Phrasal verbs or the Set oxymoron

The hardest part of learning English involves phrasal verbs, the combination of a verb and preposition, because any sense of logic or order is completely lacking.  Therefore, the only way to learn them is abuse them as Ziva in NCIS would do. A nice example of this randomness is the word set, which means fixed or placed, among other meanings, but whose sheet variety of meanings when combined with preposition is quite unsettling to non-native speaker.

It can take minutes or hours to set up a machine, meaning to get it ready, but a writer may set down his/her thoughts, that is record them while baseball pitcher may set down the other side in order, getting all three batters out.  Many younger people set out on a journey, trying to reach a goal, but unfortunately become set in their ways when they become older, not willing to make changes. For that matter, if you set off an alarm, you actually cause it operate.  Setting your alarm forward causes you to wake up earlier, which could be a set back to your sleep.  Curiously, before eating a family meal, someone has to set the table, getting out the tableware, but to set a bar has nothing to do with alcohol, instead referring to establishing a new challenge.

So, the only effective way for a foreigner to learn phrasal verbs is to listen for them, try them and reset their meanings after someone corrects (and laughs at) you.  That is how children do it. 

A Tale of 3 Cities

Being a Jew in the United States, France, and Israel are distinctly different experiences and something that I have experienced.  During the recent Israeli military operation in Gaza, which is hopefully finished, I saw the status of Jews faced with a vocal anti-Israeli/Jew local population in all three countries.  I intentionally linked Jew/Israeli because in the eyes of our “enemies”, the terms are in effect synonymous.  To paraphrase J. P. Sartre, a Jew is a Jew because the world considers him so.

Growing up in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, most of the population was Jewish, meaning the high school was basically empty on Yom Kippur.  That being said, this Jewishness was against an empty background because almost all non-Jews in the area do not care about it.  This lack of contrast means that most American Jews have to “exaggerate” in some way to define themselves as Jews.  Some are politically active, especially in raising money for Israel and expressing Israeli’s interest in the U.S.  Others become religious in a country where keeping the Sabbath is truly a challenge (outside New York).  Some even join the Israeli army, as the late Max Steinberg, who died in Operation Protective Edge. Some strive to install some kind of Jewish identity in their children.  Many do nothing and fully blend into the American landscape, often marrying non-Jews (it happens to the best of families).  Being Jewish in the United States is an effort.

By contrast, being Jewish in France, at least in my experience, is fate.  Being Jewish in an overwhelmingly Catholic country has never been easy since anti-Semitism has always been part of the Catholic Church culture.  If you add a Muslim element to the mix, the situation can turn nasty quickly.  The attack on the synagogue during a recent anti-Israel demonstration is a prime example.  If parents tell their children not to wear a kipppa on their way to school as a matter of safety, it shows that Jews in France feel like a threatened minority, even if the silent majority of French strongly prefer the Jews to the Arabs.  As a French Jew, you have two options, tread softly in France or immigrate to Israel.

There, Jewishness is printed on your ID card and gives you automatic membership in a tribe, whether you want it or not.  The Middle East has always been a tribal society: Jewish, Arab (Muslim or Christian), and Druze, to name the most dominant.  A Jew walking in to an Arab village or an Arab walking in a Jewish city is identified as such even if no hostility is intended or shown.  It is a matter of identification, not racism.  In its crudest term, Hamas makes no distinction between left and right or religious and secular Jews. The person’s actual believes are irrelevant.  In comparison to the United States and France, Jews in Israel identify themselves and are identified as Jews as a basic part of social life.  This does not necessarily prevent relations with the other tribes but clearly sets the scene. Being Jewish in Israel happens quite naturally and creates a feeling of strength.

You can be Jewish in Los Angeles, Paris or Tel Aviv.  Granted that it is an individual decision, I feel Israel is a much more natural (if not always easier) place to be Jewish. To paraphrase George Orwell, I would rather be down and out in Tel Aviv (or Karmiel) than Paris or London.

War culture

Part of the Israeli experience, unfortunately, is the going through these overly frequent periods of mass military operations as a civilian.  The British of World War II and the North Vietnamese of the 1970’s are quite familiar with the sensations of random violence from the air.  It creates, no pun intended, a heavy atmosphere for even the most banal activity, regardless if your town is subject to or spared from the missiles.  For purposes of context, I live in Karmiel in the northern part of Israel. In my 25 years here, I have experienced on a first hand basis missiles during the two Iraq wars and the Second Lebanese War, including helping young daughter get through this.  I admit that my somewhat limited exposures does not compare with those living in Sderot  in southern Israel or Kiriat Shmone in northern Israel, but does provide some intimate knowledge of the joy of rockets in air.  Also, as in all crises, reactions are individual, varying from person to person.

