Words Take Flite

Miss Flite is a secondary character in Dickens's great novel, Bleak House, first published in serial form between March 1852 and September 1853. Her first appearance is in Chapter 3, when, as Esther writes, "a curious little old woman in a squeezed bonnet, and carrying a reticule, came curtsying and smiling up to us, with an air of great ceremony." She wants to meet Ada and Richard, wards in the Chancery case Jarndyce and Jarndyce, as she once was, and their companion, Esther.

She has a bird-like quality about her, evident in her name, in her person (we get to see her in Phiz's wonderful etching), in the birds she keeps caged in her garret, and in her role as messenger of doom. Richard, despite the softening influence of Esther and Ada, becomes obsessed with the case and finally dies after it is settled--or rather just plain old terminated, because the entire estate has been "absorbed in costs."

Dickens never says, Miss Flite is like a bird (in which case, in every passage she appears in, she would provide an excellent example of a simile). This not dramatic enough for Dickens's purposes.  Instead, she is a wonderful example of metaphor.  Figuratively, she is a bird.

Miss Flite with the wards of Jarndyce & Jarndyce.

The Little Old Lady, by Phiz (Hablot K. Browne), 1853.
Scanned image and text by George P. Landow.
 

Just Desserts

I learned about the palindrome when I was about six: Adam's simple, comic introduction, "Madam, I'm Adam" or Napoleon's lament, "Able was I ere I saw Elba." Only recently did I learn about the semordnilap, palindrome spelled backwards.

I happen to know that desserts is stressed spelled backwards, the pair of words making a semordnilap.

Any more, I hardly ever look to desserts for comfort when I am stressed out.  (Although I used to regularly take the pint of premium coffee ice cream from full to half-mast.)

As a widow, I've developed a couple of wonderful desserts for the person contentedly eating alone at home in his or her sweats or jammies.

One, cover a saucer with a single layer of chocolate chips and microwave for one minute. The chocolate chips may maintain their perky kiss shape or melt completely. Eat--and scrape off--with a spoon.

Two, put about four tablespoons of sugar in a small saucepan or omelet pan, set on the stove at somewhere between warm and low. Watch! Don't wander off, or you will get black sludge stuck to the bottom of the pan.

After a time, the sugar will begin to liquify and caramelize.  When this starts to happen, stir briefly with a spatula.  After a little more time, the sugar liquid will become a caramelly color. Wait a moment longer while it becomes slightly darker, from honey blond to tawny blond. Meanwhile, butter your trusty saucer.

Snatch the caramel from the heat and pour onto the saucer, using the spatula to help you.  As it cools, the caramel will harden into a lovely windowpane of hard candy.  Loosen from the saucer if necessary, lift to the eye and see the world in caramel, and bite into it.

Just desserts, I say.  And no more stress.



Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting in the perfect, pop-that-sweet-right-in-your-mouth size.

This image was originally posted to Flickr by SweetPeaCupcakes at http://flickr.com/photos/7758668@N07/503477519. It was reviewed on 25 May 2007 by the FlickreviewR robot and confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.

"I shall return"

March 20, 1942, Terowie, South Australia. Against his will, Lt. General Douglas MacArthur leaves 75,000 American and Filipino soldiers on Bataan and escapes to Australia with his family and senior staff.

On his way from Alice Springs to Adelaide by train, he issues this statement to the press:

The President of the United States ordered me to break through the Japanese lines and proceed from Corregidor to Australia for the purpose, as I understand it, of organizing the American offensive against Japan, a primary objective of which is the relief of the Philippines. I came through and I shall return.

In April he accepts the Medal of Honor for his defense of the Philippines (such are the ironies of public life) and becomes Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the Southwestern Pacific.

The men left behind become Japanese prisoners of war. Those who survive the Bataan Death March and the harsh conditions and cruel treatment at Camp O'Donnell are not freed until January 30, 1945.

General MacArthur does return on October 20, 1944, at Palo Beach, Leyte Island, to begin the first phase of the campaign for the Liberation of the Philippines. The campaign ends successfully on September 2, 1945.

I am going to propose that, instead of the shall in this now-famous catchphrase, General MacArthur meant to use will.

General MacArthur did not remember this point of grammar the way I do, although I dare say his old-lady teacher also wore a self-belted shirtwaist dress and Marcelled her hair. According to the rule, shall signifies a statement of future fact and will signifies a statement of future intent. The good general chose the word that sounded more emphatic, instead of the one that was more emphatic.

Like my teacher, this usage has become all but extinct. Maybe you remember it, if you're as old as I am; maybe you've never heard of it. If you search "shall and will" on the web, you will still find some vestiges of it.

Does all this matter? Well, it might, if a historian were also a word nerd and given to wondering about General MacArthur's use of shall in light of the grammatical teachings of his time. Or if we were to note that Arnold Schwarzenegger, as the Terminator, gives new life to the idea in his absolutely correct rephrase:  "I'll be back!" 



General of the Army Douglas MacArthur smoking his corncob pipe, probably at Manila, Philippine Islands, 2 August 1945.

Naval Historical Center.  Photo #: USA C-2413 (Color), photograph from the Army Signal Corps Collection in the U.S. National Archives. Photographer not credited.