… on how you define “sound.”  If sound is defined as “waves moving through the air,” then the answer is “yes.”  If sound is defined as “waves interacting with an eardrum,” the answer is “no.”  They’re both legitimate definitions according to Merriam-Webster.  Pick either one and the riddle is answered.

I just finished James Lee Burke’s latest Dave Robicheaux novel The Tin Roof Blowdown.  It’s set in New Orleans during and immediately after Katrina.  Burke has a character ask, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it really fall?” ???  Did the author mangle the age-old riddle deliberately because the person asking was a psychopath?  But the listener responds as though he was familiar with the riddle in that form.  Was he humoring the psychopath?  Or is the riddle starting to linguo-degrade?

I worry about these things.  I mourn the language, but whaddaya gonna do?  It’s a living thing, so little bits are gonna die.  But I hate it when what follows is inferior.

Damn!

Maybe I shouldn’t contribute to the chaos by saying “Scandihoovia” or "one swell foop."

Maybe I should be more precise in my word use.

Nah.

- Poppa