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[December 04, 2009]

OPINION: Two languages, same result: Not wrapped up too tight

Dec 04, 2009 (Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- The computer revolution has changed our whole language, and if we're too poor to pay attention, it'll get away from us. See, I (and probably you, too) remember when ...

-- a browser was an indecisive shopper.

-- a desktop was made of pine, not pixels.

-- Apple Share meant giving someone else a piece of fruit.

-- bandwidth defined how many musicians would fit on the stage.

-- RAM was a daddy sheep.

-- upstream was how fly fishermen cast their lures.

-- a daisy chain was something little girls made while sitting in the grass.

-- a BUS carried people, not data.

-- you only rebooted if your galoshes sprang a leak.

-- a motherboard was for disciplining a wayward child.

-- networking was what fishermen did when they weren't fishing.

-- a path was a route through the woods.

-- protocol referred to the finer points of etiquette.

-- a router was the AAA guy who mapped out your trip itinerary.

-- shareware meant the chipped casserole dish you could risk losing at a potluck.

-- hardware was nails and pipes, and software was cashmere sweaters.

-- spam was canned lunchmeat.

-- a mainframe was what held a house straight and plumb.

As the late Phyllis Harper often wrote in this space, there are endless handy ways of referring to someone's limited -- or misdirected -- intellect. Here are a few from a book of country-fried sayings titled "Butter My Butt and Call Me a Biscuit": -- "If they put his brain in a hummingbird, it'd fly backwards." -- "He's about as useful as a back pocket on a shirt." -- "He won't hurt his back totin' his brain." -- "His cheese slid off his cracker." -- "He's about as sharp as mashed potatoes." -- "He couldn't pour rain out of a boot with the directions printed on the heel." -- "Not only don't he know nothin' -- he don't even suspect nothin'." -- "He's three pickles shy of a quart." -- "He's as dull as a widowwoman's ax." -- "He's as useful as a pogo stick in quicksand." -- "He'd try to sling a hammock between two cornstalks." Then there are some even more well-worn descriptions: -- "The light is on, but no one is home." -- "He's a few peas short of a casserole." -- "He's not the sharpest tool in the shed." -- "He's about a quart low." -- "He's got a brain, but he's scared to use it." -- "His elevator doesn't go to all the way to the top." -- "Some village is missing its idiot." And here's my all-time favorite of Miss Phyllis' sayings: "He ain't driving the team what's pulling his wagon." As amusing as they are some days, other days those descriptions look like the guy in my mirror.

Contact Daily Journal reporter Errol Castens at (662) 281-1069 or errol.castens@djournal.com.

To see more of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.djournal.com. Copyright (c) 2009, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Tupelo, Miss. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

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