The Right Tool For The Job

As an elective, I took ‘Shop’ in junior high.  It was wood shop, no metals, as it was basically an introductory class.  But, we learned a lot!  One gem I took away from the class is to always use the right tool for the job.  That’s stood me well for all these years, and it applies to far more than just woodworking!

Words too are tools.  They’re the ‘implements’ by which we convey spoken thought from one to another.  If we use the incorrect word-tool we run the risk of making a mess in the transferring of our thoughts to someone else.  It’s much like using a sledge hammer to drive an upholstery tack… or a small tack hammer to drive in a tent stake.  Use the proper tool!  Choose your words carefully… and accurately!

No doubt, no word in the English language is thrown about more carelessly and more inaccurately that the word LOVE.  Example: ‘On a hot day, I love nothing more than a icey cold malted milkshake.”   Not only is that inaccurate, misleading, and ambiguous, it’s also wrong!  The proper word-tool here is like!  It could never be love… unless that is, you’re really wierd!

Like is an emotional leaning toward someone or something.  But like has it’s limits – limits in height, width, and depth – and time.  Likes have a tendence to shift and change.  Like actually means to enjoy, appreciate, fancy, be fond of, admire, delight in, or to be smitten with.

Love, on the otherhand, is a deeper and more intense emotion.  Love goes and will remain in situations where like will morph, will fade, and will fail. Love is not just adoration, but attachment, devotion, allegiance, and above all – commitment.

We all agree that it’s possible and normal to like and not to love.  But it’s also possible to love and not like!  We find this difficult to comprehend because we tend to consider that love is simply an extension of like.  It’s not.  The perfect example of human to human love is a mother’s love for her child!  She will continue to love the child even if that child grows to become a dispicable, sadistic murderer.  Although she’s repelled by what that child may have done and by what they have become, she will continue to love them!  She’ll not LIKE who they’ve become and what they’ve done… yet she LOVES them still.

Love and like are a million miles from being the same! 

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LIKE… and a bit of GO

This was actually written by ME, Bill Murphy, while working in a middle school. And I thought then that the misplaced use of LIKE was temporary thing! How wrong I was… or should I say, “How wrong I like was… or… How like wrong I was… or… Like how wrong I was.”

LIKE

By Inez Huddelston, September 9, 2009

This is like, my paper on “like.” Yesterday my teachers goes, “Like, write a paper on LIKE,” so this is like it.

When I got home yesterday, I went, “Momma, would you like help me write this paper?” But she goes, “No. I’ve gotta go like downtown this afternoon.”

Then she like goes, “You like better have it like done when I like, get home.”

Before I could start, my brother like comes in and goes, “I’m like going next door to see the girl I like, like.” And I go, “No, you can’t go.” And he goes like, “Like yes I can like go!” And I go, “Like No you can’t.” And we kept going on about his going for like an hour. (He like really likes her!)

Then Momma like calls and she like goes “I’m like going down to see Flora too.” And I like went, “Don’t go.” But she goes like, “I am going anyway.” And she goes. I like didn’t like it.

Because Momma like wasn’t here to like help me, I like don’t know what to like write about LIKE, so I like start writing about like things I like like, like bologna, french fries, and Mountain Dew and stuff. I like really like things like the likes of them, you like know. So here like goes. 

Things I like, like:

Macaroni and cheese

Clifton

Bologna

Bob

Texting

Johnny

Music

Scotty

Movies

Thomas

Hanging out

Walter

Lunch

Trey

I like hope you like what I like wrote about LIKE. Is it likely you like do?

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