QUARANTINE BLOG # 264

December 19, 2020

Today we conclude the two-part story of “The Curious Language Called English.”  

We were talking about the problems with English.  Perhaps the single most notable characteristic of English – for better and worse – is its deceptive complexity. Nothing in English is ever quite what it seems. 

Take the simple word what. We use it every day – indeed, every few sentences. But imagine trying to explain to a foreigner what what means. It takes the Oxford English Dictionary five pages and almost 15,000 words to manage the task. 

For instance:  Pronoun – What is the matter? Noun – What clothes shall I pack? Adverb – What does it matter? Interjection – What, no salt? Conjunction – He helps me what he can. Idiom – Money, jewels, stocks, and what have you.

As native speakers, we seldom stop to think just how complicated and illogical English is. Every day we use countless words and expressions without thinking about them – often without having the faintest idea what they really describe or signify. 

So, you think English is easy?  Try these:

The bandage was wound around the wound. 

The farm was used to produce produce. 

The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse. 

He could lead if he would get the lead out. 

Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present. 

When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes. 

I did not object to the object. 

The insurance was invalid for the invalid. 

They were too close to the door to close it. 

The buck does funny things when the does are present. 

A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line. 

To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow. 

The wind was too strong to wind the sail. 

Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear. 

I had to subject the subject to a series of tests. 

Let’s face it – English is a crazy language.

There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither is there an apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? 

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? 

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? 

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Speaking of eating ...

“Luncheonette” entered American English in about 1920 and in its turn helped to popularize a fashion for words with -ette endings: kitchenette, dinette, usherette, roomette, bachelorette, drum majorette, even parkette for a meter maid and realtyette for a female real estate agent.

The waitresses and hash slingers (an Americanism dating from 1868) who worked in the food establishments evolved a vast lingo for the food they served and the clients who ate it. 

By the 1920s if you wanted to work behind a lunch counter you needed to know that “Noah’s boy” was a slice of ham (since Ham was one of Noah’s sons) and that “burn one” or “grease spot” designated a hamburger. 

“Clean the kitchen” meant an order of hash.

“Adam and Eve on a raft” was two poached eggs on toast.

“Bird seed” was cereal.

“Whistleberries” were baked beans.

“Dough well done with cow to cover” was the somewhat labored way of calling for an order of toast and butter. 

Many of these shorthand terms have since entered the mainstream, notably “BLT” for a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich, “over easy” and “sunny side” up in respect of eggs, and hold as in “hold the mayo.” 

Well, let’s see if we can get back on track.

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? 

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? 

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on. 

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. 

Let’s play a little game with colors.  Simple enough.  Red.  Yellow.  Blue.  Mix them together to get Orange, Green, and Purple.  Right?  Not so fast!

  ●  aubergine – a dark purplish color.

●  lovat – a grayish blend of colors, esp. of green, used in textiles, as for plaids.

●  smaragdine – of or pertaining to emeralds (another shade of green).

●  solferino – vivid purplish pink.

●  xanthous – yellow

Say What? Here’s another department where English excels. Why say it with one word, when you can use two – or more?

We all domicile in a xanthous submersible.  We all live in a yellow submarine.

Don’t exude presentiment, be convivial!  Don’t worry, be happy!

Don’t truncate your proboscis to exacerbate your visage.  Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.

Don’t ruminate on the phalanges that are victualing you! Don’t bite the hand that feeds you!

Your oculi are more commodious than the amplitude of your viscera.  Your eyes are bigger than your stomach

And along similar lines – quotes too good to be true!

“I get to go to lots of oversea places.  Like Canada!”  (Brittany Spears)

“Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life.”  (Brooke Shields)

“A zebra does not change its spots.” 

(Al – I invented the Internet – Gore)

And in conclusion – which one comic strip author said, “Just means he is catching his second wind” – here is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is “UP.”

It’s easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report ? 

We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. 

At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special. 

And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP . We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. 

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! 

To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP , you may wind UP with a hundred or more. 

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP. When it doesn’t rain for awhile, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it UP , for now my time is UP, so time to shut UP!

Oh, one more thing:

What is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do at night before going to bed? U-P

👉  Third Saturday of Advent

Beyond All Our Expectations

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.  He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.  He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.  But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.  And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth (John 1:9-14).

There was something unroyal about him: no pretense, no ambition, no limousine, no army, no coercion, no royal marking.  Wise and intelligent people are turned toward the regal.  But the Jesus who showed up amid royal hopes and royal songs was of another ilk, powerful in weakness, rich in poverty, wise in foolishness, confounding the wisdom of the Greeks and bewildering the Jews.

He is beyond all usual categories of power, because he embodies the gentle, gracious, resilient, demanding power of God.  He does not trifle in temples and cities and dynasties but in the power and truth of the creator God.

But John does not linger over Christology.  He rushes on to the disciples.  You disciples, you have seen.  You have known; you have been in his presence.  You have been healed and fed by him.  You have tasted his bread and drunk his wine.  You know!

You know about life rooted in the spirit of God and not in the spirit of the age of violence.  You know about the poor and have not had your head turned by wealth and power.  You know about the impulse of creation toward health, a creaturely health signed in bread and wine.  You know.

And because you know, you can keep singing.  You can keep hoping.  And because you sing and hope, you can act in freedom, unburdened, uncoerced, unafraid, and without cynicism.  The song goes on.  It is a subversive, revolutionary song.  And we, given access to this odd king, get to sign on to sing and to live it unafraid!

God of joy and hope, you come to us in Jesus as a king who overturns all our ordinary understandings of power.  Your presence is unexpected and unsettling, but we know you, for we have known your healing and provision.  Open our hearts to keep on singing and hoping, that we may live and act without fear.  Amen.

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