Analyse a word
Mengdie Luo mandyluo@umich.edu English 125.043
Scott Beal
Jan.23, 2013
Assignment #1
More than frenemy
Being a single child, as I can tell you, is a difficult thing. Aside from the sometimes-unresolvable loneliness and almost always-glued attention, the constant comparison with the ‘kids next door’ can be supremely annoying. The phrase stands for those children of several close friends of your mom or literally just the kids who live next door. For me, there’s always been a girl like that since I was five and things can be a little overwhelming when she is also a competitive Leo (star sign). In middle school, the girl would ask me to watch TV and ditch homework with her, while in fact she had secretly done the work beforehand. Though I later discover her tricks, we never actually stopped hanging out. ‘Frenemy’ might be the word to describe our relationship back then. Fair enough: it is one of the few words that could almost resemble this conflicted state of mind. You want her to be happy but maybe not happier than you. You want her to be pretty, the two of you being popular together but not if she overshadows your glamour. You like compliments but those nice words coming from her give you second thoughts. Surprisingly, the word ‘frenemy’ first appeared in print as early as 1953; I suppose this relationship, great tension underneath the seemingly peaceful surface, probably has been going on through various cultures for a long time. From time to time, it occurs to me that the three syllables of ‘frenemy’ cleverly encompass the age-old advice of Chinese General Sun-tzu: Keep your friends close and keep your enemy closer. Nevertheless, a soldiers’ battle technique can never be the same as the relationship between two most complex animals on earth; in real life, there’re rarely things as definite as Othello and Iago or Dorothy versus wicked witch.
Though ‘frenemy’ has gradually become a common concept in our daily life, the word itself has recently
Scott Beal
Jan.23, 2013
Assignment #1
More than frenemy
Being a single child, as I can tell you, is a difficult thing. Aside from the sometimes-unresolvable loneliness and almost always-glued attention, the constant comparison with the ‘kids next door’ can be supremely annoying. The phrase stands for those children of several close friends of your mom or literally just the kids who live next door. For me, there’s always been a girl like that since I was five and things can be a little overwhelming when she is also a competitive Leo (star sign). In middle school, the girl would ask me to watch TV and ditch homework with her, while in fact she had secretly done the work beforehand. Though I later discover her tricks, we never actually stopped hanging out. ‘Frenemy’ might be the word to describe our relationship back then. Fair enough: it is one of the few words that could almost resemble this conflicted state of mind. You want her to be happy but maybe not happier than you. You want her to be pretty, the two of you being popular together but not if she overshadows your glamour. You like compliments but those nice words coming from her give you second thoughts. Surprisingly, the word ‘frenemy’ first appeared in print as early as 1953; I suppose this relationship, great tension underneath the seemingly peaceful surface, probably has been going on through various cultures for a long time. From time to time, it occurs to me that the three syllables of ‘frenemy’ cleverly encompass the age-old advice of Chinese General Sun-tzu: Keep your friends close and keep your enemy closer. Nevertheless, a soldiers’ battle technique can never be the same as the relationship between two most complex animals on earth; in real life, there’re rarely things as definite as Othello and Iago or Dorothy versus wicked witch.
Though ‘frenemy’ has gradually become a common concept in our daily life, the word itself has recently