Merrily Adrift in English

It’s my native language, so I’ve spoken it for a very long time (some say too long).  Occasionally, however, I can’t just take it for granted, and such is the case with “Merry Christmas”.  I don’t know how often I’ve wished people a “Merry Christmas” this year, let alone in all the years that preceded it; but as I stop to think about it, it seems to me that the word “merry” is on its way out of the language.  Oh, carolers sing “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” every Christmas, but not one in a hundred would know that the title of the carol is a direct address (hence the comma) or that in contemporary English the sentence might best be understood as “May you have God’s blessings”.  Today we might use “merry” disparagingly as in “Even though they knew the idea wouldn’t work, they merrily continued with it.”  If you recall the “Folkies” of the late ‘50s and ‘60s  you may remember as well the “Limelighters” singing “I Saw Esau”.  If the lyrics still stick in your head you might recall that the singer was put out at seeing Esau giving his girl a “merry twirl”, and in this context the word’s usage was quite ambiguous.  It could have meant that Esau was showing her a pleasurable good time of some sort or another, it could have meant that whatever Esau was doing was being accomplished energetically, it could have meant that whatever Esau was doing with his girl was filled with laughter or it could have simply meant that whatever was being done, was being done in high spirits.  One might also hear of someone being led on a “merry chase” (though that likelihood diminishes every year) and in this case the meaning, a brisk chase, is very plain.  How all of this came from the Middle English “merri”, meaning “pleasant”, is all a matter of conjecture; though I’m sure some of the meanings of the word must have been ironic.

Then there is “Happy New Year”.  I’ve been wishing people ‘Happy New Year’ all week without a look into the origin of “happy”.   Though we most often use the word to express an emotion, we also use it in other ways (“there was a happy outcome”), so I’ve been driven again to the dictionary (several, in fact).  To the best of my understanding, “happy” has its origin in the Middle English “haps”, meaning fortune or chance (derived, in turn, from the Old Norse “happ”).  Though no one has ever used “haps’ in any conversation with me, one of the continuing characters in American writer James Lee Burke’s “Dave Robichaux” mystery series regularly asks Dave, “What’s the haps?”  If his idiomatic usage (the novels are set in southern Louisiana) is anything other than the author’s overt contrivance (oops, there’s another middle english verb, ‘vert’), then, perhaps (darn, there’s “haps”cropping up again) the original use of the word continues in some parts of the English speaking world   At any rate, by the end of the Middle Ages “happy” had come to mean “favored by fortune”, and this seems to be the meaning originally intended when someone wished someone else a “Happy New Year”; that is, a year favored by good fortune.  With my research complete, I can now comfortably, merrily and happily, wish all of you a somewhat belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

For the merriest and happiest of new years, you might consider making an investment in your emotional attachments.   You might consider putting the gift of a Hearts On Fire diamond or fine diamond Jewelry by Hearts On Fire on your calendar as a “must” for your next gift giving occasion.  It is the world’s most perfectly cut diamond; and unlike most of the otherdata you may have on diamonds, this isn’t just a drylaboratory fact.  Perfection in cut yields startling beauty obvious, to anyone who really looks at a Hearts On Fire diamond.  Indeed, one happy result of presenting a gift of Hearts On Fire is the statement it makes.  It says, “I love you” perfectly.  Isn’t that the merry result you want?  Check out our Hearts On Fire collection on line at hurstsberwynjewelers.com, then phone us at 708.788.0880 for an appointment.  We’ll help you choose the perfect gift; after all, we’re Hursts’ Berwyn Jewelers an uncommon jeweler. 

Christmas Shopping 101

Half a century ago one of my favorite stores to “shop” was the old Abercrombie and Fitch. In the 1950’s it was a high end sporting goods store, complete with an incredible gun room that properly belonged in a movie (it had a huge stuffed Polar Bear in one corner!).  In addition to guns, rods and reels it also carried men’s and women’s clothing aimed, however, at “the carriage trade” rather than the youth market catered to by the current iteration of Abercrombie and Fitch.   Somehow,  forty years ago or so, clothing led the company astray.  I can only guess that sporting goods had become stagnant; so management decided to plunge heavily into women’s fashion. The clothes didn’t sell.  In fact, the strain imposed by “the wrong bet” on fashion forced the company to seek bankruptcy protection, thus illustrating the fact that cash flow is the life blood of business.  A retailer must turn (sell) his inventory to remain solvent, let alone make a profit; and of course, this affects the jewelry business on many levels, right down to the consumer.

