March 31, 2015 (Tuesday)
My dear friend, Dale Pogue, preached for me Sunday. I surely do thank him for coming to the rescue and bringing what I am sure was a great sermon to the folks at Bethel whom we both love so much. That church has honored us both by naming us “Pastor Emeritus” and has hung our pictures in their foyer. Dale preached there twice during the month of March. The first time I felt fine but had laryngitis. The second time, however, I was “under the weather.”
When I wrote the words, “under the weather,” I wondered about that expression–where did it come from? So I looked it up and discovered it is a nautical term that described a sick crewman or passenger on board a ship. They were sent to the deepest part of the vessel, well below the main deck, where the rolling of the ship was not as pronounced and where it was relatively quiet. They were “under the weather.”
When I saw the word, “nautical,” I asked myself does that word have anything to do with the word, “naughty?” So I looked it up, too. Well, you may already know the answer: “No.” “Naughty” comes from “naught,” “a variation of “aught,” which means “nothing” or “zero.” A naughty individual was a person who was “needy, having nothing.” By 1520 it came to mean ‘wicked, evil, morally wrong,” but changed over the next 100 years to mean “disobedient,” but it still sometimes used to describe immoral behavior. Since I am “under the weather” today, I’m glad to discover that “naughty” and “nautical” have nothing to do with each other.
I’m sure you know what it’s like to be “under the weather,” and how good it feels to get well and back on deck where you belong. I’m looking forward to reporting for duty.