Blow Hot Blow Cold, fore-with.

I despair of ever understanding the subtleties (and, “vagaries”, said with a dour smile) of the English language. The same word can connote opposite meanings in different contexts and combinations and leave deep furrows of worry on your forehead – mark the underscore below ‘fore’.

I will start with the foregoing lines. (‘Will’ – future tense.) That was how I began my letter to a friend of mine. He made fun of me at my use of the word, ‘foregoing’ employing long complicated Latinised words, and advised me to look up the word in the dictionary. All this while I was under the impression that ‘foregoing’ referred to that which was about to follow – I was suitably chastised when I looked up the meaning of the word in the dictionary! I was chagrined too, at the way the English language had tricked me into error. (“As usual,” my friend had retorted.)

Look, the tag, “ing” at the end of the word “foregoing” had duped me into believing that whatever was to come was in the future. ‘Fore’ refers to the past, my scholarly friend explained patiently as in – foregone conclusion, forefathers, forenoon, foretaste, foreword, etc, etc. My eyes were opened. But then I had to shut them tightly and scream inside my head, as an impish voice started mocking at me in glee.

How about, forehead? Is it in the front or the back? Ah, forefront; if you are in the forefront of a column of soldiers, are you standing in the front, or before the ‘front’ – say just behind the first person in the column? Forelock, shouted at me, “Am I in the front or back?” The bedlam in my mind was further intensified when, forearm, forecast, fore-with, foresight, foreboding, and forethought joined in, pointing their forefingers at me, and bellowing with laughter. I kept my eyes shut for a long time, not knowing what to do fore-with.