Makers of jewelry can find themselves faced with falling demand.  Those who make “high end” jewelry can usually scrap jewelry that doesn’t sell and fashion new jewelry reusing their gems (the labor is lost, the gold and platinum will be re-refined, but for small value).  Those who provide jewelry to “mass merchandisers” and low end chains have a harder time of it as they are ‘married’ to the fortunes of their ‘big buyers’.   Mass merchandisers suffer from the volatility of their market; and this opens the jewelry makers who supply them to risk as well.  Lured by ‘big sales, they often commit themselves to contracts with extended terms of payment and even agreements to take back unsold merchandise.  When business ‘softens’, and mass merchandisers fail to pay their bills, they’re at once in trouble.  If they are compelled to take unsold goods back, the intrinsic value of such jewelry is small; so scrapping it will yield little.  Fearing economic  risk, then, ‘gun-shy’ mass merchandisers and their suppliers very often tend to adopt a conservative character in design as well as a commitment to ‘cheap’ manufacture

This explains why, when I comparison shop chain jewelry stores and the jewelry departments of mass merchandisers, I usually see a strong commitment to basic designs and little attention to either quality or fashion. You may see 50 diamond crosses, all of which look fairly similar to one another, and you may see 50 variations on the diamond heart, but you are far less likely to see a wholly original piece of jewelry - let alone a beautifully crafted one.  For you, the prudent jewelry buyer, this infers that you must concentrate your jewelry dollars on quality jewelry possessions you can enjoy “forever”.  It clearly means that you should allocate a much smaller part of your budget to jewelry you see as “nice” but perhaps without durable “legs” in design or execution.

If your ears are pierced, you should own the pair of diamond studs you best see yourself in. If you can’t afford the pair you want at once, buy a smaller pair of quality diamonds and trade up for the ones you want.  If you enjoy rings, concentrate first on those that will have meaning for you - celebrations of your life that will give you a lift every time you look at them.  Bracelets? If you like them, take a hard look at what you like about them (wide? multiples? with gems? cuffs? bangles? links?), then buy them in proportion to the pleasure you derive from wearing them.  Necklaces? Diamond pendants are more versatile than other necklaces as they can be worn with a wider variety of clothing, though it’s a good idea to be able to put your diamond on attachments (chains, chords, ribbons) of varying lengths so they can remain “neckline” friendly.  Like diamond earrings, as long as you buy quality, you can trade up until you get the diamond pendant you want “for always”.  Above all, keep your eye on what you prize in jewelry to keep from bankrupting your jewelry budget with purchases of fashion you’ll soon tire of.  Observe this maxim, “If you don’t love it, don’t buy it.”  Liking a piece of expensive jewelry just isn’t good enough; and the corollary to this is, “Making do with ‘poverty jewelry’ will never make you happy.”

Of course the ultimate basics are diamonds.  Color, clarity and carat weight all play a part in determining the rarity of diamonds, but there is more to it than that.  So it is that here at Hursts’ Berwyn Jewelers we select our diamonds for beauty above all - not laboratory values nor price.  So it is that we insist on originality in design and quality execution.  We want the jewelry we offer to be a joy forever for its wearer.  So it is that if you want to give a ‘forever’ Christmas gift you must come see us.  Check out our collection on line at  hurstsberwynjewelers.com, then phone us at 708.788.0880 for an appointment to make this the merriest Christmas!

P.S. If you have diamonds, broken or unworn pieces of jewelry that you would like to sell, come in and we’ll help you establish their market value; and perhaps, we’ll make the best offer to buy them.

