[lit-ideas] Re: Help with togetherness
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 10:54:13 -0700
My younger daughter wrote:
Want more proof that beckham is not that smart?
> here
> > is a quote from him that i found on the bbc
> website:
> >
> > "We can take heart from the togetherness of the
> team "
> >
> >
>
I responded:
Nothing odd about this.
>
> Now if he'd said, "We can take nostril, from the
> togetherness of the team,
> or we can rip out one another's intestines from the
> togetherness of the
> team..." that would be a little strange.
>
She elaborated:
Its just an odd way of saying it. "togetherness". I
mean, I have heard of toughness, together, the loch
ness monster, but I have not heard anybody use the
form "togetherness"
Was denkst du?
I tried again:
The dictionary says that the word was first used in the seventeenth century
but...but...it only says this in the addendum, which is to say that it was
so rare when the Oxford Dictionary was being compiled--first half of the
twentieth century--that no one knew to put it in.
Here's an odd example:
"TOGETHERNESS"
Thomas H. Pynchon, Bomarc Aero-Space Dept., Boeing Airplane Co., Seattle
Airlifting the IM-99A missile, like marriage, demands a certain amount of
"togetherness" between Air Force and contractor. Two birds per airlift are
onloaded by Boeing people and offloaded by Air Force people; in between is
an airborne MATS C-124. One loading operation is a mirror-image of the
other, and similar accidents can happen at both places. Let's look at a few
of the safety hazards that have to be taken into account when Bomarcs are
shipped. . . .
What say you? Is "togetherness" relatively new?
David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon
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