PERSISTENT VEGETABLE LOVE

Everyone knows about the Terri Schindler Schiavo case now. The law rests to some extent on verbal definitions, which definitions are intended to direct actions. This woman is said to be in a "persistent vegetative state" and therefore a candidate for death. What does this mean? What does it have to do with the pictures of her we see on TV? Even if this phrase has a precise medical meaning, no MRI or CAT scan has ever been done on her, so scientific definitions are irrelevant. We like to use the word "vegetable" to describe a person who is merely a body, whose mind and spirit are gone. The origins of the word "vegetable" (from www.dict.org) are interesting:

Vegetable \Veg`e*ta*ble\, a. [F. v['e]g['e]table growing, capable of growing, formerly also, as a noun, a vegetable, from L. vegetabilis enlivening, from vegetare to enliven, invigorate, quicken, vegetus enlivened, vigorous, active, vegere to quicken, arouse, to be lively, akin to vigere to be lively, to thrive, vigil watchful, awake, and probably to E. wake, v. See Vigil, Wake, v.]

I am not being facetious when I tell you I'm reminded of a book that affected me considerably when it came out, The Secret Life of Plants, which explained that even plants are alive and sensitive and have a rudimentary "consciousness". If a human being who is not otherwise ill has at least as much life as a vegetable, she cannot be defined into nonexistence.

Finally I am reminded of Marvell's wonderful poem, "To His Coy Mistress", in which he says:

My vegetable Love should grow

Vaster than Empires, and more slow.

A vegetable love is slow growing, it is not quickly leaping and bounding like a young deer, for instance, but it is alive.

So the least I can do for this poor woman is to parse the language being used to send her to her death.

AS TIME GOES BY

In a TV documentary about Geraldo Rivera, one of his friends talked about one of his wives, Edie Vonnegut, who "became the love of his life at the time."

COLLISION

Dave daBee wrote: Re crash, I'm reminded of a piece that thoroughly un-anthropomorphizes an accident: "Miss Alabama [or whatever the state was] was treated and released after the car she was driving collided with a fire hydrant Saturday." I don't know if it's possible for a moving thing to collide with an immobile object ~ perhaps it is ~ but something seems wrong with saying the car hit the hydrant, as if she were along for the ride.

The dictionary says objects can collide. Like "When Worlds Collide." However, again the sentence you quoted does tend to absolve Miss Alabama of any responsibility. I'm sure she didn't mean to do it.

IRONIC

I've written before about "irony" (Dave daBee had a lot to say about that). Here's another wrongful use of the word, from a TV documentary:

"[Southern plantations] remain as reminders of an ironic era that was both glorious and cruel."

No irony there, just contradiction. Much like what I saw in Natchez, Mississippi, almost 20 years ago. Driving through the town I noticed the poorest shacks, like ones I used to commonly see in the rural south, side by side with fine houses, even mansions. In most cities, you do not see this juxtaposition. Very poor neighborhoods are separate from affluent ones. On an ante-bellum plantation with slaves, the plantation owners' house was on the same land as the slave quarters, and the owners lived in fairly close daily communion with the slaves. Perhaps that discomfort with extreme differences in fortune is greater in the north, or in newer towns.

TRANSLATION

I heard the most peculiar thing the other day. Someone read a Bible passage about the Crucifixion in which the two men executed beside Jesus were called "revolutionaries". I have only ever heard them called "thieves" or "robbers". The original Greek, according to Fred, might possibly be translated as insurgent or brigand (leistai) rather than thief (kleptai). There's a big difference between an insurgent and a brigand, though.

I don't know what Bible the reader was using. Undoubtedly Jesus would have been classified as a political threat, although that was not his message, but perhaps the translator leaned to that interpretation.

INTERACTIVE

A local store sells a small colorful rug called an "Interactive Children's Mat." It has pictures of things like a road or track that kids can push toy cars on, and maybe other games. It is not, however, "interactive." The mat is not mechanized in any way. It cannot act. A kid can use it in play, but that's not enough to make something interactive. Actually, I'd be scared of an interactive mat.

UNBEARABLE

A gay man lamented on TV, "My father could not accept that I would never bear a son to carry on the family name." Even if that man were straight, he would not bear a son, barring some really freaky genetic engineering and plastic surgery. Women still bear children.

THE PERIMETER OF PARAMETERS

"Parameter" doesn't mean what you think it does, or what I thought it means. It does not mean "perimeters" or boundaries. It has some extremely technical mathematical meanings, and also means "the limits, guidelines, or assumptions from within which an activity is carried out; as, new arrivals need to learn the parameters of the research in our department." However, something called Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0, referred to at www.dict.org, gives these synonyms for "parameter":

barometer, boundaries, boundary condition, bounds, bourns, canon, catch, check, circumference, circumscription, clause, compass, condition, confines, coordinates, criterion, degree, donnee, edges, escalator clause, escape clause, escape hatch, fine print, fringes, gauge, given, graduated scale, grounds, joker, kicker, limitations, limiting condition, limits, marches, measure, metes, metes and bounds, model, norm, obligation, outlines, outskirts, pale, parameters, pattern, perimeter, periphery, prerequisite, provision, provisions, proviso, quantity, reading, readout, requisite, rule, saving clause, scale, sine qua non, skirts, small print, specification, standard, stipulation, string, terms, test, touchstone, type, ultimatum, value, verges, whereas, yardstick

Beware of synonyms.

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I have a contribution in a new anthology about the "center of life", Changing Course: Women's Inspiring Stories of Menopause, Midlife, and Moving Forward, edited by Yitta Halberstam.

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