The Marvel of the Written Word

Dear Boo and Bubble,

I’m upstairs in my cubbyhole of an office wrestling with the composition of my next novel.  Some days are easier than others with the flow of things.  Today seems to border on sludge—the ideas are fluid in my head, but it’s hard to convert them to paper (or computer screen in this case!). 

As with Last Laugh, two of my steady resources for this story—The Bible and The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran—always are close at hand.  I keep them on the left-hand corner of the desk for easy access.  Just a few minutes ago, I reached for one and noticed great Granddaddy Schaefer’s collection of editorials for The Greenville News sitting underneath. It happened to be open to page 19, on which is printed an article entitled Truisms, Adages, Maxims and Axioms Offered, dated Sunday, February 20, 1994.  Of course, I couldn’t resist reading it…hadn’t had a good visit with him in a while…and I was amused, but not surprised, at how apropos his topic was to my immediate dilemma—trying to find the right words.  

I thought it would be well worth taking a break to share his thoughts with you.  And I am ever grateful that, even with the passage of many years without his physical presence, he is still here with me offering encouragement and perspective.

Truisms, Adages, Maxims and Axioms Offered

By Schaefer Kendrick

If you are seeking fascination, contemplate the marvel of man and woman’s greatest achievement: the ability to communicate. Think about the written word of English.  Twenty-six symbols, only 26, which in seemingly infinite combinations, create hundreds of thousands of words; and new combinations are being ceaselessly devised to add to the number.

Think, also, how the arrangement of words can shape a meaning.  Two sentences can contain precisely the same words, but their arrangement produces totally different meanings, i.e., “A just war;” “Just a war.”  Take the syllable “up,” put it in front of another syllable to create a compound word, then put it behind the same syllable, and look what happens: upbeat – beat up; upstart – startup; upheld – held up; upend – end up; and upset – setup.

I do admire one who is clever with words, one who takes them places they have never been before; or one who juxtaposes them in a sentence, in unique sequences that end with a period and a chuckle.  A newspaper changes the features “Births,” “Marriages,” and “Obituaries” to “Hatched,” “Matched,” and “Snatched.”

The meaning of some words create a problem for me.  I have trouble, for example, with the word “pithy.”  When I run across that word, for reasons I am unable to explain, I think of something that is shallow, not essential or profound.  It comes from the word “pith,” which means the loose spongey tissue occupying the center of the stem, and actually “pithy” means having energy, forceful, tersely cogent — a “pithy” saying.

If you are puzzled where I am headed, let me explain.  I like to collect truisms, adages, maxims and axioms.  I find them in church bulletins, civic club publications, bumper stickers, T-shirts and other sources.  I hope you find these interesting.  (My notes fail to give the source, hence the last of attribution, except for the last.)

1.       A signature always reveals a man’s character—and sometimes even his name.

2.      Be like a postage stamp—stick to one thing until ya’ get there.

3.      Tact is rubbing out another’s mistake instead of rubbing it in.

4.      Most people want to be delivered from temptation but would like to keep in touch.

5.      If God had really intended man to fly, he would have made it easier to get to the airport.

6.      The best safety device in a car is a rearview mirror with a police car in it.

7.      Native American thought:  We have not inherited the earth from our ancestors but have borrowed it from our children.

8.      You must be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.

9.      Chinese proverb: A peasant must stand a long time on a hillside with his mouth open before a roast duck flies in.

10.  A wise old guru was asked: “What is the deepest of the deep?” “The cellar of a lasting friendship.”

11.  Galileo: “The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.”