by David Deans
As I neared Matilda’s chair (her eyes following me in the mirror with a mischievous expression on her face), I was already retracting my idea of telling her my story of psittacine resurrection. No, I resolved: the time is not nigh yet. Matilda’s hood dryer was switched on, as if by an invisible hand. It was quite loud, and it would have been difficult to hear ourselves speak.
24
Aloud vs. Loudly
“Loudly” is used to indicate an emphatic impression upon the tympanum. It is the adverbial form of the adjective “loud,” used to register a relatively elevated level of decibel. “Loud” can also be used to describe clothing, colors, persons, etc. The opposite of “loudly” is “quietly.”
Examples:
• He mowed the lawn loudly.
• The gun made a loud bang when the man pulled the trigger.
• Did you see that loud dress Mrs. Thompson was wearing at the party?
• There was snow; he doffed his hat quietly.
• I’M A GREAT GUY is so loud—will someone please turn him down!
• The hairdresser turned off the hood dryer. It was too loud to hear yourself think.
“Aloud” is sometimes used with words such as “think” and “read” to say that words are actually spoken using the vocal apparatus, often with a view to being heard, as opposed to having words just wheeling around inside someone’s head as fragments of some inner narrative. Something can be said aloud but at almost a whisper; conversely, someone can have a very loud, almost deafening, and perhaps very interesting narrative going on in their head, entirely inaudible to persons around them, standing perhaps only inches away.
“Goodness to Betsy,” I said aloud to myself, banging my fist on the office desk. “Hash can’t be the prankster!”
25
I was approaching the hairdresser’s mirror. There was a very interesting narrative going on in my head entirely inaudible to persons around me, perhaps only inches away. Matilda’s reflection was smiling at me, still following me with her eyes in the mirror…. Oh, but why was I fooling myself? What else had I come here for but a long cool draft of the flicker of mischief, of adventure, in those eyes? What did it matter if her fraud of a husband was dead, or if I’d once been a parrot; what difference would any of that make to our blossoming romance?
From the dryer, not a peep, not a breath of hot air: so quiet you could have heard a hair dryer drop. By way of explaining my presence (more for the benefit of the other ladies than for my wife, per se), I asked my wife—quite loudly—if she happened to know “where the car keys are,” pretending to have mislaid them like Bobby with his recalcitrant satchel. This would have been immediately and immensely acceptable to all: a rational action man is in our midst. Matilda, however, her mind coming in from that different, almost Lady Macbethish angle I was telling you about, plucked a joke from the air and flung back the dryer. All at once she stood up and did a Betty Boop kick, all mock coquettish face and a hand to the back of her head. And then, as if that weren’t enough, she puffed out her cheeks and started tugging at the bits of silver foil in her hair, moving her legs like a hospital clown wading through air made of aspic, or she was acting out that scene from the Late for a Train section with a “Doubting Thomas the Tank” pulling slowly away from the platform.
Barely divested of the hairdresser’s trimmings, Matilda grabbed me by the hand; we ran outside the shop and skipped along Main Street.
With Matilda, Belmont had just turned into a big play park.
“Is that a blue car or a red car?”
We swung around lampposts.
“Where is the book?”
We tripped off curbs.
“I think that photocopier’s out of order again, Dan.”
We slow-motion leapfrogged over fire hydrants, laughing to the point of hysterics.
“I’ll take the Belmont Gazette and a packet of no-thanks-I-don’t-smokes.”
(Like Lady Macbeth, Matilda was wearing a classy-broad split-side avocado green woolen skirt with matching cotton underpanties that flashed into view as she straddled the hydrants.)
But let’s leave our amorous banterers to skip up Main Street alone; let’s go back and have another look at the exercise while they’re gone. That bit about turning down I’M A GREAT GUY for example. This in the original would of course have read “Will someone please turn down BOB T. HASH III!”—yet another instance of how a good slice of solid down-to-earth, no-nonsense, honest-to-goodness, toe-the-line, textbook grammar in the approved house style had become bastardized, and now lay in ruins.
In my version of Forward with English! you’ll be relieved to know that the wrench has been removed from the gears, the long stem of a daisy has been inserted into the humorless barrel of an unflinching crew-cutted conscript’s rifle. Yes, in the new eighth edition you’ll find the sort of upbeat textbook stuff that our bespectacled Clark Kent, with his judicious admixture of pasteurized pre–phone box masculinity and quietly stated picture book heroism, was made for. Emerging with that confident, chiseled oblongular jawline from his chrysalis phone booth (lightly doffing trilby) striding forth to defend the integrity of an abused phrasal verb, to rescue the screaming damsel from a burning mall inferno—and round up the maverick polyglot prankster.
