Fandango’s Provocative Question #10
This week’s provocative question is about the choices we make and the actions we take.
“What is more important to you, doing the right thing or doing things right?”
To me, these are unrelated questions.
Doing things right is a work kind of question. Doing the right thing is a moral choice. One course of action doesn’t replace the other.
You can do both or neither, depending on the circumstance, but I honestly can’t imagine a situation where doing things right would make doing the right thing impossible.
I literally can’t imagine that as a choice. When would that kind of event occur? Under what circumstances?
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You are right!!!! Thank you for the distinction you made and brought out- I totally agree.
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This can be tricky in English. We don’t make clear distinctions between words — and it can be pretty funny, under the right circumstances.
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I agree with you.
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Thanks!
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Couldn’t agree more, Marilyn!
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English uses the same word to mean different things in a lot of places. I think it’s possible these words were not always the same, but have become the same over the years.
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We had a family friend who went to Vietnam. There are 12 sounds for any one word. She was chased by women with brooms because she inadvertently swore lmao I stress of saying what she really meant. I laugh to this day about that.
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All Asian languages apparently rely on tone. It must be really rough to be deaf in those cultures.
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I would imagine so, even partially deaf!
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I agree with your take on the matter, Marilyn.
Leslie
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To me, these are unrelated questions. Just because the root word is the same, doesn’t make the word MEAN the same thing. This is true in many languages, not just English.
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You’re right.
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I’ll give you an example of “doing things right” but not “doing the right thing.” Mitch McConnell is, technically speaking, doing things right, at least what is permitted, in his role as Senate Majority leader. It is his “right” to decline to have the Senate vote on a bill he doesn’t support. It was his “right” to block hearings on Obama’s pick for SCOTUS in 2016. But I would argue that he is not doing the right thing.
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Doing “what is permitted” is NOT the same thing as “doing things right.” Correct and right aren’t the same word and don’t mean the same thing. Doing the right thing has moral implications that “doing things right” absolutely does NOT have.
And “having the right” to do something is not the same as either of the other two questions. You can have the right to sue or fire someone or any one of a million things, but that isn’t either doing the right thing or doing things right. The word “right” means too many things. Are we going to add “Turn right at the next corner” as one more question? Or admitting that someone is right? They all stem from a single root word, but they aren’t the same thing.
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Point taken.
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Hebrew is built entirely on “roots.” The word for “right” (in Hebrew, closer to “righteous”) is the same root used for “compass” (it points you in the right direction”) and “conscience” for obvious reasons. I think it also refers to some types of laws, but I’m not sure. There is no word for “wrong” — only “not righteous.” “Right” as a direction, is a completely separate word and root. But the single root used for “righteous” that is used for easily a dozen words, each variation is conjugated and pronounced differently though when written, the “root” is obvious (there are three-letter and four-letter “root.” Almost any combination of letters forms some root or other, which is why playing Scrabble in Hebrew becomes a little bit silly. Every combination of letters is a word or a word root.
We do the same thing in English and probably in all the Romance languages, but in English, we use the identical words pronounced the same way. Which gets confusing even for native speakers because you have to stop and think what that word means in that context And then we have homonyms — Oh cruel fate! — just to make it even more frustrating. It’s no wonder English is so hard to learn.
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Do the right thing! It’s often very difficult and perilous but it goes with the territory.
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