Yggdrasill

In Norse mythology  (see Icelandic Prose Edda) there is a great ash tree that has branches which overhang all of the nine worlds. The roots of the tree are nourished by three wells – one in Asgard, where the gods live, another in Jotunheim, home of the Frost Giants, and the third in Niflheim, a land of mist and fog.

Yggdrasill means steed of theTerrible One (which is one of the names for the god Odin).

The story goes, that Odin wanted to learn the secret of the runes, which would give him great power. Such a secret could only be gained by great sacrifice – Odin hung for nine days and nights from one of the branches of the great ash, swinging in space among great winds, until he howled in terror. However, at the end of that time, he did obtain the secret of the runes.

From ancient Egypt to China, among various religions and mythologies, and in art, trees (e.g. tree in which life and death are enclosed, tree of life) have been venerated or held sacred. After all, what is more magnificent than a great tree in leaf?

The Christmas tree (though an evergreen, rather than an ash tree) is said by some to have its origin in tree worship. It probably was most fully developed in its present form during the Renaissance era in Germany and Livonia, when guild halls decorated trees with sweets for apprentices and children.

Druids regarded oaks as sacred as well as the mistletoe that grew on them.

The Buddha sat underneath a Bodhi tree in meditation until he gained enlightenment.

In the times of the ancients, much of the world was covered with forests, so it’s not surprising that trees played an important role in spirituality. Julius Caesar, for example, spoke to Germanic peoples who had travelled for two months through the forest without reaching an end.

It’s no wonder that trees have remained part of many mythologies and been carried forward as important symbols into our modern consciousness.

I’ve been re-reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and of course in those stories trees play very important parts. From the dark forest of Mirkwood, to the magical Lothlorien; from the Old Forest near the Shire to Fangorn with its moving trees, Tolkien has drawn on ancient stories and his books continue to light our imaginations.

Xanthos

Xanthos or Xanthus was the capital of ancient Lycia, which was a region in what is now the southern coast of Turkey. Ruins of the city still exist on a hill near the river Esen. There is an amphiteatre, various walls and pillar tombs. The city was once a cultural and commercial centre.

Evidence in the city takes us back to the 8^th century BC, but it may have existed as far back as the Late Bronze age (1500 BC). Lycia was known to the ancient Egyptians and the Hittites. The people of Lycia fought the Persians, later became a member of the Athenian Empire, from which it seceded to become independent for a while, until the Persians and then the Romans conquered them.

The people of Xanthos twice committed mass suicide rather than submit to invaders. A poem found on a tablet excavated at the city site refers to this event.

The city became an archbishopric in the 8^th century (AD or CE), but was deserted in the 7^th century during Arab raids.

Charles Fellows, a British archaeologist, discovered Xanthos in 1838 along with a number of other cities in Asia Minor. In the tradition of most other archaeologists of that time, he carried away many artifacts (Lion Tomb, Nereid Monument) from Xanthos. These are now in the British Museum.

Many ancient cities are no more, abandoned or destroyed for various reasons. I wonder how long our present cities will last and what might destroy them. Will it be food shortages resulting from environmental destruction or war? What sorts of ruins might we leave? Will our fragments of steel, concrete and glass interest people in the distant future?

What (is Stephen Harper doing?)

Recently Mr. Harper has been in India making a deal to ship Canadian uranium to a country that has not signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons or the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty. According to Jennifer Ditchburn of the Canadian Press on www.canada.com, Harper said, “Among developed nations, we are one of the few that has the entire spectrum of a civilian nuclear industry - all the way from uranium production to the construction of reactors."

Sound ominous? Ditchburn also wrote, “Even if Canadian uranium never makes it near a weapons facility, our exports will still free up India's domestic supply, said Cesar Jaramillo, a nuclear disarmament expert with Project Ploughshares. “India requires uranium for both its civilian and military nuclear programs and, since it is generally in short supply domestically, the uranium imported for civilian needs may allow the country to allocate more of its domestic holdings for the military," Jaramillo said in an email.

Before that it was the secret trade deal with China that caused concern for some. From Chloé Fedio in the Ottawa Citizen, October 31, 2012: The Foreign Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement (FIPA), discussed mostly behind closed doors, comes as the Conservative cabinet reviews a Chinese state-owned oil company’s $15.1-billion bid to take over Calgary oil company Nexen. Members of three opposition parties met with the members of two advocacy groups, Leadnow.ca and SumOfUs.org, that launched the petition two weeks ago over concerns that the deal would allow China to sue the Canadian government in secret tribunals, leading to a loss of control over natural resources.

In May of 2012 we saw an omnibus budget bill in Parliament. Alan Wherry of MacLean’s Magazine wrote: Shortly after its tabling, the New Democrats proposed that C-38 be split into several separate bills, but a day of negotiation between the government and the official Opposition failed to produce a deal. In lieu of compromise, there is now conflict. The opposition parties cannot prevent the bill from passing Parliament, but they can make its passage somewhat complicated. A mini-filibuster managed to manipulate the parliamentary schedule enough to add a few hours to the budget debate. The Liberals have suggested that the bill, containing more than 700 clauses, could be fought clause by clause when it returns to the House for third reading. Green MP Elizabeth May says she may have “potentially hundreds of amendments” to propose.

More recently, Mr. Harper has been in the Philippines, arranging to sell armaments (old stuff refurbished in Canada) to that government. This, at a time of year when many people are thinking of the horrors of war and hoping for a more peaceful world.

I think that trade with the Pacific Rim and Asia is necessary and important for Canada, but why can’t we trade solar and other technology? Why trade the most expensive and dangerous technology that depends on a large grid, when there are alternatives available? Alternatives that mean better local control and cheaper, safer energy in the long run.

At this point there’s not anything we can do to get rid of a majority government. However, Canada is still a democratic country, and our best means of showing our opinion is to vote. Certainly people get discouraged if the candidate or the party they voted for doesn’t get in, but the solution is not to abdicate your rights and to avoid voting. The solution it seems to me is to uncover problems with government and convince enough other people to vote to make a difference in the next election. Do your own research, find out what the Conservative Government is really doing.

Oh, what does it matter you say? None of these issues will really affect me? My life is OK?

