Tag Archives: words

Words

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Hey, all you word birds: do you have an “aha” moment when the meaning of word became clear to you?  Do share them; I love words and I love aha moments.

I remember:

window = wind hole
to make manifest (make clear)  = comes from hitting palm (hand, manus) against forehead,
                                                    the action you make when you  “get it”

Here are some words which have tickled me in my medieval history reading:

Canterbury = Kent town (Augustine of Kent)
vassal = Celtic word for boy
cardinal = hinge of door (hinges of the great papal door)
sheriff = shire reeve

Janie once again has inspired me – this time to list new vocabulary I learn in my reading. If I wasn’t sure-certain about a word, I looked it up.  What a great thing, because the author of this college textbook uses these words regularly. 

vicissitude = changeable
hegemony = preponderant influence, authority, especially one nation over others
jejune = lacking nutritive value, dull, unsatisfying
lugubrious = mournful
compurgation = to clear completely, clearing of accused person by oaths
fisc = a state or royal  treasury
febrile = or or relating to fever, feverish
autarky = self-sufficient, policy of establishing a self-sufficient and independent national economy
abnegation = denial, especially self-denial
nexus = connection, link, a connected group or series
tautologies = needless repetition of ideas, statement or word
efflorescence = period or state of flowering, blossoming, culmination
turpitude = depravity, inherent baseness
apotheosis = deification, quintessence, the perfect example
eremitic = a recluse or hermit, especially a religious recluse
cenobitic = member of a convent, from koinos, common + bios, life

When I looked up the last two, I found this quirky poem.  Does anyone understand the last two lines?  Will you make them manifest to me, please?

    O Coenobite, O coenobite,
        Monastical gregarian,
    You differ from the anchorite,
        That solitudinarian:
    With vollied prayers you wound Old Nick;
    With dropping shots he makes him sick.
                                       Quincy Giles

[Addendum: 
Old Nick = the Devil.
you = cenobite, one from a group 
vollied prayers = simultaneously discharged, from a group
dropping shots = anchorites besides being alone were on mountain tops
he = anchorite
him = Old Nick]

Tarradiddle

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Wah Wah!  I’ve got a nasty head cold and a wicked sore throat.  My son’s school is on autopilot and I’m tucked into the recliner sucking Vitamin C drops, sipping water, solving Sudokus and savoring Anthony Trollope.  But the day cannot be listed among the liabilities if we have learned a new word, can it?  Tarradiddle ranks up there with canoodling and tchah!  Here is the context:

O Lady Lufton!  Lady Lufton! did it not occur to you, when you wrote those last words, intending that they should have so strong an affect on the mind of your correspondent, that you were telling a — tarradiddle?

[…]

In these days we are becoming very strict about truth with our children: terribly strict occasionally, when we consider the natural weakness of the moral courage at the ages of ten, twelve, and fourteen.  But I do not know that we are at all increasing the measure of strictness with which we, grown-up people, regulate our own truth and falsehood.  Heaven forbid that I should be thought to advocate falsehood in children; but an untruth is more pardonable in them than in their parents.  Lady Lufton’s tarradiddle was of a nature that is usually considered excusable — at least with grown people; but, nevertheless, she would have been nearer to perfection could she have confined herself to the truth.    ~ Anthony Trollope in Framley Parsonage

Concatenation

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Our Latin teacher was such a gift.  Even though he was a luminary in the classics world, a retired professor of graduate school, fluent in seven languages, he was living in our remote valley and willing to teach us the rudiments of Latin.  We jumped into Wheelock’s Latin and received more, so much more, than Latin.  He knew the stories behind the sentences we were translating; he knew the nuances and idioms of Latin; he knew innumerable references in English literature to this Latin phrase.  His memory was stunning – his ability to retrieve quotations, cite authors, remember character’s names was the stuff of legend.  When he introduced the “ethical dative” he would tell us how Jane Austen used it!

Regularly he would address the younger students saying, “Kids, this is an important word for you to know” and go on to introduce a word I had never once heard or seen.  In the arrogance of my ignorance I figured if I’d never run across it, these kids would never in a lifetime see it.  A little rolling of the eyes leads to a little crow on the dinner plate.  Inevitably, in-e-vi-ta-bly, I would come across that word within a week, and stumble over it several times within a month’s time.

One of those words was concatenation.  Chapter 2 of Wheelock’s had this sentence from Horace: Me saevis catenis onerat. He oppresses me with cruel chains.  Beloved teacher sees catenis (chains) and introduces this very important word:

concatenation kon-kat-uh-NAY-shuhn; kuhn-, noun: 
A series of links united; a series or order of things depending on each other, as if linked together; a chain, a succession.

Concatenation was the first of a series of obscure words that I learned from our beloved teacher and whenever I run across it now a special glow of remembrance, a delicious warmness works through me and I sigh a quite contented sigh.  That word is now an old friend which I gladly welcome to my hearth.

This week I read The Catnappers by P.G. Wodehouse and came to these words:

“What are those things circumstances have, Jeeves?” I said.

“Sir?”

“You know what I mean. You talk of a something of circumstances which leads to something.  Cats enter into it, if I’m not wrong.”

“Would concatenation be the word you are seeking?”

“That’s right.  It was on the tip of my tongue.  Do concatenations of circumstances arise?”

“Yes, sir.”

Coming Home

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One of my high school girlfriends coined the word ro-tic (pronounced ROE-tick) for all those situations and settings that were so romantic, minus the man.  You know, a boat trip, a sunset, or a lovely walk in the woods – that would be perfect if a man who loved you was participating, if you were a couple instead of a single.

