If it weren’t for cliches, could we communicate? * * * Cliches…we’ve over-used these time-tested platitudes. They’re rusting out, about to bite the dust. Acronyms and euphemisms of verbal arcana are the new Esperanto. I’ve cobbled together a few of the oldies. They tell it like it is. Our culture is bloated with idiomatic jargon. We belly up to …
Fermentation starts, the wine bubbles, the wineskin stretches. Lookout. * * * Biblical illustrations paint pictures. They issue warnings, and metaphorically speaking, yesterday’s wineskin is no good for today. A new one is needed. The elderly couple stands on the street corner, waiting in the drizzle. He looks at his watch, comments, “Should be here in …
“Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour.” 1 Peter 5:8 *** How much manpower do you suppose it takes to keep the fires of hell raging hot? Peter was a fisherman, and fishermen are prone to exaggeration. He must have felt the heat …
“Every hand’s a winner, and every hand’s a loser.” The Gambler lyrics *** We spend a lot of time trying to win and avoid losing. It’s life’s obsession, this game of winning or losing. And we come by it naturally. We won the moment we drew our first breath, and we’ll keep on winning until …
“Naked is where the energy is found to experience life.” Anonymous *** Few words grab the eyeballs and grip the imagination like the word ‘naked.’ Naked is self-explanatory. Experience has taught us well the meaning. Something or someone is going to be exposed, a mask removed, an essence laid bare, defenseless, revealed for all to …
Word lovers of the world, awaken, unite. The cancel culture Philistines are upon you. * * * The revolution has begun. Treasured tried-and-true words and phrases are becoming outdated detritus. Their twisted carcasses are blowing like lifeless litter in the streets of woke academics. Vernacular and idiomatic expressions are taking on sinister meanings. Life as …
Memory: A faculty for the repository and retrieval of data in the human brain that often provides comic entertainment for the heavenly theater. *** Trusting memory, at your age? The percentages are better by trusting a roll of the dice at a casino crap shoot than relying on memory to remember names. It happens often. …
The War of Independence was a one-sided matchup. England, population 6.4 million, a military of 2.4 million and an awesome armada, versus The Colonies, about 2.5 million farmers and colonists. No Las Vegas bookie would have bet on America. But God did. There’s a rebellious streak in youth. It’s a natural tendency. It thrives to …
Some idioms never die for good reason. This is one of those. * * * We sit here, four of us, jawboning about nothing much; no wives, no wireless and no worries. We’re just waiting until it’s time for the real thing. We have abandoned the tyranny of urgent, the tedium of tweets and the …
Homeopathic panaceas can go sideways on you. Be careful. *** Garlic, a harmless vegetable, right? Wrong. A vegetable, yes. Harmless? No. It’s lethal, a wrecker of marriages and a thorn in the side of friendships. Avoid it. We frequently walk our dogs together on the beach, at least we did until that day. That was …