There once was a man who said, “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.” The man was German Pastor Martin Niemöller, who spent seven years in a Nazi concentration camp.

Umbrageous

It means providing protection from heat and light, shady. One could say ‘Willow trees are umbrageous.’ Also, protected by shade or filled with shade or shadows.

‘Taking umbrage’ means to be annoyed; umbrageous also means taking offense easily, to be belligerent or resentful.

The word origin is from the Latin ‘umbra’ shade, ghost or shadow.

So is it better to use a short simple word or a longer more complicated word? Trees provide shade; it seems over the top to say ‘Trees are umbrageous.’ On the other hand I like connecting the word with something ominous. ‘We started slowly down the umbrageous alley.’

As the trees lose their leaves and we move towards winter, there are fewer umbrageous trees and little need for them.

Vervain

In one of the television shows I’ve been watching for about three years – The Vampire Diaries – the herb vervain (also known as verbena) is said to prevent vampires from compelling a person. The herb is also supposed to be a sort of poison to weaken vampires.

There’s nothing in Bram Stoker’s Dracula about vervain used against vampires, though garlic flowers are used and of course the wooden stake to kill them.

Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, published in 1652 as The English Physician  says that the herb is “cleansing and healing; it helps the yellow jaundice, the dropsy and the gout, kills and expels worms in the belly, and causes a good colour in the face and body, strengthens as well as corrects the diseases of the stomach, liver and spleen; helps the cough, wheezings, shortness of breath, and the defects of the reins (kidneys) and bladder, expelling the gravel and stone.” Culpeper also states that it “is excellent against venomous bites,” so perhaps that’s where L.J. Smith, the author of The Vampire Diaries books got the idea.

According to Wikipedia, vervain was said to have been used to staunch Jesus’ wounds. Also the flower is engraved on Italian charms against witchcraft.

There are around 250 annual and perennial varieties of the herb, many with hairy leaves and flowers that can be purple, blue, white or pink.

Nelson Coon in Using Plants for Healing (1963) states that, “The constituent which brings Verbena into the medical field is a bitter glucoside and tannin, a simple infusion (2 teaspoons to 1 pint) being employed as a diaphoretic, tonic and expectorant. There are, in herbal literature, no strong claims made for its efficacy.”  A diaphoretic causes sweating and an expectorant helps bring up mucous from the lungs, bronchi and trachea. Coon also quotes “an ancient couplet:

                “Vervain and dill
                Hinder witches from their will.”

Tarantella

I first came across this word in Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House. Nora says, “Tomorrow evening there is to be a fancy-dress ball at the Stenborgs’, who live above us; and Torvald wants me to go as a Neapolitan fisher-girl and, dance the Tarantella that I learned in Capri.” Which fits in with the fact that the family had been in Italy when Torvald was ill. However, most of the examples of the dance that I’ve seen on line involve more than one person. So I wonder how exactly Nora danced it. Symbolic though, in terms of the play, because it is all about a woman leaving her married life to move out on her own, “to think over things ... and get to understand them.” At the same time, there’s the story of Mrs. Linde and Krogstad in the play, too, which we don’t often talk about when the play is discussed. The two of them dance their own metaphor of the tarantella.

I wish Persephone Theatre would put on this play. I saw it once on television and have read it, but would love to see it live. There is so much meat there and excellent roles for several characters.

At any rate, the dance is of Italian origin; my dictionary says the word originates from the seaport town of Taranto, which is often associated with the dancing mania of tarantism. The latter, some say, originated from a type of tarantula spider whose bite caused people to dance very hard in hopes of driving the poison out of their bodies. Looking at the movements of the dance I find this hard to believe, but it makes a good story. Apparently the dance was also at one time seen as a cure for neurotic women. (Possibly another layer of symbolism for Ibsen’s play).

There are various versions of the tarantella in different regions of Italy. Also both group and couple dances. It is generally danced with tambourines and accompanied by drums, flutes, mandolins. To me the dance seems similar other folk dances, to various courting dances.

Walking along the river one fall day a couple of years ago, this came:

Leaves’ last dance today.
Wind whirls them across my path –
A tarantella.

Sastrugi

In Russian it’s zastrugi, plural of zastruga. The word means, according to my Dictionary of Canadianisms, “ridges of hard packed snow, formed by the wind and at times attaining a height of four feet.”

Do not imagine that I’m thinking fondly about the coming winter. Like many people, I’m happy if the cold and the snow stays away for at least another couple of months. This has been such a glorious September, and without frost up to now. Today I picked several still green tomatoes (usually at this time of year I’ve picked all my tomatoes, green, red, whatever colour) and a couple of decent sized cucumbers.

Still, it’s a word I like and I hadn’t come across it before – all these years without a word to describe a common phenomenon on the prairies.

My dictionary states further that the word was used in an arctic journal by Osborne. More research (Wikipedia) reveals that Sherard Osborne (1822-1875) was a British admiral and arctic explorer. In 1849 Osborne advocated for another search to look for the Franklin expedition (currently a search for the latter is going on again), and Osborne subsequently commanded the steam-tender Pioneer under Horatio Austin. As part of the search Osborne took a sledge journey to Prince of Wales Island. His account of the trip was published in Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal (the one mentioned in the dictionary): “The snow ridges, called Sastrugi by the Russians run ... in parallel lines, waving and winding together.”

In his autobiography, Voyages of Discovery in the Arctic and Antarctic Seas and Around the World (1884), Robert McCormick, British Royal Navy Surgeon, explorer and Naturalist, wrote, “For this purpose, I fixed upon the softest wreath, or sastrugi, of snow at hand to cut a trench deep enough to hold the two dogs, my companion and myself.” McCormick also led an unsuccessful search party for the Franklin expedition. Macormick Bay on Devon Island, in the area where he explored, is named in his honour. Check out http://www.cbc.ca/news/interactives/franklin-searches/ to find more information about all the searches to try and find Franklin.

The word was also used by Lord Tweedsmuir in his book Hudson’s Bay Trader, which is a diary kept by the author from 1938 to 1939, when he worked at Cape Dorset, Baffin Island. Tweedsmuir wrote, “There is sastrugi, when the snow lies in hard patches furrowed and fluted by the wind, like ribbed sea sand.” The book was published in 1951 and republished in 1978, and more information about it can be found on line at various sources. The book can also be borrowed from several public libraries in Saskatchewan.

