Ducking and Diving

On my early morning walk I came across the ducks , feeding, ducking and diving with their young ones in the bull rushes. Green the colour of envy reminded me of all the ducking and diving going on at Westminster this weekend. The expression ducking and diving is the artful dodger skill of moves to survive and then succeed. One hears it describe a person like Liz Truss , Boris Johnson but not say Kwasi Kwarteng. The English language is very colourful in many ways.

Whilst talking of expressions I could not help hearing a telephone conversation yesterday of a man near me in a coffee shop. The conversation seemed endless and all I heard the man say was ‘ ok drop us a line ‘ . He must have said it 20 times as he tried to end the conversation. Most people won’t remember what ‘ drop us a line is ‘ , that act of writing to someone by letter form. Now the expression should in contemporary form be ‘ tap us a line ‘ in digital speak.

It could of course refer to fishing when the line is dropped in the water, like the guy I met at the Airport last week. Anyway ‘ ducking and diving ‘ , ‘ drop us a line ‘ are all expressions found in the English which I know many of my American friends struggle with even though they too speak English. In a world where communication is critical there is much room for great misunderstanding. Surely the messaging that came out of Number 10 these last few weeks caused much of the angst. If you do feel frustrated by it all drop your MPs a line and then watch them duck and dive. Have a great weekend.