THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 28, 1995 TAG: 9507280052
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: JENNIFER DZIURA
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
AS ANY REGULAR viewer of ``Sesame Street'' can verify, the adjectives ``good'' and ``bad'' are opposites. This being established, why does it mean the same thing to ``hurt yourself good'' and to ``hurt yourself bad''?
That's just the kind of thought that's apt to dig its little claws into your subconscious and drain your blood, kind of like a cerebral tick. It's a disgusting metaphor, yes, but it does describe rather accurately that throbbing sensation your faculties experience in the cereal aisle at Farm Fresh when it dawns upon you that not only does Apple Jacks not taste like apples, but Grape Nuts is entirely without either grapes or nuts.
These are linguistic anomalies - little contradictions in our tortuous language that make learning English a horrific nightmare for anyone who happened to be born in a Hindi or Urdu-speaking nation.
One astute reader recently brought to my attention the phrase ``to fall between the cracks.'' It is a phrase often used in the political arena as a cry for federal dollars: We must help people who fall between the cracks of the welfare system or the health care system or the educational system.
``Between,'' however, means ``in the interval separating.'' If you fall between the cracks, then you have a college degree, a stethoscope on your chest or a welfare check in the mail because you were lucky enough not to fall in the cracks. In other words, those between the cracks are sitting securely on firm wooden planks.
The disadvantaged who are, to extend the metaphor, writhing on the cold, hard ground beneath some federal boardwalk have either fallen through the cracks or between the planks.
My favorite linguistic anomaly, however, is out on our nation's roadways. There is a particular species of vehicle with a name that consists of two utterly contradictory commands: the Dodge Ram. To dodge is to move suddenly aside; to ram is to strike violently. One can dodge, or one can ram, but one cannot do both simultaneously.
It seems to me the crowd of automotive engineers, whose job it is to design vehicles that won't fold like an origami swan during collisions, would know better than to print on the back of their contraption, in big block letters, verbs instructing others to drive badly. I mean, if what they really want is profound roadway confusion, those grammarians at Dodge might as well have called their creation a ``Crash: Brake,'' a ``Run the Red Light: Stop Obediently,'' or an ``Obey the Speed Limit: Pretend It's the Autobahn.''
But while your driving may not be impaired by the contrary commands inscribed on other drivers' vehicles, there is (to extend the original disgusting metaphor) a question that has dug its insectile claws into American brains, giving us all psychological Lyme disease, kind of like when you get a Beach Boys song caught in your head and you have no idea why because you don't even like the Beach Boys.
That question is this: Why do we park in a driveway and drive in a parkway? In the interest of cerebral pesticide, a parkway was intended to be a road that wound through and around a park, whereas a driveway was a circular road on which one drove past a house. So while the Beach Boys might croon in your skull until you die, at least one burning question's been settled. MEMO: Jennifer Dziura is a rising senior at Cox High School. If you'd like to
comment on her column, call INFOLINE at 640-5555 and enter category 6778
or write to her at 4565 Virginia Beach Blvd., Virginia Beach, Va.
23462. by CNB