Acting in Haste

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Conrad. I’m in Indianapolis.

Hi, Conrad.

Hi, how are you?

Good, how are you doing?

It’s fine. Pleasure to be on the show.

Oh, thanks for coming. What can we help you with?

Well, I was talking with a British colleague of mine the other day,

And we were discussing business and trying to make sure that we weren’t making a hasty decision.

And he used the phrase,

Oh yeah, we wouldn’t want to get into an act in haste, repentant, leisure situation.

And I thought that was an interesting phrase,

Thought you guys might have some background on it for me.

And he said leisure, not leisure, huh?

He said leisure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Interesting.

Yeah. So act in haste, repent at leisure.

And what were you doing? What kind of mischief were you up to?

Well, we were doing risk management for our business.

Perfect.

We were trying to make sure we weren’t getting into a situation we’d regret later.

So, right, making sure, for example, you had enough insurance to cover yourselves in the event of flood or a hurricane or something like that.

There are no hurricanes in Indianapolis.

Let’s say tornadoes.

Lots of tornadoes.

Lots of tornadoes here.

Okay, very good.

I’ve been lucky so far.

So you’ve got to read the legalese, make sure that you get the coverage that you think,

And your deductible’s not too high, and so forth, right?

Exactly.

I don’t use this phrase, but I’m very familiar with it probably from reading lots of old texts.

It feels old-fashioned to me, don’t you think, Martha?

Yeah, and the version I’ve seen of it is marry in haste, repent at leisure.

Yes, it’s true.

I did a Google search, and there are a couple different variations,

But I was really interested in the word repent because it’s a word that carries a lot of religious overtones.

But I didn’t know if maybe it originated, you know, as a part of a sermon somewhere

And then was used in colloquialisms after that or was.

Well, the marriage component here and the one that Martha knows, the version that Martha knows.

Not personally, but.

Well, it’s important because divorce is kind of a relatively new phenomenon.

Many, at least in the Western world, many religions for many, many centuries did not allow divorce.

And so if you got married, you were hitched and you lived with that mistake, you know?

You had a long time to repent.

And that’s kind of what we’re talking about.

We’re talking about living with your mistakes.

You can find variations of this going back to the 1600s.

Yeah.

And they are often in religious contexts.

You can find modern ones as well.

David Foster Wallace uses a variation of it in Infinite Jest.

Yeah.

Well, he says, the shopworn act in haste repentant leisure would seem to have been almost custom designed for the case of tattoos.

I mean, because you’re living with it.

I have several friends in that situation.

Yeah, because you’re living with it, right?

It’s a mistake that you can’t.

It’s very difficult to change.

You can’t get a divorce because your religion doesn’t allow it or your country doesn’t allow it.

Tattoos take expensive laser removal.

I mean, we’re talking about something that’s, you know, it’s really easy to sign your name to something that is incredibly difficult to get out of.

Yeah.

That’d make a great time.

Is it a phrase that’s common in the U.S., or is it just kind of brought over from the U.K. And European?

I don’t think it’s that common.

No, no.

I think most people would figure it out pretty quickly just by context.

Yeah.

Sure.

Yeah.

So this is the only time you’ve ever heard a colleague over there use it.

Is that right?

Right.

But, you know, I’ve got some friends that use some pretty strange phrases over here, at least to my ears.

So, yeah, that one was great.

Well, hey, thanks a lot for the call, Conrad.

Well, I appreciate your answer.

Thanks for looking into it.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Okay. Bye-bye.

Bye.

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