LEND ME YOUR EAR: WORDS TRANSFER TRIPPINGLY FROM TONGUE TO TEXT

While pondering the strange turns our language takes via foreign translations, I continue to wonder at the changes we and our countrymen produce. We writers and speakers are forever rearranging attention-getting bits and pieces to suit our needs and fancies.

One of the most lingering phrases in recent times "just a phone call away" probably originated with the AT&T commercial. Variations spread like pollen in August. Next thing we knew, networkers were announcing that a train accident had occurred "just a freight-car away" from a whistle stop, or the victim had jumped "just a whistle stop away." A notorious prisoner was "just a handcuff away" from being sentenced. Beer was in danger of being sold "just a short block away" from a church, and a place where alcohol and drug abusers could be treated was "just a stepping-stone away" from where the lethal stuff could be purchased.

However, an enterprising TV ministry promptly assured addicts that salvation was "just a church-steeple away," and a health center announced its arrival nearby, with approval "just a dart-board away." Early this morning, news was even better. A radio staffer proclaimed that a new eatery is "just a short drive away from anywhere"!

Equally promising, a "Tylenol-without-pain pill pusher suggests that "relief is just a phone call away." Sounds as if it's the medication that's in pain, but whatever the outcome, I'd bet my bottom pain pill that variations on the theme will continue until the English language is barely a third-world-country away from extinction. But no way can we allow this to happen. Better just a centimeter away than extinct.

After the tragic downfall of former President Nixon, Watergate opened so many gates, I stopped recording them. But Tailgate refuses to close, and in Britain, Royalgate and Fergigate have outlasted Majorgate. As to our Mississippi floodgate, it existed long before Watergate, though to add to our woes, some comedian has created "Mistersippi" and "Ms.sippi," citing Betty Friedan as his inspiration. I suggest we give this word-scrambler the gate.

Of course we've always known absence makes the heart grow fonder. We are now informed via TV that the absence of certain health devices and food processors makes the heart grow so fond that couch potatoes cannot live without them. Most recent is a food chopper called the Benjamatic, which serves as a "chopamatic", "sliceamatic", and countless subsidiary toolamatics that can be acquired only by "automatic dialamatic" action.

How the device came by the name "Benjamatic" I know not, but the invention is deemed extremely user-friendly. Almost everything is user-friendly these days, and people who are "exercise-friendly" without any desire to succumb to the idea can purchase all that user-friendly equipment touted as "walking-friendly", "jogging-friendly", "high jump-friendly", and "crawler-friendly." I'm no couch potato, but I consider writing sufficient exercise for me because consulting dictionaries and other user-friendly reference works all over the house keeps me moving about more than exercising in one spot ever could.

This isn't generally known, but I am also paintbrush-friendly, and have just witnessed a demonstration by a painter who says acrylic is "surf-friendly." Obviously, he meant surface-friendly, but I've known this all along. I keep white acrylic on hand to cover scuffs and scars on summer handbags and sandals. Dealers in these products may sue me for passing such user-friendly information on to friends and other readers.

About a month ago I came by a collection of writings by a gifted German scribe whose name was new to me: Wolfgang Hildescheimer. Never before have I encountered a non-English writer so given to playing with our language with such abandon. Two examples (necessarily abbreviated, being German) will illustrate the author's unique touch the humor remarkably sustained by translator Joachim Neugroschel:

"As a minor viniculturist, I have often been urged...to do something worthwhile in a pinch. But I am not sure that pinching is ever worth any while; I suspect that it actually whiles away its worth. I can picture a traveling salesman, sitting behind his beer and reaching around the skirt of a barmaid. Not just whose while is this worth?"

"When I was a child, I wanted to be a rear admiral...Real rear admirals are rare: like Admiral Horthy, who was reared for the front, although he was rarely accused of being a front for the rear guard. But then, he rarely guarded his flanks."

If my 1993 Christmas greetings fail to reach friends before New Year's Day 1994, it may be because I'm still scrutinizing Wolfgang Hildescheimer's verbal scramblings to make sure I haven't overlooked anything intended to entertain word buffs such as myself.