“...and I say no: I can stop any time I like, I do it because I want to but I could quit any time...”It's the stereotypical, hackneyed assertion of self deceiving addicts everywhere. Drugs, smoking, alcohol, gambling: I can quit any time I like.
“OK, I've got this Master's. And OK, maybe I'll do a PhD. But it's my own choice; if I want to stop, I will.”Academic study as dependency ... well, on consideration, perhaps that's not so very far from the truth.
“Oh, yes, I've been all over America. Lots of places, but my favourite one was Norway. It must be in Colorado, because they have all these fjords and the largest one is the Grand Canyon...”
Woman in a hen party, to her friends, on a train:
“They'll always twist it round so that it's your fault. It's in their genetics, it's the way they work.”
One little boy (about six or seven years old), who has obviously been in the hotel for at least one previous breakfast, instructing another (about five or six) in the use of a conveyor belt toaster:
“You need two knives and two plates, and your bread.
“Put the bread on the chain thing at the top.
“Then you wait for ages while it winds the bread through.
“But then it's not cooked so you put it back on top.
“Then you wait forever again for it to come out.
“But then it's burned.
“So use one knife to scrape it off onto one of the plates.
“That makes a mess, so you move the toast onto the other plate.
“Leave the messy plate and knife behind, when nobody's looking.”
One woman to another, in a town centre square:
“She said ‘oooh, I do like a good bath!’ and then she put this stuff in the water, and it smelled like dogshite...”
Man on bicycle, talking into cellphone:
“Well, she says it's stress, but ... what can you do in a bedroom, that's stressful?”
1st woman: “So how's your Seamus, now?”
2nd woman: “Oh, he's sore bad, so he is. They say he could have died, God bless him. They're keeping him in the hospital, so they are.”
1st woman: “Sure and what is it that's wrong with him?”
2nd woman: “Oh, it's a food poisoning thing – it's chlamydia difficult, they're calling it. Well, it's difficult for him, I'm telling you...
I'm sitting in a café. At the next table a group of teenagers chatter cheerfully. I've just overheard:
“My chemistry teacher I swear you can't believe him like nuffin. He spell 'science' like it got a "c" in it, man!"
We all have our private irritations and exasperations, which may not be reasonable but are nonetheless real. Many of mine lie in the use of words, and telling which are reasonable and which are not can be a grey area.
Language is, I passionately believe, an evolving thing and we cannot tie it down with rules. Words change their meanings ... get used to it. On the other hand, its richness and complexity rely on the existence of rules ... the rules can (indeed, must) change with time, they can be broken with magnificent effect, but like (to borrow Robert Frost's analogy) a tennis net, we do need them. If they break down entirely, or even change too fast, the glorious moderated anarchy which is language falls apart and becomes a puddle on the floor.
My reason for wittering on like this is, of course, a particular exasperation which has just happened by ... though in this case it's amused me rather than irritating. Over a long period, now, I've noticed (and generally restrained my irritation over) misuse of the word "literally", for example “I was so embarrassed, I literally died!” Today I've heard the converse: “I was so frightened, I was almost metaphorically looking over my shoulder!”
One eleven year old boy to another:
"The next thing to work on, fishface, is your tail."
Don't ask me what it means; it just made me laugh.
I'm browsing in a branch of an international bookstore chain. In the next aisle, a customer wants a bible as a confirmation present for her niece and has asked an assistant for help in choosing it.
“...and this is the Authorised Version," says the assistant, earnestly, "it's like the director's cut DVD of a film: it's been directly approved by the author...”
(This is not the first time or place in which I have heard the same or similar "information" being dispensed.)
...by a manhole cover.
Small boy on scooter: “When you come to a manhole, you have to say «manhole!», then run over the manhole, then you zoom on to your tenth level.”
...on a pavement:
“I don't know why she keeps my shell collection in her bedroom...”
I’m sitting in the fracture clinic waiting room at the hospital, reading a book, waiting for my partner who is having her cast changed.
Every few minutes a nurse appears with a clipboard and calls a name, somebody stands up in response, and they go through the door to the treatment rooms.
The nurse appears, looks at her clipboard, looks uncertain, hesitates, then calls out:
“Uh … Funky Gibbons?”
A girl of about twelve stands up, nursing her left arm. The nurse looks at her, then back at the clipboard, before asking:
“Is your name really Funky?”
“Yes”, says the girl, in a resigned sort of voice, “I’m afraid so.”
...in a park:
Girl A: “He's short, fat, and ugly.”
Girl B: “Yesterday you said he was sweet, cuddly and interesting.”
Girl A: “I made a mistake.”
