As I Say, it's No Skin off My Nose

I was reading the Book of Job today and I came across Job 19:20. "My bone clings to my skin and my flesh, And I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth." (NASB) I started wondering, what does this expression mean? It obviously originated in Job, since it is such an old book. So I decided to look it up. The Phrase Finder says

"The source of the phrase "by the skin of one's teeth" is indeed the Book of Job, although the precise phrase Job used was "My bone cleaveth to my skin, and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth" (not "by"). Just what the "skin" of one's teeth might be is a bit unclear, but it probably refers to the thin porcelain exterior of the tooth, not the gums. Job evidently kept his teeth, but just barely. It is also possible that he was saying that the margin of his escape was as narrow as the "skin" of a tooth is shallow -- the equivalent of a "hair's breadth." In any case, Job clearly meant that he'd had a very hard time of it, and the phrase has been used ever since to mean a very narrow or arduous escape."

A pretty obvious interpretation. But it reminded me of another idiom--skin of my nose. The oldest an most well-known occurrence of this phrase to me was It's a Wonderful Life. I wondered if it originated from this movie--it certainly was preserved by this movie, along with other 30s-40s phrases like "See you in the Funny Papers" and "Hee Haw". But I decided to do a little research here as well. A seemingly well-researched site says this--
The other day I chanced to overhear a snippet of conversation while standing in line to have my linens starched. Two elderly women were discussing some aspect of their work, and one said to the other, "Well, if he wants to pay that much for a typewriter with no vowels, let him! After all, it's no skin off your nose."

I thought to myself, "What a quaintly curious expression!" Naturally I had heard the phrase "no skin off my nose" before, but, like most people I suppose, had never really given much thought to the origin of such an odd idiom. As the next day happened to be a religious holiday for me (The Feast of the Sacred Topological Enigma) and therefore not a work day, I decided to spend a few quiet hours in the library exploring the etymology of "no skin off my nose".

To my surprise, this simple expression has a long and interesting history, and is closely tied to the terms "nosy", "sticking his nose where it doesn't belong", and even "keeping his nose clean".

In sixteenth century England a clandestine group of cabbage worshipers inhabited London's seamier neighborhoods, practicing a variety of bizarre rituals involving cabbage—including coleslaw, sauerkraut, and the newly invented Reuben sandwich, which had been banned by the government as being subversive ever since the visiting Count Halitosis had disgraced himself by splattering corned beef on the tablecloth at a state banquet.

With informers everywhere, it became common among the cabbage cult to cut a very small hole in the doors of the places of worship, so that the high priest could peer through and verify the identity of those wishing to enter. However, electric lights being unknown, it was difficult to make out the faces of people standing outside in the dark, so another method was devised.

Followers who desired entrance to the service were to make a small mark, like a birthmark, on the left side of their nose, and then thrust their proboscis through the hole in the door. If the mark was missing, the priest would know that the nose did not belong to a true believer, and he would take a sharp paring knife and slice a long strip of skin from the nose. Understandably, the King's guardsmen came to be very wary of taking an assignment which could result in "skin off my nose", and eventually the phrase came to mean anything costly or painful. Those who had suffered the indignity of having their noses pared like an apple were, of course, subsequently easy to spot walking down the street, and peasants would tease them about the wisdom of "sticking their noses where they didn't belong".

Eventually the secret of the mark on the nose was discovered by spies who managed to infiltrate the cult, but the King, in his Divine Wisdom, refused to permit his guardsmen to stoop to such silliness, and proclaimed that any of his men wishing to keep their heads attached to their shoulders would do well to "keep their noses clean".

The English language is indeed a rich and colorful one, with a fascinating history."

Very interesting! It makes me want to look up a few more (I am open to suggestions).

Santa Trucks are Coming...