Renga

In 1125 a Japanese imperial anthology of poetry (Kin’yōshū) was one of the first to contain examples of renga  or linked verse poetry. In the form, originally two or more poets supplied alternate verses. At the time renga were short, but in the 15^th and 16^th century the renga developed so that eventually it could hundreds of lines, but a favourite form was thirty-six lines, called a kasen. A rule of kasen was that it should refer to flowers (usually cherry blossoms) twice and to the moon three times. The verses were linked thematically and by verbal associations. Later the first verse of the renga developed into the single verse form – haiku.

Traditionally the first stanza of a renga is three lines with seventeen syllables. The second is a couplet with seven syllables in each line. This pattern of stanzas repeats to the end of the renga. The themes of the poem include associations to the seasons, nature, and love. Each stanza becomes a sort of springboard to jump to the next verse.

Renga parties were held with several poets joining in to compose the poem.

In modern times the term renga has been applied to less classical and more experimental poetry, e.g.  Octavio Paz, Charles Tomlinson (‘Airborne’), P.K. Page and Philip Stratford (And Once More Saw the Stars.)

An on line collaborative renga is ‘Riding White Roads.’ This was led by Jane Reichhold in 1996. Take a look at http://www.ahapoetry.com/WRCD6C.HTM Reichhold  has written an article, Jump Start to Renga http://www.ahapoetry.com/renga.htm

Another interesting site about renga with examples of the poetry is http://www.renga-platform.co.uk/index.htm

Happy reading and writing.

Queme

The English language, similar to many other languages has borrowed words from a myriad of other languages. I doubt if there is any pure language, particularly in the modern world. We are all mongrels.

Queme originates in Old High German and has come to us through Middle English (probably all those Angles, Saxons and Jutes).

It’s a word I hadn’t heard before, which is odd in a way, because I do know the German word bequem, which means comfortable.

According to my dictionary queme means pleasant, agreeable, comfortable – much the same as the original German.

I’m queme in my house. It’s a place I have created over the years to fit my personality and needs. I have lots of books everywhere – nearly every room (except the bathroom – I haven’t yet figured out a way to put one here, though I haven’t given up the idea of a small book shelf) has a bookcase. There are comfortable chairs and places to sit everywhere, including looking out on the back yard, which is full of perennials, a small garden, one tree, and berry bushes (and not much grass). I have enough storage space so that the place can be reasonably tiddy (when stuff starts to overflow storage I know it’s time to get rid of some). I have an office for writing (with a place to keep files as well as  another book case), though I can and have written in other rooms of the house. I wish I had a bigger window and a balcony in my bedroom; also I wish the kitchen was oriented to the back yard, with an eating nook. But I make do – there’s a spot overlooking the backyard where I have a wicker chair and a folding table so that I can eat or have a cup of tea there with a book or a manuscript I’m working on. Though my house is small, I have a couple of blow up beds, a folding cot and a foam mattress so I can hold quite a bit of company on occasion. My yard is small, too, but I’ve made the most of the space and besides the food it produces, there are places to sit. I also like the old-fashioned double door garage, which keeps my car off the street and means I rarely have to plug it in during the winter.

I’m also queme with myself. Am old enough to have experienced a lot of different situations, places and people, and have learned something about the world and myself so if things aren’t going the way I’d like, I usually know how to make them better.

Gosh, doesn’t all this sound rather self-satisfied? Perhaps that’s another meaning for queme.

Poetry

A short, simple looking word. My dictionary defines it as  metrical writing, the production of a poet, and writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through its meaning, sound and rhythm. Additional meanings: a quality that stirs the imagination or gives a sense of heightened and more meaningful existence; and a quality of spontaneity and grace.

I’m familiar with poetry of course – took it in high school and university English, have read it, had it read to me. My writing group is a mixture of poets and prose writers. I’ve written the odd poem in the past, but have never felt that I could call myself a poet, as I do call myself a writer. A couple of months ago my writing group held a workshop on poetry. At the beginning of the session our poet leader/instructor asked, “What does poetry mean to you?”

To some extent the definitions above can also apply to good prose. I think of Michael Ondaatje, who was a poet first and writes (at his best) incredibly poetic prose.

It seems to me that poets access their brains differently or get into a different kind of mind space when they write, than prose writers. My reason for thinking this is not that I’ve asked any of them (and our workshop leader didn’t talk in terms of this), but that the result, the good poetry I’ve read, is so different from prose. It’s not just the use of language and imagery, but also the line breaks, spacing, and punctuation (or lack of it), as well as the sheer imagination of images  used, which all combine to create that heightened emotional response. When my prose writing is going well, it feels like an amazing meditation. I wonder if anyone has ever studied the brain (i.e. done brain imaging) while a poet is creating? What would the brain look like when this is happening, and is it different than when prose is being created?

I’ve heard poets talk about playing with language and certainly some poems do this – they can be a lot of fun. I thought perhaps this was a good clue to for me to begin with, in my quest to try to write more interesting poetry. And there I go – interesting is probably the wrong word. Really good poetry hits me over the head or makes me feel as if the top of my head is going to come off or makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

So I’ve started keeping a poetry notebook to play around with language, letting ideas just come and letting one word build on another. Also trying to put disparate images together.

What  poetry means to me:

an image taking root

in my heart growing to expand

my soul so it opens to the moon the door

where anything can enter

Omni

This is a prefix that begins many fascinating words – omnibus, omnidirectional, omnifarious, omnificent, omnipresent, omnirange, and omniumgatherum.

Omni itself comes from the Latin omnis, meaning ‘all.’

Omni magazine (a popular science magazine) was published from 1978 to 1995 (online until 1998). I still have a number of copies (I wonder if they’re valuable?)

A homonym for omnigatherum is hodge podge, meaning a miscellaneous collection of a variety of things or persons. A good name, it seems to me for this blog.

