Idioms

 Our English language is cluttered with sayings or idioms that are repeated enough times to feel comfortable in their usage. Consider someone who “knows the ropes.” We use it to describe people who know their way around a job or situation. Its original use goes back to the days when big ships sported huge sheets of sails to catch the wind that propelled them forward. 

A recent “CBS Sunday Morning” program featured a bit about sailing ships. A sailor pointed to all the ropes, 200 different ropes, each having a name, that attach to the sails. Each sailor is expected to learn the name of each, the different knots used in securing them, plus however else they are used. Therefore a competent sailor “knows the ropes.”

We can have some fun by stringing a few idioms together to make somewhat meaningful sentences such as these. I don’t know the original usage that gave birth to them but recognize them for being idiomatic. How about “He spilled the beans when someone threw a monkey wrench into his plans by letting the cat out of the bag, so he stopped beating around the bush,” or “He thought he should keep an ear to the ground instead of always finding himself up a creek without a paddle,” and one more, “After he scraped the bottom of the barrel, he drew the line, took it all with a grain of salt, buried the hatchet, went cold turkey, and then with a big yawn hit the sack.” Readers will agree these examples are a bit extreme.

Some people are quite adept at mixing idiomatic expressions into their regular speech. My college major was English and I know correct English usage, but I’ve always used idioms, sometimes on purpose, but often times without realizing it. Try to talk without using them. Then you realize how ingrained idioms have become. At any rate, my English usage has become a bit rusty (Oops, did I say “rusty?”).

Consider that first idiom - “knowing the ropes” -  in  context by attaching it to a historical character.  I read a lot of history and have just purchased a book called THE TRIALS OF HARRY S. TRUMAN. Truman came to Washington as a U. S. senator from Missouri, served ten years in that position while finding it agreeable and enjoyable, but events occurred to place him in the ranks of major players in world history.

We know he was the successor to Franklin D. Roosevelt as president, but how did he find himself in that position, a position he never sought, a position where he did not “know the ropes.” When FDR decided to run for a 4th term, he chose a new vice president. Two choices stood as front-runners, Henry Wallace and James F. Byrnes, but political problems with each man made him look at other choices. He selected Truman for reasons of being the safest choice.

After the election and inauguration, FDR died after three months into his 4th term to leave the mostly uninitiated vice president to take over. Whether it was his progressing illness, indifference, or a belief he would live forever, FDR never brought Truman into his circle. In fact they met only one time. Then he died, and a stunned Truman took the oath to serve as president. He had to “learn the ropes” immediately since the United States was in the last stages of a great world war. Could Truman rise above the fray? The historian David McCullough wrote in his book TRUMAN how three American generals - Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton - sat sadly speculating on his probable failure, a mood prevalent in the country.

Truman was the only president who never attended college, but not because he wasn’t intelligent. He was intelligent and to bolster his world view he was a voluminous reader of history. He quickly learned the requirements of his position and rose in the ranks of presidents to the “near great” level as determined by historians.

As the war in Europe finally ground down, the Japanese matter awaited its conclusion. Rather than risk deaths of U. S. servicemen in an invasion, he approved the use of atomic bombs which brought the Japanese to terms. 

Truman’s popularity began rising and his confidence grew. After the war’s end he voiced the Truman Doctrine to give political, military, and economic assistance to European countries. In 1948, he promoted the Marshall Plan to generate a European resurgence of industrialization and steered extensive investment into the region.

When the three majors Allied powers - U.S., Russia, and Great Britain - divided Germany, 

Berlin became a focal point after Russia blockaded any supplies going into that city. In answer, Truman said we were in Berlin by terms of the agreement and Russia had no right to change it. The historic Berlin Airlift flew in that city’s requirements for a year over the heads of the Russians until an official corridor provided access.

Truman promoted and successfully saw the United States as a founding member of the North American Treaty Organization. We recognize it easily by its familiar acronym NATO. It is this defensive treaty we hear much of today in Ukraine.

Some readers might think little of Truman and his time in office. I would argue much of what he did was good and is a sterling example of leaving the office of the presidency “knowing the ropes.” He had many skeptics, but many converts. Here is what Winston Churchill said of him: “I misjudged you badly. Since that time, you more than any other man, have saved Western civilization.”