26
Delivering a Sales Pitch!
Construction engineers Bob and Jack are down on the site all hard hats and neckties, overseeing the work-in-progress on the new mall’s foundation. We catch up with them taking an afternoon coffee break outside the foreman’s trailer:
JACK: Say, Bob, I just took up Swahili lessons at that new language school they opened up on Main Street.
BOB: You mean that big glass-and-steel building located next to the bank, Jack?
JACK: That’s the building, Bob, the big glass-and-steel one located next to the bank. I started lessons only a few weeks ago and already I can converse on a wide range of topics—effective marketing strategies, customer retention options, and so forth. My fluency maybe isn’t perfect yet, but I’m sure working hard on bringing it up to the mark.
BOB (clearly impressed): Heck, Jack, that’s impressive!
JACK (modestly): Well, I try my best, Bob. But really, if anyone should take the credit, it’s the folks who came up with the course material, and the instructors for their friendly dedication—good old-fashioned teamwork. Why don’t you come along sometime? Learning can be fun, you know—and can do wonders for your career prospects. There’s a great special offer on at the moment too!
BOB (debamboozled): You know, Jack, I’ve been meaning to take up Swahili for some time now and I just keep giving it the old rain check.
JACK (wistfully): I was the same, Bob. What with the pace of life these days, I felt there was just too much on my plate. But when I saw that ad campaign for Swahili lessons at the new school, I was able to make room in my busy schedule—and just look at me now. Randolf Crab-tree says I’m in line for promotion!
BOB (back to basics): I saw that ad campaign too. What kind of price range are we talking here, Jack?
JACK: Well, Bob—no thanks, I don’t take sugar—normally a three months’ parrot intensive course for beginners will set you back in the region of a couple of thousand, but with this special offer on at the moment, you get a free professional assessment plus you get a bonus point discount option on course extension. Personally, I don’t consider it so much an expense, Bob, as an investment in the future.
BOB: Hmm. That’s an interesting way to think about it. And that special offer sounds just too good to miss out on. You know, Jack, I might just check out the options there, and see which one suits me best.
JACK: I knew you’d like the idea, Bob. I look forward to having some interesting conversations with you in Swahili in the not-too-distant future. And don’t forget—no thanks, I don’t smoke—that special offer ends Friday, so be sure to enroll before then.
BOB (big Australian accent): No worries, Jack. I look forward to taking the challenge.
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Jack and Bob whoop (high-five!) and return inside the portacabin to continue their work.
27
Talking of the challenges of today’s busy international go-getting jet-setter lifestyle, has anyone here ever tried whooping and high-fiving a mirror’s reflection? (The trick of course is to not actually slap the mirror.) A fascination with mirrors in general, the temptation to ascend short multicolored ladders—these impulses remained with me from my life as a parrot. Generally speaking, I observed mirrors in the human world to be rectangular, functional things, nowhere near as much fun as the little round one that used to hang on my cage, with its little bell and its little yellow border. Nevertheless, whenever I now see a mirror—the one in the office elevator for straightening your necktie, the row of looking glasses at the ladies’ hairdressers, the wash basin mirror in the en suite bathroom where I first encountered the new improved Bob T. Hash III—my instinct is still to draw up close, now draw away, drawing nearer again, my head cocked over now onto one shoulder, now onto the other—not so much out of vanity as out of sheer amazement at the sight of Bob T. Hash III acting like a parrot in front of a mirror. And then for the sheer simple thrill of mirrors themselves. Similarly, ladders proved as difficult to resist in my guise as a human as they had done in my life as a parrot. A ladder with a reflection at its summit is going to be a rare and welcome conjunction indeed!
A day or two after the incident at the ladies’ hairdressers, having put the final touches to the sales pitch (yet more raw material on that construction site for a future and burgeoning Everyday Accidents and Domestic Mishaps section), Miss Happ reminded me that it was time to pick up some duplicate snaps at the photographer’s shop in the mall—just one of the many extracurricular tasklets that help flesh out Bob’s workweek. I consulted my agenda and the wall clock behind me, and saw that Miss Happ was right. “Man the fort, Miss Happ,” I said, throwing on my jacket.
