Jonathan Meyer.

Let’s get one thing straight: words and phrases don’t always make sense. Some of them are outdated, some of them feel completely made up, and some of them exist solely to make you feel like you missed a day of school that everyone else attended. Am I sometimes willfully ignorant of the finer points of the English language? Absolutely. What follows are a few recent thoughts I’ve had while navigating what I can only describe as linguistic gymnastics.

I often describe myself as an old soul, especially compared to many of my college peers. I’m perfectly content drinking black coffee while sitting in a recliner, wearing a bathrobe and slippers, staring out the window in the morning like I have a mortgage and strong opinions about lawn care (which I do, lawn care matters). That’s just who I am.

Recently, someone lobbed a new term at me: housecoat. It sounded familiar, like something I’d heard before, but I had no concrete idea what it actually meant. Where, exactly, in my educational journey did I miss the vocabulary lesson on “housecoat”? Was that a bonus word? An elective? A regional thing?

Naturally, I did what any modern intellectual would do, I Googled it. Every top result was marketed as… a bathrobe. I’m counting that as a point in my favor. Even the internet seems to agree with me on this one.

That same individual later dropped the phrase, “potato, potato, tomato, tomato.” I understood the meaning just fine, but I took issue with the practice. Who is out here using the alternate pronunciations? I’ve never heard anyone sincerely say “po-tah-to” or “to-mah-to” in conversation. No objection to the sentiment, just don’t expect to hear it coming out of my mouth.

Now, before it sounds like I’m declaring war on the English language, let me acknowledge that I do try to expand my horizons. I’m fortunate to be surrounded by intelligent people who know exactly when and how to point out my shortcomings.

The same friend who introduced me to the concept of a housecoat later told me that my vocabulary isn’t very big. With that comment rattling around in my head, I turned to the person I know with perhaps the largest vocabulary in my orbit: Michael D. Davis. As he casually tossed around words like vernacular and lexicon, I quietly wrote them down in my little reporter’s notebook. Not because I’d never heard them before, but because I realized I’d probably never used them outside of an academic setting.

Naturally, Mike made fun of me for writing them down, assuming I had just discovered these words for the first time. It was all in good fun (maybe) but still, not a great moment for my pride.

With my dignity barely intact, I moved on, accepting that I may never fully settle my differences with the English language. Its shortcomings are far larger than any one person could hope to overcome. Still, give me a little credit. I’ve managed to stick around in the newspaper business longer than most people expected, vocabulary limitations and all.

Until my word bank gets a little larger, I’m just Jonathan.