![]() ![]() English and Dutch speakers are attuned to a similar vowel sound in bovine vocalizations, but hear different consonants at the start. Dutch cows, for example, go boe, which rhymes with the English moo. Sometimes our varied vocabulary for animal sounds simply reflects differences in what people are hearing them say. ![]() My favorite onomatopoeic word is the Macedonian грчи (“grchi”), pronounced something like “hrrrrrchee.” Any guesses as to its meaning? I’ll tell you at the end. Bees buzz in English because the word sounds like their swarming water splashes because the term echoes the noise of tossing a stone into a lake. Our terms for animal noises are onomatopoeias, words formed to reflect the sound of the action or thing they represent. Ducks, cows, and pigs vocalize more or less the same way, whether in the south of France or in the middle of America – so why do animals “speak” so differently when we translate their sounds into human languages? One of my favorite parts of studying French was learning that Francophone ducks say coin coin (“kwan kwan”), not quack pigs make a guttural groin groin (“grwan grwan”) instead of oink and cows produce a wonderfully scornful meuh. While America has coined the phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” it is an aspiration for everyone in the world. It is a call for empathy – an identification of this generation’s needs for housing, health care, and basic rights. Putting down tools gives us time to reflect, to reassess what really matters to a society. The “bottom line” speaks to profits and margins, but the bottom line is that a business isn’t successful without a value system that prioritizes people.“Workers of the world, unite!” isn’t just the bookend to a communist’s manifesto. ![]() But it can also be a crucial part of a restoration of community. While elements of America’s strongly capitalistic society have bristled at them, a Gallup poll from last August states that support of labor unions (71%) is at its highest point since 1965.Unionizing can be seen as an inconvenience – disruptive to commerce and to many Americans’ daily lives. Labor unions are as American as apple pie. The National Labor Relations Board has reported an uptick in unfair labor practice charge filings and union representation petitions, the latter at a pace unseen since the 1970s. Then there are the actors and writers, making a compelling argument out of whether art imitates life, or vice versa.Right now, they’re all thinking about a strike.Even as the number of unions has dropped over decades, recent labor activity with high-profile entities such as Amazon and Starbucks has shined a light on workers’ discontent. There are various airport personnel, making sure everyone gets from here to there. There’s the delivery person, in a shade of brown, leaving packages on the front porch. All the world’s a stage, Shakespeare wrote, and all the men and women merely players. ![]()
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