Ergo

A short story about the word "ergo."

Ergo is a word I like. I began to use it some time ago but didn't seem to notice much of a response from listeners and would-be listeners. This was okay with me in a singing-to-myself sort of way. One evening last summer, two or three hours into an LSAT prep session at Meridian High, I sat stretched out on an old blue couch in the German classroom where we met, and I said to my teacher (Brent Dunn, family friend and acelsat himself) with an entire class of would-be LSAT-takers as would-be listeners, "Something something something, ergo..." And when I was finished with my comment, Jeff, my would-be friend and erstwhile ride, leaned over to me and whispered distinctly and with an advisorial air: "Don't use 'ergo.' It's antiquated." I almost laughlaughed right then. But I didn't because he'd leaned so close to me, I would have laughed in his face.

I can neither describe nor explain how much I want to hold that sentence in my hands and show it to people. So sometimes I say it to myself as I lie down at night. I try to whisper it like Jeff did. "Don't use 'ergo.' It's antiquated."