Many languages have a singular and plural form of “you.” English is no exception, although many foreign speakers of English are unfamiliar with our beloved “thou”. Many non-natives believe “you” is the singular, or familiar, form. We Anglophones get accused of being a bit fresh with the rest of the world when we are, in fact, the greatest of stiffs, using formal address with everyone except God.
I vote we bring back “thou” to give ourselves a cozy way of addressing another person, a special person for whom we want to distinguish closeness, trust, and complicity. We could maintain our global stuffiness and reserve this familiar form for highly select, specific circumstances. Just think of the power we could load into this one little word. I suggest you try it.
Thou. Let it roll off your tongue and hang in the air. It’ll take some getting used to. I can only imagine how I’d feel, someone saying it to me in one of those brief moments of tension. I’d turn to leave. I’d feel his hand on my shoulder. He’d say, “Whither goest thou?” I’d shiver with that rush of exhilaration only a loaded word can produce.
Thou. Sigh. He thoued me. Read the rest of this entry »
Julian forces us to go to cocktail parties. OK, to be precise, he gets us invited, and we never balk at an evening of “character research.”
To assume a role, he says, you have to understand your character’s high moments. Most actors roll their eyes and remind Julian that he is not a youth center drama coach. We stick up for him and assure him it’s not just for the cocktail parties. “You need to ask a few probing questions,” Julian says, “learn where a person stands, discover his driving force. Is he passionate about his job, his hobby, his unique take on life? ” Thanks to him, we’re good at getting strangers to unleash their enthusiasm. Some of us could moonlight as head hunters.
People discuss the oddest things at cocktail parties. The other night the subject was amputation. The anesthesiologist was all excited because they’d managed to save the knee. “Don’t you see?” she said, “Below the knee makes all the difference to a more or less normal life.” Read the rest of this entry »
Why do we iron?
There is a certain hypnotic pleasure to the act. One or two gentle strokes, the ugly crease is gone, and you have straight, smooth cloth. We need this smoothness for some reason. Why? What do we get out of this repetitive, seemingly useless act? If every time I ironed, one starving child got fed, I’d iron every day. Imagine the sense of purpose we’d feel if we could iron out hunger, disease, inequality. We’d iron for peace. We’d iron to protect the ozone layer. Read the rest of this entry »
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