Man in the Moon

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, my name is Zoya. I’m calling from San Diego, California.

Oh, okay, we know where that is.

Yeah, welcome to the show. How can we help?

Thank you. So I’m taking a 19th and 20th century literature course at UCSD, and I came across a peculiar phrase.

So the phrase shows up twice in a short story called Why I Live at the P.O. by Eudora Welty. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it.

Sure.

Yeah, of course. It was written in 1941. The phrase that I’m referencing is the man in the moon. And the two times it’s brought up is first, quote, Papa, Daddy, you know, I wouldn’t anymore want you to cut off your beard than the man in the moon.

And second, she has no more manners than the man and the moon.

And I find the phrase peculiar because the context seems to be discrepant in both sentences.

So I’m wondering if this was just a colloquialism referring to the interest in the 40s of space and lunar exploration or what it means.

Let me ask you, what do you take away from the first of these?

Papa Daddy, you know I wouldn’t anymore want you to cut off your beard than the man in the moon.

Is that it?

Yes, that’s exactly it.

And I take away from that just that she wouldn’t want Papa Daddy to cut off his beard because it would emasculate him.

Okay.

So I think something about that. Something really interesting happening here with the man in the moon is it’s almost contentless.

The semantic value of that entire phrase only represents an extreme form of speech. It simply means, I really mean it.

Or it’s a way of adding emphasis or underscoring the seriousness of the person’s statement, the statement that comes before it.

And I think that applies to both of these.

Now, historically, when you talk about the man on the moon, like, I don’t know him from the man on the moon, you’re talking about, I don’t know him compared to anyone else.

He’s no different to me than anyone else that I might see on the street and not know.

And so we’re really talking about this rare character who is unusual and is a faraway place and maybe was put there in punishment because that’s sometimes the story of the man in the moon.

It’s just a way of expressing this extreme kind of sentiment. It’s really not about any man in the two sentences you quote at all.

Well, yeah, the expression man in the moon goes all the way back to the 14th century.

It’s really, really, really old.

Yeah, it’s really old, but used in this particular way like Eudora Welty uses it.

It’s not about really the myth at all.

One of the myths was that the man in the moon was put up there because he had been picking up brush or sticks on a Sunday.

And if you look in the moon in a particular way, some people think they see a man carrying a bundle of sticks.

Other people think the whole moon looks like a face.

Very much like the early French films, you know, with the rocket in the eye, you know.

Many cultures around the world, including the Chinese, various European cultures, have all seen a face in the moon.

So we find back this particular use of the man in the moon to refer to anyone or not at all.

That’s kind of what we’re talking about here.

Like, I wouldn’t want you to shave off that beard.

Not at all.

She has no manners.

Not at all.

I mean, really, that’s what the man in the moon is doing here, emphasizing this negative in both of these statements.

Yeah.

So nothing about space exploration.

Nope.

That’s so very interesting.

Thank you so much.

I was really scratching my head.

We’re glad you called, Zoya.

Thank you so much.

Okay, thank you.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

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