Exactly What Is A Weed?
"Junk" is the most variable word I know. "Weed" is another; I've heard it described as "a plant for which we have not yet found a use." As soon as we know what to do with it, as soon as it becomes useful to us, it is no longer a weed.
Junk ... I dunno ... do you mean a burned out glass fuse? They're great for putting into lamps when you don't have a bulb in them so nobody will accidentally put a finger in there. Broken rubber band? Good for tying things back, because of the built-in tension. They don't really count as junk, at least for me, because there is a way I can make them work for me.
Post-It Notes came from a failed glue mixture that someone looked at and said, "I bet there's a use for this." Probably many things came by way of people who thought, "Wonder how I can get this to be of value?" It takes some imagination, plus a lot of pondering, to move an item from one category to another.
A weed, by the way, is defined as a plant that is not valued where it is growing. Does not say "useless," just says, "where it is growing." Good plant, wrong place.
Junk ... I dunno ... do you mean a burned out glass fuse? They're great for putting into lamps when you don't have a bulb in them so nobody will accidentally put a finger in there. Broken rubber band? Good for tying things back, because of the built-in tension. They don't really count as junk, at least for me, because there is a way I can make them work for me.
Post-It Notes came from a failed glue mixture that someone looked at and said, "I bet there's a use for this." Probably many things came by way of people who thought, "Wonder how I can get this to be of value?" It takes some imagination, plus a lot of pondering, to move an item from one category to another.
A weed, by the way, is defined as a plant that is not valued where it is growing. Does not say "useless," just says, "where it is growing." Good plant, wrong place.
posted by Tom Carten at 1:26 AM
1 Comments:
I have some weeds in my front yard. They're called Grape Hyacinth and they're impossible to get rid of. They're actually kind of pretty when they stay where they're supposed to, but they've taken over about 2 feet of my lawn (so far) in front of the nicely-bordered flower patch. As a plant, you can buy 2 dozen bulbs for $10 at many nurseries, or I will pay YOU to come take them (as weeds) out of my lawn.
-Helen
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