I suspect that most humans are omnigatherers (not sure if that’s a word) because we collect all kinds of things both deliberately and by accident. Think of the last time you moved and the odds and ends you discovered in your house and apartment that made you say, “What on earth am I keeping this for?”

Much of my omnigatherum includes books – mystery, SF, non fiction, poetry, Canadian authors, classics, and so on. I do try to cull this collection periodically because I don’t have room for more bookcases in my house and I don’t like to hide books behind each other.

I have less trouble getting rid of clothes than I do books. I’m not one of those people who can pull out something she wore in 1967 that might actually be considered interesting in 2012.

When I was a teenager still living at home my mother’s collection of knickknacks (there’s another good word – meaning ornament; can also be spelled nicknacks) used to bug me. I vowed that I would not fill the top of a piano or TV or various shelves with what I considered useless odds and ends. Well, I have to confess that I do have a few knickknacks now.

I was never a collector in the sense of stamps or match books or license plates; though for a short time I did collect reproductions of old paper dolls. I still have a few paper dolls to this day.

There are several boxes of my son’s stuff in my basement – as long as there’s room I don’t mind.

And of course, now that I have a grandson, I have to have a few toys about.

I have files of stuff I think might be useful or interesting from some future writing project. My basement holds a few tools and odds and ends of paint, along with old year books from high school and university as well as a couple of bound Sheaf newspapers from the time when I wrote for it. Recently I actually had reason to go back and at the latter for an article for The Sheaf centennial.

I don’t consider myself a pack rat (my possessions don’t feel as if they are taking over my house or my life) though I do like to keep what interests me. Probably it’s time to do a cull, however.

Noctuās Athēnās ferre

I enjoy the different ways that various cultures and languages say similar things in regards to idioms.

One of my favourites is the German “Mann muss mit den Wölfen heulen,” which literally means, “one must howl with the wolves,” but the equivalent idiom in English is “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

The Latin quotation above, literally means “To carry owls to Athens.”  Because Athens had lots of owls and the owl is also a bird sacred to the goddess Athena (for whom Athens is named), carrying owls to Athens would be as silly as carrying coals to Newcastle (which is the port from where coal was shipped to other parts of England).

In French “J’ai un chat a la gorge” (I have a cat in the throat) is equivalent the English “to I have a frog in my throat.” Neither of these idioms makes much rational sense, though apparently the latter comes from how croaky we can sound when we have a cold or obstruction in the throat.

My Dictionary of Idioms says, through the centuries idioms have nearly always been looked down on. In the eighteenth century, Addison warned against their use in poetry and in the seventeenth Dr. Johnson had laboured  in his dictionary to ‘refine our language to grammatical purity and to clear it from colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms and irregular combinations.’ There is not much charity for the humble idiom there.

So who comes up with these things I wonder. Idioms can be as imaginative as poetry and yet become clichés when overused.  It seems that a lot of our English idioms originate in the Bible. For example, ‘salt of the earth’, and to ‘separate the sheep from the goats’. Others appear in Shakespeare, such as ‘in the mind`s eye’ and ‘the time is out of join’t; he may have made these up himself, and also used popular colloquial expressions of his day. Some idioms seem to spring up from daily life or work – ‘teaching your grandmother to suck eggs, having too many irons in the fire, trimming one`s sails’,  while others originate with people (‘keeping up with the Joneses’, from a comic strip of the same name) or events (‘to meet one`s Waterloo’, referring to Napoleon’s defeat there) . Although some idioms are quite different in other languages, others have come to us from other countries. For example, ‘to be in a pickle’ comes from a Dutch expression ‘to sit in the pickle’.

However idioms begin, in my opinion, they add to the colour and richness of the language.

Mackinaw

According to my Concise Dictionary of Canadianisms this word originates from an Ojibwa word mackinac or mickinac, meaning turtle. Explorer and fur trade pioneer Alexander Henry, the Elder (not to be confused with his nephew, the Younger) wrote in Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories Between the Years 1760 and 1776, “The land in the centre of this island (Mackinac Island) is high and its form  somewhat resembles that of a turtle’s back. ... The common interpretation of the word Michilimackinac is the Great Turtle.” Note that Michilimackinac was a fort between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, and the name is still used for the area.

The word mackinaw also refers to a felted woolen cloth from which blankets and other articles of clothing were made. ``The original mackinaw coats were made from Hudson Bay ``Point`` blankets for the British soldiers who, during the war of 1812, fought in the neighbourhood of Mackinaw.``   Bags for sleeping in were made of these blankets (probably a lot less comfortable than our modern sleeping bags).  A mackinaw coat was short, of rough material ``much like a grey horse blanket. It is worn by most lumberjacks, explorers, miners and woodsmen in the regions north of the great Canadian lakes.`` 

A mackinaw boat, also called a York boat was a heavy flat bottomed freight boat used during the fur trade.

A mackinaw fish was another name for a lake trout.

In general mackinaw isn’t a word one hears nowadays, particularly where I live, but I like it because it has a rich history.

Lollygagging

I am having that kind of morning, not doing anything in particular, hanging about, doing this and that because it’s raining.

To lollygag or lallygag means to dawdle, loiter, fool around. It can also mean to neck or smooch in public (which I didn’t know), as well as to chatter incessantly.

My dictionary (Webster) says the origin is unknown, but according to an on line source, the Oxford English Dictionary says the word comes from ‘loll’ to waste time, and ‘gag’ to deceive or fool. On yahoo’s answer.com it gives an example of usage from  an Iowa paper in 1868, “The lascivious lolly-gagging lumps of licentiousness who disgrace the common decencies of life...”

In Britain the term ‘lolly’ refers to a lollipop or ice cream popsicle, so lollygagging likely would have negative connotations there.

Lolly is also a slang term for money, and that’s where things get really interesting. Most of us have heard of terms such as ‘buck’ and ‘bread’ as slang for money, but did you know about frogskins (maybe because some money is green?), duckets, scrilla, mopuses, and wonga? Let’s lollygag about money some more. In Australia a ten dollar bill is apparently called a blue tongue because it is predominantly green. In the United Kingdom, ready money is called rhino. Whenever I read British books that mention their money, I have to get out the dictionary and sometimes I’ve made a chart (for some of Dorothy Sayers’ mystery novels). A quid is another word for a pound, a bob is a shilling, and six-pence a tanner. Most confusing!

