Suspiria

It’s amazing just how many things are like “riding a bike”. I passed my driving test about three months ago and went out for my first solo drive today. Needless to say, it was quite daunting, I drove for four miles along quite narrow country lanes (out of choice I might add). And, clichéd though the saying might be, it was like riding a bike. It surprisingly came quite easily. I didn’t stall, didn’t have any clunky gear changes, and I actually came back with a huge grin on my face. It was one of those moments in life that mark a turning point, a turning point that in this case gave a sense of greater independence. So, tomorrow I’m thinking of taking a slightly longer journey than the one I did today.

There are quite a few sayings for the ease of things, some of which it’d be really interesting to find out the origins of. “As easy as falling off a log.” Fairly self explanatory, but conjures up an amusing mental image nonetheless. “Easy as pie.” How easy is pie? Easy to eat I suppose, less so to cook. And of course - “easy peasy, lemon squeasy.” I suppose that means something’s as easy as squeezing a lemon. Makes you wonder though, just how many of the sayings and proverbs we use on a daily basis would seem completely bizarre to someone learning English, and vice versa. I’m sure there are lots of sayings in other cultures, other languages, that we would just laugh at as being ludicrous. Are we, then, taking our own language a bit too seriously? Think about it: how often do we laugh at our own turns of phrase? It’s a shame we don’t do it more often, because that, I suppose, means we’re taking our language for granted instead of understanding it and using it to its full advantage. Well, generally we understand what someone means when they say, for example, “I didn’t do nothing.” They mean “I didn’t do anything.” But because of the simple logic that governs the language in this case, we can take the original statement to mean that the person did something. This can be cause for lots of fun, since double-negatives are rife at the moment, we can take this to extremes by throwing in as many negatives as we can into a sentence, do a quick mental count and see what escapes out of the other side. “I didn’t not no never not do nothing.”

These sorts of games with language are, I think, good fun, and it’s amazing to see just what you can get away with through clever wording of sentences. If you’ve ever haggled in a market, or even if you haven’t, see if you can follow this.

“That’s five-fifty.” “Four-fifty? That’s never worth that much, I’ll give you three-twenty-five for it.” “Four-eighty.” “Three-fifty.” “Four-fifty.” “Four.” “Deal.” You shake hands and hand over four pence. Perhaps not a great example since you’re unlikely to get away with it, the fact that you never mentioned pounds probably won’t have stuck in the dealer’s mind. Still, it’s a twinkling little possibility. There are opportunities to play games with language everywhere, and I recommend playing them, see if people notice. One small warning though, they can become addictive, and always make sure when you play that whomever you play with will appreciate it, otherwise you’ll just be laughing (even if only inwardly at the time) at other peoples’ stupidity, which, I’m sure you’ll agree, is a bit harsh.