Roger Moroney
May I start this missive with a cautionary note.
Be careful of what you say around children.
Of course this is sound and sensible advice, and the vast majority of us all appreciate that one must watch one's tongue in the company of often impressionable youngsters.
Well not so much watch the tongue... more about watching the formation of words it helps create.
My moment of caution arrived many years ago when the kids were small yet their minds were burgeoning with the ingredients of the great world around them.
At some afternoon soiree (a few beers and snacks in the backyard) I made mention of where a certain minister could put his budgetary plans... this was back in the mid-80s around about.
I phrased that opinion as "where the monkey shoved the onion" and one of the kids present asked where it was the monkey shoved the onion.
Eyes fell upon me.
Basically, you said it, you extract yourself from it.
"Ahhh, back in the pantry where the other onions are," I said with all the conviction of a... convicted convict.
Then one of the other kids asked why the monkey had an onion anyway?
I mumbled something about the price of bananas in winter and quickly turned the subject to that strange sound in the distance.
"Sounds like thunder," I suggested.
To which someone added that no, it sounded more like the results of the monkey shoving the onion where monkeys shove the onions.
"In the pantry?" one of kids asked.
"Here's a dollar each, go to the shop," I said and all was again fine and dandy across the verbal landscape of the backyard.
Words are fine... it's just the order you place them in that can be both bewildering and occasionally disconcerting.
And, it has to be said, entertaining.
Like listening to Donald "but do I get to wear a crown?" Trump and the bloke who runs the corner shop or whatever in North Korea.
They talk nonsense, so if the grandkids are around tearing the living room to shreds and they come on in some news break then I tell them to take no notice and quickly change the channel.
I am pleased that thus far, on the one occasion I have done that, there was not a David Attenborough documentary about monkeys screening.
For (old habits die hard) I would have likely gone to the pantry and returned with an onion and declared "now then"... before being taken from the room.
Old sayings.
I love them.
Apparently you can't teach an old dog new tricks but my old mum soon had dad working the Electrolux just dandy.
He may have initially barked his disapproval but he soon got the hang of it.
I recall a teacher telling one rather foul classmate back in '64 that his mind was "in the gutter".
I never quite got it.
And apparently a stitch in time saves nine.
Nine what?
Onions?
Or maybe that's linked to "dressed to the nines"?
I remember dad once telling mum over tea that a bloke at his work had "given up the ghost" and I was both intrigued and unsettled.
What was lurking out there in the fert' works?
I think mum described the chap as "silly as a wet week anyway" and again I slumped into a perplexed state.
What's so silly about a wet week?
I daresay all languages have their foibles but I suspect the English language has the greatest stock of them - which is probably why it can be the most challenging for foreigners trying to get a handle on it.
I mean, if your mate from Italy was finding joining a conversation challenging and you cheerfully asked "what's the matter... cat got your tongue?" he is only going to become more convinced that remaining mute is the best option.
And if he wants to buy a cheap runabout while he's here suggesting he get it thoroughly checked first is just fine... just don't add "or you'll end up buying a lemon".
"I-a no wanna the fruit... I wanna the car."
Providing someone bewildered by our assemblage of words with a dictionary is probably the worst thing to do as too many words mean too many things.
Admiring the panda enclosure while walking through a zoo on a warm day with chums from a foreign land and asking "fancy a beer?" could well be taken the wrong way.
By the time you get to the chimp enclosure they will likely pull out an onion and suggest... well, you know the rest.