There is no logical reason for this morning’s essay to begin with a reference to the part of a fern where spores are produced. I realize this does not sound like a promising introduction to my actual topic: English and Math Impossibilities. I also realize you may be thinking that this topic is not much of an improvement on fern spores.
But you might as well stick with me. Given that the election is tomorrow, anything else you read in the next twenty-four hours is going to be another news flash in the vein of TRUMP PULLS AHEAD OF HARRIS BY 0.0001% IN PENNSYLVANIA! or WHY TOMORROW’S ELECTION IS THE SINGLE-MOST IMPORTANT ONE IN OUR COUNTRY’S HISTORY — AND ALSO IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD!
I shall try to avoid referring to the election from this point on.
So let’s get back to those fern spores, which, by comparison, may now seem a little more entertaining. Who knew that the name of the plant part that produces them is a “sporange”? If you did, it is probably because you are as much of a poetry lover as I am. We “poetophiles” were taught in English class that the only word in our language that has no rhyme is “orange.” But it does — yep, “sporange.”
The great irony here is that not only does “orange” indeed have a perfect rhyming partner, but that we actually have a different word that has no rhyme. And you don’t need to look beyond this Month of November to find that word.
No, the non-rhyming word is not “November.” November actually has scads of rhyming partners: 499 of them (!), including eight perfect rhymes (from December to Dismember) and 108 rather perfect ones (from Tremor to Condemn Her).
When I told you that you didn’t need to look beyond “the Month of November” to find the non-rhyming word, I meant—Month. Nary a word has the spine to rhyme with “month.” Do not even bother trying to prove me wrong—you’ll just get stumthed.
As I mentioned, math teachers also warned us of an impossibility in their field. To make sure we remembered it, they even taught us a rhyme: “Don’t be a hero; you can’t divide by zero.”
My math teacher tried to explain this concept by having us think about dividing a pizza by three and getting three thirds, or dividing it by two and getting two halves. Then she asked: if we divided it by zero, would the pizza stay the same, or would it completely disappear? (At this point in the class, my limited attention span switched from mathematics to wondering if I could convince Mom and Dad to take me out for Italian that night).
Uh-oh. I feel the presidential election coming back to mind. But it is not tomorrow’s. It is instead the one sixty years ago, in 1964, between Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater. We oldsters still remember that one quite well. Republican Goldwater was labeled an “extremist” who would get us into a nuclear war with Russia, while Democrat Johnson was labeled a “Marxist Left-Winger” who would ruin our country with socialized medicine in a welfare state.
There was bitter division in our country during the campaign. Goldwater had as his slogan “In your heart, you know he’s right”; the Democrats‘ take on Goldwater was “In your guts, you know he’s nuts.” Does this sound like our 2024 election? Alas, no. 2024 is so much uglier. Attempting to bridge the political breach today vs. that of 1964 is like crossing Death Valley vs. tiptoeing through the tulips.
Our country is broken and divided, and most of us hate that. When I started this essay on English and Math Impossibilities, I wondered if we should add the Political Impossibility of ever healing this country that we all adore. Maybe we should take “Don’t be a hero; you can’t divide by zero” and adapt it to “Do be a hero; make this terrible divide ground zero” as we struggle to climb upwards from it to re-Unite our beloved United States.