We were once an agrarian society. And a seafaring society. Much of life took place around the stove. And the rest of life revolved around a hearth or a furnace.
We didn't talk about having bandwidth in our lives, we didn't talk about taking conversations offline.
We called guys who couldn't catch "butterfingers."
We advised the laggards in our lives to "make hay while the sun shines."
Men spoke frankly of needing to "get our ashes hauled."
These days? Even when we do use old expressions, we don't know the evocative roots.
"Layoffs are in the offing," we say, not knowing that the offing is the part of the sea that can be seen from land—and thus, the time between when one spotted a distant ship or storm, and when it arrived.
And we are the poorer for it.
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