Mimicry

 

Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob

Remember when you were a little kid and you mimicked your parents. "Johnny brush your teeth!" would be met with a reiteration of the same instruction. "Be careful or you will bump your head!" another and of course "watch out for bones!" Back in the 50s, everyone was choking on bones. If you're a baby boomer, you remember your parents making chicken dinners into fearful ordeals. The funny thing is that everyone is mimicking everyone else though they don't often notice it. Try to think about the first person who said "sounds like a plan," "at the end of the day" or  averred they were glad you were "on the same page." Widely used turns of phrase don't come out of nowhere. Yet it's curious why some have a longer half life than others. You may have heard someone say "I don't feature..." meaning they don't prefer or like something. Where did that come from? Oh, ye gods and little fishes" is another. You probably don't own one original phrase, yet you'd have to hire a linguistic private eye to figure the roots of your own way of talking--and thinking too 

read "Boudu Saved From Drowning" by Francis Levy (with a painting by Hallie Cohen), The East Hampton Star