In Plain Engel-ish

A Ribbon at a Time

A few years ago, I was cutting the lawn and saw something I didn’t recognize in the grass ahead of me. When I got down closer and discovered that it was a snake, I remember springing backward in surprise and fear.  Contrast that to the time on one of my speed-walks around the neighborhood that I tripped, fell forward, and did a header right onto the sidewalk. It happened so suddenly that I had no time to brace myself with my hands, which the physician’s assistant at Urgent Care assured me was why I didn’t break my wrists.  The previous...

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Naming Rights

In Ireland in 1880, there was a British landlord named Charles who rented to the tenant farmers who worked his land. The British would have called him “a nasty piece of work”; we Americans, always more direct, would have labeled him a jerk. There was a serious downturn in the Irish economy around that time, and the other landlords reduced their rent by twenty-five percent. But our odious Charles was having none of that. He not only refused to lower the rent, but he also began evicting his tenants. Of course, the remaining tenants could have gone on strike —...

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Pre-Email Pal

I remember as a kid how awful it was to sit in the waiting room of my pediatric dentist’s office, dreading my teeth cleaning or — oh, SO much worse! — a cavity filling. Dr. Howard tried to jolly the place up by having children’s magazines scattered about for his patients to glance through until being ushered into the Room Of Doom. Yeah, like I was going to be distracted by reading. But, actually, one time I was. He had a PEN PAL magazine on an end table, with listings of boys and girls all over the country who wanted...

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Engelish 101 (Minus One)

As I mentioned in my January 15 essay, you are now reading the 100th composition I have written since starting this splendid journey in March of 2020. And I love that this is Number 100 so I can remind you that the derivation of our word “hundred” actually comes from its association with Huns, those brutal tribes who descended upon Europeans in great numbers and so gave their name to all large three-figure numerals. Please tell me that you knew my last sentence was what the Brits call “utter rubbish” and what we (their vulgar American cousins) have named for...

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Sweet Talk

How many of our fondest early childhood memories are tied to sweets? It seems to me that all my kindergarten friends loved helping in their kitchens at home with making desserts — especially cookies, since they could go from warm oven to warm mouth so quickly, needing much less irksome cooling time than cakes or pies. I vividly remember one rainy day when Mom and I were in the kitchen in 1953, making her special sour cream cookies. Luckily, my big sister was in elementary school and wouldn’t be home until later. Not only was she sibling competition and always...

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