Sunday, July 15, 2007
Why “Good” has two o’s in it
You know, I hope, that I’m all about the efficiency. I hate to waste time, effort, or words - or even letters. If there’s a superfluous or echolaliac syllable in something I want to say, I will bend heaven and earth to contract, reduce, and blend the words to make them flow more smoothly.
However, this exercise does have its limits and I think I bumped up into one of them yesterday.
I was making my morning oatmeal and cutting thereinto some diced mango. Mmm, luscious mango, diced fresh at the table, just like your mammy usta do. Anyway, I like my goddamn mangos so I cut’em up and dumped them in my oatmeal and I don’t want anybody giving me a hard time about it. Except that I started trying to describe this delicacy and realized that the repeated “o” sounds in “mango” and “oatmeal” seemed clumsy and redundant. My love for linguistic efficiency compelled me to try to combine the words so that sound would only have to be articulated once.
What I wound up with was “mangoatmeal.” Sounds chupacabralicious, no? No? No. Man-Goat Meal sounds like one of Dr Moreau’s pre-packaged “hybrid chow” products, whereas “Mango Oatmeal” sounds like a delightful tropical breakfast treat. My lesson learned: Sometimes you don’t want to be too efficient. An elision or ellipsis can spell much more than I’d intended, and an extra letter in the right place can save paragraphs of explanation.
Q.E.D.