Back to lollygagging. I wonder if there are people out there who invent words either on purpose or by accident? Certainly my grandson does. I just got off Skype with him and he was inventing goblin words for milk and the like. In one of my favourite books by Connie Willis (bellwether), she speculates about the origins of fads and suggests that there are people who are sort of fad originators and magnets, so that whatever they wear or do becomes picked up by others around them. In our increasingly connected world it’s not hard to spread a saying or a fad nearly instantly. As I’ve probably said before, we do indeed live in a global village.

Khamsin

Around the world there are many fascinating names for wind. The Khamsin (also called khamseen, khamaseen, chamsin or hamsin) is a hot, dry and dusty one that blows from the south over Egypt, the Red Sea and eastern parts of the Mediterranean. The word means fifty, and the wind commonly blows sporadically over 50 days. It’s most prevalent during March and April and carries sand from the desert, causes great rises in temperature, and can reach speeds of 140 kilometres per hour. The Khamsin caused problems for Napoleon during his Egyptian campaign, and also for German troops in North Africa during World War II.

Lerner and Loewe wrote a song called “They Call the Wind Maria” (Mariah) for their hit Broadway musical Paint Your Wagon (1951). Before that George Rippey Stewart wrote a novel (published in 1941) called Storm in which a gigantic storm sweeps across the Pacific Ocean, wreaking havoc on San Francisco and the California coast.  The storm was called Maria (Ma-rye-ah). I found one source that said this led to the practise of naming hurricanes after women, but other sources say that hurricanes in the West Indies were often called after the saint’s day on which they occurred, and apparently there was an Australian meteorologist in the 19^th century who gave women’s names to tropical storms. Note: supposedly Mariah Carey was named after the storm in the song above.

One can go not quite from A to Z with the names of winds, but there are names that start with B – Bise is a northerly one that blows in the southeastern mountains of France and western mountains of Switzerland in winter. And the Zonda is the name of two different winds in South America – a dry and dusty wind over the eastern slopes of the Andes in Argentina in winter, and a hot humid northerly wind that blows over the Pampas.
In western Canada we love the Chinook, a warm wind that eats snow. Check out http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/journal/canwxwords.htm for other Canadian wind names (and weather words) – the Alberta Clipper, Bonspiel Thaw, Ground Drifter, the Cow Storm (a strong gale on Ellesmere Island that can blow the horns off a musk ox), Wreckhouse Winds, and the Keewatin.

Does naming winds go back to naming gods and goddesses? Winds after all can be very powerful and are important to us, not only in their potential destructive power, but also in the beneficial weather they bring (e.g. rain). In the past they had value for their ability to take us (sailing ships and boats) where we needed and wanted to go.

Songs about wind include “Blowing in the Wind,” “Four Strong Winds,” “The Wayward Wind,” “Wind Beneath My Wings,” “Like a Hurricane,” and “Carey (The Wind is in from Africa).”

Jink

I noticed this word for the first time (I may have seen it before, but it didn’t register) in a series of space opera novels by Elizabeth Moon. The word means ‘to move suddenly or run away with quick turns and changes of direction’. Since the novels are partially about a space fleet and their movements in space and during battles, the use of the word makes sense.

I love these books because they have strong female characters, both young and old (there are some great elderly aunts) and the author dedicates the book to her mother and mother-in-law. ‘Two women who proved with their lives and in their children, that single parents can be good parents and that “values are more than campaign slogans.” The stories are full of action. The title of the first book is Hunting Party and it takes place partially on an island on a planet owned by one of the rich families. A group of idle rich young people falls afoul of a naval (space) officer who has, by his actions in a skirmish, ended the career of a female officer under him (one of the heroines of this book and an important character throughout). To quote from the back of the book, ‘Herris Serrano was an officer born of a long line of officers. Being forced by a treacherous superior to resign her commission under a cloud was not just the end of a career path; it was the end of everything that gave her life meaning.’ What very few people know is that the naval officer is a really nasty piece of work; he is on this island illegally and the young people become involved in defeating him and his men, while developing their own characters.

There are horses (hunting and eventing) involved in the above book as well as several others – more things for the idle rich to do. And of course, horses can certainly jink. I enjoyed all of it and reread these books more than once. Besides space battles there is plenty of intrigue, including within families and within nations. There are nasty enemies from other planets, and unscrupulous workers as well as stupid and smart young people. What more can you ask for in space opera?

Another meaning for ‘jink’ in Scottish is ‘to play tricks and frolic’. I certainly can frolic among these books, entertained by the different cultures described – military culture, as well as various family and planetary cultures.
I recently had my grandson visiting and he can certainly jink. Childhood is a time for jinking – while playing tag, while biking with your friends, while ducking the water sprayer in the garden.

Summer is also a good time to escape by reading light hearted books that entertain and enthrall.

Iterate

To utter again or repeatedly; iterative means characterized by or involving repetition or recurrence. According to the on line Mirriam Webster Dictionary, the first known use of the word was in the 15^th Century.

This word can refer to the act of repeating a process, usually with the aim of approaching a desired goal or target (every spring I wait for my Tulipa Tarda to come up, and then I get ready to plant the annuals).  The results of one iteration are the starting point for the next.

Iteration is used in mathematics with functions and in the sieve of Eratosthenes.  The latter is a process to find all the prime numbers up to a given limit, and is usually done by computer through an algorithm, using a repetitive process. Iteration is used in computer programming (looping), as well as in business to develop and deliver increments of a product of process.

In renga, a Japanese collaborative poetry, three, four and up to fourteen or fifteen people work together to write a poem. The first stanza contains 5 – 7 – 5 sound units, the next 7 – 7 and then it`s back to 5 – 7 – 5, and the pattern repeats.  Haiku developed as a separate form of poetry from the first verse of the renga.

