Sunday, March 27, 2011

Oz Never Did Give Nothing!

My daughter recently appeared in her high school’s production of The Wizard of Oz. She played the part of one of the trees in the forest, and, after hurling some of her fruit at Dorothy and the others, delivered with great enthusiasm the classic line, “How do you like dem apples?”

The show was absolutely wonderful, taking me back to my childhood and allowing me to recall the excitement of watching the movie version every year on television. Of course, it also brought back memories of being tormented in my dreams for weeks afterward by startling and vivid images of flying monkeys and cackling witches. I’ll get you my pretty! And your little dog, too!

The show also got me thinking about the song Tin Man by America (see player below), which spent several weeks on the Billboard Pop charts back in November of 1974. The song’s title and lyrics make reference to the role of the Tin Man – one of the more colorful, albeit squeaky, characters in L. Frank Baum’s novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

The chorus to America’s song, Tin Man, includes the grammatically confusing lyric, “Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn’t already have.” Of course, the phrase “Oz never did give nothing” is an example of a double negative, suggesting Oz really did give something to the Tin Man. And, I can follow that.

But here’s where I get confused: When you add the words “that he didn’t already have” to the phrase “Oz never did give nothing,” you create, in effect, a triple negative (never-nothing-didn’t), which means even though the Tin Man already had something, and Oz gave him nothing (which was really something), it didn't really matter because he didn’t need it given to him anyway since he already had it in the first place! Now, is it just me, or is this really – and I mean REALLY – confusing? After all, a double negative is confusing enough, but a triple negative, well that’s just about three times more complicated than my little pea-sized brain can handle!

Maybe I'm making way too much of this. I mean, after all, all the Tin Man really wanted was an oil can, right? Or was it a heart?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In fact, it was the Cowardly Lion who was the bravest, the Scarecrow that was the smartest, and the Tin Man who was the most emotional. Where does that leave Dorothy? Back in Kansas? Don't make me send out the flying monkeys after you!!!