wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Re: Sustenance - what does it mean?
Richard Crowest 2007-Sep-04 16:29:00
Caroling Geary wrote:
> I like the definitions emerging on the list from
> the "grass roots".
Absolutely! And it's one of the joys - or miseries - of the English language that it is so
open to interpretation, to imagery and symbolism. Samuel Beckett once wrote that he
preferred writing in French to English, because if he used the French equivalent of "oaken"
it meant simply "made of oak", but in English it immediately carried overtones of solidity,
trustworthiness, strength, integrity, etc. In English it's sometimes very hard to say what
you mean unequivocally. Just misplacing a comma can get you into terrible trouble...
One doesn't need to get poetic, either. Just trace "sustenance" back through the dictionary
to "sustain", then "sustainer". This is from the Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary
(yes, I know that's hopelessly out of date now...): "sustainer: ... the main motor in a rocket,
continuing with it throughout its flight". Now there's a challenge for a panorama!
All of which makes me think that books are an important part of my daily sustenance.
Sustenance for the mind and the soul are just as important as that for the body.
In other words - whatever gets you through.
R