In his book, Difference and Repition (1968), French philosopher, Gilles Deleuze spoke of three different levels of time in which repetition occurs. One might think these would be past, present, and future, but according to Deleuze’s theory, the present contains both past and future.  His levels of time are passive synthesis exemplified by habit; active synthesis exemplified by memory (i.e. a repetition of time); and empty time that breaks free of simple repetition of time because of a huge symbolic event (e.g. Oedipus’ murder of his father). The latter seems to me have something to do with becoming part of an archetype, a Jungian sort of view, perhaps. (I find the above interesting, though I’m not sure that I really understand Deleuze or Derrida for that matter.)

A contemporary of Deleuze was philosopher Jacques Derrida. The on line Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Derrida states:

 “What is happening right now is a kind of event, different from every other now I have ever experienced. Yet, also in the present, I remember the recent past and I anticipate what is about to happen. The memory and the anticipation consist in repeatability. Because what I experience now can be immediately recalled, it is repeatable and that repeatability therefore motivates me to anticipate the same thing happening again.”

Side note: Derrida also originated deconstructionism, a way of criticizing literature, philosophy and political institutions.

Though I think repetition can be useful, I also wonder if when we get up, have breakfast, brush our teeth, and go through the routines of our days perhaps we are living lives of boring iteration (my version of Henry David Thoreau: “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”).

Hag

It’s a word with a lot of negative meanings and connotations: a female demon, a harpy, a witch, a woman who has made a compact with the devil, an ugly or evil old woman.

The etymology is fascinating, however. From Middle English hagge or hegge, probably a shortened from of Old English hægtesse (harpy or witch), akin to Middle Dutch haghetisse (witch) – don’t these latter two sound like a sneeze? Also Old High German hagzissa and hagazussa (my personal favourite) also meaning witch or harpy. It is thought these all derive from a prehistoric West Germanic compound whose parts are akin to Old English haga, meaning hedge, and dūs, meaning devil. (Have you ever heard the term hedge wizard?) Dūs is also akin to the Norwegian tysja meaning elf or crippled woman. The derivations go on a bit longer with connections to Gaulish and Cornish. At any rate, the meanings are mostly negative, but I love the sounds of the words.

So why would a witch or hagazussa necessarily have to be ugly? Think of Galadriel, the Lady of Lórien, an elf queen, beautiful but also potentially terrible. If a witch had magic, why would she not make herself glamorous and enticing, or plain and ordinary if she didn’t want to be noticed? For example, Circe was a beautiful Greek enchantress living on the island of Aeaea who turned Odysseus’s men into pigs at a banquet. And in The Wizard of Oz we have two good and beautiful witches living in the north and south respectively. So, I don’t buy the cultural stereotypes of the hagazussa – I think that the fear of their power made people describe them in negative ways.

Witches are often portrayed as living in a forest. Some of the other meanings of hag tie in to this location -- an enclosed wooded area, and a section of timber marked off for felling. In certain cultures trees had power or magic and spirits (e.g. dryads) lived in or among them. Think of the oaks of the druids and the mistletoe that grows on these trees. In Norse mythology Odin created the first woman out of an elm tree log and the first man out of an ash tree. Sacred groves were common among the ancient Germans, Swedes, Slavs, Lithuanians, Greeks and Italians. In Rome, the sacred fig tree of Romulus was worshipped as well as a cornel tree (a species of dogwood) that grew on the Palatinate Hill.

By the way, the word hag has other meanings as well: to urge on or goad, to tire out, and to hack or chop.

Gam

A simple word can have many meanings. I knew the slightly archaic meaning of ‘gam’ which is slang for leg.

There are, however, three additional meanings for the word, as well as meanings for its use as a preface and suffix and one for its use as an abbreviation. A versatile combination of only three letters.

From the Scottish, ‘gam’ can also mean a large or crooked tooth. So another body part.

The third meaning in my dictionary is “a visit or friendly conversation, especially between whalers or other seamen at sea or ashore” (though it can also be used more generally as having a gam with friends). The word can also be used for a pod of whales.

‘Gam’ or ‘gamo’ comes from the Greek gamos, meaning marriage and we see its use in such words as bigamy and gamogenesis.

As a suffix, ‘gam’ is used for plants and specific types of reproduction e.g. ‘cryptogam’ (reproducing by means of spores).

‘Gam’ can also be used as an abbreviation for gamut.

So here’s a sentence:

I stretched my gams to walk over to the coffee shop and have a gam with my friends, and in the process our gam ran the gam from gams of whales to bigamy.

I prefer a little more variety in my sentences, but on the other hand, if you want to puzzle someone, it’s rather a useful word.

Frivol

The dictionary is full of such lovely words. I was originally going to write about ‘famulus’ which is similar to ‘amanuensis’ but I wrote about the latter in January of this year so decided to do something different. Just as an aside, ‘famulus’ can be an academic assistant to a university professor or a private secretary to a scholar or magician (I love this). According to www.manchester.edu/kant/helps/glossary.htm a “commonly used synonym of the day (for amanuensis) was famulus (although the latter has a wider meaning.)” What I didn’t know was that at a university, your amanuensis was a student who was “given a free portion of food in the university cafeteria.” I note that in some definitions, the role of an amanuensis was purely literary (e.g. a scribe) while a famulus also had other jobs such as being in charge of the tables and chairs for a lecture room and collecting fees from students.

Anyway, on to ‘frivol.’ I picked this word (meaning to act frivolously, given to trifling acts) because my Webster’s dictionary gave an example from Dorothy L. Sayers’ book Murder Must Advertise. The quote is, “a man of weight ... does not come and frivol in the typists’ room.”

Murder Must Advertise is one of my favourite of Sayers’ books because I first discovered and read it when I was working in an advertising department of a large company, and though its first publication date was 1933, the description of the advertising agency was very congruent with my experience. The above quote is said to Lord Peter Wimsey as he is introduced as the new copywriter in the advertising agency (as Death Bredon): “That is the whole department, except Mr. Hankin and Mr Armstrong who are directors, and Mr. Copely, who is a man of weight and experience and does not come and frivol in the typists’ room. He goes out for his elevenses, and assumes seniority though he hath it not.”

The place where I worked didn’t have separate offices for copywriters and artists; we lived in open cubicles, but the same kind of frivolling occurred. Instead of the Derby sweep (betting on the races) we bought occasional Lottery tickets as a group, and instead of munchies for the daily tea breaks we had an in house cafeteria. We also took turns baking cakes for each others’ various birthdays. This passage from Sayers again, does speak truth: “Bredon had never in his life encountered a set of people with such active tongues and so much apparent leisure for gossip. It was a miracle that any work ever got done, though somehow it did.” I enjoyed myself there.

