The Write Word!

Occasionally I receive comments about my blogs; usually they are clearly self-promoting and get ignored.  However, those I received in reaction to my last post here - what I described as 'an earthy satire' - were indeed relevant and deserve a response.  In fact, one response fits them all, those that condemned as well as those that were constructive, and it's this.  "Don't shoot the messenger."  Although it could be argued that I was my own messenger, I was in fact describing, as closely as I could, a dream and I had little option but to follow the details as I remembered them.  I don't believe my conscious mind could dream up such a story line.  You flatter me if you think it could.

It was whilst reflecting on this reply, I hit upon the theme for this week's offering.  Those who know me well will be only too aware of my interest in languages, the words that make them up and the words that link them.  It's one reason why I offered the other year to join the team that produces our church magazine, and - let's face it - what other new retiree do you know who is willing to use some of his new-found spare time to learn Welsh?

I offer you three words to think about: 'shoot', 'fire' and 'burn'.  We all know about animals and meat, of course: how the words for the living animal come to us from the Saxons who looked after them and the words for the meat from them are of Norman (French) origin from those who were privileged to eat it.  But these three words are all from Old English, so we have to look further to compare them.  They all have a wide variety of uses and meanings, but I'm thinking of this particular example, and wondering why we don't say 'don't fire the messenger' or 'don't burn the messenger'.

'Firing him' does, of course, have a modern meaning which could be entirely possible ... to remove him from his job.  I nearly wrote 'discharge', showing clearly the close relationship between expelling an employee and releasing the missile from a weapon.  And that's the point I wanted to make.  'To shoot' indicates the overall purpose of the exercise, whereas 'to fire' describes a more intimate action between the operator and the weapon.  It also narrows down the range of weapons to be used, if we were thinking of literally shooting someone.  'Shooting' could be carried out with a long bow or cross bow, for example, but 'firing' restricts it to something that involves combustion.

That leads to the third word I chose, 'burn'.  It wouldn't be a sensible alternative to 'shoot' - or even 'fire' - in this example, but there could be situations where it could be a more general alternative to 'fire', for instance if the speaker were inciting an act of arson, he might instruct his co-conspirator to 'fire the house' or 'burn the house'.  And I'm sure that if you, dear reader, have the time and patience, you can think of others ... or indeed other words that could be explored in similar ways.

Burning not only destroys; it also produces light and we have a variety of ways to refer to the illumination of our homes.  Dad's Army aficionados will recall the ARP Warden, Mr Hodges, and his call of "Put that light out!"  How many of us today still talk of 'putting' the light on?  Many, too, will speak of 'turning' the light on but some will refer to 'switching' it on and, almost universally, the reverse will be 'off' rather than Mr Hodges' 'out'. As with all language, we learn from what we hear in childhood ... from parents who did the same; I suggest that these terms refer to different light sources.  'Putting the light on [the table]' may well be inspired by the actual conveyance of an oil lamp or candle to where light was needed.  'Turning the light on' could reflect the movement of a gas tap, an expression only now being gradually replaced by the electrical equivalent, 'switching'.

Whence all this etymological exploration?  Quite apart from the responses to last week's blog, I heard last weekend, from an unexpected source (someone who, frankly, I would have expected to know better) a very common error.  It reminded me just how many people are confused by the challenge of whether to say 'Sheila and me' or 'Sheila and I'.  My observation tells me that many who err believe that one is always correct and that, bizarrely, the other is always wrong.  In fact, there are those occasions when one is the right thing to say and those when it is correct to use the other word.  And, if your habit is always to use one and never the other, it's likely that 50% of the time you'll be losing points in the eyes of those who know!