Old Fashioned Sayings Expressions will really show my age. Every once in a while, I say something to a young person and they say “Huh? What does that mean”. I love it when it happens because I love to share the “olden” days with the young ones.
Just a few minutes ago, I had a computer technician start to work on my computer. He is in Kashmir (India) and it is 12 hours time difference. It is noon here my time so midnight his time. I said to him, ” So you are burning the midnight oil”. He didn’t say huh exacting, but asked what the midnight oil was and I realized I had done it again. So I had to explain that years and years ago — even before my time — before electricity — people used kerosene oil to light lamps for illumination at night. And, if one stayed up late at night, one was burning the midnight oil.
Puzzling Old Fashioned Sayings Expressions
I’ve had this happen before, so I realized immediately what I had done, but it spurned a memory of quite a few years back when I was on a cruise. I had a really cute young Indonesian waiter at dinner whose English was pretty good and he was quite bright. But one night at dinner, he asked me if I wanted more of something (I don’t remember what – it might have been did I want more wine) and I answered him – “is the grass green?”
He immediately got a puzzled expression and I realized that I had done it again. I proceeded to explain that sometimes when someone asks a fairly silly question, that we use expressions like “is the grass green” “do birds fly” “do fish swim” which had obvious answers as sort of a funny answer. Well, he thought that was pretty good and seemed to tuck it away for future use with his other guests.
A few nights later, again at dinner, I asked him for something and he got a real sparkle in his eye and said to me “fish swimming?”. This threw me for a loop for a minute until I recalled our earlier conversation. He remembered but didn’t quite get the phase right. I’ve always remembered him with “fish swimming?”
The challenge of learning English
How non-Americans ever learn to speak English, or at least American English is beyond me. We do use a lot of phrases like this in our everyday speech. And to be truthful, some of the expressions that today’s youth use are totally beyond me too. And now with the Internet and email and text messaging not only are there verbal expressions but so many acronyms. Most totally throw me, but I have learned a few like BRB (be right back), or TTYL(talk to you later). I even came across one in my daily crossword puzzle – IMO. It stands for In My Opinion. I’m sure there are tons more that I just haven’t seen or figured out.
And while all the colorful “language” is fun and fine, as an old-timer, what is bothering me most these days is the loss of “good grammar” and “correct spelling and usage of words”. Some that especially bothers me is the misuse of it, its and it’s, and there and their. And the use of contractions when they do not convey what is being said – I’m instead I am. For example, if I ask “Are you going to be here later?” and the answer I get (in text) is “I’m”. I always say to myself “I’m what?”
Old Fashioned Sayings Expressions may be gone but is good grammar gone too?
Do they have English composition classes any more in high school? Or even elementary school? What are they teaching or not teaching? Or is the computer just doing it all now with their auto-correct which annoys me totally when I write what I mean and then go back to read what has been changed to a totally different word by the auto-correct. I wish I knew how to turn it off with my Android phone, but it is all I can do to just use the thing. Making phone calls with this expensive PHONE is the most difficult and I lose half my calls when the phone decides to put itself in Airplane mode.
Automation is great. Don’t get me wrong. I spent 30 years working on computers from the very earliest models so I love technology. BUT I’m wondering if we are robbing people of brain-power with some of it now. But that’s a subject for another blog on another day.