LUXURY

It’s one of those things that’s relative; and perhaps a trip to the dictionary will only confuse this notion.  The word, luxury, has a Latin root, ‘luxus’, meaning excess or extravagance; but even the Romans found the word slippery.  “luxuriare” was used by the ancient Romans to describe profuse growth, so the notion of abundance has clearly been an inherent part of any understanding of luxury for at least two millennia.  Excess, extravagance, abundance - luxury - how can one consider it except as a comparative?

In the late 1940s (yes, I’m that old) family trips were often aimed at reconnecting to relatives - family - in other parts of the country; and for this city boy they were often eye opening.  There were, for example, no paved roads into one of my dad’s boyhood homes, Marshfield, Missouri; and while there were paved roads into Tulsa, Oklahoma, my aunt Ellen’s home had no running water.  Things were more ‘luxurious’ when we visited my cousin Bob Hackett’s home in Oklahoma City - paved roads, electricity, running water, all the ‘modern’ conveniences and not that dissimilar to our family home in the Chicago area.  Of course, the circumstances of his home were luxurious when compared to those of my aunt Ellen; and the circumstances of her life were more luxurious than those of my great aunt Ophelia and my great uncle John, at the time 90+ years old residents of Marshfield.  On the other hand a comparison between my cousin Bob’s late 1940s home in Oklahoma City and your home today might illustrate the ‘profuse growth’ aspect of ‘luxuriare’.

Few, if any, Americans had air conditioned homes when we visited cousin Bob; and during our visit it never fell below 100º (Fahrenheit), even at night!  Yet we survived; so I guess air conditioning could be considered a luxury.  The ‘phones were all land lines; and in much of the U.S. you called the operator at a central switchboard to place your call; so it seems you could consider our cellular world to be one of ‘luxurious’ communications.  There were a few television sets (and only a few television stations) and they were both so expensive and so ‘impractical’ that few had one - a far cry from the entertainment luxuries we enjoy today.  My point, of course, is that luxury is relative, except when it comes to luxuries with emotional content - strikingly, fine jewelry.

I have a friend who has, over the last forty years or so, become a well to do and respected figure in the world of jewelry; and one of his most treasured possessions has no obvious practical function.  It is his mother’s engagement ring; and its immense value lies in its emotional importance.  It connects him to a mother who passed away while he was only a child; and while this is remarkable within the context of his life, it is, very generally, the greatest value in fine jewelry.  My late mother’s pearls connect my daughter to her grandmother and my late mother-in-law’s diamond wedding ring is proudly worn by one of my sisters-in-law.  What other luxuries can have so enduring a value?  Certainly the present demonstrates this.

Recently a couple came in to our store to have a new ring made for the diamond he had presented her twenty years ago.  Like many men (particularly an engineer!), he had concentrated on the value of the diamond he purchased and paid little attention to it as a piece of jewelry.  In fact, he’d done a good job in selecting it, that is, he had bought for beauty not just for weight; but it had never reflected her ebullient personality.  When one of the prongs holding the diamond had failed, she’d put it in a safety deposit box and got on with her life - a daughter, a profession and more; but the ‘itch’ to wear her diamond had grown over time.  With a good marriage, and the understanding that comes with it, they were ready to let her ‘finish’ her engagement ring by setting her diamond in a ring that was really hers.  She looked at dozens and found nothing; but then, as more came out of our vault, she spied one that she had to put on her finger.  She loved it; and after we had made her ring, she loved it more.   Her husband, however, may have been the happiest.  He wrote us a quick note reading (we’ve saved it with their pictures together) ‘Thank you for making my wife happy.‘  Without a concrete function, perhaps the ring is a luxury; but I find it hard to acknowledge happiness as a luxury.  

In fact it is the enduring emotional content of fine jewelry that lifts it far above all other luxuries and yet may make it the most practical of possessions.  Should you buy a piece of fine jewelry to celebrate one of life’s momentous events or to express your love for another?  Of course you should!  There is nothing like it; and if you focus on the purchase of a beautiful diamond it will remain a treasured statement of your love and joy forever.  So come see us here at Hursts’ Berwyn Jewelers.  We care about your feelings and that is our gift to you, one that few can equal.  Because we know the real value of jewelry, check out our website, hurstsberwynjewelers.com, then phone us at 708.788.0880 for an appointment.  We have the stuff of dreams waiting here for you.