Quiet and Peace

 

Today, Sept. 30, is Agricultural Reform Day in the African island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe. To honor the occasion we bring you a game to enliven those oh-so-boring meetings you have to endure, whether on Zoom or in person. It’s called “Disrupt the Natural Order.”

English has thousands of what we could call idiomatic “couplets.” Think of phrases like raining “cats and dogs,” “law and order,” “peace and quiet,” “cease and desist,” and life’s “ups and downs.” Native speakers of English know the word pairs must come in that order. So the game is for you to plan in advance to introduce two “reversed couplets.” More than that, people will become suspicious.

For example, regarding some problem say that you’ve explored every “cranny and nook.” Or you can assert the need for “order and law” or “quiet and peace.”

By now you have the idea. Inverting these phrases will at the least puzzle your audience; at best, it will rattle them and throw them off balance. They’ll be so focused on the disruption of their known linguistic universe that they will unthinkingly approve your request to increase your budget by 55 percent.

After some practice, you can try introducing a “double-reverse couplet,” such as “Marriage and love go together like a carriage and horse.” This advanced approach should be handled with care, however; people have been known to throw themselves out of a window after hearing phrases that are hauntingly familiar yet are simultaneously totally alien to their ears.

Here are eight more reversed couplets to use.

1.       Call and beck

2.       Pieces and bits

3.       Determined and bound

4.       Every and each

5.       Sundry and all

6.       Abet and aid

7.       Parcel and part

8.       Void and null

Meanwhile, be sound and safe this Agricultural Reform Day.

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