Parts of Speech
“Time flies like an arrow, and fruit flies like a banana.”
Same word. Same Spelling. Different Meanings.
This is the kind of thing which gets me up in the morning.
If I use the word as a present-tense verb, it projects an object quickly through space.
If I use it as a plural noun, I have a different object entirely.
Further, with the words I choose to use to surround my choice, I can create entirely different topics — going from the concept of time being an agile missile spinning through the cosmos to a group of small mites lingering around organic matter.
Interestingly, both statements seem to be interested in time.
One linearly states time as sharp continuum, something which can be charted on a graph using mathematics and the acute measurements of physics.
The other is home to biology and perhaps botany — compounds decaying, prompting small bits of ephemeral life which hover around the fruit of another form of life.
Same word surrounded by other words of the same language.
And the other words aren’t even that different, “like a” and “like an” being essentially the same phrase.
Each phrase is composed using the same grammar — subject, verb, predicate.
“Like” is one of those crafty words. Popular as an informal interjection in the 80s and 90s, it’s, like, a weird little word we don’t use as much as we did during those decades.
Coming from Old English, it has a predictably Germanic origin meaning "having the same form," literally "with a corresponding body."
The fruit flies literally take their sustenance from the banana, while they metaphorically embody some elemental aspect of it.
As the arrow does time.
In 1670, Baxter used it this way: “You would shew yourselves much liker to God, who is love, and unliker to Satan the accuser.”
That is, when we “like” something, we take on its characteristics, perhaps in imitation as much as adoration.
I hope the likes of you are having a good week.
May many blessings fall upon yourselves and your house.
Attendantly,
Aaron