August 14, 2005
Now Entering Mishawaka
I am writing this blog post from a hotel in Mishawaka, IN, where I, my car, and my future roommate have all rather unexpectedly ended up, thanks to some sort of transmission malfunction on mile 87 of I-80/I-90 in Elkhart County. My gratitude to the nice folks at the Indiana Toll Road Administrative Building who offered us temporary shelter in their parking lot, and more importantly, their bathroom. And to the ubiquitous AAA.
Thanks to the growth of the modern American strip mall, we have managed to find tolerable fish tacos for lunch, as well as several new books at the nearest Borders, which bears a remarkable resemblance to the sort of thing we would have done on a Sunday in New Haven. Not that one would ever confuse Northern Indiana with Southern Connecticut.
Anyway, a prize to the reader who can email me with the most interesting thing to do in the next few hours that is within walking distance of "downtown" Mishawaka. With any luck (fingers crossed!), we will not be here long tomorrow.
UPDATE: My roommate implies that one way or another, she is getting the hell out of here. Hopefully I am going too.
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New Forms
It dawned on me that English (at the very least) is developing a new construction to epxress urgency. This came to me this afternoon when Mom, in usual form, was making her weekly critique of my diet:
"You can't waste the green beans on your plate!"(Before I go on, I'd like to note—for the record—that I was just saving them for last, not wasting them) I knew better than to correct Mom, especially on this short of a vacation I'm on, but a booming voice at the back of my head shuddered: her jussive was imprecise in traditional grammar: I certainly can waste the green beans on my plate, and for the moment, in her mind, I was, hence the exclamation. What she meant to say, but didn't have the time to formulate to the traditional parlance was:
"You shouldn't waste the green beans on your plate!"But in retrospect, that wasn't exactly what Mom wanted to say, and either does a child when he or she exclaims:
"Can I go to the bathroom?!"To correct them with:
"May I go to the bathroom?!"somehow changes the meaning.
The statement is stronger than that which "should" or "may" affords in those cases, respectively, namely:
"In the conditions that you have imposed on you at present, you are unable waste the green beans."or:
"In the conditions I have imposed on me currently, am I able to use the bathroom?"Which, although seems a bit Orwellian a form, I feel is a valid construct to afford (no matter how seemingly grating) the speaker, and that perhaps a better retort to these statements is to note that the speaker is neither imposing nor a participant of a fascist state.
Unless, of course, they are (as is Mom with her green beans).
At any rate, vocal dissenters (or assenters) may find the comments section (which is open) useful.
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