At a recent Thanksgiving dinner, someone asked if I would pass the dressing. Growing up where I did, I was more used to the term stuffing. To me, dressing is that gloppy mixture you pour over salad. But I’m sophisticated and worldly, and I knew almost immediately what she was talking about. Also, there was no salad, and she already had corn and mashed potatoes. What else could she have been looking for? As I handed her the bowl, I began to dwell on the term – dressing. Just a single word out of so many thousands.
Okay, not true. I didn’t think about the word at all, and went right back to bulldozing food into my mouth. But a couple of days later, something alerted me to the fact that it was the birthday of Ernie Coombs, who had died in 2001 at the age of seventy-three. Coombs is best remembered as the host of a long-running Canadian television series for young children: Mr. Dressup.
That’s when the word dress shot into the sky and exploded into a fountain of tiny sparks, each following a different arc to the ground. Okay, also not true. There was no explosion. I’d been periodically wondering about this word since tutoring a woman from Bolivia in 1994. She’d asked me for its definition, and as I tried to explain what it meant, I kept finding new variations. I managed to connect a few of them, but others had me talking with my hands, and shrugging my shoulders a lot. After ten minutes, she was still struggling to pronounce the word correctly, and I’d been given another reminder of how complex written and oral communication can be.
Over the past few years, I’ve met many newcomers to North America, and almost always I’m stunned by their ability to absorb and use the English language. I’ve been speaking it my entire life, and still, at least once a week I manage to trip over another of its mysterious rules, exceptions, idioms, or contradictions. Even the very name of the language confused me until well past my sixth birthday. I used to go to school and claim that I was English.
* * * * *
The first form of the word learned by most non-native speakers is probably dress, as a noun. It’s an article of clothing worn primarily by females. When a woman gets dressed, she may put on a dress. She’s still getting dressed if she decides to wear pants, even dress pants, or if she chooses a kimono, a jumpsuit, or a Royal Canadian Mounted Police uniform. Men get dressed, too, but rarely wear dresses, at least in public. Both put their clothes into a dresser, although most women prefer to hang their dresses in a closet. Men would like to hang their shirts in the closet, too, but there’s often no room left because of all the dresses, so he has to stuff his shirts into the dresser. However, the men who are called stuffed shirts probably keep theirs hanging in the closet – pressed, starched, and arranged by color and label.
Dressage is the care and training of horses for specific tasks. I’d guess that’s a French word, so it sounds more elegant than it probably is, despite its connection to horses, which don’t seem all that elegant to me. Then again, a clothes horse is a stylish individual who’s careful to always wear the appropriate attire, and owns the correct apparel for every occasion. A clothes horse can be male or female, but I’d never use the word horse for any reason to describe a woman’s appearance, because I don’t like getting punched in the face. I also don’t want to endure a dressing down, which means to be scolded harshly. Dressed to kill suggests a person who looks really sharp. Dressed to the nines. Dress code. Dress up for Halloween. Then, of course, there’s that gloppy stuff we pour over salad.
And it hasn’t even gotten weird yet.
If someone suffers an injury and there’s a lot of bleeding, the wound is treated with a dressing. On the battlefield, it’s called a field dressing. Strangely, when a deer or wild turkey is killed for food, the hunter performs a field dressing on the animal, but in that setting it involves removing all of the internal organs. I made the mistake of looking at photographs of this process yesterday and am just starting to feel better, so I won’t go into detail. Trust me when I say that the word dressing is not the one that naturally springs to mind, and makes no more sense than our tendency to resort to euphemisms when we take the dog or cat to be castrated and then tell everyone we got him fixed.
Dozens of industries use dress to describe a key phase of their operation. Leather, pottery, grain, textiles, metal, lumber, stone – all are dressed at some point during manufacture or preparation. When ships, farm pastures, and racetracks are groomed, those procedures employ the same term.
