I’m sure I hopscotched a little when I was young. Probably my sister’s doing.
Equally, I’m sure I’ve used a chalkboard, but especially cleaning it up as a reward in class.
However, I’m not sure I’ve ever used it as a conversational statement to indicate I learned something.
Chalk it up! As in, chalk it up to experience. Learn it once, and never need to learn it again!
Chalk it up comes from some centuries ago:
This idiom gets its meaning from a practice performed during the 16th century. During this time, people would obtain goods and write the debt that was owed to a store on a board with a piece of chalk. This was especially the case in bars or taverns to keep track of a patron’s bar tab so that they could come back at a later time and pay for the drinks or goods that they took. It was the original way of granting credit before the use of credit cards. [Source]
Chalk is not manmade in that humans never invented it…It was found and then put to use. Chalk is formed from the remains of microscopic marine organisms from a (or more) millennium ago. Chalk deposits can be found worldwide, but the most famous are the “chalk cliffs” in England, called the White Cliffs of Dover.
All that knowledge can be easily found on the web, but you may never comprehend the concept until you buy a box of chalk markers and put them to use.
Win and loss columns are marked; let’s chalk it up.
Payments are owed from goods sold. Let’s chalk it up.
Let’s mark a point of ending, beginning, or along the way. Chalk it up.
Let’s count the number of times you miss a letter in Hangman. Yes. Use chalk.
Tic-tac-toe… Easy with chalk!
Chalkboard, sidewalk, or climb a mountain… Yes. Chalk is popular.
It’s easily applied and equally easy to remove—no permanent stains.
This morning, I thought about how we often learn to do something correctly, chalk it up to experience, and then do it again.
Unexpectedly, I asked how often I get to chalk it up.
Once the slate is clean, must I ever revisit the lesson or challenge I’ve learned from? Or is the slate cleaned so I can start the experience over anew?
Chalk it up.
Who is like a wise man?
And who knows the interpretation of a thing?
A man’s wisdom makes his face shine,
And the sternness of his face is changed.
I say, “Keep the king’s commandment for the sake of your oath to God.
Do not be hasty to go from his presence.
Do not take your stand for an evil thing, for he does whatever pleases him.”
Where the word of a king is, there is power;
And who may say to him, “What are you doing?”
He who keeps his command will experience nothing harmful;
And a wise man’s heart discerns both time and judgment,
Because for every matter there is a time and judgment,
Though the misery of man increases greatly.
For he does not know what will happen;
So who can tell him when it will occur?
No one has power over the spirit to retain the spirit,
And no one has power in the day of death.
There is no release from that war,
And wickedness will not deliver those who are given to it.
All this I have seen, and applied my heart to every work that is done under the sun:
There is a time in which one man rules over another to his own hurt.
(Ecclesiastes 8:1-9 NKJV)
Thank you for reading.
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It helps me get my book written!