PARVUM OPUS

 

Number 129

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REMOVE FOOT FROM MOUTH, PLACE IN HAND

 

Last week my mother reminded me of what my great-grandmother Jane used to say when she wanted to walk someplace: "I'll just take my foot in my hand and go." A tiny bit of Internet research shows that this expression was common in Appalachia, probably with Scottish/Anglo roots. When Grandma Jane wanted to go to the store or visit a friend, she'd put on a clean apron and walk all over the hills of West Virginia, specifically Calhoun County. She's the one who used to pick wild 'sang for use or sale, that is, American ginseng.

 

PROOF

 

"The exception proves the rule." We tend to think this means literally what it says, that an exception to a rule somehow proves its general rightness. But it actually means the exception tests the rule, "prove" meaning here not to establish validity without question, but to test by experiment, as in "probe".

 

LET US DEFINE OUR TERMS

 

The commonly used terms meditation, contemplation, and mysticism have quite specific meanings other than the familiar ones. The first two usually refer to deep thought on a serious subject, although most of us are familiar with, for instance, Buddhist meditation. But meditation and contemplation have particular meanings within the Christian tradition, which I won't get into now, but you can look them up.  They are specific types of prayer. Mysticism often refers to any supernatural or even New Age sorts of subjects, spiritualism, conjuring up spirits, murky stuff that's hard to understand, even irrational, magic, secret, etc. But it too has a different meaning, and is well explained in Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy. It has to do with union with God, or whatever you wish to call ultimate reality, and is indeed hard to verbalize.

 

AND WHY ARE THEY CALLED POTHOLES?

 

Someone who prefers to remain nameless popped this one out: "There are no atheists in potholes."

 

I like it. Next time you see someone peering out over the rim of one of those craters, try to drive around him.

 

THEY SAY

 

# On scandalous Spokane Mayor Jim West: "I didn't feel Jim West was portraying a very good mayor." She meant he was not a very good mayor, which is not the same as presenting an image of a good mayor. There's still a difference between being and seeming. Perhaps the confusion stemmed from the two meanings of "act" ~ to take action, and to pretend.

 

# Which reminds me of the current slang term representin'. Looking for a definition, I found a set of slang flash cards, called Slang 2, which means there must have been a Slang 1 deck. The ad says, "Slang 2 will have the masses representin’ in no time." The masses will be ~ what? Appearing cool? A contributor to Urbandictionary.com says it means (as spelled with a Z, "reprezent") "To make others realise the place that u are from ..!" This is basically the original meaning, except that it's being used without an object. You can "represent" without representing anything explicit.

 

# Speaking of the objective case, somebody else said (on TV of course), "coalesce one another". People can coalesce with one another, but it is an intransitive verb and does not take a direct object. Coalesce is not something you do to someone else.

 

# On teaching composition to kindergarteners: "What they write is more important than how they write." I can't agree. Kindergarteners need to learn the alphabet first, and spelling, and to learn about something outside of their tiny selves so they'll have tools to use. What can a five-year-old have to say about herself, or the world? Whatever they say is cute and interesting at least to their mothers, but once again, here we have a teacher pushing self-expression, which means teaching kids to be preoccupied with their own feelings and, no doubt, self-esteem, so that they'll probably end up like my infamous semi-literate (adult) student who said, "It's not fair that some students should get better grades [in English] just because they write better!"

 

# Dave DaBee does not agree that "another" should only modify the same quantity, as in, "The mother of one then had another four children." But the idea is that "another" modifies the number, not the noun. Colloquially, however, there is usually no confusion. Unless I'm the one who's listening or reading.

 

18TH CENTURY EYES

 

In case you're planning a road trip, check out something I received a few weeks ago from Marianne, about the Western Reserve, and why this bit of land in the east is so called:

 

            Ohio and the Midwest are favourite subjects of mine. Just looking at a map doesn't tell the story since we are reading the map with modern eyes instead eighteenth century eyes.

            The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 created a US territory encompassing  Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin to encourage settlement since most land in the eastern states was unavailable by then. The jumping off point for this adventure in the new territory was Marietta, Ohio. Visit the Campus Martius Museum dedicated to Ohio settlement the next time you are in that lovely town. It's a wonderful little gem.

            The Western Reserve portion of Ohio was settled later than Southern Ohio due to difficulty in dealing with lots of swamp land. Also, southern Ohio was easier to get to by going down the river in flatboats even though you risked life and limb to do so. Many massacres occurred.

            This area is now referred to as "The Old Northwest" to distinguish it from the Northwest we inhabit today. The area expanded geographically to include all the other states that make up the great Midwest.

 

Thanks, Marianne.

 

 

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