"Well Within Herself"

Someone made the comment to me, after the hospital debacle last week, that they hoped my wife is now “well within herself”।

I am not one taken to rants about the ridiculousness of the English language and those who use it, but I really would like to know who else she would be well in, if not herself.

If she is feeling well within my next door neighbour, I feel I would be reasonable to raise a couple of questions – concerns even, about what she is doing inside my neighbour.

This expression goes with a number of other terms I find somewhat frustrating; for example, “Very true”. No, my friend, it is not very true. It’s true, it’s untrue, I might even allow partially true, but “very true”? No, that is an expression designed to make my ears bleed.

I mentioned this to my long suffering wife, believing that she would share in my sense of outrage at this use of the English language. Instead, she told me that she felt that I had enough things to rant about and that I don’t need anything else. Clearly my wife has mistaken me for someone else. Me? Rant? Complain? It’s not in my nature.