I´m not one for foisting my opinions upon people. But when it comes to music, food and cooking, that´s a different matter. The above video of frazzled 1970´s California scene survivor Jackson Browne at The Glastonbury festival gives me the chance to introduce a few linguistic gems. But first, time to mouth off. The Glastonbury Festival is the world´s greatest music festival, period (as the Americans would say) I´v e been seven times and the last time was eleven years ago because today getting a Glastonbury ticket is more difficult than finding a job will be when the CV19 crisis is over.
Jackson Browne made two good albums, the first two, and the rest were wistful naval gazing thought provoking at times self indulgences. He still pens the odd good song but musically they´re all a bit down beat plod plod plod. Like that reggitin stuff. Or maybe not. I mention the reggitin because some of you folks reading this might actually like the stuff. Well, horses for courses, one man´s meat´s another man´s poison. The odd Mac Donald´s burger won´t do you any harm.
But his heart´s in the right place, he´s the darling of the US liberal left and a thorn in the side of the neo liberal right. The song´s pretty simple, same theme as the vastly overplayed “I will Survive” – loss, disappointment, but carry on regardless. And the song´s got me thinking of linguistic difficulties with related words.
LIVE /liv/ – is a verb
LIVE /laiv/ – is an adjective. The above show is a live performance.
ALIVE /aLAIV/ – An adjective. The opposite of dead.
LIFE /laif/ – An abstract noun: Life is great
LIFETIME /laiftime/ – Countable noun. The period of time in which someone is alive.
LIVELIHOOD /laivlihuds/ – Countable noun. It means the way people get by, make a living, survive.
And up there in government, this is becoming the big question: Lives versus livelihoods. Do we restrict movement, minimise infection, and save lives….but destroy livelihoods (small businesses, jobs) or do we scrap the restrictions, let people get back to work, perhaps infect others again, and destroy lives? It´s a terrible ethical, socioeconomic conundrum is n´t it? Glad I´m not having to take those decisions. I´ll stick to my music and food choices.
RingRingEnglish 