The Danger of Eating a Word!
Eating a word. We do this all of the time.
There you are, walking into a cafe or diner somewhere in Upstate new york and you order lunch. Two sides, the menu says, to go with your entree. Coleslaw looks good so you tell the waitress “Coleslaw”. All well and good.
You are on a trip and you live in Chicago and you wish to see the Finger Lakes region. Ithaca looks good, there are Three 80 foot high waterfalls within a mile or so of downtown, then Cornell University too, plus Cayuga lake.
Here comes the daily special with the slaw. *What*! This slaw looks nothing like the Cole Slaw back home! What gives? *you* just are about to eat a word!
“Cole Slaw”!
Let's see, I can think of several Cold Slaws.
— -with mayo.
— -with vinegar.
— -with vinegar and relish.
— -with a *lot* of mayo.
— -with water and chunks of pineapple.
— -plain, just the strands of cabbage.
— -any and all, of the above, but the slaw strands are now small hunks of cabbage instead of longer fibers.
— -milk instead of mayonnaise.
— -some red cabbage as well as the standard cabbage.
— -even slices of apples or of some other fruit.
This list is just what I have thought of, off of the top of my head. Probably there are 100+ more kinds of Cole Slaw out there!
The menu might only say, “Cole Slaw”, though.
This brings up clearly how the Word is *not* the object referred to!
Take the advertised phrase, in the apartments-for-rent, section, in the paper.
You see “a huge efficiency apartment, for rent, lots of room”.
You go look.
Surprise! Your broom closet might be larger. Looks as small as a solitary confinement cell in a penitentiary! “I gotta see the landlord over this”, you mutter to yourself.
The landlord walks into this small room. He is 4 feet 3 inches tall! A really small man, he is. He says, “how do you like my large place”? *you* are 6 foot 3 inches tall and weigh 230 pounds! Can you even place your size 14 shoes next to your future bed?!
“Large”, “huge”.
I heard of a man who was offered a job in Houston, Texas. He was thinking of turning the offer down as Houston was far too COLD for him to live in!
Huh?!
*his* definition of “cold” might be what he said later that “80 degrees is winter jacket weather for me”!
Huh?
He lived all of his life in Key West, Florida. Houston has seen snow. The coldest *ever* in Key West, I think, was about 38 degrees. I think that was the year most Florida orange trees turned into dead sticks! Did not get above freezing, in Orlando, for THREE DAYS! 72 hours or more of below freezing.
Takeaway: be careful with reading or listening to “words”.
Another example: “peace and justice” of the radical liberals, someone wrote.
“Peace” really means that the opposition has given up!
“Justice” means “sweet revenge”!
Swedenborg wrote that there are hundreds of versions of the word “Love”!
The Word and the object referred to, are disconnected.
Thus when you order a “wide seat” on an airplane, the actual “wide” might vary from one carrier to another!
