A few weeks ago, I took a taxi. The driver looked at me in the rearview mirror and said, "Excuse me, miss, can you help me?"

Smart and sophisticated city people know that they are interested in things like "Can you do me a favor?" The answer to this question should always be "that depends on what." I said loudly, "Of course."

"Thank you!" He said, handing a yellow note to the back seat.

I stared at the note and wondered: Is he kidding? Or a threat? There are several words written on the note: proverb, strange and authentic.

"Excuse me, what do these words mean?"

I looked at the words on the note in dismay, as if you were staring at several faces you had seen at the party before, but couldn't remember their names. Proverbs Strange? Habit? How should I know? Knowing how to use a word is one thing, but knowing how to explain it is another. So I deliberately changed the subject.

"Where do these words come from?"

The driver explained that he was Pakistani and he liked listening to the radio while driving. He often writes down unfamiliar and wonderful words and then asks the passengers about their meaning and spelling.

"Strange, what does this word mean?" He asked.

I know this. "Strange, eccentric, often with a hint of doubt," I said.

"Thank you, miss. So, what about idioms? "

I cleared my throat and said, "Well, it means, well, it's a unique use of language."

I think the word "unique" is wonderful, but he looks puzzled. This reminds me that if the other person doesn't understand, the word can't be used well.

"Ah, let's put it this way. Idioms are related to idioms. Idioms refer to a word used by a certain region of a country or a certain ethnic group. People outside the region and people who don't belong to this group generally don't use it and don't understand its usage. "

Looking at his puzzled appearance, I didn't know what proper words to use, so I had to continue to explain. It seems that a thousand vague words add up to an accurate definition.

"Can you give me an example?"

I racked my brains and thought, "Look at the traffic jam", which is a unique idiom in Chicago.

But is this a veritable idiom? I don't know. The more I think about idioms, the more uncertain I am about what idioms are.

"Where are the proverbs?"

I should have told the poor man that my explanation might mislead him to understand the true meaning of proverbs, but I said, "I think proverbs are warnings, but not entirely."

"A kind of what?"

"Come on, leave it alone. Proverbs are short and pithy sentences used to warn people.

"For example ..."

When I searched hard in my mind, the number on the meter jumped another 20 cents. Finally, I whispered, "Haste makes waste?"

But is this a proverb? Wait, should proverbs be short stories rather than phrases? When I was weighing that proverbs might be short stories, he asked, "Is that idiom a proverb?"

I can answer that, but not now. Because this answer is very important at this time, a curious and clever foreign immigrant thinks that the answer he expects will blurt out naturally from a local mouth, just like the leaves will fall naturally in October. So I retreated.

"When you ask passengers to explain the meaning of words to you, most of them will give you an answer?"

"Yes, miss, this explanation is very interesting."

Until then, I have been moved by the driver's persistence in English learning and intoxicated by the opportunity to satisfy my curiosity about language and writing with a curious person, but I have not fully realized the language fraud mistake that this taxi may make. It's hard for me to imagine what kind of broken English the driver heard, because cowards like me dare not admit frankly that "I don't know my mother tongue."

I can only hope that a curious person like him will have a dictionary, and I hope he can understand that no matter how the passengers explain, haste makes waste in traffic jams.

Return to college

If I think I can live to be a hundred years old, I will go back to college next autumn. I enlisted at the end of my junior year. After serving for four years, I don't want to go back to school to finish my studies. I felt as if I understood everything at that time.

However, the fact is that I don't know everything. I will spend some time studying now, but I don't want to continue studying where I left off. I want to start from freshman year. You know, it's not just the college education that attracts me. As I have visited more than a dozen universities in the past two years, I find university life extremely enjoyable.

Young people on campus are eager to get out of campus as soon as possible to experience life. They don't seem to understand that they are enjoying the best time of their lives. Here, they are not responsible for others except themselves; Here they have existing friends; Teachers will try their best to help them; Family members will expect them to go home for Christmas and tell their proud experiences; Three meals a day is not delicious, but you can't expect too much.

Too many students are tired of the process of education, and they think that half of the teachers are fools, which I don't deny; They think that the system is sometimes terrible, which I don't deny; They think there are no lovely girls and boys around, which I disagree with. They are just in it and don't realize how wonderful college time is.

Students are only keen on mastering knowledge that they think will make them money, and are not interested in education itself. They are all dead wrong on this point, which is why I want to go back to college. Now I know the happiness of knowledge, a simple happiness that has nothing to do with its practicality.

I want to take several philosophy courses, and I like the thinking process of philosophy. Philosophers are sometimes too serious, but I still like them, even those philosophers who I think hold wrong views. Most of what I know about great philosophers comes from second-hand materials or abridged books. Now I want to take a course. I must learn from Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Spinoza, Locke, john dewey and other great thinkers.

I also want to learn some calculus. I have neither the ability nor the interest in this field, but I don't understand some things happening in the field of mathematics, so I really want to know about it. I don't have to worry about the report card, because it won't be sent to my parents. I believe I will study better than when I send my parents a report card.

There are some famous literary works that I should read, but without the pressure of a good teacher, I may never finish reading them, so I will take several English literature classes. I once took a course specializing in george gordon byron (now commonly known as Sir Byron), and I want to take it again. I learned it well the first time. I even finished reading Don Juan carefully, and I have always marveled at its greatness. If I rebuild, I will definitely get an A. I want to take some relaxing courses.

My history is a weakness, so I will take several history courses. Of course, I won't work hard for history, but at least I will review the outline of history. When someone mentions the sixteenth century to me, I immediately think of some people and things, perhaps to satisfy a little vanity when talking with others, but this is life.

If I can find a good teacher, I must study English grammar and usage again. He must be an excellent teacher, because I have some research on the application of language, and sometimes I may think that he teaches badly. I sometimes think. One day I thought about the part of speech of the word "please" in the sentence "please don't take me seriously"

I was invited to speak at the graduation ceremonies of several universities. Maybe when I graduate, they will let me speak at my graduation ceremony.

Is this it?