Today one of my writer friends, Susan Ito from the Bay Area in San Francisco, invited me and others to a May writing challenge. I love to do these challenges sometimes. They help me develop discipline that I need to keep my writing fresh and on targe. They also help me take a break from some of the bigger more serious projects. I decided to record the challenge here each day, and I invite you to join the challenge yourself.
The idea is to use the list of prompts, and to write for 5 minutes using the daily prompts. That's all there is to it. Ready? Set? Let's get started.
Day One, Writing Prompt-Pour.
Pour or poor are or were supposed to be pronounced differently. At least that's what I've been told. In particular by one very highly charged drama coach I had in high school. I met Mr. Rashkovski when I was in my first high school drama class. I took all the classes I could take from him throughout high school. In 10th grade he told us his last name was Rashkovsky. In 11th grade, he'd shortened it to Rashkow. and by 12th grade, he'd anglicized his beautiful name to Randall. He said, in passing, "I didn't want to deal with the 'are you a rash cow?' jokes for the rest of my life." He changed it to fit into his new culture. I wish he hadn't, but it was his life and his name. Who can tell another person what they should like to be called? I've changed my name often enough, so I understood.
He was a Russian Jew who had escaped the harsh conditions of Russia some time during or after WWII. By the time I met him, he was probably in his late 50s or 60s, I'm really not sure. He was grizzled though, and one of the very best teachers I have ever had.
We, the drama students, were his cast. He treated us like a director would treat his actors, and demanded our best. We all loved acting and learning from him. My favorite roles were the nasty women of Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill, and Chekov, of course Chekov. We did scenes from the Cherry Orchard, I recall. What I most remember though was the day I was doing a monologue. I don't recall which scene or which play, but I was in front of the class all alone on the stage. Mr. Rashkovsky, or Rashkow, or Randall or whatever he was calling himself that day, was sitting at the back of the room. He stopped me mid-scene and began asking me questions. "Say the word P-O-U-R." so I said it, in my best stage voice, modulating and projecting my voice. Then he said, "Now say P-O-O-R." So I did. This exchange went on over and over for about five minutes. Finally, frustrated, he said to me, "Can't you hear the difference in the two? Pour is Pour, not Poor." "No, sir, they both sound the same to me." He finally gave up, waving his hand in the air, "Go on with your monologue."
After that, I became more and more concerned about the pronunciation of poor and pour. I still can't hear the difference and was amazed when i read an article last week about the evolution of the pronunciation of the two words. Evidently in my own lifetime, the words went from two distinct sounds to one. Evidently, it is now considered okay to pronounce the two words as if they were homophones--words that sound alike though spelled differently.
However, for Mr. Rashkovski, that would never have flown. I, on the other hand, have accepted that I have been riding on the edge of the evolution of the language. Two other experiences highlighted the fact that my pronunciation is different from the norm in many ways. My husband, a non-native speaker, picked up the way I said "mountain" and pronounced most all his English with a British prep school kind of dialect...all but the word mountain which sounded like a twangy southern accent. Like a cowgirl. I pleaded with him not to say the word the way I did. That only insured he would say it and make it even twangier.
Recently, while visiting my Daughter and Granddaughter in San Francisco, my Granddaughter and I got into a discussion about the proper use of language. My 10-year old granddaughter informed me, "Yaya, language changes. What is polite or proper is now different. That's the way it is."
Pour might not be poor, but they're both the same to me. Life and language indeed do change, and if we can, we might learn something new by changing with both.
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