A Good Morning at Midnight
It is 01:17 in the morning.
Which, in ordinary English, means it is still night.
But why should we allow a language to dictate our lives?
So, Good Morning!
At midnight.
And that, dear reader, brings us directly to the English language — a magnificent linguistic machine capable of putting two completely opposite words together, giving them a respectable place in society, and walking away as if nothing happened.
Take:
Found Missing.
Found — but missing.
English, please explain.
Then:
Open Secret.
If it is open, why is it secret?
And:
Small Crowd.
A crowd that has apparently been put on a diet.
Then comes:
Act Naturally.
Please act naturally.
But don’t forget that you are acting.
Brilliant.
Clearly Misunderstood.
Fully Empty.
Pretty Ugly.
Seriously Funny.
Only Choice.
Original Copies.
Exact Estimate.
That last one sounds like something an accountant says five minutes before changing the figure.
Then:
Tragic Comedy.
Foolish Wisdom.
Liquid Gas.
And my personal favourite:
Working Holiday.
A holiday where you work.
A job where you are supposed to relax.
English has apparently decided that contradiction is not a problem.
It is a lifestyle.
And then humanity produced the modern classic:
Social Distancing.
We were instructed to remain socially distant while becoming increasingly social through telephones, WhatsApp, Facebook, Zoom and every other device ever invented by people who apparently don’t like sitting alone.
But wait.
Before we laugh too much at English, let us invite some older languages to the courtroom.
Persian has a wonderfully picturesque expression:
شترگربه — Shutur-Gurba.
A camel-cat.
Yes.
A camel and a cat.
Two creatures apparently selected by the universe for entirely different departments.
Urdu literary tradition has the more respectable صنعتِ تضاد — the art of bringing contrasting ideas together.
English intellectuals may call the verbal contradiction an oxymoron.
Persian gives us a camel-cat.
Urdu gives us صنعتِ تضاد.
And the common man simply looks at the sentence and says:
“بھائی، یہ کیا بنا دیا؟”
Three languages.
Three approaches.
Same headache.
But perhaps this is why language is so fascinating.
It does not merely describe life.
Sometimes it catches life red-handed.
We want freedom — but we also want somebody else to make the rules.
We want privacy — then announce our breakfast to 600 Facebook friends.
We want peace — but cannot always achieve it between two brothers arguing over the television remote.
We demand honesty — preferably the kind that does not hurt our feelings.
And we want to be different — just like everybody else.
Perhaps language is only copying us.
The Holy Qur’an tells us that among Allah’s signs are the diversity of our languages and colours. Qur’an 30:22.
And the Holy Prophet Muhammad [Peace and blessings be upon him] taught:
«“Actions are judged by intentions.”»
Sahih al-Bukhari, 1; Sahih Muslim, 1907.
Which may explain another great English mystery.
The word:
“Fine.”
“Fine!”
Means everything is wonderful.
“Fine.”
Means absolutely nothing is wonderful.
Same word.
Different intention.
One tiny change in the voice — and you have just crossed an international border.
And then we reach the Everest of English contradiction:
Happily Married.
Now, gentlemen, please put down the telephone.
Ladies, please stop smiling.
I am not attacking marriage.
I am attacking the dictionary.
Because surely the dictionary could have been more helpful.
Perhaps:
Happily Married:
Two people who love each other enough to survive discovering that neither of them is always right.
Or perhaps:
The permanent arrangement in which one person says, “I told you so,” and the other person remembers saying exactly the same thing three months earlier.
Now it was getting dangerous.
I was sitting in my little Eyrie at 01:17, coffee beside me, English contradictions scattered across the page.
Suddenly:
Ting.
A brass bell.
BāBā-Tāl.
He appeared beside the window, his steaming mug in both hands.
He looked at the page.
Then at me.
Then at the phrase:
Happily Married.
Another:
Ting.
“Bacha!”
I waited.
He leaned closer and whispered:
“English did not invent contradictions. It merely gave them grammar.”
I nearly dropped my coffee.
Before I could answer, he added:
“Humans invented the originals.”
And disappeared.
Foxy, downstairs, responded with one ancient mechanical cough.
Perhaps she agreed.
Perhaps she didn’t.
With Foxy, one never knows.
And suddenly I realised that contradiction may not be such a bad thing after all.
Life itself is full of them.
We laugh while carrying sorrow.
We cry because we love.
We remember the dead and celebrate the living.
We seek silence when the world becomes too loud.
We seek company when loneliness becomes too quiet.
Perhaps that is why poets have always been comfortable with contradictions.
They know that sometimes two opposite truths can occupy the same heart.
So, at this very late — or very early — hour, I put down my pen and let POETEARS have the final word:
We laugh when opposite words embrace,
While tears may hide behind a smiling face;
Life writes its truths in shades of grey —
And calls contradiction “another day.”
POETEARS— [Coined by S.T. Hejazi — Where poetry becomes tears, and tears become poetry.]
So, English, carry on.
Keep your Open Secrets.
Keep your Small Crowds.
Keep your Exact Estimates.
Keep your Seriously Funny people.
Keep your Working Holidays.
Keep your Social Distancing.
And, above all, keep your magnificent:
Happily Married.
Because without contradictions, English might become perfectly logical.
And at 01:17 in the morning, who needs that?
Good morning.
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