Words. They sure are shifty.
Whether because the rules of speech make us expect something else or new
changes in culture nudge our brains to move in different directions.
Like when a friend sent me a video
she took at a recent event. What was different from the old video technology
was she had taken it with her phone. When folks took photographs with a camera
they were a photographer. When they took video they were a videographer. When
you take it with your smartphone are you a phonographer?
A problematic word. As it also
suggests you made phonograph records. And it sounds uncomfortably close to
pornographer.
In another word shift I drove by a
place near the airport called Spa Depot. Except in their big building sign they
run the two words together into SpaDepot. And for the first time, I guess
because of a combination of the font and a recent news story that put my mind
in mind of the new marijuana law I read spadepot as spade pot.
Oh yeah. Spade Pot, that new
marijuana garden supply house.
Lastly I was confronted with a
conundrum in a commercial I heard on the radio recently. It was for McDonalds
and they were talking about groups of things. Like a Flock of Falcons and a
Herd of Colts. And they also mentioned a Group of Saints.
It made me wonder.
"Group" sounds so un-special and un-saintly. Are you sure that isn't
a Bevy of Saints? Or, since many folks think saints turn into angels and since
angels have wings, a Flock of Saints might be more appropriate.
Or maybe the word they use for
bats. Since, like saints, bats are mammals with wings. How about a Cloud of
Saints?
Doesn't sound shifty at all.
America, ya gotta love it.
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