JEK
Senior Insider
I Was Absent That Day
by LINTON WEEKS
July 4, 2011
Perhaps you know that pickles come from cucumbers. That the Washington Redskins are in Washington, D.C., and not Washington state. And that Roy Orbison was not blind.
But all around you are intelligent, upstanding citizens who do not know these — and other — things.
Trust us.
Part of being an adult is finding out stuff you should have known for years but somehow didn't.
These are things we should have learned — not gaffes born of exhaustion or bumbling speechwriters, like we see in politicians who misspell potato, misstate the number of states or confuse John Wayne and John Wayne Gacy.
It could be something serious, like knowing never to mix ammonia and bleach. Or something trivial, like understanding which side the fork goes on in a place setting. It could be the chronic misuse of a word, such as "comprise" — as in "A baseball team comprises nine players." (Yes. That's really how you're supposed to use it.) It could be misheard song lyrics or a misinterpreted logo.
But it's pretty much inevitable that at some point each of us as an adult will slap our forehead and think, "Why didn't I know that? I must have been absent that day."
Often, it's something that, if we had just stopped to think about it, to hold it up in the light for examination at an earlier time, would have made more sense.
The problem, of course, is we don't stop.
Read the full article
by LINTON WEEKS
July 4, 2011
Perhaps you know that pickles come from cucumbers. That the Washington Redskins are in Washington, D.C., and not Washington state. And that Roy Orbison was not blind.
But all around you are intelligent, upstanding citizens who do not know these — and other — things.
Trust us.
Part of being an adult is finding out stuff you should have known for years but somehow didn't.
These are things we should have learned — not gaffes born of exhaustion or bumbling speechwriters, like we see in politicians who misspell potato, misstate the number of states or confuse John Wayne and John Wayne Gacy.
It could be something serious, like knowing never to mix ammonia and bleach. Or something trivial, like understanding which side the fork goes on in a place setting. It could be the chronic misuse of a word, such as "comprise" — as in "A baseball team comprises nine players." (Yes. That's really how you're supposed to use it.) It could be misheard song lyrics or a misinterpreted logo.
But it's pretty much inevitable that at some point each of us as an adult will slap our forehead and think, "Why didn't I know that? I must have been absent that day."
Often, it's something that, if we had just stopped to think about it, to hold it up in the light for examination at an earlier time, would have made more sense.
The problem, of course, is we don't stop.
Read the full article