Parties are casual or dressy. Insignificant details designed to distract are characterized as mere window dressing. Theaters have dressing rooms, and dress rehearsals. Holiday meals often feature some kind of roasted meat with all the dressings.
Which brings us right back to Thanksgiving dinner and a lingering question. In almost every other context, the word refers to an external embellishment. Dress for success. A wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing. All dressed up and nowhere to go. So why would something called dressing be stuffed inside a turkey? I have no idea. But don’t forget, I’m English — we think our cars have boots and bonnets.
Anyway, I need to go. It’s time to trim the Christmas tree.
(Trim?)
amelie
November 28, 2012
I never would have thought of this. Where your mind goes…..and by that, I mean yours. You are truly an enigma. (Kidding, you’re very down to earth and I’m jealous you thought of this).
From the online Etymology Dictionary: dress (v.) “make straight; direct, guide, control, prepare for cooking,” from O.Fr. dresser, drecier “raise (oneself), address, prepare, lift, raise, hoist, set up, arrange, set (a table), serve (food), straighten, put right, direct,” Original sense survives in military meaning “align columns of troops.” Dress up “attire elaborately” is from 1670s; dressing down “wearing clothes less formal than expected” is from 1960. originally any clothing, especially that appropriate to rank or to some ceremony; sense of “woman’s garment” is first recorded 1630s, with overtones of “made not merely to clothe but to adorn.”
Edited for length; but it seems to make sense from your post that the idea of setting something straight would be the core principle in this word. Maybe that turkey needed to be set straight….hm.
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bronxboy55
November 29, 2012
The word address seems to fit right in there, too, in the sense of paying attention to a problem in order to correct it. I hadn’t thought of that.
Thank you, Amelie.
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Sandra Parsons
November 28, 2012
If you really were English your car would also have a boot instead of a trunk.
By the way, I usually eat my roast with all the trimmings. Can’t wait for The Well-Trimmed Post, that’s how much I enjoyed this one here!
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bronxboy55
November 28, 2012
That’s what I meant. Thanks, Sandra — I just fixed it.
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marrymeknot
November 28, 2012
Thank you for addressing this issue. It’s about time someone paid their respects to the many facets of this word. I hope it finally receives the redress it deserves.
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bronxboy55
November 29, 2012
Did you know a female ambassador is called an ambassadress? I didn’t either, but I just looked it up. Sounds like another post. I think you should write it.
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marymtf
November 29, 2012
A chairman is now a chair or chairperson, an actress is an actor these days and heroines are heroes. It’s only a matter of time before ambassadress mutates into something else.
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aunaqui
November 28, 2012
I also called it stuffing when I was a kid! 🙂 I enjoyed reading your explorations on the word and its many, many, many meanings. Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!
Aun Aqui
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bronxboy55
November 29, 2012
I hope you did, too, Rose. Thanks for the kind words.
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morristownmemos by Ronnie Hammer
November 28, 2012
The season is here to enjoy the window dressings on Fifth Avenue. That was a fun post on a mind expanding exercise. Since you’ve expanded your mind, the rest of us can relax in our favorite dress-down outfits. Dress down here doesn’t mean a harsh scolding, so it looks like you can keep this blog alive for another few definitions.
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bronxboy55
November 29, 2012
I live in dress-down outfits, Ronnie. In fact, I doubt I’ve ever been over-dressed for anything.
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Diane Henders
November 28, 2012
I love the way your mind works, Charles! We called the stuffing “dressing” when we were young, too, and this is the very first time I’ve ever stopped to consider the fact that the gloppy stuff we poured over salad had the same name. Sometimes being oblivious saves headaches… 🙂
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bronxboy55
November 29, 2012
Have you ever done a flow-chart about being oblivious?
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Diane Henders
November 29, 2012
Hmmm…
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zoetic * epics
November 28, 2012
HAHAHA! Another hilarious read, Charles! Yet very true! We are moving to England so I am certain there will be a lot of thought around words used THERE compared to Canada! But looking forward to similar Thanksgiving “dressing” experiences!