At the photographer’s shop, I gave the man in the white coat a tab and he passed me the snaps. I gave them a brief flick through to check they were not out of focus and paid the assistant (“No thanks, I won’t be needing any enlargements”). I collected my negatives, tucked them inside my jacket, and walked out of the shop. Almost immediately, leaning against the plate glass window of the optician shop next door, I noticed a ladder. Someone must have put this up while I was going through the snaps. It was a window cleaner’s Jacobian Ramsay, complete with (unpainted) aluminum rungs. It had rubber pads to stop it from slipping on the mall’s smooth fake-marble floor. On a rung was draped a chamois rag, from which steam rose: again it was like the Mary Celeste. Like a sentry at its base stood a patient bucket of suds. I surmised that the cleaning man (or cleaning woman) had no sooner erected the thing than gone off for a coffee break. The ladder was unguarded, free for any passing Tom, Dick, or Harry to ascend it, should they so wish….
A moment or so later, the kindly optician, Mr C. Good, came dashing out of his shop. Halfway up the ladder outside his window display was a man in an immaculately pressed (African) gray serge pin-striped business suit with crisp angled pleats, an enlogofied (but not yet clip-on) necktie, and some Brylcreem in his hair. Head cocked cheekily now to one shoulder, now to the other, the man appeared to be rocking toward his reflection in the window, withdrawing, then rocking forward again.
Very tactfully, very respectfully, with no hint of urgency or panic (“It’s okay, Mr. Hash: You can come down now”), I was invited to descend, and to enter the optician shop for a leisurely browse. Of particular interest was a rack with a new range of frames, in the classic trademark Clark Kent style.
28
A Curious Encounter…
You run into someone unexpectedly on the vast vaulted airport concourse. You say:
a) Small world!
b) Off to Acapulco again, Bob?
c) Small airport!
d) Caramba! So it is you, Señor Gonzalez! And what might bring you to this neck of the woods?
e) No, Bob, I think I’ll just take a Greyhound.
f) Ouch, what a stupid place to leave a mirror lying around!
g) No, I think you must be thinking of somebody else.
h) Ah, yes, it’s all beginning to make sense now.
i) Let’s just say it’s nice to have both feet back on the ground!
j) These damn Windsors, Warren! You know, I’ve decided to invest in one of those newfangled clip-ons, after all!
29
The business of flying should be the preserve of creatures designed by God and by nature to do so—parrots, for example.
30
Habits and Habituation, Past and Present
To be/get used to (doing) something means that something is no longer new and strange to us and so no longer a strain on our attention. An inconvenient one-off uniqueness of vivid human encounter and experience, now neutralized and packaged, has been assimilated into the happy community of habit. Use of this form may denote a shift from foreground to background, from the visible to invisible. Do not confuse with “used to do something,” or “used to be something” (nor, for that matter, with the instrumentalist’s “used for,” as in “that air-conditioning system is used for keeping the room cool”).
Examples:
• Project manager Tom is getting used to that new air-conditioning system in the office.
• Jack’s caddy car broke and he had to carry his clubs round the golf course. They were cumbersome at first but he’s getting used to the weight of the bag now.
• Miss Humpington is getting used to the new air-conditioning system that they’ve set up in the stenographer’s section.
• Doris is so used to wearing diamonds, she can’t live without them!
• Matilda is getting used to having an empty space in her living room where the parrot cage once stood.
Exercise:
Student selects words from the box to fill in the blanks—sometimes they can appear more than once in the exercise examples. The first one has been done already to help you.
* * *
air-conditioning system
* * *
a) On her first day in the office, Miss Happ couldn’t understand why it was so cold or what the noisy whirring buzz in the corner window was. Distracted, she put things in the wrong files and called people by the wrong name. Now she’s stopped making mistakes and doesn’t need to complain to the maintenance department any more about the air-conditioning system in the office. You say: “Miss Happ’s getting used to the air-conditioning system in her new job.”
b) You are on your honeymoon in Venice with your wife. In the bridal gondola, you suddenly remember having forgotten to turn off the _________ back at the office and the consequent footprinty depletion of the planet’s finite resources. You say: “Yes, the waves made the gondola roll a bit and it was strange at first. By the time we came off the lagoon it was the land that seemed weird! The __________ was still on back at the office.”
c) Fedora hats used to be a very popular headwear, but (perhaps linked in some way to the advent, rise, and technical advancements of the __________) they have gone out of fashion. You say: “I wonder if fedoras went out of fashion because of _____________?”
d) There used to be strikes. Not all workers were getting access to the _________ in office or home. Now the workers are getting used to new management policies and the market strategies of today—they think ________s are the biggest mistake since sliced bread.
e) Mr. Hash is not used to eating croque madames made with the wrong sort of cheeses! He says: “If they can’t have the correct cheeses for a croque madame, then they could install a __________ in this restaurant—it’s the least they could do.”
f) You are explaining last quarter’s sales figures to Dan Smith’s marketing people when there’s a knock at the door. You say (glancing at wristwatch): “Ah, that’ll be the __________ now.”