Words are SO powerful. Some people should be required to have a license to use them. And a number of hours of supervised instruction to get that license. The Pony comes to mind.
He had to attend a school event this evening, a BETA club induction. Since he's already in it, he and his fellow members had to wear their official shirt and sit in the audience. I caught up with some grading of make-up work, The Pony consumed mass quantities of low-nutritional-value snacks, and we headed across town to his ceremony.
Outer Backroads, home of our school, is a small metropolis. There is not a large tax base to fund state-of-the-art public works. As I turned our vehicle off the boulevard and into the parking lot, cargo shifted. "OW! I bumped my head!" The Pony has a history of noggin-knocking on automobile windows. And each time, I am amazed at the thump.
"What are you, some kind of feeb?"*
"A thief and two feebs! Like in that story."
"The Body. Stephen King. Gordie's dad says his only friends are a thief and two feebs. It's a novella with three others in a book** I can't remember the name of. But The Body was made into the movie Stand By Me."
"A book of short stories...isn't that called an analogy?"
"Um. No. That's a comparison. A book of short stories would be called an anthology."
"Are you sure? I though an analogy was like a simile or metaphor."
"Um. Yeah. A comparison."
"Oh. I get it. At least I wasn't far off."
I'm doing my best to put in the hours so The Pony can qualify for his word license.
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*Used only as a literary reference in a private conversation with my child. Not a word I would bandy willy-nilly in the presence of others.
**Different Seasons
5 comments:
Different Seasons. One of my favorite Stephen King books, along with Delores Claiborne, Misery, and The Shining.
When the Pony DOES get his word license, let us know, so we can all pull over and get off the books and blogs and cyberspace.
He sounds like when he's let loose, he'll be burnin' rubber and doin' doughnuts and speeding around all helter skelter with those phrases and words of his.
Fun post. Words are indeed powerful and licensing them isn't such a bad idea.
Hahahaha.
I agree about words being powerful and some folks should require a license to use them.
Sounds to me like he's doing better with that learner's permit than lots of folks who should have their license taken away.
Sioux,
I think he needs some time with his permit first. I shudder to think what the insurance for such an insouciant wordsmith might be.
My favorites are The Stand, 'Salem's Lot, and The Shining. Can't deal with the ankle-cracking of Misery.
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Stephen,
Too bad you can't create them and license them and rake in some cash. Well. Except for McDonald's.
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Donna,
Yes. All kinds of mayhem can result when they fall into the wrong hands.
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Tammy,
I hear that in some places, four-year-old children do it without a license, and everything is fine. Oops! That's what one of my students told me about DRIVING. But it seems to apply.
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