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bronxboy55
November 29, 2012
You should read Sandra’s blog — she moved to the UK from Germany.
Good luck with your move. When are you going?
http://islandmonkeys.wordpress.com
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creatingreciprocity
November 28, 2012
My parents used to say that you need to boil cabbage in bacon water in order to ‘dress’ the cabbage – another example of external (flavour) embellishment. I am stumped by the idea of ‘stuffing’ as ‘dressing’ – lucky for her she wasn’t asking me to pass her anything. I’m not sure I’d have been able to work it out – nice deducing, Holmes…
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bronxboy55
November 29, 2012
Boiled cabbage needs to be more than dressed, Trisha. It needs to be wrapped in a blanket, thrown into the trunk of a car, and driven to a remote location where it can be returned to the soil. At least that’s what I think.
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creatingreciprocity
November 29, 2012
If there was a plate of bacon and potatoes to accompany the said cabbage the average Irish person could probably be easily persuaded to get into the ‘boot’ of a car – nothing we spud eaters like more than a nice picnic in the country. (That last part is a lie, we like lots of things more than picnics – like financial solvency for example – but the picnic fits the analogy better)
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Michelle Gillies
November 28, 2012
The only one I think you missed (maybe I missed it in the piece) is a “dresser” as in one who costumes people or puts together window displays. Words can be so much fun. They can also make you a little crazy.
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bronxboy55
November 30, 2012
I wasn’t even aware of that meaning, Michelle. I’m surprised they don’t have fancier words for those occupations.
Languages in general are fun, and constantly evolving. But when I hear of someone who allegedly speaks seven languages, I immediately wonder how that’s possible.
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Val
November 28, 2012
First off… here, clothes horses are things one uses to hang wet washing on, so that it’ll dry. Second off (or on) here’s a true tale for you: some American people were visiting relatives of ours, with their child, a rather hyperactive little girl who dashed round the garden and cut herself – just a small cut. I said I’d get a plaster and the child screamed like it was the end of the world. I soon discovered that she thought I was going to put real plaster on her injury! Here, the words Dressing and Plaster are now interchangeable, but in those days – the 70s, I think – they weren’t!
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bronxboy55
November 30, 2012
Val, I never knew those laundry drying racks were also called clothes horses. Now I’m wondering how the meaning went in such different directions — I wouldn’t normally associate a well-dressed person with a contraption filled with wet underwear and sweatpants. But that just shows you how much I know about fashion.
Okay, so why do we say a person who’s had too much to drink is plastered?
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Elyse
November 28, 2012
I used to feel safe with English until I read this post, Charles. Now I’m figuratively dressed up with no place to go. Perhaps this isn’t a problem in French, but I’m not sure.
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bronxboy55
November 30, 2012
Whenever I watch a movie set in the distant future, I notice how the language seems too familiar. It has always changed, gradually, as new words and usages replace the old. But that change now seems to be accelerating. I wonder if we’d even be able to understand someone speaking English in the year 2112.
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Betty Londergan
November 28, 2012
Ah, a true wordsmith .. how do I love thee?? Let me count the ways! Well, let’s start at one… where you were bulldozing the turkey & all the fixins’ into your mouth. That was it for me! Just loved this post … can’t wait for the “trim” riposte!!!
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bronxboy55
November 30, 2012
I wasn’t really planning to do a trim post, Betty, but I may have backed myself into a corner. Meanwhile, I’m off to find out what country you’re in.
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amydenby
November 28, 2012
As a New Yorker I arrived in Pennsylvania for college and met my roommate from Pittsburgh who called soda “pop.” Sneakers, tennis shoes. She could not see the difference between the names “Kerry” and “Carrie;” she’d say them exactly the same, and there I’d be waving my arms, “but wait, which one do you mean, who are you talking about, they’re two different names!” Thank you for a thoughtful look at this silly language of ours. (Talking is tough, that’s why I write.)
