“To home,” they used to say in the Midwest, as in “She’s to home this afternoon.” I have no idea where the phrase comes from…
I'm guessing from German immigrants to the Midwest. In German, one of the common ways of saying "at home" is "zu Hause" with the German "zu" being the closest analogue to the English "to" (although prepositions never map perfectly between languages), both in sound and usage. According to one of my linguistics professors, prepositions are the hardest things for anyone to master in a foreign language—certainly harder than nouns—because there's no real logic to how they're used when they're not describing physical relationships (consider the difference between a book being ON a table vs. a person being ON the phone—what is the "on" really conveying in that latter case?). This certainly jibes with my own experience. It's easy to imagine that these immigrants quickly mastered the difference between "house" and "home" in English, but would slip up and forget that the preceding preposition was supposed to be "at" rather than "to" and that their descendants adopted it into their own native English because there's no real reason why it shouldn't be "to home".
Sorry for the digression. I just saw that line and it got me excited—I really love seeing how English has been shaped by other languages.
Thank you! I was just a bit self-conscious that my comment was long and not very germane to the rest of your post. I'm so glad you found it interesting!
“I quite like a monk. They render the constant-surveillance of God less terrifying, because they dedicate their lives to staring back.” I was so struck by these lines! This is beautifully written and you’re right!!
The sense of relief when estranged family members no longer know where you live is REAL. The sense of invasion when people from your past call is real too. It's happened to me in the past month and it was astonishing to me how little the person who called seemed to care about how the call might hurt or upset me. I'm so sorry you're going through estrangement. Thank you for being public about your experience -- hearing someone I respect talk about their own process has eased some of my persistent fears about being deeply mistaken/too sensitive/selfish about the reasons for my own family estrangement.
I've always liked the aesthetic of monasteries and the Desert Fathers. Helps that I'm Catholic, but I've got that Zen mystic bent going. And this reminds me so much of your work from The Toast that I had to go back and reread some Two Monks posts!
Lovely! There's a short book Roland Barthes did--kind of cleaned-up transcripts of a course he did--of his ideas/fantasies/speculations about the appeal of monkish life, called Living Together. If you haven't seen it and like Barthes it's really interesting and worth a look.
“To home,” they used to say in the Midwest, as in “She’s to home this afternoon.” I have no idea where the phrase comes from…
I'm guessing from German immigrants to the Midwest. In German, one of the common ways of saying "at home" is "zu Hause" with the German "zu" being the closest analogue to the English "to" (although prepositions never map perfectly between languages), both in sound and usage. According to one of my linguistics professors, prepositions are the hardest things for anyone to master in a foreign language—certainly harder than nouns—because there's no real logic to how they're used when they're not describing physical relationships (consider the difference between a book being ON a table vs. a person being ON the phone—what is the "on" really conveying in that latter case?). This certainly jibes with my own experience. It's easy to imagine that these immigrants quickly mastered the difference between "house" and "home" in English, but would slip up and forget that the preceding preposition was supposed to be "at" rather than "to" and that their descendants adopted it into their own native English because there's no real reason why it shouldn't be "to home".
Sorry for the digression. I just saw that line and it got me excited—I really love seeing how English has been shaped by other languages.
please don't apologize -- this is so interesting!
Thank you! I was just a bit self-conscious that my comment was long and not very germane to the rest of your post. I'm so glad you found it interesting!
“I quite like a monk. They render the constant-surveillance of God less terrifying, because they dedicate their lives to staring back.” I was so struck by these lines! This is beautifully written and you’re right!!
The sense of relief when estranged family members no longer know where you live is REAL. The sense of invasion when people from your past call is real too. It's happened to me in the past month and it was astonishing to me how little the person who called seemed to care about how the call might hurt or upset me. I'm so sorry you're going through estrangement. Thank you for being public about your experience -- hearing someone I respect talk about their own process has eased some of my persistent fears about being deeply mistaken/too sensitive/selfish about the reasons for my own family estrangement.
I've always liked the aesthetic of monasteries and the Desert Fathers. Helps that I'm Catholic, but I've got that Zen mystic bent going. And this reminds me so much of your work from The Toast that I had to go back and reread some Two Monks posts!
Lovely! There's a short book Roland Barthes did--kind of cleaned-up transcripts of a course he did--of his ideas/fantasies/speculations about the appeal of monkish life, called Living Together. If you haven't seen it and like Barthes it's really interesting and worth a look.
oh I'll check that out -- thank you!
Oh wait, it's "How To Live Together" Columbia Univ Press
My heart goes out to you as you rewire your relationship to fatherhood, family, and manliness.