The randomness and helplessness of being a civilian creates several common phenomena.  First, using official and unofficial information, people creates their “rules of safe behavior”.  On one extreme, this can mean never leaving the safe room.  On the other extreme, some individuals assume that life and death are just a matter of luck and go everywhere since it makes no difference.  My attitude under fire was that, based on my analysis of the cases of actual death by missile, my home is my castle, i.e. stay inside as much as possible to be safe. I believe that I am correct, at least statistically.

For those that leave the apparent safety of their house, the next issue is what to do if you are “caught” by an alert while driving or doing shopping.  Yes, people do need to eat even during a war.  In the former, there are several attitudes.  I admit that I used to keep on driving, counting on the laws of probability to keep me safe.  In other words, I have much less chance of dying from a missile than I have from a car accident.   The home front department advises otherwise: pull over, get out of your car, and hit the dirt or, if possible, get near a wall, covering your head with your arms.  I don’t feel scared enough to do that, but it does make sense.  If out in the city running errands, some people first check where the nearest safe room or stair case is, similar to parents with small children checking where the bathroom is. The opposite reaction is quite “human”: turn on the Smartphone video and film the whole event.  Logically, it is probably the most dangerous way to react, but instinctively it takes over if a person believes in immortality and is not actually frightened by the rocket.

The last issue I will address is dealing with the tensions.  People release their tension through one or more of the following physical manners: mashing teeth (dentists are quite busy after the war), eating more or less than usual, talking about their fears or insisting that the endless tension has no effect on them, constantly or never watching the news, or playing video games, to name a few.  I know that this stress does leave a scar on a person’s psyche, but so do one’s parents and childhood years in general for that matter.

So, war is hell, but a personal hell for civilians.  It is also part of an Israeli’s identity, distinguishing him or her from most other people.  From time to time, people will list the “wars” they gone through.  Sadly, my list is getting longer and will probably expand in the future.  As that optimistic Israeli goes, we also get through that.

My daily bread

Despite the endless rows of other food that fill up supermarkets, the most important corner of any grocery store is the bread racks.  Tens if not hundreds of types of bread products tempt and confuse us. Linguistically, some very common stables have interesting histories of which most people are not aware.

Some breads were for special occasions. A kaiser or Vienna roll was made for the Emperor Franz Joseph’s birthday.  A pretzel was for lent since it required no eggs. People often gave bagels as a gift, including Jews over 600 years ago. 

Some flours have quaint backgrounds.  Graham flour, from which Graham crackers are made (ideal for smores, a wonderful sandwich with chocolate and marshmallows melted over the open fire), was invented by a pub owners who wanted his clients to drink more and came up with a whole wheat flour that helped absorb the alcohol.  Pumpernickel, a component of expensive breads today, was once supposed rejected by Napoleon for his personal use and left for his horse and is allegedly translated as “the devil’s fart” for its effects on the digestive system.

Some desert favorites have also come from far away.  Crepes, my personal favorite (with Grand Marnier, sugar and lemon), come from the Latin crispa for waved.  The Bretons make a whole wheat crepe adding meat, which I strongly recommend.  Their name is either les galettes or les saracens, i.e. moors since the wheat grew in the moors.  As for the classic American doughnut or donut, one theory of the name is that the bakers added nuts in the middle since that dough tended to be undercooked there. 

It is true that you can’t live on bread alone but you sure can gain weight on it.  While you are enjoying its satisfying taste, look up a bit of its history, food for the mind you could say.

By sea and by air

Long forgotten by recent generations, including mine, taking a plane to travel long distance was a distant third preference to zeppelins and, mainly, ships.  In commercial language, at the beginning, air transportation was an “extreme” alternative to the comfortable and proven world of ships.  This genealogy has had a strong impact on the vocabulary of planes in English to this day.

A group of planes is called a fleet while the chief pilot is an aircraft is a captain.  The plane itself is divided into various cabins, located aft and stern, not to mention the kitchen galley, where the food is warmed up (prepared would be too kind of a word).These calories are served by stewardesses, the female version of the ship stewards, to add some sex appeal.  The outside of the airplane is a hull. In the airport, like for a ship, are docking spaces.

To be fair, passengers board and exit the plane, not embark and disembark. While a ship is a she, a plane is an it, even for the crew, to the best of my knowledge.  The amount of leg room in an economy seat and ship lounge chair cannot be compared while the space of even the smallest sleeping cabin on a ship involves a pretty penny for a flight.

In retrospect, aside from speed and time issues, travel by ship still seems a more pleasant experience, even taking into account the seasickness problem. If most of us cannot afford in terms of time and/or money the journey by sea, we can at least linguistically experience it by flying.

