Understand or not?

I have been having a case of writer’s block and simply could not think of anything to write for my blog. I was discussing this with my best friend Jacqui and we were throwing ideas back and forth.
At times like this, I like to draw back on my own personal experiences and think of what has been happening in my life. To my surprise I discovered that sometimes in the most mundane of activities, there lies an interesting story ….

Being house bound because of a bad case of the flu, I decided to spend my valuable time working on a crossword puzzle – telling myself that it would improve my IQ and my word power, and my knowledge of the world in general. When I got stuck on a difficult clue, I began to think about how the English language is a lot like a child – sometimes delightful, sometimes confusing, and sometimes downright maddening. Some words have such built-in beauty, they can make you feel good to hear the lilt in them. Others have so many different meanings and interpretations that you must be very careful how you handle them.

Like a child, the English language can charm you – or it can drive you up the wall, make you nutty or cause you to go bananas!
See what I mean? We have such silly English expressions – “Drive you up the wall” And how does one exactly do that – in a car?
And how does someone make you “nutty”? Spread you with peanut butter?
“Go bananas” – what does that mean? Turn yellow? Get a thick skin? Start to hang around with a bunch?

One of the funniest parts of the English language involves the naming of groups of things. I can understand a “swarm of bees” or a “flock of geese” but who came up with the idea of a “school of fish”, a “pride of lions” or a “host of angels”?

Abandoning my puzzle, I began to waste time by putting together some groupings of my own. How about a “gaggle of gossips” or a “wiggle of women”, a “hassle of husbands”, a “clatter of children” or a “mutter of mothers”?

Well, this just shows how easy it is for minds to meander and thoughts to travel – and still get nowhere fast. But in this case, I managed to get a posting for my blog!