We say, "It's unimaginably terrible,"
and yet people with imaginations
very like our own manage to suffer it.
How odd it must be for them,
unable to imagine what they suffer.
Note: "Unimaginable" (which we use to convey an understanding and an imagining) is one of a large group of words that we use to mean almost the opposite of what they mean. For example, we now say that something we believe is unbelievable! or incredible! In other words, if someone says "That's incredible!" he is validating it as something he credits. Up until about 100 years ago--and later for many people--if you said something was incredible, you meant that it was a lie, a fantasy, something no sane person would believe. For example, the criminal would tell obvious lies, and the prosecutor would refer scornfully to the criminal's "incredible" statements. When someone talks about something good he's done or realized, and someone else says "That's incredible!" I am tempted (snobbishly) to say, "No, I believe it."
CORRECTION: In a recent e-mail, I invited people to check out (or possibly subscribe to) my two blogs, but gave the wrong names to them. Since you are reading this, probably that error needn't concern you, but in case it was confusing, I wrote (incorrectly):
deanotations@blogspot.com. ON this blog I post short poems and short commentaries/essays.
Dearreader08@blogspot.com. On this blog I post longer poems and essays.
The correct blog URLs are:
deanotations.blogspot.com.
Dearreader08.blogspot.com.
Sorry about that.
Dean Blehert
dblehert@verizon.net
dean@blehert.com
www.blehert.com
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2 comments:
Dear Dean,
While you LISTED the new addresses for your blogs correctly (almost), you still have the LINKS connected to email addresses (which, of course, include the "@" sign somewhere in them). Also, I say "almost", because in the URLs for these blogs, you include the period right after "com" in the link. This again throws the whole thing off, and makes it inoperable. Looks like another correction email might be in order!
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