Also, the relationship between advertising agency/department and clients does not seem to have changed much. Sayers describes at length the tortuous process of presenting copy to the clients, of which they then, “fretfully rejected all but half-a-dozen, and weakened and ruined the remainder by foolish alterations and additions.”  Eventually, after more back and forth and a final meeting, the client, “found himself returning with a sense of relief to the rejected layout. He then discovered that it was really almost exactly what he required.”

I have to say that one of the greatest lessons I took from my experience working in advertising was not to be personally very attached to any writing work that I did for a client. I learned that if they really wanted certain changes (even if I didn’t agree with them) it was, after all their money, and I just made the changes. This actually has stood me in good stead in jobs that I took afterwards, as I think it’s well to be able to detach yourself to some extent from whatever work you do, so that changes or rejection don’t entirely undermine you.

Anyway, for sheer entertainment, I highly recommend Murder Must Advertise. It’s well worth frivolling away an afternoon, evening or two.

Edifice

In Asterix and Cleopatra there is an Egyptian architect called ‘Edifice,’ a perfect name for someone who designs and oversees the construction of massive and monumental buildings (pyramids and temples). The root of the word comes from ‘edify’ – to improve spiritually. Edify is from a Latin word meaning to construct a house and also meaning a temple, house or building.

Many of the buildings I think of in this context in our modern world are court houses, parliament buildings, etc. They aren’t always buildings however, that I find structurally interesting or spiritual.

I once knew a man who told me that he thought female architects would design more organic buildings. When I asked for more of an explanation, he described more flowing and rounded buildings. So male -- angular, female – curvy. I don’t buy that (think of Henry Moore’s sculptures); it seems too stereotypical to me.

However, I like the idea that a building can embody spiritual symbolism. Churches are obvious examples, and I think of churches I visited in Germany and Poland.  High and vaulted ceilings and interior space. I’ve seen similar ones here in Canada, but also found very plain boxy structures that look like glorified meeting halls. Now, I do know of the extravagance in church buildings that resulted in stripping South American indigenous cultures of gold, as well as impoverishing local communities in Europe. The construction of a church could take decades and use of the energy and lives of many people. But at the same time it seems to me that we don’t need to deliberately construct ugly buildings. 

I can think of a number of structures that inspire me. I’ve never visited the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, though I would like to. It is a place of soaring ceilings as well as beautiful vistas with the soothing addition of water. Frank Lloyd Wright’s house “Falling Water” incorporates water, rocks, and trees into a house that looks as if it had grown naturally out of its environment. There are lesser buildings that please the eye. In Victoria, I like Craigdarroch Castle, though its grounds leave much to be desired. In Saskatoon, I quite like the Bessborough Hotel and it has a wonderful setting on the riverbank. The Mendel Art Gallery, too is unique.

When I googled inspirational buildings, I often got famous buildings instead, such as glass skyscrapers and modern towers such as the CN Tower in Toronto. I don’t think that skyscrapers are necessarily bad.  Chicago, for instance, has interesting art deco buildings, some of which are skyscrapers. In Saskatoon, we have a few old and newer pleasing apartment blocks.

I don’t expect that architecture to embody spirituality (in the broadest sense, as to inspire), though what an interesting goal towards which to strive.

Denim

In the past I’d heard that the name denim comes from serge de Nimes a kind of cloth made in Nimes France.  I even had a pair of jeans that had a little label that said ‘de Nimes.’ However, recently when I went on line to research this etymology of the word some more, I found conflicting information.  So let me confabulate about denim.

My dictionary defines ‘serge’ as ‘a durable twilled fabric having a smooth clear face and a pronounced diagonal rib on the front and back, made in various weights from worsted, wool, cotton, silk or rayon.’  One on-line source (WiseGeek) I found says that ‘serge’ comes from the Greek word serikos, meaning ‘silken’ and speculates that this was thus a fabric that originally came from China.  The Encyclopedia Britannica, however, says that ‘serge’ comes from the Latin serica also meaning ‘silk.’ It also says that the fabric was very popular for military uniforms.

At www.levistrauss.com we find an article that says a type of wool and silk fabric known as serge de Nimes was manufactured in France before the 17^th century. According to this site, a similar fabric was also manufactured in England and called by the same name. This site also states that there was another fabric, called jean, and manufactured in Genoa, Italy, a type of fustian, made of cotton, linen and/or wool.

The first printed reference to denim in the United States was in a Rhode Island newspaper in 1789.

I found one reference (about.com) that said that when Levi Strauss brought his canvas to San Francisco in 1853 to sell for tents during the gold rush, a prospector said, “You should have brought pants.” Levi started making waist overalls. However, the Levi Strauss web site doesn’t appear to give credence to this story and is much more prosaic in telling what supposedly happened.
Did you know that the areas where jeans typically fade (areas of most wear) are called the whiskers (upper thighs), the stacks (ankles) and the honey combs (behind the knees)?

As I researched this I began to be interested in the history of fabric in general. What I wondered is the oldest fabric or textile (not counting fur off the animal)? Again some conflicting info depending on the source (the downside of internet research – I don’t think you can trust only one source). I found some sites that said flax/linen was the oldest. Dyed flax fragments have been found in the Republic of Georgia that are 36,000 years old. In South America textile fragments of woven linen that have been dated at around 12,000 years old have been found. But felt (made of compacted wool or fur) could also be the oldest. In truth this is something we may never know for sure because fabric decomposes more readily than other artefacts that lie buried for centuries. The idea of felt being the oldest makes most sense to me because it didn’t need much processing and no weaving apparatus. People could have gathered hair from wild sheep or other animals and compacted it by soaking it in water and pressing.

Some mysteries are never solved.

Confabulate

Aren’t words wonderful?  One dictionary definition of confabulate is “to talk familiarly together, confer.”  Origins of the word are from the Latin fabulari – to talk, and fabula – story.  Another definition is “to fill in gaps in one’s memory with fabrications that one believes to be fact.”

