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Is it 50/50 or Half and Half?  A few years ago my parents and I shared a meal with my paternal grandparents. Any meal at “Nanny and Papaw’s” was an adventure, but this time was especially entertaining. At the time, my grandfather and my father shared a hunting lease, and over lunch the subject of making deer sausage came up. My Papaw boldly proclaimed that when grinding meat, the proportion of deer meat to sausage meat was fifty-fifty. This was all well and good until my grandmother politely corrected him, telling all of us that he was mistaken and the correct proportion was actually half and half. For a moment, no one spoke, then in no uncertain terms my grandfather informed her that she was wrong and the correct proportion was fifty-fifty, as he had originally stated. My grandmother, this time more adamantly, responded by telling all at the table that it was most certainly half and half. This discussion, between two people well into their seventh decade on planet earth went on for several minutes while the rest of the family exchanged confused glances and tried not to laugh. Finally, my father interrupted the conversation long enough to tell his parents that they were both saying the same thing. Always one to get in the last word, my grandfather pointed his finger and triumphantly told my grandmother, “See, I told you woman!” To this day I laugh every time I hear the terms “fifty-fifty” or “half and half,” but years of my own marriage have taught me that I am not as different from my grandparents as I would like to think. Often, human beings use different words to mean the same thing, or, more frequently, they use the same words with completely different meanings. Only a few months into dating, the woman who is now my lovely wife taught us that words such as annoying, mad, grumpy, hungry, and even north and south can mean two entirely different things to two people. We almost always assume in a conversation that everyone defines words the same, but that is rarely the case, especially in marriage. I would venture a guess that most marriages have had more than a few arguments that got quite heated before the couple realized that they were both saying the same thing. Marriage is about communication, and many times communication is about asking the question, “What do you mean by that?” Or you just might spend your whole marriage arguing over 50/50 and half and half. Staff Writer: Aaron Sharp |
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