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14th
August 2010
Ghost
–Writing
(First published
in 1995)
 “You
know fellas, one of these days we should
all go deep sea fishing. It’s a
thing that we’ve never tried, and
I’d really like us to take a day
to go and do some deep-sea fishing.”
A casual remark, coming from Paul, one
of a group of us, friends, who were sitting
around at a pal’s house relaxing.
There we were, chewing the fat, with one
eye on the television set, the other on
the unpleasant weather outside. We kept
raiding our host’s refrigerator,
depleting it of everything it contained,
in order to wash down the mouthfuls of
potato chips and cheese curls we had unearthed
in one of his cupboards.
Paul’s remark, itself, had nothing
significant about it, but what started
the whole thing off was my mischievous
reply to it, a semi-humorous question,
which set us off on an oblique trend of
thinking.
“if we do go deep-sea fishing,”
I jokingly asked, “how many deep-seas
do you think we’ll catch?”
That brought some chuckles from the gathering
and the following observation from Melissa,
one of the brightest and most observant
young people I know.
“Isn’t the English language
strange?” she asked. “There
are so many expressions that are used,
like that deep-sea fishing one, where
what you say is not literally what you
mean. You go fishing for fish, not for
deep seas. And that makes me think of
the expression, ‘window shopping’.
Maybe one person in a million who goes
window-shopping is really looking for
windows. Most don’t have the smallest
intention of buying a window. But they’re
all out there, window-shopping.”
And as I said, that started the whole
thing off. The rest of the evening was
spent by the lot of us searching for expressions
of that nature, which say one thing but
really mean something completely different
… and which demonstrate the quirks
and oddities that exist in this English
language of ours.
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Not
a very productive way of spending an evening,
some of you might say, but what the heck, every
minute of our lives does not necessary have
to be seriously productive. Spending pleasant
moments in congenial company, relaxing and generally
enjoying some light conversation is probably
more productive, in reality, than slaving away
and nourishing an ulcer, under pressure in a
sweaty office.
So off we went: has anyone ever cleaned spring?
If you listen to the English language, most
people in temperate countries do some spring-cleaning
every year, as soon as winter is over. Or is
that bedsprings they’re cleaning
“What about blackmailing? How does someone
go about mailing blacks? And black what? Blackboards
? Blacksmiths ? Where does one place the stamp?”
asked Steven, one of the guys, by now completely
taken up in the spirit of the thing.
“My favourite is house hunting,”
quipped Melissa. ”I can just imagine someone
in the underbrush somewhere, with a high-powered
rifle, or in ancient times with a bow and arrow,
stealthily crawling around and trying to creep
up on an unsuspecting house, so that he could
kill it and take it home to the wife and kids.
I suppose that a good house hunter could probably
start his own residential development, if he
had the land on which to rest all of the houses
that he had successfully hunted.”
Other suggestions surfaced, to the joy of all
the company, as each one was articulated and
delivered with obvious pride by whosoever thought
it up, drag-racing, canvassing and daydreaming.
My two personal favorites I leave for last.
The first is “eavesdropping.” I
could just imagine passing beneath the eaves
of a house somewhere (maybe one of the houses
which had been hunted?) and someone sitting
up on the roof dropping the eaves on your head.
What a way to pass one’s time!
And finally, here’s number one: “shoplifting”.
You’d either have to possess the strength
of Atlas, or participate in this activity as
an organized group, all straining together,
if you desired to lift the average shop. And
just imagine going to shoplift J Q’s on
the Boulevard!
Discuss
Story
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