Tittynope: A Small Amount of Leftover - English
Codes from childhood, small things standing beside giants, and honoring the small things
If you take care of the small things, the big things take care of themselves. You gain more control over your life by saving closer attention to the little things.
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson
When we were kids and refused to finish the food on our plate, we were told, "If you don't finish your plate, you'll grow up to have an ugly husband."
Since I had the misfortune of being a child with a poor appetite, I heard this phrase countless times.
As almost every woman knows, this is an insult to a little girl who is secretly proud of the handsome prince she expects to marry her when she grows up. So, with the last ounce of appetite she has left, she tries to eat every last grain of rice.
This goes on for quite some time. But, when the girl is a little older, wiser, and sick of this torture, she refuses to finish her plate, despite the prospect of an ugly husband waiting for her. Even though the cruel question of "what if it's true" gnaws at her, she refuses to finish her plate. In a sense, her refusal is a victory for her independence.
I can hear you wondering if boys are also subjected to this torture. The answer is, "Of course." Although many things in life are sexist, torture is unisex. They were also told that their wives would be ugly, but boys don't care about that, at least not when they aren't of dating age.
I'm not sure how you feel about this; on the one hand, it's cheesy, ridiculous, and cruel, but isn't it funny how people use such strange things to get children to do something?
Well, in English, there is a lovely word for the little pieces of food left on the plate: tittynope. It sounds like you can find this word in any fairy tale at any time.
I am almost certain that the tradition of disciplining children that I described above is very widespread. In the culture I come from, the means of intimidation may be an ugly husband or wife, while in another, there may be monsters or dragons chasing after a child who won't eat. There may even be more creativity than that. God save us from these stories!
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As I thought about ‘tittynope,’ I also found myself thinking about other little things that are not leftovers on a plate.
. Details instead of the big picture.
. The little fish and prawns that wandered alongside the whale.
. The boats that probably had met Titanic on that first voyage.
. Ants and insects making a life under the soil of a huge earth.
. A two-page subtle short story against a thick novel of more than a thousand pages.
. A little boy, inexperienced about outer life but wise about inner truths, walks through the crowds, holding the hand of a tall man.
. A lone individual trying to stand up to an entire government.
. Habits that combine to form first a day, then weeks, months, and years, and finally a life.
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The little ones may seem insignificant next to the giants and the great ones, but they are the Atlases who lift the world on their shoulders. Small to the beholder, but big when you consciously observe them. They are the ones you have to get close to and relate to in order to get to know them.
We should honor the small things. Our own small lives, our small memories, our small friendships. Because they add up, unite, and make a life.
Notes & Reads:
The butterfly effect, in my opinion, is one of the phenomena that best describes the effect of small things. The small decisions we make at every moment have an impact on our lives beyond our estimation. Although it came from the chaos theory of science, it is a concept that reflects realistically in our daily lives.
The Butterfly Effect movie also explains this quite strikingly, I recommend it if you haven't watched it yet.
Small Thing Like These is a Booker Prize-shortlisted (2022) novel written by Claire Keegan, which is about the heroism of a "small" life, an ordinary man. In an Irish town, a timber merchant, Bill Furlong, encounters the complicit silences of a small community controlled by the church and has to make a decision between staying silent and being in a conscious act.
Lastly, Small is a graphic novel, vividly picturing the anxiety of a young boy. He fears ‘small’ things. From Kirkus Reviews:
Anxiety is more than a feeling in this visual narrative, more than the pressure of school tests, the loneliness of exclusion by classmates, or the fear of such shortcomings being discovered at home. Anxiety, represented here by ominously sharp swirls of black ink, has a visceral, visual gravitas—it grows to fill literal and figurative space as the young protagonist’s outlook progresses steadily downhill.
Next week’s word is still a surprise to me and to you, naturally, but I am sure it will be nudging us to gain different views.
Have a great week and weekend.
— Gulsun
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This week's word along with your anecdote gave me a chuckle. Although we don't have the "ugly spouse" reference, the remote connection to it is what people used to say when you eat raw rice -"It will rain on your wedding day". 😀
"Habits that combine to form first a day, then weeks, months, years, and finally a life" - What a beautiful philosophical thought that never crossed my mind. Will remember this for a long time.
The Butterfly Effect was a great movie at that time, but a couple of years ago, I watched a Spanish movie - Mirage, with a similar concept. In my opinion, it overtook its predecessor with a strong female lead performance.
Tittynope is a peculiar addition to my vocabulary.