Hey Sars,

I was in an African History class last semester and I
came across a weird question while I was studying for
the map test. Why are there so many countries that
have the word “Guinea” in their name? In Africa alone
you have Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau.
Then, there’s also Papua New Guinea, which is found
on the island of New Guinea. Plus, as far as I can
tell all of these countries were colonized by
different imperialist forces, so they don’t share a
common language.

Any insights or educated guesses?

Geography Major to the Bone

Dear Geo,

According to Wikipedia, “The name comes from Berber languages via Portuguese[;] it originally meant ‘land of the blacks.'”How…simplistic of the colonizing powers.I guess we’re to assume, then, that one country designated its territory as such and others just followed suit.

I would be interested to know if there’s any relationship between that somewhat brutish naming convention and the slur used for “Italian-American.”

Dear Sars,

I have *drum roll please* a boy question. Since my
sister knows the boy, I’ve tried to talk to her about
it, but she just cringes and says, “Oh, I don’t even
want to THINK about that.” So she’s out, and I don’t
know who else to turn to.

My sister is attending a college about a two-hour
drive from my house, and is going to a nice church
there. Through her church community, she met some very
nice boys who I’ll call the Van Helsings. I went up
there this summer and met them, brothers named Ron,
Fred, and George. The oldest, Ron, is eighteen; Fred
and George are sixteen and fourteen respectively. We
won’t go into the part where my twenty-one-year-old
sister likes to hang out with high schoolers, because
that’s a Vine letter for another day.

Anyway, this summer I went up to my sister’s house a
few times and had a grand time hanging around with the
Van Helsing brothers. I felt like I’d known them
forever, we laughed a lot and it was great fun. But
most especially I liked Ron, because he and I sort of
clicked. We have the same favorite band, the same
sense of humor, and we get along like a house afire.
Now, I myself am sixteen, and he’s just shy of two
years older than me, which isn’t a big deal. But Fred
is my age, and he was enamored of me at first sight.

I went up there this weekend for a visit, and we all
(“we all” being my sister, Ron, Fred, George, one of
their friend’s Charlie, and I) hung around Saturday
evening at their house. Fred was in general clingy and
silly and kept saying, “Hey, Charlie’s flirting with
you. Doesn’t that bug you? You should make him stop.”
Well, Charlie’s fourteen, he flirts with everyone, it
was not a big deal. I was like, “Wow, Charlie, that
was smooth. Now take your arm off my shoulders before
I stab you in the eye with a pen.”

All in fun, of course. But Fred was getting seriously
irritated, so I finally just said, “Look, Charlie, cut
it out,” and we moved on. I didn’t want to cause a
scene. But now I’m worried because Fred has a thing
for me in a major way. I’ve done nothing to encourage
him in any way, shape or form, and yet he persists.

In fact, I’ve been doing my best to encourage Ron.
Ron’s exceptionally wonderful, and I fancy the pants
off him, and we’ve spent hours on end talking about
everything under the sun. I enjoy being around him,
and we’re very comfortable with each other. Not to
mention the vast amounts of chemistry between us.

So now I’ve come to the question! Aren’t you glad!
Should I spare Fred’s feelings because I’m also
friends with him, and keep my distance from Ron? Or
should I just go ahead and date Ron, and Fred can go
hang? That sounds kind of mean, and I really don’t
want to hurt Fred’s feelings. And I can’t avoid him,
because he’s Ron’s brother and that’s kind of
impossible.

Says I to my sister, “I wonder what Fred would think
if Ron and I started going out.” Says my sister to me,
“Oh, I don’t even want to think about it. Let’s talk
about something else.” So I have no idea what to do
about the whole situation. I genuinely like Fred, just
not that way. Any thoughts?

There’s No Mathematical Formula For Love Triangles

Dear Math,

Nothing’s happened with Ron yet, I assume, “formally” speaking, but if you think something’s going to happen, I think you should make it clear to Fred first that it’s no go — you really like him, but as a friend, and no more.

I know you would prefer it if 1) he would take a hint, and 2) he didn’t like you That Way in the first place, but alas, that isn’t the world you live in, so I think the kindest thing is to speak plainly to him before anything more serious happens with Ron, because if you wait on it and let Fred “go hang,” he’ll be rejected and hurt and feel stupid.He may still feel all those things after you talk to him — in fact, he probably will — but at the very least he won’t feel misled.

The other option, of course, is to keep in mind that these people live two hours away from you and that perhaps the geographical gods are trying to drop you a hint.Given the unavoidable drama here, maybe you want to opt out of trying to date Ron and find someone who’s closer to home, doesn’t have a brother who’s crushing on you, and isn’t in the same social circle as your sibling.

Dear Sars,

Quick footnote-y query: “ibid” or “ibid.”?And if it’s the latter, what is it
short for?

Yours,
Nerdus Adronicus

Dear N. Ad,

I believe it’s “ibid.,” with the period.I can tell you for sure that “ibid.” is an abbreviation of the Latin ibidem, which means “in [or from] the same place.”For footnoting purposes, any road.

…Garner lists it as follows: “ibid.”Period included.I had assumed that the period served a stop function in that case, as I always put a full stop at the end of a citation, as though it were a sentence, but evidently it’s an abbreviatory (?) stop.Either way, a period is indicated.

The same entry in Garner suggests that I’ve been using “op. cit.” incorrectly since the eighties, which is embarrassing, but enough about me.

Hi Sars!

I’m just going to dive right in: I would like to stop mindfucking my relationship with my husband. Can you help me?

