Rogeting the Mother-in-Law

Right now it is raining, a state of play extant through the night. That is good because here in the north the region generally and farmers specifically need to recover from a prolonged drought. At least I heard it described in the media as a prolonged drought. I would have thought that any drought, by the nature of droughts, is prolonged and to call one as such is a tautology. Or am I wrong? I wanted to find out. So, as is my wont (I am a sad case), I looked up prolonged in the dictionary. Right next to an advertisement telling me that I too could lose 20 kgs in 4 weeks my on-line dictionary defines prolonged as relatively long in duration and protracted. Fair enough, except relative to what? So I am right and to my mind prolonged drought is a tautology. It is also in terms of the verb, prolong, suggestive of someone committing an intent—which in the case of a drought is patently wrong. Delving further into the vexatious word I found in the accompanying on-line thesaurus several alternative words and phrases that mean much the same thing as prolonged. Among the phrases are “tediously protracted” (again fair enough) and then this: “A lengthy visit from a mother-in-law.” What? Mother-in-law jokes? Has the good Roget developed a sense of humour? Surely not. I could delve into this further but I fear I have prolonged this Fryday long enough. Have a good weekend.

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