Centuries ago, monks who took a vow of silence still had to communicate about everyday activities in the monastery, from gardening to equipment repair. So they developed their own hand signs, with hundreds of gestures for various words and ideas that are sometimes still used today. An excellent book on the power of silence in such places is A Time to Keep Silence (Bookshop|Amazon) by Patrick Leigh Fermor. This is part of a complete episode.
When you’re talking about the location of an inanimate object, is it okay to say that it lives there, as in The peanut butter lives in that cabinet or The flashlight lives on that shelf? Strictly speaking, of course, that object isn’t...
Sean in Oneonta, New York, says that when he was growing up in New Jersey, his family would pile in the car and set off on a surprise adventure, whether a short distance or long, and the kids would be told only that they were going on Buxtehude...
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