Japanese

  05:12

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J01

Words and Their Stories -- a program about the spoken word, about the English language as Americans use it. Today, the expression, "over a barrel."

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J02

Every human struggle, political, military, social, or economic, often ends with some of the competitors over a barrel. Once they have been put over a barrel, there is not much more that they can do. The expression, "over a barrel," comes from a time, strangely enough, when a barrel was used to save the life of a person who had almost drowned. You brought him back to life by putting him over a barrel with his face down and gently rolling the barrel to get the water out of his lungs. The man lying fiat on his stomach over a barrel could do little for himself. He was at the mercy of those trying to pull him through.

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J03

Barrels, as we all know, come in many different sizes, depending on what you keep in them: beer, whiskey, dry crackers, biscuits, or other foodstuffs. The cracker barrel that one always saw in old-time grocery stores gave us an American character known as, "a cracker-barrel philosopher." You used to find him in small village stores sitting around a big potbellied stove close by the cracker barrels, smoking a pipe and exchanging jokes, gossip, stories, and words of wisdom with his friends. More often than not, their words of wisdom added little to man's knowledge or understanding of life and the world.

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J04

These cracker-barrel philosophers were as deep, as profound as a village elder described in a very old story. It tells of the old man's last hours among his people. He lay on his deathbed surrounded by his closest followers. The people of the nearby towns considered him a prophet with a new revelation, a new message from above. The old man began to get weaker and weaker, and so did his mind which started to wander. The people demanded a last word from him before he departed, some last statement that might show them the way to a more fruitful, a more glorious life. At his bedside, two men lifted the dying elder's head so that he could make a last declaration. He whispered slowly: "The world is like a barrel."

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J05

One of the two men put his ears close to the dying elder's mouth .
"What did you say, Master?"
"The world is like a barrel."

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J06

Everybody was stunned. Heaven seemed to have opened. Was this God's secret at last? The words quickly spread to all the nearby villages, and people kept repeating the words to one another. And finally someone said :
"The world is like a barrel! Tremendous! But what does it mean? "

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J07

Soon, everybody was asking the same question. Again, his friends lifted his head and whispered to him :
"Master, the people want to know. What do your words mean -- 'the world is like a barrel'?"

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J08

At first, the old man remained silent. He did not understand what was said, but then he slowly opened his eyes, slowly looked around and said slowly, painfully:
"So, so, the world is not like a barrel."

Voice of America

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