Racism and the “Dash” problem

Pluralistic countries, such as the United and Israel, suffer from a human identity problem.  In the US, the people walking in the streets are black- Americans, Irish-Americans, Jewish Americans, etc. while in Israel there are Russian, Ethiopian, Moroccan, Druze, Arab, etc. Israelis.  Most countries of the world share the same situation to one degree or another, including such previous essentially homogenous countries of France and Denmark.  The issue is the emphasis: what is more dominant, the “species” or the “genus”. In other words, when people see different citizens of their country, what enters the mind, their shared or differentiated cultural values?

To demonstrate, I live in a culturally diverse neighborhood in Northern Israel.  The culture of origin of my neighbors is obvious from the clothes they wear, the odors coming from their kitchen, and the manner in which they say shalom.  They include Ethiopians, both immigrants and second generation, Russian, Caucasians (from the Russian Caucuses), North African Jews whose taste in music and clothes has not been radically changed by the three generations of living in Israel, and local Arabs who choose to living in a Jewish town for personal reasons, to name only a few.  A white Ashkenazi potential apartment buyer here could have at least two reactions.  On one extreme, this person could the see the differences of life style as a threat; these people are not really “Israeli” enough; “I” don’t fit or want to fit in with “them”.  The opposite attitude is to view the inhabitants as people who have chosen, for whatever the reason, to make their life in Israel and face common challenges, specifically making a living, raising a family, and enjoying life as much as possible.  The choice of keeping the Shabbat or not or the style of Friday night dinner and even the color of the skin are minor details.  When the VAT goes up, we all suffer. 

That said, some issues, often fed by opportunistic politicians, divide people by ethnic background.  Controversial trials, such as those of OJ Simpson in the US and Arie Deri in Israel, highlight ethnicity not  nationality.  International events often create a dilemma of loyalties, perceived or real, for the group in question.  These include threats to fellow members in another country, such as war in the Middle East or a massacre of group members elsewhere. Finally, actual racist behavior directed at the group specifically can separate its interests from the collective interest.  The best example is violent police behavior directed at a member of that ethnic group.  So, the ultimate melting pot is an ideal, not a reality.

Still, the key to a tolerant and non-racist society is seeing beyond obvious visual and behavior differences and noticing the common culture shared by all Israeli, Americans, and even French and Germans, to name just a few.  The excitement of parents on the first day of kindergarten of their children or fans as their team wins a World Cup games transcends individual differences as does the sadness of parents of a soldier on his final journey or frustration of commuters trapped in a traffic jam.

Bill Cosby, in an early and not very “funny” routine demonstrated the stupidity of racism (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjzB_-3sRqk) as did MAD magazine several decades ago in which a racist was described as someone who loves America but hates 98% of the people who live there.   Hopefully, in the future, people will learn to drop the dash permanently.

Renting and Leasing

The most confusing concepts are those that are quite similar but not identical.  In some cases, the subtle difference blurs, rendering the terms interchangeable.  On other cases, purists, often jurists, insist on the difference even if the general public does not quite grasp it.  An example of this phenomenon is the word pair rent and lease.  Clearly derived from different roots, they both mean in a general sense to allow temporary use of asset, mobile or stationary, in compensation for a regular monthly fee.

In English, the difference remains distinct. A lease, whether of a car or an office, is a fixed duration agreement during which the tenant pays a  predetermined and unchangeable amount during the lease period.  In some case, such as automobile leases, these payments may create some type of potential ownership rights, but this provision does not define a lease.  By contrast, a rental agreement is a renewable short term agreement, daily to monthly depending on the context, whose payment rate may change at each interval.  For example, people may rent a car for a week or day or an apartment on a monthly basis.  Neither side is bound to renew the agreement nor is any ownership rights allowed.  To rent is simply to get short-term temporary use of an asset with minimum legal obligations.  In terms of grammar, each word has a noun and verb form, i.e. lease and rental/rent, respectively.

In French, the distinction has become muddled (see http://www.dictionnaire-juridique.com/definition/bail.php .  The word bail [buy] means lease while location [locasion] refers to a rent, but are in fact used interchangeably.  The verb form for bail, bailler, according to the above source, has given way to donner à bail or louer, the latter based on the abovementioned location. To distinguish the long term use of a car, French dealerships use the English term le leasing because louer is ambiguous (and sounds less special, maybe).

Hebrew does have two separate words, שכירות [Schzerut] and חכירה [Hachira], loosely translated as renting and leasing. In practice, under Israeli law, the former is for a period less than five years while the latter is for five years or more. See http://www.shamainadlan.co.il/itemview.php?item=17 for more information.  In terms of the verb, as in French, one verb,  להשכיר [lahaskir] is primary used for both uses, although להחכיר [lahhakhir] does exist.

So, sometimes the difference between a lease and rent agreement is no difference.