Things are not always what they seem, and names for items do not always give much insight into the actual origin or use of those items. Take hats, for example. Panama hats are actually made in Ecuador.

I once received an email that listed several “vagaries” of the English language. A vagary by definition is “an erratic, unpredictable, or extravagant manifestation, action, or notion” (Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vagary, Retrieved April 20, 2021). So many of these vagaries have become so widely used in our everyday language that we don’t even stop to think of how ludicrous they might seem to non-English speaking people.

For example, take the term “fireman”. The word itself would seem to mean a man made of fire, possibly a man who sets fires. It might lead a person who thought a lot about such things to argue that a “fireman” should be called a “waterman”, as s/he uses water to put out fires. A more accurate term that is sometimes used to denote such an individual is “firefighter”, which a person just learning English could more reasonably understand.

Have you ever thought about what taking a plane ride might be like if you booked a “non-stop” flight, and the journey literally lived up to the term’s connotation? Depending upon turbulence, it could be either a heavenly or hellish eternal “trip”. How would you explain how to get off a non-stop flight to a person just learning English?

And then consider the world of transportation. What is “cargo”? Some might say, gasoline, others oil, some an internal combustion engine. When is the last time you received a “shipment”? Did a boat pull up in your driveway to deliver that UPS package?

What do you put in your “dishwasher” and your “cupboard”? I sometimes put cups in my dishwasher and dishes in my cupboard. Am I confused, or what?

Which would you rather have, a doctor who “practices” medicine or an attorney who “practices” law? I actually prefer both my doctors and attorneys be proficient at their respective “trades”, though sometimes I might wonder what they are trading.

Why does traffic move slowest during “rush” hour?

Sometimes my nose “runs” and my feet “smell”. Sometimes my nose smells and my feet run.

What am I “vacating” when I go on vacation?

I took Spanish in high school. I was not good in the subject. I once tried to use a Spanish phrase with a friend of mine who was proficient in the language to show her that I knew how to order an egg in a restaurant in Spanish. She laughed, and I asked her what I actually said. She never told me, though she did let me know I was unknowingly proficient in cursing in Spanish.

In high school our Spanish teacher, Ms. Vauda Lee Needham, had a particular fondness for idioms. An idiom is defined as “a commonly used expression whose meaning does not relate to the literal meaning of its words” (Source: https://www.google.com/search?q=definition+of+idiom%2C&rlz=1C1CAFB_enUS…, Retrieved April 20, 2021). Though the word “idioms” generally has nothing to do with idiots, non-native speakers of a language can be made to feel idiotic when they don’t understand the hidden meaning of an idiom. How long has it been since you “wrapped your head around something”? Was it when you were “under the weather”? It’s nothing to “get bent out of shape” about, though wrapping your head around some things would cause distortion, I’m sure. You’ve got to “pull yourself together”, which may be safer than “pulling someone’s leg”, though you have to remember, “No pain, no gain.” A Google search (Reference: https://www.ef.com/wwen/english-resources/english-idioms/, Retrieved April 20, 2021) will give you other idiomatic, not necessarily idiotic, phrases to think about.
Oh well, “to make a long story short”, Faithful Reader, my time has come to leave you for another week. Hopefully, you haven’t found these few words to be “a dime a dozen”—I’d rather you think I’m “on the ball”, and that “time flew while you had fun”. Until next time, I leave you with a trivia question from my storehouse of email wisdom—From which animal do we get cat gut? Read next week in historicunioncounty.com for the answer.