"But Not Everything Has a Name"

So says my friend - and she is right! But in a French-themed coffee shop in Vancouver the other day, I did wonder about the difference between these two sentences:

"That is my dessert plan."
"That is the plan of the dessert."
(Just for the record, my plan involved chocolate, bread, and cappuccino).

And she agreed that it seems like there should be a name for this, for changing the first formulation into the second, for making the noun "dessert plan" into a prepositional phrase. A name other than, "Making it more awesome," that is. Imagine if Coleridge hadn't deployed this device? We'd have "The Ancient Mariner Rime" instead. And also: "The Ape Planet," which would inspire way less foreboding. I could go on, but I will spare you.   

Gay Cowboys are my Weakness

There are knock-offs meant to deceive (see this article about the problem on Amazon, for instance
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/04/16/amazon-knock-off-bestsellers/) and then there is wordplay where the reader/viewer/etc is meant to be in on the jokey adaptation or hybrid, such as in my Annie Proulx-Pam Houston post title here, but the joke is also meant to generate genuine interest, $, etc. Is there a name for this?

Savoring the springboard

I didn't want to leave the 6th grade, and two years later, I didn't want to leave middle school. I couldn't imagine leaving high school because it meant that I was definitely leaving behind my best friend, who had died 6 months before. I had to go though - my town was too full of ghosts. Four years later, I was sad to leave college. Well, you get the picture - I like to stay.

I know I love a place when I turn off the lights in its empty rooms. I would do that in my dorm - pass by the lounge, its television screen dark, the old maroon couches listless, no one in sight - and I'd flip the switch before continuing on. Now, nights when I'm the last one on the third floor of the Humanities building, I'll turn out the lights in our (very little) lounge too. It feels less environmentally-conscious than simply, oddly protective.

Barring the unexpected (and aren't we always barring that?), I graduate again in 4 months. I need to concentrate on applying for jobs, and I know that in the right one I'd be happy to commit all over again to a new place and its old, quiet furniture. It's just the dive that's difficult.