Friday, November 14, 2003

I just had another Poor Richards Almanac moment. The second so far of two, which makes me think that the first time may have been precursor more than anamoly. The first being my realization that "A Stitch in TIME saves nine" wasn't some cryptic reference to a secret Mason phrase everyone used to signify the wrapping up of time, that you save nine times the amount of TIME using this stitch. It didn't make much sense to me, the precise language of the aphorism, but I understood it contextually, and used it myself. I think only last year did I realize that the phrase is "A STITCH in time saves nine" STITCHES, not some cabalistic temporal knowledge. Tonight, I realized what "Waste not want not" means. Since I only understood meaning from context, this was was particularly confusing to me semantically. I always thought it should be the opposite, Waste, want not - that if you waste it, you must not want it. I've twisted my brain around that one for years.  Don't waste what you don't want? That doesn't make sense either - if you didn't want it, you would want to waste it, because you wouln't care. In context, I could understand it as some strange equivalent to "preserve" or "ration" and process it as such. Now I finally get the samantics, "Waste not, WANT not-" that if you don't waste, you won't want for anything. Looking at the "won't" contraction for will not versus the contracton for do not, or would not, or is not, or are not, or have not or had not or can not or could not makes my head hurt. Thinking about the being verb tenses makes my head hurt. Thinking too much about the insane inconsistency in the English language makes my head hurt. It should no more be the language of the world than !Kung glottal stops. Which might be better if there is at least some consistency to grammar. 11:10:35 PM