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Lately, I was sent a poem of tongue twisters. English words that were spelt in a similar fashion but were quite distinct from one another, in the way they were pronounced. Now, each language has its inherent vagaries, yet, I’ll wager its the English language that has more inconsistencies than you could shake a stick at. In its varied capriciousness are the contradictory proverbs that we are regularly assailed with.

How about: It’s better to be safe than sorry. (But) Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Or: Distance makes the heart grow fonder. (But) Out of sight, out of mind.

And: Many hands make light work. (But) Too many cooks spoil the broth.

I’m sure you follow my drift. Interestingly enough, it is these very quirks and foibles that make English such a wonderful language to explore and try to master.

Language, for the most part, is seen as a means of communication. For writers, poets, orators, actors it is much more than just that. It is a living, breathing, ever evolving entity that facilitates a flow of ideas, art, information and in the process a little of the person enters into the medium. For anyone who has read Hemingway, or watched a performance by Olivier, or wept over a poem by Sylvia Plath, the language is but a step ladder into their souls.

I’ll close with the poem that gave birth to this blog post. It alternately amused me, confounded me and challenged me, but ultimately made me realise, that love – true love- is unconditional. And so, my love affair with the English language carries on.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation — think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough —
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

A while ago, while sitting and chatting with a group of friends, I noticed how often talk veered to the television series that was the rage du jour. We had done the Scandinavian dramas, or Nordic Noir as the press referred to it. Gritty, real and faintly depressing. So much so that it had permeated the consciousness of present day television spawning many excellent British dramas along the same lines. All of my friends were now into watching the cult classic, Breaking Bad. Some were at the very tail end of it, and some, like myself, were just starting out. Almost everyone agreed that in its premise of a chemistry teacher turning to a life of crime, a protagonist who becomes deeply unsympathetic as the story progresses, and its ability to raise questions about one’s own moral judgement, it was a deeply satisfying albeit unsettling experience.

Conversely, I remember sitting and chatting with a group of Indian friends, who were not so much into television series per se, unless it was a comedy show that starred someone called Kapil, and held everyone in thrall with his supposedly funny routines. I cannot comment as I rarely watch Indian television, fearing that the glory days are past, and the drivel that passes for entertainment is not my cup of tea. However, Cinema in India! Now that’s quite another thing. Indians have been obsessed, even consumed by their passion for movies. And nowhere is that more evident than when you sit a group of friends together. Invariably the talk turns to the latest blockbuster. There is always a glut of promotions, film stars beaming out of every channel, plying their wares, and the public getting sucked into spending the moolah. However, the heartening difference is that audiences are so much more discerning these days. Big names no longer sell movies by themselves. In fact its the experimental producer/ directors, the independent film makers that are finally finding a market for what would once have been a loss making venture.

How do these two varying view points bind together? Simply in the fact that different things resonate at different times. I happen to be lucky enough to witness both quality television in the West and quality cinema from the East. Not that these didn’t exist before, but suddenly they are riding the crest of a wave, and I am happy to be deluged by it.

These Summer holidays I plan to introduce my girls to Hitchcock. Films like “North by Northwest”, “Vertigo”, “Rear Window”. Movies that I hope they find as fascinating as I did, when I was younger. These are classics, and have found resonance in every age, at all times. I remember being introduced to the Biblical films by my mother. “The ten commandments”, “Ben Hur”, “Samson and Delilah” – again, films that fascinated in their subject matter, their scope and their sweep. (Nothing to do with the little crush my mother nursed on Charlton Heston then!).

Our tastes are set very early on in life. The more one is exposed to, potentially the more one is able to assimilate and appreciate. Yet, sadly and strangely, certain films and series that were absolutely at the very pinnacle in their time, find nothing but dissonance. Could it be that anything that is too au courant is also condemned to date and fade equally ignominiously? That is a subject for another day…

 

How often do you wonder about the road not travelled? Decisions that were taken for a variety of factors, but then, they blocked off other avenues, as that was the path you chose to follow.

I’m sure we’ve all had moments of regret. Of a yearning nostalgia for what might have been had we chosen to study something different, or perhaps another career, or even a different life partner. There are those that believe in Destiny. A pre mapping of life’s trajectory. There are others that believe that we are the sole navigators of life’s ship. It is down to oneself which way one sails.

Either ways, it is important to understand that where one stands is not set in concrete. If you are unhappy with your lot, then take the necessary steps to change it. If, however, it is a mere phase of discontentment, then it behooves one to realise that nothing is ever perfect. That other life might possibly have been worse. So, ride out the phase and appreciate “what is” rather than what may have been.

Perfection Paralysis. Know what that is? I do. Intimately. Uncomfortably. This fact was once again brought home to me as I was scrubbing the floor of our en suite bathroom. No matter how hard I scrubbed, there was one more spot to do. I almost felt like Lady Macbeth, muttering, “Out damned spot” time and time again. Bearing in mind that we were leaving on our annual big vacation in less than 3 hours. This unfortunate tendency to want things just right, more often than not, leads me to immobility. This immobility or paralysis is often misread as laziness. It is anything but.

My frenzied cleaning of the house, untimely as it was, had to be perfect. I didn’t want a single dust mote to blight the horizon. Now, had it been my other half, he would have been more than happy to do a good job and leave it at that. And it is people like that, like him, who more often than not, get more accomplished. Why? Because they realise that perfection is a ridiculous and untenable ideal.

Perfection paralysis is not an urban yuppie myth either. Ask any number of people who can’t or won’t start on a project for fear that they will not be able to complete it to the highest standard. Writers, artists,students, who are trapped in the fear of failing even before they have begun. Why is it that for people like us good enough is never good enough?

At a recent PTA meeting at my daughter’s school, her textiles teacher proceeded to tell me about her perfectionist tendencies. How she would rather unpick an entire cushion because of one wrong stitch that even the teacher had reassured her was barely visible. At this my daughter had turned to me with a wry smile and said, “You know where I get that from…” Yes, indeed I did.

Which has now made me resolve to allow myself to be a little easy on myself. To relax those impossible standards, give myself, and others around me a little wriggle room. Perhaps that will finally motivate me to get all those unfinished tasks completed. They don’t have to be perfect, they just need to get done.