Titus 2 Men And Women

Deficient Noun Disease
by Denise Lower

DEFICIENT NOUN DISEASE (taken from a story originally done by Heather Jensen entitled, "A Self-Diagnostic for Mother’s with Deficient Noun Disease).

Do you commonly find yourself calling your children by the wrong name, and feel like kicking yourself for spending so much time selecting just the right name for each child?

Do you find yourself saying to your child, "Sure, I know where you left your cookie. It's on the long white horizontal surface in the kitchen...you know, the one with the thing we cook with on one end and the thing we put stuff in to keep it cold on the other end? Um...there's a sink in it?"

Do you tell people on the phone that you'll be happy to take a message, just as soon as you find a "message-writing-down thingamabob?"

In fact, do all the nouns in your vocabulary, nouns which have been your friends and companions since you were two years old, suddenly become "thingies" when you are under pressure? You may be suffering from deficient noun disease.

Deficient noun disease, or DND, is a common affliction among mothers of small children (older children too). While not a dangerous illness, DND is an exasperating and frustrating one which increases in severity in direct proportion to the number of children in the household.

Common symptoms of DND include the following: Calling children by each other's names, forgetting the proper names for common household objects, and casually referring to other adults not as "John and Jane" but as "those people with the pool who barbecue every Friday."

Another common symptom is the frequent use of the WRONG noun in a given situation, rather like mild aphasia. Someone with this particular type of DND might say, "Put your plate on the stove...I mean on the counter...I mean...ON THE TABLE!"

A less common symptom displayed by some DND sufferers is an ailment also referred to as the "Crossword" Syndrome. With this particular type of DND-related illness, the affected person might declare, "Oh, yes, I know her name. Let's see...it starts with an "S", has five letters...."

DND, although virtually untreatable and incurable, can still be endured with a minimum of pain and embarrassment if the afflicted person makes use of the following handy coping mechanisms.

One method of coping with the disease involves the clever use of nicknames, which can easily apply to any individual in the family, like "Dear" or "Sweetheart". This method breaks down when the DND sufferer is face with the necessity of differentiating between individuals, or when she is talking to several people at one time, so the use of group nicknames, like referring to everyone in the room as "Y'all", a common Southern coping mechanism, is recommended.

Another good way to conceal DND from your friends and family members is to develop the habit of pausing in your sentences when reaching a crucial noun. If the pause is long enough, the other individual will attempt to guess the noun for you, and you need only respond in the affirmative when the correct noun is reached. Although this method may take time, it certainly adds suspense to an otherwise ordinary conversation.

The information available on DND is still patchy and incomplete, due to the unnecessary shame felt by many mothers who do not realize that this illness is wide-spread and quite common. Very few mothers are able to call their children by name, and it is difficult for them to believe that the time invested in picking out those names was, to put it bluntly, wasted.

When education has removed the stigma from the minds of all women, this disease might very well be shown to be the most common affliction in human history.

The cause of DND is not yet known; some scientists believe that using a word over 100,000 times in the course of a lifetime may simply fade that word from long-term memory; mothers simply reach the lifetime limit earlier because two-year old child as proof positive that the repetition of a word more than 100,000 times (in this case, the word Mommy) does not cause selective noun amnesia.

Although modern science may never be able to cure DND or discover what exactly causes it, we as mothers and fellow sufferers can still help one another to recognize the illness and learn to live in harmony with it.

The next time you hear yourself shouting, "CLAUDIA-CODY-BETSY-LOGAN-JILL....YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE! GET IN HERE!," you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that mothers all over the world are doing the same thing.

(This after thought is included for you for FREE by Denise Lower)

.........Now that is truly funny.   I find myself in the lines of that article more than I would like to admit.  Sometimes I think forgetting what I’m saying happens because I am just too lazy to FORCE myself to remember what anyone is saying, even myself sometimes, which brings me to my next point.

EXERCISE.......and that is a dirty eight-letter word to me.  I HATE exercise, physical exercise, that is.  To me there is nothing more boring than waving your arms around over and over again.  Or running in the same circle, or going up the same step, over and over and OVER again.......what is wrong with these people, can’t they get it right the first time?

HOWEVER, there is a form of exercise that ANYONE can partake in, whether you simply abstain from exercise as a religious conviction (I tell people it is against my religion), or whether you cannot exercise due to physical or health restrictions. 

The type of exercise I am referring to is the exercise of the mind.  Recently, I heard a medical doctor on the radio say that one of the ways to ward off many of the early signs of aging, memory loss and even Alzheimer’s, is to keep the mind active.  I can even handle that!  He went on to suggest mental activities such as crossword puzzles, word search puzzles, video games (within reason here, people) and even board games, card games and games you can download on the computer, like Tetris and Mah Jong.

Now, that is the kind of exercise I can handle, and it sounds like fun too.  Maybe consider it a little mental vacation.  There are days when I really think I need to take the family picture down and make little labels with everyone’s names on them, and put them under the appropriate person in the picture.  However, I find my mind "sharper" on those days when I have done something challenging on this computer, or even when I have had to do MANY things, keep a list (check it twice), go to place A, B, C thru Z AND remember to put gas in the car, all at the same time. 

Those things include physical activity, but what would I do with my mind if I were unable to have physical activity, or if my physical activity were restricted?  When I was very young, I worked in a nursing home as an aide.  I saw older people in all stages of the aging process.  What surprised me were, the ones that could still walk the hallways and go to the dining hall for dinner, were the ones that kept their minds active.  There was always the crossword puzzle book on their side table, a crochet hook and directions next to the chair, even a set of stationery and pen, so they could keep in touch with their loved ones.  It was so sad for me to walk into a room and see someone just laying there, staring at the wall, waiting for something to do or someone to come visit.  They are also the ones with NO crossword puzzle book on their side table.

These things did not seem significant to me at the time, but after hearing the doctor on the radio, I began to piece it all together.  If there are people in your life at any age that are having difficulty with their mental faculties, go buy them one of those fat crossword puzzle books, or one of those hand held Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune games.  Play Trivial Pursuit at family functions (I LOVE my daddy to be on MY team, we ALWAYS win) or Who wants to be a Millionaire.  Try Pictionary or if you are artistically challenged like yours truly, play Scattergories or Scrabble instead.

The point to all this, is the longer I keep my brain active and jumping to answer questions, the longer my mind will stay sharp and alert. Think of the brain as a muscle, and if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it. Remember the older loved ones in your life when shopping this holiday season.  They will remember your name longer in the process, if you help them keep their mind active.  Now, where did I leave that animal named thingie that makes this go to print?????

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