The Mean Old Man or Woman On The Block?
Are you the mean old man or woman on the block? Excuse me for a second while I open the window .... "Hey you kids, quit playin' out there! Get the hell away from here, you little morons! ... I'm tellin' ya. Errrr." Some people go through their lives very angry for whatever reason. They didn't have to wait to become the mean old man or woman on the block, they started early; mad at the world, grouchy and grumbling, begrudging of others, fearful that someone might get something they didn't get, and generally just a pain in the ass to everyone around them. If you've been one of these people, and you know if you have been, do you want to continue being a pain in the ass until your dying breath? Do you want a lifetime of resentment and bitterness to make you well known for being the mean old man or woman on the block? Why not make peace with yourself and others and don't do everything in your power to earn that epithet, "the mean old man or woman on the block."
As we grow older, there is a tendency for some, but certainly not all, to seem to try to help others, maybe out of the realization that their lives are heading for the finish line and perhaps out of a religious belief that they want to save their souls. Then too, some may do similar not out of a religious belief, but because they want their lives to make a difference, that they will not have lived and died in vain; and I think also, they hopefully have learned from decades of life how we need to help others and not just look to helping ourselves.
My favorite book is John Steinbeck's "East of Eden." In Chapter 34, Steinbeck boils life down in his shortest chapter of the book. He talks about the death of a man, unnamed, but who is unmistakably John D. Rockefeller, the wealthiest man of his time, and something of "the mean old man on the block." Rockefeller lived here in Cleveland, and is indeed buried here, on the East Side. Steinbeck writes about how Rockefeller's ruthless desire for wealth left him a hated man, even after he later gave huge sums to various causes, in what Steinbeck says was an attempt, "to try to buy back the love he had forfeited." Steinbeck even thinks Rockefeller's good deeds may have outweighed the bad, but still, when Rockefeller died, many an American said, "Thank God that son of a bitch is dead." Don't cement your mean old man or woman on block image into people's minds, lest you have a similar burden to overcome. (Quotes and info here are from "The Works of John Steinbeck," Longmeadow Press, 1985. ISBN: 0-681-31923-2)
WORD HISTORY:
Grunt-I have questions about this word's history, but it "seems" to simply be an imitative word of some Germanic dialects for the grunting sound of swine. Old Germanic seemingly had "grunnetanan," which meant "to grunt." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "grunnettan," which later became "grunten," before the modern version. Besides the English form, German has "grunzen," Danish has "grynte," Norwegian has "grynt," and Swedish has "grymta." One question I have is, why don't Low German, Frisian and Dutch have forms, and for that matter, Icelandic? After all, pigs haven't stopped grunting, nor have humans. Both Latin ("grunnire") and Greek ("gryzein") have forms, which "might" indicate a tendency beyond Germanic to form an imitative word.
As we grow older, there is a tendency for some, but certainly not all, to seem to try to help others, maybe out of the realization that their lives are heading for the finish line and perhaps out of a religious belief that they want to save their souls. Then too, some may do similar not out of a religious belief, but because they want their lives to make a difference, that they will not have lived and died in vain; and I think also, they hopefully have learned from decades of life how we need to help others and not just look to helping ourselves.
My favorite book is John Steinbeck's "East of Eden." In Chapter 34, Steinbeck boils life down in his shortest chapter of the book. He talks about the death of a man, unnamed, but who is unmistakably John D. Rockefeller, the wealthiest man of his time, and something of "the mean old man on the block." Rockefeller lived here in Cleveland, and is indeed buried here, on the East Side. Steinbeck writes about how Rockefeller's ruthless desire for wealth left him a hated man, even after he later gave huge sums to various causes, in what Steinbeck says was an attempt, "to try to buy back the love he had forfeited." Steinbeck even thinks Rockefeller's good deeds may have outweighed the bad, but still, when Rockefeller died, many an American said, "Thank God that son of a bitch is dead." Don't cement your mean old man or woman on block image into people's minds, lest you have a similar burden to overcome. (Quotes and info here are from "The Works of John Steinbeck," Longmeadow Press, 1985. ISBN: 0-681-31923-2)
WORD HISTORY:
Grunt-I have questions about this word's history, but it "seems" to simply be an imitative word of some Germanic dialects for the grunting sound of swine. Old Germanic seemingly had "grunnetanan," which meant "to grunt." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "grunnettan," which later became "grunten," before the modern version. Besides the English form, German has "grunzen," Danish has "grynte," Norwegian has "grynt," and Swedish has "grymta." One question I have is, why don't Low German, Frisian and Dutch have forms, and for that matter, Icelandic? After all, pigs haven't stopped grunting, nor have humans. Both Latin ("grunnire") and Greek ("gryzein") have forms, which "might" indicate a tendency beyond Germanic to form an imitative word.
Labels: East Of Eden, English, etymology, Germanic languages, John D. Rockefeller, John Steinbeck
posted by Randy at 7:09 AM
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