The time has come in my life when I no longer think the
thoughts I used to think. Driving along the road to and from work,
 |
| The bridge I cross every day. And sometimes I stop. |
I have slowly
slipped away from the tepid questions: “Who am I meeting with today? How best
to handle the meeting? How to deal with the political fallout? What to do
for lunch? Strike the last one, I
still think about that.
And I now I think about more burning questions.
Like how the meaning of a word changes with the addition of
a simple preposition. This is far more interesting than the meeting agenda.
Today’s rumination came when I watched a Cooper’s Hawk
settle on a branch. Not in. On.
 |
| Sandhill Crane Settles in the Meadow |
And so it began. I settled in to think about that. How one
time I settled for less than I should have.
When I settled up my tab at the restaurant at noon, I knew I needed to
let my food settle. Walking into the mall, I heard a mom telling her brattish brood to settle down.
 |
| This is a shot of Tasty Crab Bites. On the other hand, what we taste when we bite is a crab. |
Last night, to pass the time at a Committee meeting while
waiting my turn at the table, I leafed through a book on the settlement of our
area. There was a list of the first fifty settlers, and dry commentary
about the fact that many of the scribes
never learned to spell properly. Thus we have
settled on assumed spellings by
the semi-literate to shape our past.
When "they" dig up all our stuff several centuries from now, they will unearth in the casual diner dregs one of my pet peeves that I still haven't figured out how to amend. The almost always misspelled restaurant item: Caesar Salad. I now check every restaurant's menu for the way they spell this overrated, watery, salty, sad version of a potentially exceptional dish. If it's Ceasar, or Ceaser, or Caeser I know that the Chef has no connection with the menu, and I prepare to be disappointed. Sadly, I usually am.
THAT is another big thought.
Think about how literate the scribes of yore were, (or conversely, your
scribes were) who ultimately have become the arbiters of our collective pasts,
based on their interpretation of the spoken words of leaders with great
authority, pomp, pump and sir-come-stance.
 |
| Any dummy can play music. What constitutes great? eh? |
My second choice of a major, when selecting such things eons
ago at university, was Linguistics. The fact that I settled on Sociology and
Fine Art for my first degree is not being questioned, but it may be time to settle a score or
two with my inner artist, and tell her
to mind her words
