While TPP was chatting to someone today there was a small distraction. Once the distraction was over the conversation was started by the other person saying “Gosh that has made me lose my train of thought”.
Now “lose my train of thought” was a sentence that TPP had not heard in a long time!
What does it mean exactly? Well, it relates to a sequence or series of connected thoughts, or one’s uninterrupted progression of thinking.
With a bit of looking around TPP found that this saying came about before trains even existed. In fact it dates back to 1651 where Thomas Hobbes used it in his book Leviathan:
By Consequence, or train of thoughts, I understand that succession of one thought to another which is called, to distinguish it from discourse in words, mental discourse.
— Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
When a man thinketh on anything whatsoever, his next thought after is not altogether so casual as it seems to be. Not every thought to every thought succeeds indifferently.
Some further history:
The earlier meaning of the noun train was a trail, path, or “things pulled along a path,” such as the ends of a long dress or robe, that drags along the ground behind its wearer. Kings and queens in the West have often worn clothing with these trains. This meaning of train was itself a metaphor, based on the idea of training, in the sense of training animals or training employees to behave in a certain way. The idea is that some things are pulled along a path, like animals or children trained to follow each other along a path.
However, this is all just history. Today the phrase train of thought simply means “a connected sequence of thoughts.”
— EnglishCompostion.Org
Your homework today is to ponder on the the concept “train of thought” and how or where to use it. Also, ponder on times you have “lost your train of thought” and what you did to get back on track with your thoughts – yes, pun intended.
Ponder away!
