MY FAVORITE THINGS

MY FAVORITE THINGS

WE DISCUSSED "My Favorite Things" (from The Sound of Music) during Conference Hour in regard to using the word "things."
    There are no absolute rules about language. A great deal depends on context and judgment, also on the difference between speaking and writing.

    Obviously using the very general word "things" in some cases is appropriate ("What's that thing over there?" "What do you call that thing you use to clean rugs?" and so on). Cole Porter wrote a marvelous song called "It Was Just One of Those Things" about a brief love fling to show the callous way some people treat romantic relationships.
    But in general one should always try to find a more specific term for what one is attempting to describe. One doesn't just write, "That thing on the telephone that one uses to choose numbers," etc.

    In fairness, I'm not entirely positive that the way the student used the word "thing" is necessarily wrong ("One of the things I like most about Moon Day," etc.). But it's an exercise to try to find a more specific word.
    We do use "thing," like I said. "One of the things I hate about New York is the pollution." But that's especially in speaking rather than writing.
    For students, if only as an exericse, I'd much rather err on the side of precision rather than generality. Compare: "One of the things I like about Moon Day" and "One of my favorite memories about Moon Day is sitting around the dining table with my family eating pomeloes." I'm not positive the way the student used the word is wrong but it's worth aiming for greater precision anyway (especially with ESL students) just to be on the safe side. The more the writer tries to understand what she is trying to say, and thus getting to lower levels of generality, the better the writer will be.
    Anyway, here's the song. There are three versions. The first version has only the instrumental but with lyrics. The next has Julie Andrews singing but without lyrics attached. (Andrews made the song famous in the film musical; Mary Martin introduced the song in the original Broadway stage musical.) The final version is by jazz legend, John Coltrane, who performed variations on the tune on the soprano saxophone in one of the most famous of all jazz recordings. (Coltrane was one of the few to hazard the difficult soprano sax successfully. The greatest, of course, was Sidney Bechet, with whom the instrument has become identified; but Johnny Hodges, who specialized in the alto saxophone and studied under Bechet, also played the soprano.