Wednesday Word

baching: Well, okay, there's enough slang in this term to keep it out of my Webster's dictionary, but I know I heard it before reading it recently in The Long Winter, where Almanzo and Royal Wilder are "baching it," that is, living a bachelor's life through the winter.

Of course, not too many young men would even blink an eye anymore when faced with living by themselves or with a few guy roommates, let along give a name to their lifestyle. I have a hunch they might just agree with Royal Wilder, however, when he says: "We eat when we get hungry...That's the advantage of baching it. Where there's no women-folks, there's no regular mealtimes."

Wednesday Word

Sometimes a word I choose for (the occasional) Wednesday Word is one that shows up often in a book. Other times it’s a word that represents the essence of the book or some part of it. This week, I just picked a word that was unfamiliar to me, but still sounded kind of cool. Actually, the word in the form I found it in The Uplift War by David Brin wasn’t in my Webster’s New World Dictionary, so I give you the word that was as close as I could get.

 

The word in the novel: cinerescent

 

Close enough: cinereous (si nir’ ē əs) adj. 1. of or like ashes  2. the color of ashes; ash-gray

  

Do you ever feel like authors are just showing off?

 

 

A Year of Books I’ve Read Before

Wednesday Word

Here’s a word that has come up enough times in The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco that I decided to get a precise definition:

 

narthex (när’ theks) n. 1. in early Christian churches, a porch or portico at the west end for penitents and others not admitted to the church itself.  2. any church vestibule leading to the nave

 

Apparently the shape of these entrances resembled the hollow stem of fennel, because the word comes from the Greek word narthēx, which is a giant fennel.

 

 

 

 

A Year of Books I’ve Read Before

 

Wednesday Words

Let me put this right out there: I think it’s cheating to make up words in order to have the rhyme and meter of poetry work. Take, for instance, the poem “Jabberwocky” in Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. There are enough nonsense syllables in this poem to force one to believe at least six impossible things before breakfast!

Sure, Humpty Dumpty does do some translating for Alice (“ ‘Brillig’ means four o’clock in the afternoon – the time when you begin broiling things for dinner.”), but still: Lewis Carroll made these words up to make the poem into poetry. Cheating.

Oh, but what poetry this is. This cheat gets a free pass because “Jabberwocky” is pure magic! It’s melodic and flowing, fun to read and recite, and still tells an adventure story. And while the words are made up, they adequately evoke picture, sound and emotion, even without explanation. In fact, I liked reading this without translation and explanation. It’s more fun to imagine what it all means for myself.

And by the way, isn’t snicker-snack just the best onomatopoeia ever?!

 

There’s a list of these made-up words at this Wikipedia page for the poem “Jabberwocky.”

 

Coming soon: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

 

A Year of Books I’ve Read Before

Wednesday Word

There's one word that pops up without fail in Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett: ineffable. Does it matter that it's used a bit irreverently throughout the novel? Of course it does. That's what makes it so entertaining.


ineffable (in ef' ə b' l) adj. 1. Too overwhelming to be expressed or described in words; inexpressible  2. too awesome or sacred to be spoken



Coming soon: some thoughts on re-reading Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Wednesday Word

squill (skwil) n. the dried bulb of white varieties of a plant (Urginea maritima) of the lily family, formerly used in medicine


I first saw the word squill used by a clever player (not me) in an electronic Scrabble game. Since the all-knowing Scrabble program accepted the word, I had to assume it really was a word. My paper and ink dictionary agreed. Then, I came across the word in The Patchwork Garden by Sydney Eddison. It seems that I can no longer be skeptical. Squill is a real word for a real thing.

Wednesday Word

I recently finished reading The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder. There's one word that succintly describes what kind of book this is:

Steampunk: a subgenre of speculative fiction, usually set in an anachronistic quasi-Victorian alternate history setting. It could be described by the slogan “What the past would look like if the future had happened sooner.” It includes fiction with science fiction, fantasy or horror themes.

from Urban Dictionary

More on The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack soon.

Wednesday Words

There's a whole different vocabulary in the field of philosophy. Here are a few of the words I'm sure I'll be casually using now that I've read The Philosophers.

epistemology - the study or theory of the origin, nature, methods, and limits of knowledge

teleology - 1. the study of final causes.  2. the factor or quality of being directed toward a definite end or of having an ultimate purpose, esp. as attributed to natural processes...4. Ethics. the evaluation of conduct, as in utilitarianism, in relatioin to the end or ends it serves

metaphysics - 1. the branch of philosophy that deals with first principles and seeks to explain the nature of being or reality and of the origin and structure of the world  2. speculative philosophy in general  3. the theory or principles (of some branch of knowledge)  4. popularly, any very subtle or difficult reasoning

Wednesday Word

Rama (rä' mə) any of three of the incarnations of the Hindu god Vishnu, esp. the seventh


In Rendezvous with Rama and again in Rama II, the alien object entering our solar system was named Rama by the people who get to decide these things. They delved into the Hindu deity names because they were all out of Greek and Roman ones.

Rama, however, just sounds cool.  It's easy to say and finds a good place in the alliterative phrase "rendezvous with Rama." I find myself wondering if the sound of that phrase alone could have sparked the idea for this science fiction series.



