Weekend Wordery: “On the Table”
Here’s something to ponder.
When you are actively negotiating for or over something, that something is said to be “on the table.” But in the context of legislative business (in American English, at least), “tabling” something means removing that thing from present consideration. E.g., “Let’s table that amendment till next session.”
Conference table at Potsdam, 1945
I’m often confused by the latter meaning of ‘table’ because it clashes with the more the accessible mental image I associate with the former meaning: people sitting around a table, negotiating over some papers on the table between them. It seems to me that “tabling” the papers should mean laying them on the table, and that if you wanted to remove them from discussion, you would take the papers off the table .
Apparently I’m not alone in this confusion. Sanjay Srivastava suggests a way to keep the imagery straight: think of a second table in the corner where you place discarded items. Also, it helps just to be cognizant of the conflict.
Further complicating the matter, though, in British English ‘to table’ something means to propose it for consideration—a meaning which does comport with my mental image. I guess that makes ‘table’ a word that is an antonym of itself, a contranym. Like ‘sanction’: meaning both to permit and to punish. It’s also further evidence that George Bernard Shaw was right. Britain and America are two countries separated by a common language.
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