Go Ask Dad: Say it like you mean it

English is weird. In a recent conversation with a friend and non-native speaker, I was once again made aware of the peculiarities of my mother tongue. My friend was mystified by my comment about the “good turnout” — What had turned? Who was out?

I speculated the phrase was derived from an agricultural reference to horses who are “turned out” into a field.

My friend wrinkled his brow and gestured to the crowd of people — “There are no horses here!”

I imagine readers have had the experience of explaining phrases and words to young children. Or, making the attempt to do so. Just the other day, my 4-year-old daughter asked what I meant by “make an attempt.”

I replied, “Try and do it.”

She retorted, “Why didn’t you just say so?”

When I was in the heady space of graduate school, I would employ esoteric verbiage in the attempt at grandiloquence. Now that I am a parent of children who question everything — like baby birds in the nest chirping “Why? Why? Why?” — I try to make it plain. In teaching beginners, we relearn the basics. Isn’t it ironic?

“Irony” is a word that I heard often in higher education, and sometimes still use, though I’m a bit fuzzy on the actual meaning. (I blame Alanis Morrisette’s song.) Still, it seems ironic that the simplest words carry the most weight, “I love you” being the prime example.

“Prime” is a strange word! There are prime ribs and prime numbers. You can prime the pump and also your back deck …

What was I talking about? Oh, yeah. I’m attempting to make it plain.

It’s complicated, however, that the same English words mean completely different things in different contexts. Ask a waitress for “a little sugar” in a northeastern state and receive a small package at your table. But here in the South, the same phrase would raise folks’ eyebrows. Maybe even get you slapped!

Certain ideas still find continuity across time and space. Notions of up and warmth are generally positive, while down and cold are typically negative. A brief, M-sound is baby-talk in many languages, including Southern — ask your Ma or Mama.

Language is also evolving. New words are invented all the time, another phenomenon you’ve likely experienced around kids. When my daughter was even younger, she invented a phrase when she felt her daddy was rattling on for too long: “Shut your mushrooms!” Plain enough.

Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of Gently Between the Words: Essays and Poems. He is the pastor of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church. He and his wife, also an ordained minister, parent three children and a dog named Ramona.