We’ve been married about six months, together about 18. I love the guy, am devoted to him, think I’m ridiculously lucky to have him, the works; I was pretty sure I’d marry him within a month of meeting him. It wasn’t just that I was so head-over-heels in love. I mean, I was — I was infatuated, excited, couldn’t stop thinking about him, all that good stuff.

But I found some practical things about him just as magnetic — stuff like his honesty, his stability, his trustworthiness, his work ethic, none of which he’s never given me the slightest reason to doubt. In addition to being cute and smart and sweet, he was just a straight-up decent man, somebody I could build a solid future with. And we are, and I’m glad, more so every day. But I’ve never had a relationship that lasted more than about a year before. I’ve never even had one I HOPED would last more than a year before. I’m 25 years old with seven relationships under my belt, and now, suddenly, I’m married. I love it, but it’s new to me, and I’m still learning.

The problem, such as it is, is this: My husband, lovely person though he is, isn’t perfect. In fact, nobody I’ve ever dated has been perfect, because nobody is. However, this never bothered me before, because whenever the man in my life disappointed me, be it minor (aw, man, I thought that was a good joke, you’re not laughing) to major (you had sex with who?!), I always dealt with it by thinking, “Oh well, we’re not meant for the long term anyway.” I’ve always had one foot out the door. Always, always, always. I guess I figured I wouldn’t get hurt if I always knew I would leave first.

So in every relationship I’ve ever had, I’ve always had another guy in the back of my head. Sometimes it was someone I had a crush on, sometimes it was an ex, sometimes it was a friend; it didn’t really matter. It was just a placeholder, somebody I could compare the current guy to when I felt like he was letting me down. Which I would do. Continually.

But now I’m making these comparisons with my husband, and I don’t want to be. I compare him to my ex, who lied and cheated and smoked crack (just once, true, but it ended in a carjacking, for God’s sake) and had sexual preferences bordering on the illegal, but who laughed at all my jokes and flattered me like the fate of the free world was at stake. I compare him to a friend I almost hooked up with but didn’t, whose childlike enthusiasm was the opposite of my husband’s stoicism. I compare him to friends, acquaintances — whoever. Whenever a little sadness comes up in the course of a day, my brain is ready with the treacherous “Oh, well, if you were with [Person X, whose individual flaws are conveniently left out of this comparison], HE would [provide action/reaction/phrase for which you were hoping and which husband did not provide].”

The thing is, I don’t want to leave my husband. I don’t want to be with anybody else. I can’t even daydream about other people, even if he and I have a fight; I know who I want to be with, and it’s him. I don’t question that. So I don’t think these comparisons are an actual desire; they seem like just a reflex.

But they’re immature and destructive and I want to break the habit. Nobody’s perfect, least of all me, and the longer I keep making up some theoretical person who will always act and react exactly how I want, then comparing the real person in my life to this construct…well, the longer I will spend being a control freak who stays busy by making herself miserable, rather than being grateful for the wonderful husband she actually has.

If you can give me any advice, I’d be really grateful.

It’s All In My Mind?

Dear Mind,

Well, you’re aware of this tendency of yours, which I think is good, and you’re aware of your history with the tendency, which is also good.Now I think you have to dig down just a bit further and find out why you do this — why you feel like you need a back-up plan, why you’ve set yourself up to be disappointed in the past and why you’re continuing this habit in the present when there’s no call for it.

Not that your husband’s never going to disappoint you; he is.He’s human, he’s not a mind-reader, he’s going to do things and behave in ways that aren’t ideal.And to tell you the truth, I don’t think there’s anything all that wrong or toxic about comparing him to other guys, or fantasizing about swinging from his vine to theirs, as long as it stays in the realm of fantasy and you realize that it’s just something you do to manage relationship anxiety.

But…that’s the point.It’s an anxiety thing, and I think that in order to deal with it and put it aside, you have to track the anxiety.Start a journal (or use your current one, if you journal already) and just make note of the times when you feel like, “Well, Man X wouldn’t pull this shit.”Write down everything about the situation and try to pick out a pattern, something that’s repeating itself, a situation you’re reliving, maybe from your childhood and your family dynamic.Something will probably suggest itself, a reason, a foundation for why you do this.

Don’t beat yourself up about it; just try to figure out where it comes from.You default to this for a reason.It’s an escape hatch for you.Try to figure out why you need that, but understand, people need things like this sometimes to manage emotional stress, and it doesn’t make you evil.It just means you’re trying to cope.There’s probably a better way, sure, but there are way worse ways too.

Hi Sars,

I have a usage question.What’s the deal with “inside of”?I always
thought “inside” was fine without a preposition in most cases.”Car X
passed on the inside of Car Y” is fine, but “She has a lot of anger
inside of her” bothers me.Am I right, or should I get used to it?

Thanks,
M

Dear M,

For starters, I would say that it’s one of those constructions that isn’t ideal for formal writing, but in speech I wouldn’t make a big thing about it.It’s like “off of”; for some reason, adding an “of” to “he fell off the roof” gives a better sense of the separating.I don’t know if I explained that well, but it puts a more emphatic distance of sense of place into the phrase somehow.

But I suspect it’s not strictly correct.Garner agrees; his entry is actually for “outside of,” but he maintains that it’s “inferior” to “outside” because the “of” is unnecessary.

So, you’re right — but as far as spoken English goes, yes, you should probably get used to it.It’s a usage tic a lot of people have and correcting it outside of formal writing will not make for happy times.

[11/1/05]

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