Do What

I hope he didn't see me.

I did a quick are-you-serious glance when he made a lame comment using the truism, “roll with the punches.” Which isn't really so bad to use. It is not so bad primarily because I have said it. Recently. So it must be very good. And I wouldn't have thought it lame if he would have stopped there. Unfortunately, he didn't.

He had to add, “...to quote an old saying that has been around for a long time,” in a rather condescending voice, as if the guy he was talking to wouldn't recognize it if he didn't point out that it was an old saying. Not to mention that “old” and “long time” are repetitively redundant.

For that matter, I hope he didn't hear me when I added a wee laugh. I mean a hearty, manly laugh. Quietly. A very masculine, quietly hearty laugh.

Which brings me to the question of why does “for that matter” mean “and” in the paragraph above? Why didn't I just write “and”?

For that matter, which in this case means “on second thought,” why do I say, “Do what?” when I mean, “What did you say?” or “Pardon me?”

Admit it, if you are a Southerner, and especially a Kentuckian, that special breed of Northern Southerner, and I ask you, “Do what?”, you automatically and quite naturally repeat what you just said. It is instinctive. Probably inbred, which has a totally different and much more negative meaning in certain parts of Kentucky and Tennessee. But only the parts above water.

Obviously, “Do what?” does not literally mean, “What did you say?” It literally means something closer to “What did you do?”, but we Kentuckians are smart enough to adapt about any saying to something that might not quite fit. Much like our spelling, our sayings are flexible.

I wouldn't have noticed this little oddity if I had not gone to England. The British have no idea what we mean by “Do what?” It is a conversation stopper.

I was traveling for work on an assignment (“assignment” sounds so much more important than “trip”) that took me to London. While there I decided to perform a cultural experiment, by which I mean I acted just like my Kentucky self without thinking anything of it. One of the Brits, and there seemed to have been a lot of them over there, said something I didn't understand. Actually, many of them said many things I didn't understand, and often I automatically responded with, “Do what?”

“Do what?” gets a quite different reaction in London, England than it gets in London, Kentucky. You get this tilt of the head and a knotted brow looking at you like you are speaking a foreign language. You are. It is the actualization of George Bernard Shaw's quip that we are “two peoples separated by a common language.”

Which brings me to the question of why I would actually try to use the word “actualization” in a real, non-corporate-world sentence.

You will be glad to know that I have no idea, therefore, I will stick a fork in it.