Sometimes I sense that to put real confidence in my memory I have to get to the end of all rememberings. That seems to say that I forego remembering. And now that strikes me as an accurate description of what it is to have confidence in one's memory.
          --Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason

I remember my family, especially my downtown grandmother, telling me to throw things into the wastepaper basket. At first that was one word to me, and then a little later two, but I remember vividly when I realized that "wastepaper" was a compound of "waste" and "paper": how elegant that was, and how good her English suddenly seemed to me.

posted by William 12:12 AM
. . . 3 comments

Comments:

Did your family use the word "dustbin" too? I remember someone in elementary school telling us that "wastepaper basket" was a better word.

# posted by  sravana : 3:40 AM

 

Hmm... I replied to this before. No -- dust is Queen's English for what we called garbage or trash; for us "dust" means settled motes, what stirs into the air and makes you cough, what comes off on a rag.

# posted by  William : 8:38 AM

 

I know that. :) That's what it means for us too. But we call it a dustbin anyway (semi-opaque compound?). It was a bit confusing to me as a kid, since no dust goes into it.

# posted by  sravana : 2:31 PM

 

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