Nothing, utterly nothing has an exact twin. There are no two
things in the universe which are exactly the same (except maybe photons
and their cousins; but they're relatively hard to nail down).
Nevertheless, now and then you run across word twins like Flotsam and Jetsam. Now
and then. Nook and cranny. Spick and span. Vim and vigor. Peanut butter
and jelly. Nuts and bolts. Odds and ends. Bells and whistles. Scotch and soda.
You would think from high school biology class that xylem and phloem, i.e., tree guts, are the same thing, but no! (Look it up). How many writers have jammed the phrase "Flotsam and Jetsam " into a clichéd glob? FlotsamandJetsam. FlotsamandJetsam. For pete's sake! The two do not mean the same thing! Picture yourself aboard a sinking ship. Jetsam is stuff you pitch over the side to lighten the ballast to keep yourself afloat longer. Flotsam is what your buddies find washing ashore later. The fact that you can ask important and intelligent questions about the two words proves that there are differences.
Does jetsam become flotsam after an expiration period?
Now, picture a couple persons in a small leaky dingy, bailing like hades with a couple #10 coffee cans. Does bailed water pitched over the side count as jetsam? It certainly couldn't be flotsam.
Was Navy Lieutenant John F. Kennedy considered jetsam when he jumped over the side of rammed and sinking PT-109?
If a bozo second mate snags a floating bottle of ship's medicinal brandy bobbing by as the ship is foundering, empties the contents, belches, then thoughtlessly lobs the bottle back into the sea, does the bottle count as flotsam, or jetsam? What about the bottle's former contents six minutes later after biological processing, especially if the men's room is inaccessible because of being flooded shut? If that second mate can't swim and plummets to the sea bed, is he at any point either jetsam or flotsam? Answer: depends if he fell off the ship in a stupor, or was unceremoniously heaved off by the first mate or captain, either of whom may or may not have also helped themselves to something in the ship's medicine locker.
Another curious situation: the husband who got "accidentally" bumped over the rail of a sinking ship, because the long-suffering wife had been looking for such an opportunity, is clearly jetsam. The wife might evolve into flotsam in a few days, hopefully closer to land. Alfred Hitchcock already wrote that one, I think.
The grand question here is, once the ship itself goes down, which twin is it?
Why on earth or at sea did the gods of language create so many twinsy words like Flotsam and Jetsam? Almost certainly because essays like this will employ one bachelor-degreed graduate in philosophy or English for a whole month, and that can't be too bad a thing.
You would think from high school biology class that xylem and phloem, i.e., tree guts, are the same thing, but no! (Look it up). How many writers have jammed the phrase "Flotsam and Jetsam " into a clichéd glob? FlotsamandJetsam. FlotsamandJetsam. For pete's sake! The two do not mean the same thing! Picture yourself aboard a sinking ship. Jetsam is stuff you pitch over the side to lighten the ballast to keep yourself afloat longer. Flotsam is what your buddies find washing ashore later. The fact that you can ask important and intelligent questions about the two words proves that there are differences.
Does jetsam become flotsam after an expiration period?
Now, picture a couple persons in a small leaky dingy, bailing like hades with a couple #10 coffee cans. Does bailed water pitched over the side count as jetsam? It certainly couldn't be flotsam.
Was Navy Lieutenant John F. Kennedy considered jetsam when he jumped over the side of rammed and sinking PT-109?
If a bozo second mate snags a floating bottle of ship's medicinal brandy bobbing by as the ship is foundering, empties the contents, belches, then thoughtlessly lobs the bottle back into the sea, does the bottle count as flotsam, or jetsam? What about the bottle's former contents six minutes later after biological processing, especially if the men's room is inaccessible because of being flooded shut? If that second mate can't swim and plummets to the sea bed, is he at any point either jetsam or flotsam? Answer: depends if he fell off the ship in a stupor, or was unceremoniously heaved off by the first mate or captain, either of whom may or may not have also helped themselves to something in the ship's medicine locker.
Another curious situation: the husband who got "accidentally" bumped over the rail of a sinking ship, because the long-suffering wife had been looking for such an opportunity, is clearly jetsam. The wife might evolve into flotsam in a few days, hopefully closer to land. Alfred Hitchcock already wrote that one, I think.
The grand question here is, once the ship itself goes down, which twin is it?
Why on earth or at sea did the gods of language create so many twinsy words like Flotsam and Jetsam? Almost certainly because essays like this will employ one bachelor-degreed graduate in philosophy or English for a whole month, and that can't be too bad a thing.
[To be published as part of "Captain [OF] America," 2017, by Rod A. Walters]
Tadarise Pro 40mg Tablet Tadarise Pro 40 is a medium power ED cures working on erectile failures in men. Erectile Dysfunction is a sexual disability caused due to various reasons. Men suffer from this trouble at least once in their life. The inability to attain a harder erection is the biggest challenge for men. Sexual satisfaction is a natural pleasure; while indulging erotically all the activities from sexual desire to orgasm are natural. Conditions like impotence create a big hurdle in this natural flow of moments
ReplyDelete