The Patriot Post® · The English Language & Other Mysteries

I happen to love the English language, but I can see where others might not. Some people must look at such pitfalls as “its and it’s,” “whose and who’s,” “there and their,” “for, fore and four,” along with “to, too and two,” and conclude the language was invented by a practical joker whose only motive was to trip them up.

There are also words that have so many different meanings that it can take half a page in the dictionary to list them all. They end up as the linguist equivalents of those old time steamer trunks people used to pack before taking off on round-the-world voyages.

Yet it is essentially the same language that Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Byron, Twain, Melville, Poe, Emerson and Dickens, found sufficient to their needs, equally adept at conveying comedy and tragedy, poetry and prose.

And if you pay close attention, it will occasionally surprise and delight you. For instance, most of us, I dare say, are aware that Cole Porter was perhaps the single greatest composer-lyricist ever born, having turned out the unforgettable likes of “Begin the Beguine,” “I Love Paris,” “Anything Goes,” “Night and Day,” “In the Still of the Night” and “You’re the Top.” But what you are unlikely to know is that there is a word, “colporteur,” pronounced the same, that means a traveling bible salesman.

While on the subject of language, after the recent conclusion of Daylight Savings Time, I found myself wondering how it came to be that although we have four seasons, only two of them have names that are verbs, fall and spring, and they happen to be the sole reason that some of us know which way to turn the hour hand twice a year. If they were called something like winter and summer, I’d surely be showing up two hours early or two hours late far more often than I am.

In case you hadn’t noticed, we are once again in the midst of yet another presidential campaign. Sometimes there hardly seems to be any separation at all between the end of one and the start of another.

Frankly, I find it hard to imagine that there are roughly 70 million people anxious to elect Hillary Clinton, a woman who has shown herself to be a liar, a shrew, a traitor, an untrustworthy friend and, to be kind, inept as both a senator and a secretary of state. A fan of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz sent me a proposed campaign poster that had a picture of him next to one of Mrs. Clinton, bearing the caption: “A battle axe is no match for a Cruz missile.” I doubt that Sen. Cruz will garner the GOP nomination, but it would make a really snappy slogan.

When I referred to Hillary Clinton as an untrustworthy friend, I wasn’t merely piling on; I was referring to the fact that after personally assigning her friend Chris Stevens to be the ambassador to the powder keg known as Libya, she never once called him to see how he was doing. Also, she never saw any of the 600 cables he sent to the State Department begging for additional security, or so she claims.

On the other hand, Hollywood’s Ben Affleck apparently had Mrs. Clinton’s personal email address, something Ambassador Stevens lacked, which may explain why Ben Affleck is still alive and Ambassador Stevens isn’t.

Speaking of the campaign, why is it that of all the contenders in the two parties, Lindsey Graham, of all people, seems to be the only one who appears to take ISIS, Iran and Vladimir Putin, seriously, and the only one sounding the alarm about Obama’s cutting our military off at the knees?

Because I enjoy quoting those who agree with me, I’d like to point the spotlight on the late John Gardner who wrote: “We must learn to honor excellence in every socially accepted human activity, however humble the activity, and to scorn shoddiness, however exalted the activity. An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.”

Change “philosopher” to “politician,” and the words are even more pertinent.

I find myself wondering why it is that only those destined for Heaven ever seem to have near-death experiences. Why is it that they all claim to see a beautiful white light and all their departed loved ones and never see flames reeking of sulfur or hear the shrieks of the damned as little imps poke them with pitchforks?

I’m not trying to pass myself off as a theologian, but it would seem far more important for the sinners to receive a warning to mend their evil ways while there’s still time than for all the others to get a celestial pat on the back and a suggestion that they just keep on doing what they’ve been doing.

Having recently shared my list of all-time favorite movies, it seemed only fair to next share my 10 all-time favorite TV comedies. In keeping with the rules governing full disclosure, I must say that I never wrote for any of them. I wrote for some pretty good ones, including “MASH,” “Bob Newhart,” “Mary Tyler Moore,” “Rhoda” and “Family Ties,” but none of them made me laugh as hard or as consistently as did (in alphabetical order): “Amos ‘n’ Andy” (Tim Moore), “Barney Miller” (Hal Linden), “Black Adder: The Middle Ages” (English: Rowan Atkinson), “Corner Gas” (Canadian: Brent Butt), “Fawlty Towers” (English: John Cleese), “Frasier” (Kelsey Grammer, David Hyde Pierce), “No, Honestly” (English: Pauline Collins, John Alderton) “SCTV” (Joe Flaherty, Andrea Martin), “Show of Shows” (Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca) and “Texas Wheelers” (Jack Elam, Gary Busey).

Feel free to tell me where I went wrong at [email protected].