Coming soon: Her Little Majesty by Carolly Erickson

Wednesday Word

boughten (bôt' n) adj. [Dialect] bought at a store and not homemade


In On the Banks of Plum Creek, little Laura Ingalls is fascinated by all the "boughten" items that went into building the family's new home. I was surprised to see this word in a work of printed literature, since I wasn't sure it was really proper English.

The Ingalls's new house includes boughten shingles, which "were thin and all the same size; they were far finer shingles than even Pa could hew with an ax," boughten doors, locks with keys and white China doorknobs, and boughten hinges that "did not rattle like wooden hinges or let the door drag like leather hinges." The wonder and excitement that Laura feels over these boughten items is a clear reminder that we are now in very different times.

I suppose I've heard the word "boughten" in use, although not very much.  Perhaps it's not so much a dialect thing, however, but a sign of these different times.  We really don't need to point out that something was purchased at a store (or online) when nearly everything we own has been obtained that way.  Instead, we point out the novelty of a homemade or hand-crafted item.

I think this is a little sad. I like to make a lot of things myself, from the occasional homemade garment (for myself or my niece's doll) to fresh cheese, bread and even vinegar. (The fact that my other blog is a cooking journal may have given some of that away.) Of course, I have no idea how to make roofing shingles or door knobs, and if I take the time to think about it, I'm glad I don't have to.  Perhaps, however, a little of Laura's wonder might be good for the soul.  When was the last time you really contemplated your "boughten" door hinges?

Wednesday Word

Continuum (kən tin’ yoo wəm) 1. a continuous whole, quantity or series; thing whose parts cannot be separated or separately discerned…

The Continuum, the continuous, inseparable whole of space and time, is almost a character in and of itself in Blackout and All Clear (as well as other novels) by Connie Willis. It is a chaotic system, and as such, not “a conscious entity,” according to time travel theory. The Continuum, however, cannot, or perhaps will not, be manipulated, but instead is a manipulator, allowing the historians into history only where they will do no harm. It protects itself, but not necessarily the time travelers, who are trespassers in the domain of history.

In All Clear the concept of the Continuum is complicated even further, and its function (if not motivation) is part of a puzzle to be solved. But this chaotic system takes care of itself so well that one must question whether it really is not a conscious entity. Could the Continuum actually be the self-aware caretaker of all of time and history? I suppose there are things that people, even time traveling historians, were not meant to know.

I just love the way well-written science fiction can make one forget that it isn’t real!



Coming next: my thoughts on On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Wednesday Word

stele (stē' lē, also stēl) 1. an upright stone slab or pillar engraved with an inscription or design and used as a monument, grave marker, etc. 2. Archit. a prepared surface, as on a facade, having an inscription, carved design, etc. 3. Bot. a central cylinder of vascular tissues in the stems and roots of plants

Having recently read Gods, Graves and Scholars by C.W. Ceram, I'm mostly interested in the first two definitions (although I listed #3 for completeness).

Imagine you are thrashing your way through the thickest jungle and you come across a great big rock carved with ornamentation and figures that are unlike anything anyone has seen or recorded in known history.  This is just what happend in the late 1830's to John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood as they were searching for the Mayan city of Copán in what is now Honduras:

Stephens and Catherwood themselves now took machetes and set about getting a clearer view.  They found themselves before a stele, a high and richly carved slab of stone.  In artistry of execution there was nothing in Europe or Asia to compete with it.  Such sculpture had never been even remotely suspected on the American continent.
     The ornamentation on the stone likeness was magnificent beyond description.

Stephens and Catherwood eventually found thirteen more of these magnificent stones.  Since they could not haul them out of the jungle (and I, for one, am glad of that) it was left to Catherwood, an experienced draftsman to make a drawing of one of the darn things. The images before him were so beyond his experience that he nearly drove himself crazy trying to create an accurate depiction.

I suppose the next time something like this could happen it would have to be on another planet...or in a far, far future when super-evolved humans try to figure out why us ancients carved out so many sets of golden arches. And in either case the discoverers will probably have digital cameras.

Wednesday Word

I came across the word pierrot while reading The Phantom of the Opera:

"With his face in a mask trimmed with long, thick lace, looking a very pierrot in his white wrap, the viscount thought himself most ridiculous."

First off, I have to agree that the viscount (Raoul de Chagny, Our Hero) probably looked pretty ridiculous in this get-up. At the risk of baring my ignorance for all of cyberspace to see, I have to admit, however, that I didn't know the word pierrot.

Pierrot (pē' ə rō', Fr. pye rō') a stock comic character in old French pantomime, having a whitened face and wearing loose pantaloons and a jacket with large buttons


While the trusty Second College Edition of Webster's New World Dictionary that I got for Christmas from our dog, Flash, in the late 1980s gives Monsieur Pierrot a captitalized first initial, Leroux (or at least his translator) did not.  I can only assume this means that pierrot no longer refers to a name, but rather a type and has lost its status as a proper name.

(This wikipedia entry has images of Pierrot. This and a Google image search might just lead to something that looks pretty familiar.)