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bronxboy55
November 30, 2012
I have a friend who’s married to a man named Don, but she pronounces his name as though she’s saying “Dawn.” It confused me for almost a year. When I lived in Connecticut, I noticed that people said “ferry” and “fairy” the same way — much like your roommate from Pittsburgh. More confusion. Why can’t everyone just talk like us?
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Crystal Mitzi
November 28, 2012
Haha!! This was an awesome read. I look forward to more posts from you! Cheers.
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bronxboy55
November 30, 2012
Thanks, Crystal. I appreciate the feedback.
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Cordelia de Rojas
November 28, 2012
This is wonderful. I am helping out a friend who is trying to pass her Cambridge First Certificate and all the idioms and multiple uses of a given word are driving her crazy. Definitely sharing on my FB page and emailing to key peeps.
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bronxboy55
November 30, 2012
Nice of you to help your friend, and I wish her luck. This post won’t help her much, but it might show her that it’s the language that’s crazy.
Thanks for the comment, Cordelia. I hope things are going well on your side of the planet.
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Cordelia de Rojas
December 3, 2012
Oh I am not so kind. I needed extra cash and they offered to hire me as a tutor. My other student is a barter arrangement. I help her with English and she reciprocates with French.
Anyway, they both loved the post. I wish I had more time to read your blog. I always thoroughly enjoy it when I do but time is often lacking. Such is life.
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Stacie Chadwick
November 29, 2012
I love the way your mind works, Charles. It’s even stranger than mine, and that’s one of the highest compliments I could ever give. =)
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bronxboy55
December 2, 2012
I rarely disagree with you, Stacie, but in this case I’d have to: I think your mind is at least slightly stranger than mine. I’m not sure if that’s a compliment. It might be.
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Amiable Amiable
November 29, 2012
I had never heard of stuffing referred to as dressing. Now, I can’t get the picture out of my mind of a dressing room filled to capacity with bags of Pepperidge Farm stuffing.
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bronxboy55
December 2, 2012
I did a newsletter for Pepperidge Farm, a long time ago, and as part of my research I worked in their bakery in Norwalk, CT. It was amazing, especially the machine that wrapped the bread and put the little twisty thing on the end. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a dressing room, though.
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Marie M
November 29, 2012
Thanks for the smiles! I love following your mind around.
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bronxboy55
December 2, 2012
I don’t see how you could be following my mind around when you’re usually so far ahead of me.
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Rufina
November 29, 2012
This was laugh out loud funny! I love words, but I only have command (uh oh) of one language. Here we go again! 😉
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bronxboy55
December 2, 2012
Are other languages filled with similar strangeness? I speak a little Italian and Spanish, but not enough to recognize their quirks.
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Rufina
December 2, 2012
I’m sure they are. And as if it weren’t funny enough with English words, I also find made-up words amusing, such as in the attached post:
http://walkinthewords.blogspot.com/2011/01/correction-washington-posts-mensa.html
Enjoy! 😉
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bronxboy55
December 4, 2012
Thanks, Rufina. I liked it, too.
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Rufina
December 4, 2012
Did you see the definition for “Bozone”? 😉
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bronxboy55
December 4, 2012
That was one of my favorites — and the Dopeler Effect.
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Allan Douglas (@AllanDouglasDgn)
November 29, 2012
Big smiles here, Charles. It’s amazing how many different meanings and uses the word dress/ed/ing has. I just hope the next time I’m wounded on a battlefield the medic knows which is which! Thanks for a great start to my day.
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bronxboy55
December 2, 2012
It is amazing, Allan, and just one example out of many. Thanks for the comment, and please stay away from that battlefield.
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Snoring Dog Studio
November 29, 2012
Yes, I don’t get it. It’s not dressing if it’s going on the inside of the Turkey – only if it were slathered all over the sides. It’s stuffing. Really, people! I recently saw a photo of a bacon wrapped Turkey. It was a meat dress, a la Lady Gaga.
