My driver's license claims I live in the state of Ohio. It also claims that I am the weight I wish I was but am not. My driver's license cannot be trusted.
In truth, I live in the state of confusion. (The truth about my weight cannot be squeezed into this space.)
Why confusion? Because I am a writer. Have you tried to make sense of the English language?
Take the word ''polish.'' Capitalize the first letter and the pronunciation changes even though no actual letters did.
Or consider the words ''honor'' and ''sure.'' In the first, the ''H'' is silent. In the second, it's invisible. As near as I can figure, the word ''honor'' is a ventriloquist.
Honest as sugar, ''H'' can't remember if it should be seen or heard.
And golly gee gnu, who knows what's up with the schizophrenic letter ''G.''
Words like these frustrate fourth-graders who, when asking how to spell a word, hear teachers say, ''Look it up in the dictionary.''
Look, it's nearly impossible to look up a word in the dictionary without knowing how to spell it first.
Besides, if the dictionary misspells a word, how would we know?
(Also, what's another word for thesaurus?)
Why do ''slow down'' and ''slow up'' mean the same thing? But if you slow either down or up, the only direction you can wait is up. You can't wait down for someone to catch up either up or down the road.
The same goes for ''fat chance'' and ''slim chance.'' Throw it a feast or starve it by famine, your odds remain the same, slim to none - but not fat.
Why is the third hand on a watch called the second hand? On the other hand, a farmhand whacking away at something with a handsaw bought at auction whacks away with a secondhand handsaw. But the first owner simply saw the saw as new, not firsthand.
It's imponderable.
Why do we say something that fails is out of whack? What, exactly, is a whack? Does this mean when the thing returns to working order, it's whacked? Or whacky? It should.
Someone asked me if all the world is a stage, where does the audience sit? It's a question that deserves to be in whack.
The swirl of confusion threatens to keep me up after dark in ponderings. But what will I see when I stare vacantly out my window? Shouldn't ''after dark'' really be known as ''after light''? If it's after dark, then it must be light.
We could ask a wise man. But not a wise guy. They're not the same difference.
Good grief, that's almost exactly a genuine imitation of an oxymoron.
Another thing, why do we bother with the letter ''C''? Do ''S'' and ''K'' pay ''C'' to pack around part of their load?
Since ''C'' seems redundant and cannot come up with a sound of its own, I say let's just chuck... Oh. Yeah.
Check that. ''C'' had a chore after all. I choose to keep - or possibly ceep - it. Now we know that ''C'' has a job.
By the way, why is the ''K'' silent in ''know''? Was it waiting for ''C'' to speak up?
Onestly people, we shure live in a konstant state of konfushion.
---- Write (with a silent ''W'') Cole (the ''C'' that sounds like ''K'') at burtseyeview@tribtoday.com