Today is, besides from Thursday, a prime number, and purple, my father’s birthday. I can’t help but combine this happy occurrence with a revelation to you of one of my most treasured adventures with him.
It started out as a cool evening walk in the summer (or one of the seasons that wasn’t winter; though of course, now that I think of it, it could have been winter, but that’s not important). It ended into a bubbling foray into comparative linguistics.
Of course, comparative linguistics may not be the correct term, but it remains a fact that we were closely examining English, which is a language — allegedly — and so falls into “linguistics”, and we were comparing words within the language, so hence, comparative linguistics.
The conversation probably began with a comment about how nice it was to be out for a walk. Then, as those brains born into Scrabble-playing, dictionary-using families are apt to do, a brief list of synonyms was put forth.
Perhaps we were not out for a walk. Would it be more correct to say we were out for a stroll? Or indeed, a ramble? A deep and thorough look into each synonym followed, complete with well-argued stances over the exact implication of each term.
The rest of the walk turned into a great fishing expedition, wherein we netted over 100 Terms Used for Various Methods of Self-Powered Bi-Pedal Locomotion (as my father put it), or 100 Ways to Cross a Room (as I did). Our late-night venture proved profitable for the entire family, who joined in to help fill out the ever-growing list once we returned home.
Here follows this annotated, still-incomplete list with an open invitation to help expand it. I end this post with an ebullient outpouring of effervescence in wishing my father many happy returns of the day. More
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