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WotD: Pigeonhole
As today’s picture quickly demonstrates, a pigeonhole is a small box where mail or messages can be placed.
At a Japanese high school where I once worked, the teacher’s room had a little box like the one above for each teacher.
If someone wanted to leave a teacher a message or there was a newsletter everyone needed to read, it was placed in the pigeonhole for the teacher to access and read later.
That’s not the only meaning of pigeonhole, however.
Some people like to keep pigeons as pets or for racing.
In those cases, where do you think they keep the birds?
That’s right.
They keep the pigeons in pigeonholes.
Of course, they are enclosed at both ends, but if the owner wants to let them out, they can open one end of only one box so that the bird can get out.
Don’t worry too much about the birds.
The boxes are just the right size, so the birds are nice and comfortable.
In fact, when people find a nice cozy place in their house, maybe in a window or corner, they can call it a pigeonhole, too.
I’ve turned my iori room into a small reading room.
It’s my winter pigeonhole where I can light the charcoal and read comfortably.
Up to this point, I’ve only given positive meanings of pigeonhole.
It can, unfortunately, have a negative connotation too.
When used as a verb, pigeonhole can mean to stereotype someone as only being able to do one thing, thus limiting their future possibilities.
For example, the Harry Potter or Game of Thrones actors risked being pigeonholed into the types of roles.
For many of us, Daniel Radcliffe will always be Harry Potter, but he still needs to work as an actor.
If he were pigeonholed as Harry Potter, he’d only be able to play that role and never get any other acting jobs.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 72.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.