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bronxboy55
December 2, 2012
Bacon-wrapped turkey. The only thing more demeaning, I think, would be turkey salad. To be walking around one day, alive and breathing, and then be reduced to nothing more than a salad. What could be worse? (I know — a salad with bacon bits.)
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jeanjames26
November 29, 2012
If someone asked me to pass the dressing at my Thanksgiving table they would no doubt get a roll of gauze. What can I say I’m a nurse. To me stuffing is stuffing, unless the stuffing is wrapped around the turkey in which case then the stuffing could be considered a dressing.
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bronxboy55
December 2, 2012
You could also wrap gauze around the turkey, but I guess by that point it’s really too late to apply a dressing. (I suddenly had an image of a papier-mâché turkey. I just looked that term up, and papier-mâché means “chewed paper.” Why is there even a word for that? I guess the French have their own problems.)
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She's a Maineiac
November 29, 2012
I’m with Stacie above. Love how your mind works. Although some days after reading your posts, I wonder if my mind will ever reach your heights of thinking. Then I blank out a little and stop thinking again. ahhhhh….
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bronxboy55
December 2, 2012
Heights of thinking? Heights? Is that another word that has several meanings?
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Astra
November 29, 2012
Thanks for the chuckle! And for the notification of Mr. Coombs, my childhood hero. I hadn’t heard and now my childhood Tickle Trunk has even more intrinsic value.
…and what about headdress?
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bronxboy55
December 2, 2012
I hadn’t thought of head-dress. That’s a strange mental picture, isn’t it?
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dearrosie
November 29, 2012
Even though I’ve been here for some years I still have trouble with American English.
The Tuesday before Thanksgiving Mr F and I went to a very large WholeFoods to pick up the Turkey. The place was like a mad house you could barely walk down the aisles. We had a house guest who liked instant oats and I wanted to buy another box so I asked one of the associates unpacking bottles of olive oil where I could find the porridge. He didn’t know, and asked another associate who also didn’t know and took me to a third guy who told me I’d find it in the specialty section.
Huh? “Porridge isn’t a specialty food… ” I shouted as I ran after the young man.
What is it? he asked, “Hot Porridge you know like oats… you eat it for breakfast. Cereal…!”
I don’t know what he thought I was looking for. What do Americans call cooked oats?
Hah I should write a blog on it…
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bronxboy55
December 2, 2012
Oatmeal. The only time I ever heard the word porridge was in the story, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. And even then, I never got a clear answer about what it was. Porridge was just some indistinct, tasteless goop. Until your comment, I don’t think I knew that porridge and oatmeal were the same thing. A blog post — definitely.
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smashticles
November 30, 2012
Haha oh my what a can of worms! I had a similiar situation helping a friend prepare a ‘slang’ worksheet for his international students!
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bronxboy55
December 3, 2012
Slang introduces an almost endless list of possibilities. And then there’s common usage, which can vary from place to place. For example, where I come from, we would say, “I’m done with school.” But where I live now, they say, “I’m done of school.” That sounded odd to me, until I realized that neither is inherently correct.
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rangewriter
November 30, 2012
You mean dress the Christmas tree…? BTW, if you are ever in the presence of a bonefide dressage horse, you may think quite differently about whether they are elegant or not.
It is such a crazy language. But I guess other languages can be just as confusing…for example when the same word means 5 different things depending on which part of it is stressed or where the pitch changes.
Hope you had a great Thanksgiving with lots of luscious stuffing. It’s my favorite part of the meal and that “dressing” cooked outside the cavity of the bird just doesn’t cut it, in my opinion.
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bronxboy55
December 3, 2012
I wasn’t really commenting on horses, Linda. It’s the word dressage that catches my ear, because I now live in Atlantic Canada and we’re required by law to make fun — at least once a month — of anything French-sounding.