That’s the word that came to mind when I arrived home yesterday afternoon.  My husband, three sons and some friends are on our annual backpacking trip; thus, I came home to an empty house.  The white board (the command center of our home) had a message waiting for me – lyrics to a song – that let me know, um, that my absent husband is looking forward to seeing me soon.

                                ~     ~    ~    ~

It’s good to be home.  Funny, both directions of this trip were home-comings.  The Chicago area will always be home to me, the repository of my childhood memories.  But the people, the places, even the most fixed of landmarks, change while you are gone and only part of it is the familiar place you remember. 

Home is this space where God has placed me. Home is the people I love, the jobs I’ve been given. It’s a good place to be.

                                ~     ~    ~    ~

The summer I was 18 was a betwixt-and-between summer.  I felt dislocated and dangling.  I was estranged from my father and step-mother, not welcome at their house.  I had a place to go in the fall, but three blank months before me. I was in California without transportation nor the money to go to a sibling’s house in the Midwest. I worked at four or five different summer camps, traveled to play the piano in friends’ weddings and filled in wherever there was a need –  really, wherever I could stay.

One week I was at a friend’s cousin’s mom’s house (a stranger to me) and broke down in tears, lamenting my “homeless estate”.  I cannot remember this woman, her name or her appearance; but her words are burned into my brain. “You are in such a great spot, Carol,” she began.  “You have nothing to hold onto but the Lord. Look at me – I have a nice home, a good husband,  my children, etc.  These are gifts but they can also be temptations to place my hope and my security in, instead of trusting God. God is your home, God is your refuge.” 
 
Now that I’m home, I need to catch up on many things.  My next year of school is sketched out, but I need to work on the details, type up schedules, revisit Algebra II, make sure I have all the books I need. Soon. Only after I sit on the deck with my man and talk and talk and talk and listen and listen and listen.

“The perfect journey is circular – the joy of departure and the joy of return.”
                                                                         ~   Dino Basili

Relinquishment

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This
fancy word for letting go has been floating through my thoughts.  There are
times when we are called to let go of certain dreams, certain people, or certain
substances.  In my experience there has always been a protracted struggle
between what I will and what I
want.  My knuckles are white from
the death grip that is holding tight.  And when my heart changes, release comes
slowly, one finger joint at a time.  When the hand is empty and I’ve
finally relinquished that “something” I’m so surprised at all the plusses.  The muscles
that were weary from clenching are relaxed.  The hand that was dedicated to
grasping is now available for a thousand other occupations.  There is a move
away from tension towards tranquility.  

 Elisabeth Elliot wrote (I
substituted ** for certain words to broaden the application): “Fred had prayed that God would help him
to be willing to relinquish **.  He did not want to relinquish **, but he willed
to be made willing.  Although the conflict lasted for six months, he was indeed
helped.”  That phrase, willed
to be made willing, could provide food for many mental meals.  I have
seen a small measure of relinquishment lately in my life, and for that I
gratefully give God thanks.

Shake Me Up, Judy

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We’ve added another entry to our family lexicon.  In Dicken’s Bleakhouse there is a contemptible character, Smallweed, who is the biggest bully in a wheelchair.  It’s more like a litter than a wheelchair.  He orders everyone, frightens, threatens, skulks, well, you get the idea.  Whenever he is carried into the room, he growls to his mincing granddaughter, “Oh my bones. Shake me up, Judy.”  She comes behind him thrusts her arms under his armpits and shakes him in his chair. 

It is pure Dickensian weirdness.  Before my husband left for work this morning we played with this strange phrase.  It succeeded in bringing smiles to our faces.  I think the words are so rich, so delightful, so fun.

We have several phrases that are private codewords, funny reminders of stories told long ago.  “Not today, boys” comes from my brother Jim’s experience as a medical student.  An old lady in a hospital bed surrounded by students was told that she would have certain tests done on her.  Her tart reply is classic, “Not today, boys.  I know you have to make lots of money for the hospital but not today.”  This is such a useful reply to inquiries by wondering husbands, “Did you think you might clean the fridge out hon?”

“Lovely, Betty” has to be heard with a broad Scottish accent.  It sounds more like Loove-lee, beh-eee.  My brother David and his family were in Scotland enjoying the hospitality of a  ladies tea.  Every time something was brought out one of the white-haired women pronounced the benediction: Lovely, Betty.  I think the ninth repetition of it put my nieces into a fit of giggles.  It has become a very common method of expressing appreciation in our house, where no one is called by any form of  Elizabeth. 

How do you talk in your family?  What are your funny, understood-only-by-yourselves phrases?

My Favorite Cuss Word

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This word came from Curt’s college roommate Bill.  Bill and his son John come up for a visit about once a year.  We love reconnecting, sharing stories, making great food for each other, staying up too late talking.  Bill is the one who discovered Sound and Vision, my favorite music store because they sell music I like.  It takes a visitor from San Francisco to show the natives good local shopping.  Nurse!  That’s the word:  Nurse!  It works for so many situations.  You discover you are out of milk after you’ve poured the cereal in the bowl: Nurse!  You write a cogent response to your friend’s blog and then lose it before it’s published.  Nurse!   Well, you get the idea.  It’s one of those words that really works for any kind of exclamation.  It can mean Wow!, Bummer.  Can You Believe It? all in one word.  Nurse!