One of the fun things about kids is their simple, often fresh perspective on mundane topics, like English vocabulary. For those of you who have had to endure talking to me for more than 5 minutes sometime in the last three years, one topic that has come up is my niece Anna. Yes, I am a grandmother at heart and yes I adore everything she does. The other day, she shared a new word with me, "yesternight". Not last night, but "yesternight" as in, "yesternight we had spaghetti".
It caused me to think - why isn't there a yesternight? We have a yesterday, but we say last night. To make it more complex, we don't use the expression "last day" either. Why not? It doesn't seem to make any sense. All I know is I like the word. It seems like it should be a word and I want it to be one.
The best book I have read about the history of the English language is "The Professor and the Madman" by Simon Winchester. Mr. Winchester has written several other books, which I have enjoyed, but this is one of my favorites. For those of you who are interested, it tells an educational and entertaining story of why the English language is so confusing. Unlike the French, there never was a council of languages, which determined what qualifies to be a word or not.
Which is why I am taking a stand on "yesternight". Why isn't it a word? Who says it can not be a word? If Homer Simpson's "d'oh" can make the Oxford English Dictionary, then why not "yesternight". Of course we could add "last day" as an acceptable phrase, but "yesternight" sounds fancier.
So join me in this quest to bring "yesternight" into mainstream conversation.
Thank you
Jim
PS - for those of you who did not believe me when I said that "d'oh" is in the OED:
http://www.oed.com/newsletters/1999-07/appeals.html
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