I tried to learn Russian many years ago when immigrants from Moscow began moving into my neighborhood in Connecticut. Then one of them explained to me that if you say, “The lamp is on the table” or “The cat is under the table” or “I need to buy a table,” you would need three completely different words for table. That’s when I gave up and resumed my attempt to learn English.
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Lady from Manila
November 30, 2012
“That’s when the word dress shot into the sky and exploded into a fountain of tiny sparks, each following a different arc to the ground.” That was quite dazzling, Bb.
The sketch images above are highly amusing, too.
Your post is another testament to the embellishing nature of this language we both revere. Perplexing, yet intriguing, no? 🙂
The versatility of the word “cast” does it for me. From a simple compliment “Charles has an inquisitive cast of mind” to the mesmerizing expression “The die is cast.”
Btw, I received your email message the other day, dear buddy. I was surprised to learn my email hasn’t been reaching you. Can you please check your inbox again?
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bronxboy55
December 3, 2012
There are people who have made a long career out of writing about the English language. And it continues to change, maybe faster than ever. That expression, The die is cast always confuses me. I know it means the die — the singular of dice — has been thrown. But for some reason I first think of die-casting, the process of pouring molten metal into molds.
I haven’t gotten an email from you in several weeks.
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Lady from Manila
December 4, 2012
I believe the expression has more to do with the die-casting process. Though right this moment I’m not so sure. 🙂
I sent at least one email per week, Charles. I’ve actually no idea what has happened.
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Nel
December 1, 2012
Your writing never disappoints, Charles. I haven’t stopped by as much as I used to, but each time I drop by, I’m always amazed at how your thoughts go so deep into one word – in this case, dress.
I remember a friend once told me he needed a dress shirt. What?!? (Don’t worry. It took me some time to get a clear mental picture of this when my friend tried to describe it to me.) It’s that collared, button-down, long-sleeved shirt that one could wear under a suit. I realized at that moment that my fashion vocabulary needed some serious updating.
I also find it strange how dressing up has necessitated the use of dressing down, which gets me all confused because I can’t tell the difference between that and casual dressing.
Oh well, the great contradiction of language is perhaps it can simplify and perplex in a single syllable.
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bronxboy55
December 3, 2012
Sometimes you have to dress down, but you don’t want to be underdressed. I guess. I’m almost always underdressed. So it’s a little strange how many dress shirts I own — I might wear one once or twice a year, along with dress pants and dress shoes. It starts to sound silly, doesn’t it?
Thanks for the kind words, Nel. It’s always good to hear from you.
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hemadamani
December 1, 2012
Really look forward to your posts and this one had me laughing, delighted and intrigued, all at the same time…:)
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bronxboy55
December 3, 2012
Thank you, Hema. I’m glad you liked it.
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writingfeemail
December 1, 2012
It truly amazes me where we get ideas – especially where you get ideas. LOL. In the south, we refer to stuffing as being the glop pulled from the bird’s cavity. Dressing, however, is the nicely baked mixture that starts out as stuffing but is baked in a separate pan without absorbing the fat and other liquids from the turkey. I find that as more people are discovering the concept of the ‘brine’, their stuffing becomes unedible. It is just too salty and sweet.
And, I feel so much smarter from learning the history of the word ‘dress’. Who knew??
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bronxboy55
December 3, 2012
I don’t eat turkey (or any meat), so I only have the stuffing cooked in a separate pan. Pour some vegetable gravy over that and it’s a meal all by itself.
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earthriderjudyberman
December 1, 2012
I can totally relate to your confusion, Charles. Some of my students are ESOL – English is not their first language. It proves interesting on occasion on where a word search will go. What drives me crazier is when Webster’s uses the same word in its description of the word – which really muddies the water. (I wish I had a good example of this, but words fail me.)
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bronxboy55
December 2, 2012
If you think about it, the entire dictionary is just one big circular definition. Every word is defined by some other word, somewhere else in the same book. Big means large, which means enormous, which means gigantic, which means big.
