out to be an OK century, perhaps encouraged by scholarly President Woodrow Wilson's use of "okeh" on official documents. (He spelled it "okeh" because he mistakenly thought it came from the Choctaw Indian language.)

So there you have it! Then I got online and did a little more research and it turns out that Ok's origin is actually still debated by scholars. Crazy. Could it be America's greatest contribution to worldwide linguistics?? It's certainly a popular one. The Chinese use it (in Chinese) all the time. Have you heard it in other countries where you have been?

Family Reunion

We just got back this week from a nice week long visit to Idaho for Aaron's family reunion. Even though I joke about there not being much to do in Idaho, we always have such a great time when we go there. We wish they all lived closer...especially now that we have a kid to brave the drive with. Even though it took us two hours longer than usual so she could eat, it was worth it.

I realized though that I didn't take too many pics of reunion festivities, but many of the papoose. I guess no matter where I am I am baby obsessed. It seemed someone was always taking pics, but I think it was Hillary, so you'd have to ask her if you want more! Here are a few pics that I uploaded, but I will post more on Facebook (better join if you haven't yet!!) so those of you who are in them can have them if you want them.

Here is a great one of Aaron with his grandpa at the at the cool reunion place they rented for the weekend. He is definitely one of my favorite of Aaron's relatives and I really appreciate the love and welcome he shows for all of us "in-laws." But everyone in Aaron's family has treated me like family right from the very beginning and always make me feel right at home when we visit.

We didn't take Adelyn's tub with us, so I had to bathe her in the deep sink in the great room. It was amazing the crowd of ladies that swarmed the area with the cameras and their cooing once I started the washing. Can you blame them?!?!

And here he is...one of the highlights of the weekend...the infamous Ned Bowen just happened to show up in Aaron's parents ward while we were there (even though he is in a different ward) and sit right in the middle of the clan. What are the odds???? It sounds like Aaron has great plans for this little photo shoot, so don't worry.

We got back from the reunion and what did Aaron spot in our backyard??? My favorite flowers, in full bloom. Did we plant them?? No. Did we do anything to help them?? No. We weren't even aware of their existence.

That's been a fun thing about this house. Even though the backyard was a jungle when we moved in because the house was vacant for so long, you can tell they put a lot of effort into things when they lived here. New flowers pop up all the time...like these.



Now if we only knew anything about gardening so that we can keep everything alive and beautiful....