THE PUBLIC MIND: AS EDGAR GUEST NOTED, `IT TAKES A HEAP OF LIVING IN HOUSE TO MAKE IT HOME'

To the Editor:

Even lovely Paula Zahn has betrayed me. This morning she spoke of sixty thousand homes in Florida that had been destroyed by Andrew. Later she spoke with a distressed lady who, with her relatives, had lost nine homes.

My business has been word watching. I hope to follow Mark Twain's advice of using the proper word and not its Second Cousin. In my salad days we said House and Home and did not confuse them. If I lose my Home, I will hardly need a House to shelter it. I build my House with saw and hammer; I need somewhat different implements to construct my Home. I grieve for those who have no House; Homeless people, that is something else.

Others have fought this battle before me, and we are all losing, or have already lost. Too bad, for I believe something is gone from life when we, in these very serious matters, shrink from giving things their real names. Edgar A. Guest, newspaper poet, hit upon one of the great profundities when he wrote, "It takes a heap of living in a house to make it home."

Exactly, but today the Realtor will sell me a "brand new Home," and when it becomes faded I will go to the Home Supply store for a bucket of Home Paint.

Earlier ages in English, and other languages, give insights upon this Home-House Perplex. Do you recall any Log Home that our forbears built? Is your great grandmother's house still standing? Is the term "Housewarming" or "Homewarming?" Biblical uses of these terms may not be helpful. "House" appears hundreds of times in the Bible, often used as the name of a race, e.g. "House of David." I have never heard anyone speak of the House of Hilty, but it has a certain alliterative ring.

The legalist who has the patience to listen to such language discussion will quickly say, "Go to the Dictionary." But dictionaries simply record what they hear. They will tell me what most speakers and writers are saying today, but I already know that. Modern dictionaries, which arrange definitions according to frequency, give as their first definition of Home, something like "the place where one lives." Later entries are much better. The Random House II in its second definition gives for "Home" the place where one's domestic affections are centered." Marvelous. I now understand why I become "homesick" when I am away. "Housesick?" That's another matter.

If the reader continues to doubt, ask a child for children have a keen sense of definition ask a child to draw a picture of a HOUSE. I can predict the result. Then ask the tot to draw a picture of HOME.

This matter which pains and delights me is far more serious than a casual topic of word choice. Who has not seen the bittersweet story of a couple who is ecstatic at buying a New HOME, the HOME of their Dreams? But the cookie crumbles and fussing over plans and mortgage payments and the structure becomes a House of Horrors. Perhaps if they had understood that they were not buying a new HOME and that Homes cannot be bought or sold.

There is also sweetness in the bittersweet topic. Age cannot wither nor custom stale the HOME. If my friends in Homestead (not Housestead) had homes worth sheltering, they need not worry that their house is gone.

Peter Hilty

Cape Girardeau