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earthriderjudyberman
December 2, 2012
Re: your question on the Comments that you couldn’t find. I did delete it. It related to how the blogger’s comments are appearing: parts of words are split to a 2nd line. ex. “awful” becomes “aw” “ful.” Quite awkward. I’ve seen it on my blog and others. When I posted this, I thought I was posting it to the “Help” section – not my blog.
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bronxboy55
December 2, 2012
I under stand. Thanks for clear ing that up.
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JSD
December 2, 2012
This post is brilliant!
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bronxboy55
December 3, 2012
Thanks, JSD. You’re too kind.
I liked your latest post, too:
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Margo Karolyi
December 3, 2012
There are so many words like this in the English language – ones with myriad and often confusing meanings – that I’m sure you could write a post a week (or maybe a book) about them. Great post!
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bronxboy55
December 4, 2012
There are many people who write blogs and newspaper columns (and books) about the English language and its peculiarities. I tend to focus on the ones that affect me directly in some way.
Thanks, Margo.
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Barbara Rodgers
December 4, 2012
Wow! I never stopped to ponder all the variations of meaning the words dress and dressing can convey, but you’ve managed to examine them all (I think!) and sum it all up nicely and with lots of humor. Thanks for reminding us what a strange evolving thing language can be.
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bronxboy55
December 4, 2012
Thank you for saying so, Barbara, but I doubt you needed me to point out the strangeness of the English language. And congratulations again on your daughter’s engagement.
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Bruce
December 7, 2012
A great read and a really good laugh for the clothes horse; especially ‘never using the word horse to describe a woman’. Bruce
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bronxboy55
December 11, 2012
I don’t have a lot of good advice, Bruce, but I’d definitely follow that one.
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Bruce
December 11, 2012
Thanks for that advice Charles. I will surely remember it. Bruce
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Patti Kuche
December 10, 2012
And here I was feeling the complete outsider about the mysteries of the dressing for turkey dinners!
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bronxboy55
December 11, 2012
Patti, whenever you’re mystified and feel the need for company, I’ll be here.
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KL
December 10, 2012
Loved this post…as I love most of your posts. There is no time you realise the craziness of the English language better than when your six year old wants to know what certain words or phrases mean… you can really get into a tangle explaining all the nuances!
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bronxboy55
December 11, 2012
My eighteen-year-old son constantly asks me to explain the logic behind another of the ridiculous movies he watches. The only answer I have is the same one I’d give to someone trying to understand those nuances of the English language: it makes no sense. Sometimes it’s better to just enjoy the confusion.
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lostnchina
January 4, 2013
I’m glad my Chinese employees don’t speak English well enough to ask about the *intricacies* of the English language like the one you just described.
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bronxboy55
January 4, 2013
Do the Chinese languages have the same kind of complications, such as words with multiple and sometimes contradictory meanings? Maybe all languages do.
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lostnchina
January 4, 2013
Yes, I think we Chinese are worse, because of the many more tones in our language. One word said with a certain tone may be the same or different words which mean different things – for example, in the same way we could say, “That gym’s a meet market”, or, “That gym’s a meat market”…but sometimes the differences in Chinese even more different and contradictory. My mother keeps sending me chain emails with Chinese puns all the time. I can add you to her mailing list (but it would require that you know Chinese in at least one tone).
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bronxboy55
January 5, 2013
It wouldn’t help — I’m tone-deaf.
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Anonymous
April 10, 2013
What a delightful read Charles! Feedback awesome…
Have you read ENGLISH IS A CRAZY LANGUAGE?
…if teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? Why do we have noses that run and feet that smell? Charles, you’re a wise man but why is it that a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You’ve pasted a smile on my face for the day…
Marie A
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bronxboy55
April 11, 2013
And you’ve done the same for me, Marie. Thank you for the thoughtful feedback, and for all your help.
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