9/8/14 The Morning Coffee: Vacant Lot Lost and Found

A Good Morning to you. This is a big day for TOP: We're officially back up and running again. I'll have a nice announcement later today, too.

But first, a joke: What do you call a fish with no eyes?

And a riddle: What is the only word in English that can be used as a noun, a verb, an adverb and an adjective without changing its spelling?

My former Miata with its new plates. Photo by current owner
and TOP reader Larry Gebhardt.

And a strange coincidence. Early on in my search for a new house, I used to zip around in the evenings in my then-new-to-me old Miata (since sold to a TOP reader). It was great in a spiritual sense, to get out from behind the computer and out under the evening skies with the scenery changing. But not great physically, as I was still essentially just sitting on my backside. Anyway, one day I found a lovely corner lot that was still unbuilt in an older neighborhood. I looked it up on the real estate site, and the price was $90,000. Too much for me if I hoped to build a house on it any time soon. But still, it seemed like a great opportunity, full of possibility—a daydream scenario. I looked at it online and on the map for a while, but after a couple of months I sort of lost track of it. A couple of times I looked for it again when I was in the car, but I didn't really recall where it was and I never had any success locating it—never found it again.

So guess what? I didn't recognize it, because there's a house on it now, built between then and now—but that lot is actually two doors away from my new house. Quite a "shock of recognition" when I figured that out.

•     •     •

The move has gone exceptionally smoothly—just about as smoothly as possible, in fact, and yes, I am knocking on wood as I write that. I've taken everything slowly, planned carefully, and gotten as much help as possible.

I even hired help to move the computer—Tom Phelps of Network Consulting Services, Inc. (NCS). That seemed like overkill even to me—how hard can it be just setting up a computer?

Tom Phelps of NCS Inc.

Well, it turned out it was some of the best money I've spent in the move. Tom is going to set up a professional network behind a firewall for me, with file sharing and a laptop that I can use for an part-time temp and also for traveling—and battery backups on everything. Plus a phone system that allows phones in Europe to be "extensions." I know a lot of you are very computer savvy and even this would seem easy for you, but I barely understood the explanation. It's all stuff I could never do myself.

Very happy I hired Tom. Nice guy and really knows his stuff.

So that word is "fast":

A forty day fast—noun
To fast for Lent—verb
A fast reader—adjective
Running fast—adverb

And the joke: you call it a fsh, of course.

Hope your Monday goes by fast, if you're working today.

Mike
(Thanks to Dave Reichert and Larry Gebhardt)

Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

DC Wells: "One of my high school English teachers (way back in the '60s) told me that she had found almost 100 English words that could properly function as a noun, adjective, adverb, and verb. I recall only 'best' and 'down.'"

Murray Davidson: "It's, like (adverb), you are like (adjective) to like (verb) an answer like (preposition/conjunctive) the like (noun) of this...."

Comments

[Leigh]

For the riddle, I came up with "still". Perhaps there are more than one (or two).

[Robert Johnston]

Hi Mike,

The Miata is known as the Mazda MX5 on this side of the pond. I was a passenger in one yesterday. It is a cheap to run fun car. And you don't have to know how to cope with sudden over-steer to drive it. The problem for us is that soft top in the winter - and most of the summer (although we are having a good one this year).
Good luck with the computers,

Bob Johnston (yes, really). Most of us Johnstons are in the Scottish Isles but I am in the middle of England.

[misha]

What do you call a fish with no eyes?

A charity fundraiser mascot. With Sarah McLachlan singing in the background.

[bongo]

Mike -fish joke, really! With so many comedians out of work better stick to your day job.

[Stan B.]

I'm sure I won't be the first to point out that there are two English words that meet those requirements... the one that automatically comes to mind.

[toto]

I know of another English word that can be used as a noun, a verb, an adverb and an adjective. It also starts with an f, but ends with a king.

[David Bennett]

What is the only word in English that can be used as a noun, a verb, an adverb and an adjective without changing its spelling?

fast
still
back

[ericke]

Well ....

[Steve Jacob]

What do you call a deer with no eyes?

No idea.

What do you call a deer with no eyes or legs?

Still no idea.

And my favourite quote from the British version of 'The Office':

There's no "I" in TEAM, but there's a "ME" there if you look hard enough...

[Mike R]

In Evan Hunter's "The Blackboard Jungle" (the novel, not the movie) there's a funny segment in which a student, called upon to describe to the class a certain situation, used another four-letter word beginning with "f" in probably as many ways as your four categories. Regrettably, that feat could not be performed without adding some endings to the word.

[psu]

Verbing weirds language.

[Mark K Lough]

The word "fast" is also an auto-antonym. A word which has a meaning and also means its own opposite.
Fast means moving quickly, and it also means firmly fixed, immobile.
English is fun.

[Steve Smith]

Then you get words which have incorrect uses forced upon them - usually by Americans!

e.g. the nonsensical term 'my bad'. You can't own an adjective!

[Peter Croft]

The MX5 (Miata) - what a beautiful car. There are cars which are timeless and that's one of them.

A serviced block of land in an established area for $90,000?! You 'Murricans have it so good. Cheap cars, cheap land. In Oz that block would cost $350,000 and upwards (our dollars are about equal). A house would cost another $150,000 to $250,000 to build. The median price in my ordinary working class suburb is $520,000.

Count your blessings.