Despite the title, this post is not about Santa, or trucks. Movie reviews do not belong in this blog, but I would like to say a few thoughts I've had about the movie The Polar Express.
Yes, this movie is old, and Christmas is far away. But I've been thinking about it lately (mostly in impatience for Christmas) and I've noticed some interesting observations about this movie.
Santa is not real. I was told this since I was a child. However, my family also read The Night Before Christmas every year and enjoyed watching movies like Santa Claus is Coming to Town. As long as kids understand that Santa is a fun story and that Jesus is the true reason for Christmas, I think it is alright to include Santa in Christmas traditions. As a kid, part of the fun of pretending Santa was dropping off our presents was that we knew it wasn't real.
That said, I think Polar Express is a good movie for kids and even adults. First off, it is voiced by Tom Hanks, who does an amazing job of providing individual personalities to all the characters. The graphics are spectacular, and the unique method of basing the actions of computer-generated characters on actual acting gives the characters a personal touch. Tom Hanks especially is able to convey expressions onto his characters, even the ones like the young boy who look nothing like him.
The plot of Polar Express? A young boy who no longer believes in Santa takes a mysterious train to the North Pole. Simple enough, but what is the moral of the story? It is developed into a full-length movie from a children's book, meaning a lot had to be added. Much of this came from long action scenes of the train ride. But a great deal of depth was added, and the story teaches some interesting lessons.
An important fact about this movie is that to all but the casual observer, the heart of the story is not about Santa Claus. This is a movie about faith, which is the main aspect I am going to examine in this post. Much of what the movie says about belief in Santa Claus can be applied to belief in other things that we cannot see.
The mysterious hobo tells the boy, "Seeing is believing". He tries to convince the boy that Santa is not real unless the boy can see him, or so it seems. One gets the idea that the hobo wishes to convince the boy of Santa's existence through his own cynicism. But the irony is--the hobo himself is not substantial--he's a ghost or even a figment of the boy's imagination. The boy sees the hobo, yet the hobo is not real, or in any case, he is "less"real than he seems.
The conductor later says, "The most real things in the world are the things we can't see." The hobo blew away in the snow whenever he was done talking to the boy, but Santa, as the boy discovers, is real even before the boy sees him.
This illustration makes me think of C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. In this story, the souls of the carnal are ghosts--insubstantial and gray. But the souls of the saved are solid and tangible. When the carnal witness heaven, they realize how unreal they are. They cannot affect anything in heaven--because they are not completely real. Rocks in heaven are too heavy to move. The grass is like diamonds--it will not bend under their feet. The grass pricks into their soles like knives. And the light of the saved, who have actual form, is too bright for them to bear.
The point of this illustration? We tend to think of the spiritual as ethereal and misty. We think of heaven and we think of clouds, and floating spirits. But the spiritual is more real than the physical. Compared to spiritual things, the physical is just a vapor.
A predominant theme in this movie is a sleigh bell. The boy refuses to believe in Santa until he sees him. He says he wants to believe, but he "doesn't want to be bamboozled", as the hobo mocks. But the irony here is that, as he tries to avoid being fooled, he blinds himself to the truth. When they finally reach the North Pole, the boy sees everything he needs to convince him that Santa is real--except Santa himself. As Santa comes out for his midnight sleigh ride, the other children marvel at how beautiful the sleigh bells sound. But the boy can't hear them--and he still can't see Santa. A bell drops right next to him, but he still can't hear it. Finally, he drops his barrier and says, "I believe." He shakes the bell, and it rings. He looks up, and Santa is standing in front of him. "Seeing isn't believing," the boy says. "Believing is seeing." The boy wouldn't believe because he was afraid of being fooled into a lie. But Santa was real in this story, the boy just could not see him because he would not believe. And the bell always rung for him--though not for his parents. He did not convince himself to hear ringing that wasn't real. The bell was real, but he could only hear it if he believed.
Okay, it's a nice story, but why is this post labeled "Christian"? As I said before, the idea that "the most real things in the world are the things we can't see" applies to us as it relates to spiritual things. Spiritual things aren't less real than physical things--they're actually more real.
The idea that "believing is seeing" is even more interesting. Faith is not blind belief. Faith is, as Hebrews 11:1 says, "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Faith is substantial, and real. It is based on evidence. We do not check our brains at the door in putting our faith in God. In the movie, Santa and the bells were there whether the boy could see and hear them or not. But people often cannot see God because they do not want to. They say, "Let me see Him, and I'll believe," when in reality, if they first believe they will see him! Atheists say God will be dead when people no longer believe in Him. Even so-called Christians think that whatever they believe about God's character is true just because they believe it. But God's existence is not dependant on whether you believe in Him or not. However, unless you believe, you cannot see Him.
The answer to finding God? As the boy's ticket says, "BELIEVE."

Bring Back Geography!

Bring Back Geography is a fascinating article I read recently in ArcNews, a periodical focused on Geospatial Technology. Geospatial Tech. often deals with GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and GPS. But the focus here is on geography. If you have any interest at all in geography or even education itself, I encourage you to read it. But here I will summarize what impacted me.


Geography is to space what history is to time.


So often people think of geography and they think of the names of countless insignificant countries--and remebering the difference between the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. But place-name geography is only the "tip of the iceberg" with geography. It includes many other fields most people don't even consider. Saying geography is about "where things are" is like saying history is just about "when things happened" and not the study of these events. Geography studies culture, spatial analysis, information technology--in the words of J. Illick quoted in the article, it is "why people do what they do where they do it".



Many schools do not teach geography anymore.



Another misconception about geography is that it is only an elementary school subject. They do not understand the vast amount of careers in this field. Colleges even eliminate geography from study--when it is included it is given a new name like "area studies". This is completely due to ignorance--the universities think geography is only about remembering where the Yangtze River is and ignore it place in cultural and spatial studies. But this removal is not limited to higher education. Most schools either do not teach geography or include it in "social studies" that eliminates spatial thinking. Even place-name geography is ignored--how often have you heard children (or even adults) call Hawaii and Africa countries? How many children (or adults) do you know that could point to Romania on a map? Or even India or Russia? This lack of study is responsible for the gross isolation of Americans from other cultures. There are so many Americans who don't know or care that Tigers do not live in Africa and that China has a distinct culture from Japan. They don't know that there are many types of English accents or that Brazil is not a Spanish nation. There's little wonder world opinion of America is so low--we don't know anything about other people and cultures and we don't care.



Geography is pointedly ignored.



With the recent surge in the use of the Global Positioning System, especially to make interactive, multi-layered maps (the primay application of GIS), Geospatial Technology is "in". Yet many refuse to call it what it is--an application of Geography. Harvard specifically stated they would teach GIS but not geography. They did not realize their mistake--without Geography as a field in which GIS can work, GIS will be reduced to an application used by other fields--not an industry of its own. What institution would dare remove history from its classes? And where would its applications, like anthropology, fit? Yet this is happening with geography--it is not recognized as a field, and its applications, like GIS and GPS, will have no place once their fad is over.

The conclusion? Geographers must fight for this field--increasing world awareness that it is not just a physical science and bringing it back to the schools.

Okay, so I got a blog...

Let's face it. I'm far too White&Nerdy(tm) to not have a blog yet. Plus, I'm in College now! I'm an Intellectual! I must share my learnedness with the world. We'll see where this goes. If ever you see a completely nonsensical post, ignore it. I probably wrote it one minute before lights out in the mad scramble to jump into bed. (Those Resident Assistants can be pretty strict about rules...)

Feel free to post comments, postive or...otherwise.

The adventure begins...