Know Something?

ByDOW RICHARDSON

EVER since the words “skill” and “efficiency” were taken out of the language and “know-how” was substituted, I have been wondering what would be next. How stupid and dull words like “science” and “knowledge” really were, and all these years we didn’t know it! We were going along in a slough of complacency, grown fat and smug and satisfied with respectable English. When it came to expressing ourselves, we simply didn’t have the know-how.

We go right on using such terms as “understanding” and “comprehension ” and “ perspicacity” when we could be saying “ know-why.” If someone has weight in powerful circles, we mumble that he has “influence,” when we could say he has “know-who.” Does a man show unusual supervisory powers? We speak of his “executive ability,” when we should be saying he has “do-it.”

It is incredible. Here we pride ourselves on our advanced intelligence, and yet we’re still using phrases like “knows his way around” instead of “knows his ‘where-to.’”

And when a woman has the faculty of seeing the precise or logical niche for a whatnot in the sunroom, we say she has “taste.” We could be saying she has the “see-where” for it!

We have only scratched the surface. Here is an entirely new “say-how” opening up to us: “knowhow” is only the beginning.

What are we waiting for? We have plenty of people with the “can-tell.” Let’s go!