I think that for a writer, confabulate is totally what s/he does, whether filling in gaps of fiction or fact or mixing the two.

Confabulation, it seems to me, is one of the things that differentiates humans from other species. Although, for all we know the Cetaceans (whales, porposes, etc.) great and small, as well as other creatures may confabulate also. We just don’t understand their languages yet. (I wonder if bees confabulate when they come home to the hive and dance the road to the nectar they’ve just found?)

At any rate, humans have been telling stories likely for as long as we’ve had language (though stories are told through pictures, dance and actions as well as words). Perhaps the first story was told by a mother trying to get her child to sleep.  She might tell him of the stars in the sky and of the pictures they represented to her. A hunter returning from a successful or unsuccessful foray could recount the events at the evening fire.  Oral stories kept alive the history of groups of people, set out the values and expectations.  And of course, stories always had to entertain, because who would want to listen if they didn’t enjoy the tale?

Winter is a great time for storytelling, and has been in many cultural traditions.  It’s cold outside, and hopefully food has been gathered and stored for the winter. There’s not a lot to do, and it gets dark early.  Stories make the time go more quickly and more enjoyably, and they also provide an opportunity for teaching.

Stories have many purposes, as varied as the people who tell them.  Some are short, others long, some forgettable, others stay with us for all our lives.  A story can be told by one person or by many.  Old tales and legends can be given new meanings.

One of my current favourite television series is “Once Upon a Time” which has taken the old Grimm’s Märchen (and other so called fairy tales) and given them a new spin, connecting all of them and putting the people into a town in the modern world.

Anyone can tell a story, and if you think you’re not good at storytelling, in this as in other things, practise means improvement. 

Rather than saying, “Let’s go for coffee,” to a friend, why not say, “Let’s meet to confabulate”?

Butterfly

On April 17, 2011 I posted a blog about seeing a particular butterfly – a Mourning Cloak – and mused about it.

However, the word ‘butterfly’ is interesting in itself.  My Webster’s dictionary defines it as “any of certain slender-bodied diurnal (active during the day) insects forming the division Rhopalocera of the order Lepidoptera that have very large broad wings which are often strikingly coloured and patterned and are usually held vertically over the back or expanded when at rest and usually slender somewhat club-shaped antennae sometimes hooked near the ends.”

The bit that fascinated me most in my dictionary, though, was  just before the definition regarding the origin of the word – from Old English buttorfloege and the belief that “butterflies or witches in the shape of butterflies stole milk and butter.”  I wonder how these ideas got/get started.  Did someone see a butterly light on a dish or milk or butter?  Many butterflies eat nothing at all, but of course it would take a lot of observation to find that out.

In some of the ancient Central American cultures images of butterflies were carved into many buildings (including temples) and objects (jewellery).  Such an image was often shown with the jaws of a jaguar.  I have difficulty putting those two things together, and yet in a sense they make sense – the dark and the light, yin and yang.  And of course, such an image would resonate even more in those cultures where butterflies were believed to be the souls of dead warriors.  Beauty and strength, poetry and death (reminds me of the Samurai)

Very Jungian somehow, and perhaps also Joseph Campbell.  The connections just keep happening -- the ancient Greek word for butterfly is ‘psyche.’

Perhaps you’ve heard the expression about the flap of a butterfly’s wing causing a tornado somewhere.  I tracked down (by accident – wonders of Internet serendipity) the correct statement and the origin of this.  In the late sixties Edward Lorenz was using an early computer program at MIT to study weather and changed one number representing atmospheric conditions from .506127 to .506, which totally transformed his long-term forecast. This resulted in him presenting a paper in 1972 before the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  The paper was titled “Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?” He doesn’t actually answer yes to this question, but does say, in effect, that predicting weather over the long term is very difficult because we don’t understand all of the factors (small thought they may be) that go into affecting weather.  To read the entire article (which isn’t that long and is pretty easy to read) paste the following into your browser: http://voluntaryboundaries.blogsome.com/2011/02/03/predictability-does-the-flap-of-a-butterflys-wings-in-brazil-set-off-a-tornado-in-texas/ Lorenz died in 2008, but it’s great that his paper is still available (and it still seems valid to me).

I think that butterflies are truly amazing, whether in reality or in our imaginations.  And they have been with us a long time -- the earliest known butterfly fossils are from 40 to 50 million years old.

Amanuensis

What a beautiful and romantic-sounding word for a rather mundane job – someone employed to copy from dictation or from what another has written – a secretary (Webster).  The word comes from the Latin servus a manu meaning servant at hand.

For 2012 I’m going to move through the alphabet, finding a word for each letter that interests me in some way. I’d already decided to use ‘ambition’ for this first blog and was going to begin with my Webster dictionary definition, but in the process of finding the word I came across ‘amanuensis’ which I’d heard and read before, but I wasn’t sure of the meaning. This is a good example of why, although internet searches can be very useful, they can also be narrowing rather than the opposite. If I’d merely looked up the definition of ‘ambition’ on line I wouldn’t have stumbled onto a word I’d much rather explore.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my computer and internet – lovei t amazes me that when I’m working on a novel about the sea I can find whale song and listen to it immediately – but I also still enjoy the old fashioned ways of research.  It’s a case of ‘both and’ rather than ‘either or.’  Now that I have that out of the way, I decided to do an internet search.

The term ’amanuensis’ apparently developed (according to Wikepedia) from a personal scribe or assistant in Rome, and evolved in France to become an assistant to the king.  This assistant was authorized to reproduce the royal signature on documents to save the king time and thus developed into portfolio ministers. ‘Amanuensis’ in Norway has been an academic title similar to an associate professor.

Writers have used ‘amanuenses’; for example, William Burroughs apparently had one who acted as secretary, researcher, assistant, and writer’s block breaker.

When I explore further on line I find other descriptions, such as someone who could take notes for a disabled person, copyist, transcriber, or a general assistant.  It’s one of those words that can be defined specifically or broadly, depending on need.

I’d love to have an amanuensis who would be a combination of muse, researcher, editor, companion and friend.  I’m sure other writers have them – in some cases they are probably paid positions, in others perhaps a spouse, friend or partner.