Friends,
As a non-native English speaker, I find some of the
idiomatic expressions we use, well, befuddling. When someone arrives in
the nick of time, do you ever wonder who Nick was and why he so often
borders on impunctuality? The Internet puts many answers at our fingertips,
which can be fascinating. Too often, I find the explanations the pundits
provide dissatisfying –either because the origin of an expression is too
mundane, or because they are merely speculating on how it came about. I
sometimes prefer my own backstory. Earlier this week, Missy Glauch, Kelly
Crosby and I got to speculating about some of these expressions: Neck of the woods. Since when do
woods have necks and how in tarnation did that come to mean neighborhood? For a
while I thought it might be Nick (perhaps the same chronically semi-punctual
gentleman we discussed earlier). Apparently, Al Roker’s folksy expression dates
back to colonial days when many villages were near a narrowing (a neck) of the
wooded areas s…
Friends,
Folks tend to complain about the negativity in the news.
Some people think that all the stories about lying, stealing, cheating and
killing are a sign of the poor health of our society. A perverse urge that
draws us to the events in the tabloids and tells of the decline and inevitable
doom of civilization. I disagree. Of course, I would prefer that the evil
things that are reported hadn’t happened, however, the news is all about the unexpected.
In order to be newsworthy, something must be out of the ordinary. Our baseline
expectation is for things to be good. There is no novelty when people tell the
truth, respect other people’s property, behave honorably and let other people
go-on with their lives. Goodness is the norm, and so, we take the good stuff
that happens in the world for granted. Evil acts, on the other hand, scare,
surprise and scandalize us. And that’s a good thing. Granted, some
extraordinary act of kindness will make the news from time-to-time, and I’m
glad to …