'Loose Talk'
By Benjamin Benedict

  We Are That Alright

Now and then, we all have to reflect on why human beings can’t even agree on something as simple as which side of the road to drive on. If there was a choice, other than left or right there would be plenty of subscribers, and I for one would say ‘vive la difference’ except, and this is a big ‘except’, except for those things where the difference makes no difference at all.

Take for instance the ‘website’ you are looking at. The French are too late on the scene to call it something completely different, but will they leave it at that? No, they won’t. They call it a ‘site web’, which in turn leads me to ask, why do we call it a website at all? Well, let’s begin at the beginning. What came first, the Internet or the website? Well, naturally, the Internet. In that case why wasn’t a ‘website’ called a ‘netsite’?

‘Internet’ is a glorious word, which fully expresses both the simplicity, and the infinitely complex nature of this extraordinary medium. It is the combination of two words we regularly use, ‘inter’, the Latin for between, and ‘net’, the thing that amongst others, fishermen use.

Now, spiders use a ‘web’ for the same purpose as a net and yes, I would go as far as to say that they are one and the same thing. It would seem to me more appropriate to talk about a ‘spiders net’ than a ‘spiders web’. You can even talk about ‘the web of a net’ although why would you? There is no law against it, but no reason for it that I can see.

Of course, there are ‘webbed feet’, which probably gives us the clue as to where the idea behind the word ‘web’, came from. ie: something that spans out, like the spokes of a wheel. Unfortunately, spiders work in squares as well as circles, just as there are nets, which span out as well as nets that are cubed.

At the end of the day why confuse a ducks foot, with a spiders net? Just to be different, ehh? Well, we are that alright.

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