Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. My wife said something to me this week that I had never heard before and it fell right in line with our ongoing discussion of words.
I don’t even remember the context of the conversation, but my wife said “that is going to be a tough road to hoe”. Having never heard that expression before I started thinking about it figuratively, literally, and maybe even a little etymologically, and decided I couldn’t make any sense of it.
I understood the meaning that my wife was trying to communicate, so an effective transfer of ideas did in fact happen, but the line didn’t make any sense to me. Why would you use a hoe on a road, that’s not what the tool was designed for. (As a humorous aside, I told her a tough road to ho, would make sense, but that’s not the point and I digress)
After some very quick phone research (what a time to be alive and be able to settle marital discussions with a device in our pockets) I discovered the etymology of the phrase is “a tough row to hoe”. The phrase has been misheard and then repeated incorrectly enough times to stick, as was the case with my wife.
What is particularly interesting to me in this case is the exchange of meaning. I knew what my wife meant. She knew what she was trying to convey. The exchange took place in spite of the words being used to transmit the message being somewhat nonsensical.
This phenomena happens all the time with parents and kids. I had always attributed that to kids being language learners, and some level of translation as a parental ability.
El Duderino for example is very fond of saying “green beans go”. He says this as a parroting response to hearing my wife say “green means go” when she is stuck behind a driver playing on their phone as a light turns from red to green.
The changing of one character of the twelve, completely changes the implicit meaning of the sentence. But, when used in context, (El Duderino in his car seat behind a stopped car at a freshly changed green light) I can still understand what my three year old is trying to convey. (When he says it at dinner after I’ve smoked green beans for three hours it is equally adorable despite it’s semantic inaccuracy)
It failed to occur to me that we are all continuous language learners, and that a similar level of translation is necessary for effective communication amongst adults, albeit at a much lower frequency.
In the grand scheme of things correcting” a tough road to hoe” versus “a tough row to hoe” is really rather pedantic. In many relationships it could have led to a argument or fight, and I understood what my wife was trying to tell me. So why bother with correcting it or even trying to understand the phrase, especially when an effective communication had taken place?
In discussing the language philosophy of how performative utterances can be “unhappy” J.L. Austin says “in ordinary life a certain laxness in procedure is permitted- otherwise no university business would ever get done!”
I think the tight rope to walk here, is the level of laxness that allows business to get done, along with level of adherence to proper protocol that ensures communication is not unnecessarily degraded. That is a treacherous tightrope indeed.
Words are important, communication is important, and true understanding is even more important, (and of course the most difficult of the three to truly accomplish). It may be a tough road, but it seems to be one worth walking (or hoeing if your level of laxness will permit)
Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.
