By: Jim Taylor

When the ground moves beneath us


The organization – its name doesn’t matter – was exploring ways and means of continuing its programs. That meant developing new products, new markets, new users.

        But every possibility seemed to lead to a dead end. Every proposal foundered on its own realities. And the banks seemed to be looking over everyone’s shoulder like the grim reaper sharpening his scythe.

        The group stared glumly at each other.

        Someone commented, "We’ve just landed on Boardwalk, and someone else owns it.”

        Everyone understood. That’s how the game of Monopoly has influenced our vocabulary.

        "Do not pass Go," someone else might have said; "Do not collect $200."

        If those phrases don’t make sense to you, you have never played Monopoly.

        According to the game’s website, “Monopoly is the best-selling board game in the world, sold in 103 countries and produced in 37 languages…”

        It got started during the Great Depression. Charles B. Darrow of Germantown, Pennsylvania, was unemployed, like millions of others. He imagined what it might be like to manipulate real estate, utilities, and community events, to get magnificently wealthy.

        He called his game Monopoly – because that was obviously the tactic the Vanderbilts and Morgans had used to get to the top.

        Parker Brothers rejected the game. It had, they said, "52 design errors"!

        Undaunted, Darrow printed up 5,000 handmade copies of his game for a Philadelphia department store. They sold out. People loved a game that simulated their life experience – making money, or losing it. Parker Brothers reconsidered; Monopoly entered history.



Our common language

I started thinking about other phrases that make sense only to those already familiar with that vocabulary. I’ve said to my British relatives, "Three strikes and you’re out!" and received a blank stare. They’d get the same response from me for a term from cricket, say, or from Cockney slang.

        Americans all seem to understand, "It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings." But not in Canada. No “fat lady”—or anyone else—sings at the conclusion of our annual Grey Cup national fiesta.

        A generation ago, phrases from the Bible provided most of the common idioms of our language. Mention Jacob’s Ladder, Ezekiel’s chariot, or a Damascus-Road experience, almost everyone knew what you meant.

        Not any more. Our church choir encountered a line, a few rehearsals ago, that said, "Free us from the babble of our Babel minds…"

        "What does that mean?" several members asked. They had never, apparently, heard the story of the Tower of Babel.

        As an occasional preacher, I like to build on what people already know. So I tend to drop allusions without explaining them in detail. Increasingly, I get puzzled frowns instead of knowing nods.

        The second largest source of common sayings was Shakespeare. But many people today have never heard of Shakespeare, let alone learned any of his more memorable lines.

        The common ground, the lingua franca of communication, has shifted under our feet. Today, I suspect, it comes from the commercial world. Not from literature, or faith.

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Copyright © 2007 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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