Notes and Asides - Column

National Review, Oct 1, 2001

--Dear Mr. Buckley: I have been an avid reader of Notes & Asides for years. As one married to a foreigner (Japanese), I have seen up close the difficulties so many people have with the English language (to be honest, I have just as many with Japanese). The following are biting examples of some of the idiosyncrasies in English:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound. 2) The farm was used to produce produce. 3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse. 4) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert. 5) Since there is no time like the present, he decided to present the present. 6) When shot at, the dove dove. 7) The insurance was invalid for the invalid. 8) The buck does funny things when does are present. 9) A seamstress and a sewer fell into the sewer. 10) The farmer taught his sow to sow. 11) The wind was too strong to wind the sail. 12) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

I would enjoy seeing some more examples.

Sincerely yours,

Theodore D. Shaw

Virginia Beach, Va.

--Dear Mr. Buckley: Years ago I came across Mortimer Adler's How to Think About God. He closed reminding the reader that the god whose existence he proved was not the God of the Bible. He said that that God could be believed in only by a "leap of faith."

In a subsequent essay entitled "A Philosopher's Religious Faith," Adler describes a hospital stay in 1984:

During this long stay in the hospital I suffered a mild depression, and often when Caroline visited me I would, unaccountably, burst into tears. Father Howell, the rector of St. Chrysostom's Church, also visited me, and once when he prayed for my recovery, I choked up and wept. The only prayer that I knew word for word was the Pater Noster. On that day and in the days after it, I found myself repeating the Lord's Prayer, again and again, and meaning every word of it. Quite suddenly, when I was awake one night, a light dawned on me, and I realized what had happened without my recognizing it clearly when first it happened. . . . I found myself believing in God and praying to Him.

As we remember Adler's life and works, it is certainly worth noting that even this great intellect, who could not find the God of Abraham and Christ through reason, did find him in personal crisis with troubled heart.

Cordially,

Scott D. Hillstrom

Eagan, Minn.

--Dear Bill: A remembrance of Mortimer Adler . . .

Homage to Adler

Mort i(s) mer(ely),

Clearly,

Just the shedding of a gown

Of skin you wore down

To the nines. (To be precise,

98 of them), in the service of some very nice

Distinctions that makes Plato proud,

If that's the word, on his Cloud

Infinity,

One of those 100 key

Syntopical Great

Ideas that you labored to elucidate,

Much,

At Hutchins' Hutch:

That Protestant U.,

Where Jew-

Ish professors teach Cath

Olic philosophy to ath

Eists.

Have a good immortality, Sir

Mortimer,

And, say hello for me to Jacques

And the Dumb Ox.

Ineffably,

Johannes Eff, Ph.D.

John Kiley

New York, N.Y.

--Dear Mr. Buckley: What is a trilby?

Albert B. Poe

Marion, Mass.

Dear Mr. Poe: American Heritage, sitting there, arms outstretched: "a soft felt hat with a deeply creased crown."

Cordially,

-WFB