Weird, frustrating vocabulary that's the most useful, and Ptahhotep's maxim 6, Table Manners

I shouldn't complain but I do. People who learn English as second language face the same situation except even more extreme. It occurred to me dealing with this and becoming increasingly frustrated and extremely impatient with it to the point of anger that I've already dealt with this in English and still do.

Nearly any word works for example, but some words make better examples than others.

Ever been around someone who for some reason that moment answers everything you say as if it were a sexual remark? Once on the challenge of perverting innocence to crudeness, the habit is unstoppable, at least for the night. Nearly every innocent thing that you say can be interpreted  as something sexual. Almost everything can be turned into a pun. And that's why puns are considered the lowest of all the humors, because nearly every word has multiple meanings. Check it out, off the top of your head. "Cinnamon."

Spice or color or Spice Girl.

Okay, "key." Flat object to unlock a door, an island, the way to solve a code, an inset to a map that shows distance. The answer to a puzzle, A synonym for "main." Essential.

Each definition will offer new samples, "lock" has multiple meanings including one about hair, another about water and boats, another about a safe box, another about anything that's certain such as a lock on a prospective job. "Main" has multiple definitions, and so on ad infinitum.

And the more common the word, the smaller the word, the words with the least letters, the most basic, will be the words most loaded with multiple meanings so that eventually the meanings contradict.

This is the most frustrating thing about learning English. The alarm clock goes off then you get out of your pajamas and put your clothes on. Facing this language, your clock goes running away somewhere and you must go catch it, you climb out of your pajamas like outgrowing your carapace shell and you put your folded clothes on your head as a shelf. Our prepositions are all multi-faceted.

[75 contronyms]

1. Apology: A statement of contrition for an action, or a defense of one
2. Aught: All or nothing.
3. Bill: A payment, or an invoice for payment
4. Bolt: To secure, or to flee.

And so on for 71 more examples, but there are certainly more than that.

Praise to those souls who take up English from another language. They can use the help that we offer with grace.

I just wasn't in the mood last night for sentences that begin with such words and phrases that could mean virtually anything, like starting a sentence, "well, anyway."

That could also mean, but, therefore, therewith, herein, besides, colostomy bag, extra-vehicular-activity suit, poo on a stick, toasted pound cake.

You really do have to scope the whole sentence looking for groupings and pick out the groups with clear meaning. Look for something unequivocal while holding in mind that too can be reversed, and build around it to discover the meaning for all the little bits surrounding it. Each symbol is not a word, it's a word-cloud. So you have a string of word-clouds that form and re-form continuously until they click into place with something reasonably sensible. With several good alternatives. You cannot start at the beginning of each sentence, as I do, and go through them one-by-one and come out with anything sensible. I just flat doesn't work.

And this has nothing to do with table manners. The maxim is a another boring lesson about knowing your place. It's own place long dead. And good riddance.

<<Anecdote alert>>

I keep remembering this scene. I was young, early twenties. Well outside my own status group. Everyone older than me. Everyone already successful. Me, only just started. Yet, for some reason I don't understand people were interested in me and I was accepted. This was a late dinner at doctor's house. A fancy elegant upscale holiday celebration, but hosted by somebody else. Somebody else was using the doctor's house because it was the best place to have a large dinner. A veritable forest of crystalware glistened across the table as we sat down. Glasses for water, for white wine and for red wine.

All I wanted was Coca-Cola.

Kool-Aid would do. The host, not the doctor, is a pompous asshole.

And still is.

The doctor is sitting next to me, he at the foot of the table, his wife on his other side, I faced his wife. The host was w-a-a-a-a-y down there at the opposite side, the head of the table. He ran the show.

The service door to the kitchen was nearest to him.

The young waiter was in my peer group.

The host kept nattering at the waiter. It was pissing me off. I felt empathy for the waiter suffering abuse. I kept thinking, leave the guy alone already, he's doing fine, but the host kept criticizing his every move, as if he were teaching the guy how to be a proper servant. The waiter took it all in stride and accepted the corrections, but I did not.

The host was establishing his primacy the most awkward way possible, by embarrassment, he was embarrassing me by subjecting me to his lesson-giving. Finally, someone else at the table felt the way that I did and spoke up and told the host to stop it. The host defended himself. A conversation about manners ensued.

"Well, how are people supposed to learn good manners unless we teach them?"

By your actual parents, and by books, I thought. I had just read a big fat book on manners by Letitia Baldrige, Executive Manners, because I imagined I might turn out to be executive some day. I dressed like one. I acted like one. I thought like one. I studied the things that they study. So why not? What the heck. The book is not worth the read, there is nothing in there that great of value, but one thing did stick out that did match this occasion so I let 'er rip.

"Manners are designed to ease us through moments of uncertainty, the proper handshake, to ease the discomfort of first encounters, and so forth, not to make us feel stifled and uncomfortable. Hard and fast rules are stifling such as 'don't put your elbows on the table.'"

That was something my parents brow-beat into all us.

The host had both elbows on the table. I didn't speak directly to him, rather, to the whole table of people, so my periphery vision caught the blur of him removing his elbows from the table reflexively as if his own father ordered him,  before anybody could see him being so mannerly offensive, as if his elbows on the table were worse offense to him than embarrassing people in private locked-audience setting where there is no easy escape. His weak spot. I thought I would pass out from holding my laughter. That was so intensely funny to me the scene was seared into memory to rank as a favorite. That is table manners, how to privately embarrass your obnoxious host publicly (in private setting) to everyone's satisfaction, not this useless maxim.