By Paula LaRocque, KERA 90.1 Commentator
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-514578.mp3
Dallas, TX –
Some of the smallest words shoulder the heaviest burden of meaning. The little word run, for example, occupies 15 pages in The Oxford English Dictionary a little word, but hardly simple, whether a run in your stocking or a run-up in your stock.
Run has many meanings, but a basic one is literal and figurative motion: The river runs over its banks. Her eyes run over the page. His interest runs to medicine. A running stitch, a running nose.
Politics has a lot of run expressions. Candidates are running. They give opponents a good run for their money. They're in or out of the running. They select running-mates. It might be a runaway election, or end in a runoff. And someone will be runner-up.
Those references come from horse-racing. When you bet on a horse that runs well but does not win, you get a "good run for your money." "Running-mate" refers to a horse that sets the pace for another horse in practice runs.
"Run" phrases are so common that you can produce one by adding almost any preposition to the word. We run into or run across someone or something. Run in can refer to a quarrel or to printed matter inserted into text. Poor writers create run-on sentences, and poor speakers run on and on.
A poorly maintained house is a run-down house, and a poorly maintained car runs down. When we want a summary, we ask for a rundown, and if we don't get it, we say we got the runaround.
We run out of dough when we run through our inheritance and start running up debt. Our cup isn't running over, and we may soon be on the run.
When we run off, it's different from the runoff after an election, or the runoff after a storm. And if we run off with something or someone, we may be, as with errant lovers, running around. Maybe we've run out on someone. Maybe we're runaways who are running for it, and maybe someone will run after us, maybe run us to ground, or run us down, or even run over us,. Serves us right.
The players run out the clock to keep the ball in a game's closing minutes.
Both airplanes and fashion models use runways.
Ships or aircraft traveling at night have running lights. A running knot is a slipknot. A running board is the footboard below a vehicle door.
Run of the mill is manufacturing jargon for average or ordinary. It refers to whatever is produced in the "mill" before being inspected and approved.
You can run the gantlet or run the gamut. "Running the gantlet" was originally a military punishment in which the victim was forced to run between two rows of men who beat him as he passed. "Run the gamut," which means a range or extent, derives from a musical scale or series of notes.
There's the long run and the short run. And the run of good or bad luck.
But that's enough. I have to run along. Besides, I don't want to run it into the ground.
Paula LaRocque is a former writing coach and editor at the Dallas Morning News and the author of The Book on Writing: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Well.
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