A Consideration of Words

This afternoon as I was driving home from the library I was thinking about words. I described something as splendid this past week. On second thought, splendid probably wasn't the right word to use when describing your admiration for a regional vernacular. Something that is splendid is covered in splendor, is it not? Like the grass covered with the final glow of the sun as evening falls.

Sometimes I want to say that a thing is terrific. But then I pause because it isn't terrific. There is no terror associated with the crayon drawings that my son produces during his daily quiet rest time.

Doesn't fantastic mean that something is too much to be believed? It is a fantasy, which is the equivalent of what Napoleon Dynamite promised his classmates, that he would make their wildest dreams come true. I check with IMDB. Was it Napoleon who promised that, or was it Pedro? My hopes are dashed. I remembered it wrong. Pedro made the promise; Napoleon only suggested it to him.

Here's one that Napoleon actually did use. Copied from the famous quotes page on IMDB.com: “That suit, it's... it's incredible.” Doesn't incredible mean that something really is not to be believed? As in, my credulity can only be stretched so far?

Smashing? I know I'm getting really British here, but could smashing mean that all the matter in the universe is so overwhelmed that it explodes under the weight of existence? Something that is wonderful if full of wonder. Something that is overwhelming in actual fact cannot be borne.

Impossible? Well, I think impossible is pretty straight-forward, even though it is usually used to describe things that really aren't impossible.

Can you think of any others?

I was about to quote something familiar which was said by C.S. Lewis, and that I'm fairly certain I have quoted in these pages before about the death of words. A quick internet search finds references to an essay with that title which I have never read. Lewis also writes about “verbicide, the murder of a word...” in Studies In Words, which I have read. But in thumbing through the introduction to Studies in Words this evening (for it is Monday evening as I write), I find something else to quote instead.

After hearing one chapter of this book when it was still a lecture, a man remarked to me 'You have made me afraid to say anything at all'. I know what he meant. Prolonged thought about the words which we ordinarily use to think with can produce a momentary aphasia. I think it is to be welcomed. It is well we should become aware of what we are doing when we speak, of the ancient, fragile, and (well used) immensely potent instruments that words are. (6, Lewis's formatting maintained)

Isn't it wonderful how human Lewis is? That in the middle of a book that would seem technical to most people, he inserts something as regular as an anecdote, but an anecdote that ties in with the matter at hand? He goes on to describe something similar to what I have been describing in my own undereducated way above, by which I mean to say that Lewis speaks with the authority of study, while I speak only from the considerations of my own mind, not having taken the time or trouble to find authoritative meanings for any of the words I have been pondering.

Inflation is one of the commonest [forms of verbicide]; those who taught us to say awfully for 'very', tremendous for 'great', sadism for 'cruelty', and unthinkable for 'undesireable' were verbicides. Another way is verbiage, by which I here mean the use of a word as a promise to pay which is never going to be kept. The use of significant as if it were an absolute, and with no intention of ever telling us what the thing is significant of is an example.... (7)

This is exactly the sort of thing I have been thinking about this week, and it is exactly the sort of exaggerative usage that I am continually guilty of, almost to the extent that I am “afraid to say anything at all.” Is there a whole lot of chance that I am going to weed these superlatives out of my speech? No. Is there much chance that I will weed them out of my writing? Probably not. But I am still going to be caught up short whenever terrific or terrible are the words I feel compelled to choose.

Kelly LOVES Books

I used to read this blog called Amy Loves Books until the author really started irritating me.  It was a personality issue I think.  But though I decided I didn't like her personally, I admit that I really enjoyed, and was inspired by, her writing.  She must have had something to do with my starting my very own blog.  She was the first ever blogger who I ever followed regularly.  She had an excellent set of posts describing her experience with post-partum depression.

I once commented to her that I thought it was much more interesting to read about what people actually were reading rather than what they would recommend for other to read.  I enjoy reading the occasional trashy novel myself, and I think that fact should humanize me somewhat for those who might be tempted to think I am too serious.  Not that I've read any trashy novels in a while.

I'll tell you what I am reading now, and someday I'll even share what else is on my bookshelf.

I have this awful tendancy to be reading three or four books at once, while simultaneously thinking of six or seven other books I would like to read.  This creates plenty of problems for me.  A typical problem is that I lose track of what in fact I am supposedly reading.

Right now I am reading:

The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodges Burnette.  I read this book when I was young (whatever that means), and I knew that I loved it, but I certainly didn't remember why.  I wondered what sort of power such a book might have now that I'm an adult.  The answer is that it is a wonderful, glorious, inspiring book.  It makes me want to have a garden of my own.  It makes me want to spend lots and lots of time outside.  I am troubled slightly by the racism of the period, but I have to lay that aside, because the rest of the book is spledid.  It makes you want to jump rope, and live an exceedingly healthy life.  Perhaps it romanticizes the purity and power of children to make the grown-up world right, but if it does, while I am reading it, I simply do not care.  I ordered the Norton Critical Edition because I wanted access to the historical information, as well as the critical essays, but I cannot promise that I'll read them before my neighbor's book club meets.

(And of course I wonder what we'll read next.  I have The Brothers Karamzov on my shelf, waiting to be read, but I've also borrowed some Walker Percy fiction from Patrick and Alina, and the latest Diana Gabaldon from my neighbor who has the book club.  I want to read Moby Dick eventually.  I'm less into fiction than usual at the moment, however.)

Studies in Words by C.S. Lewis.  This book is pure linguistics, and I think I've been working on it for a month already.  Honestly it's a bit beyond my comprehension, but it is an enjoyable experience reading some of Lewis's non-religious critical work.  The book is all about the meanings of words, and the ways that they have been used over time.  There's a difference between a word's meaning sometimes and the authorial meaning.  Lewis also indicates something he calls the dangerous meaning of a word, which is a meaning recognized by current readers that was unlikely to exist in the author's time, and the meaning with which a word is most likely to be misimbued. (This sort of writing perhaps makes me sound like an overeducated snob, but it is true that I am interested in such things, and reading this book has awakened me to the treachery of redefining words according to their accepted meanings.  It also makes me realize that I don't always truly know what a word means,even if I have used it a hundred times.)

(I have to go on facebook to see what else I am meant to be reading just now.  And this is one of the reasons why I keep a record on Visual Bookshelf.)

Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard.  This is a wonderful book and I am absolutely in love with it.  Kierkegaard looks at the story of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac in the book of Genesis from every possible angle, and in this book he discusses the nature of faith.  I picked the book up because I have this question about what the scriptures mean when they refer to fear of the Lord.  I don't know whether Fear and Trembling will answer that question or not, but it does talk about what it means to live this life in faith, a subject with which I happen to be confronted immediately.  I have a question now, which I asked my husband just the other night.  Does appropriate fear of the Lord preclude fearing His works, or actions?  If anyone reading this has an answer to this question I would be grateful.

Esther: It's Tough Being a Woman, which is a Bible Study by Beth Moore. I've never before done a Beth Moore Bible study, so this is quite a  new experience for me.  A friend invited me to participate in one being held at First United Methodist downtown, and I agreed for several reasons. I like how Beth Moore takes an inductive study method, and breaks it down (or slows it down) into manageable parts for the lay reader.  This far (in week 1) I have enjoyed doing the study immensely, though I have never yet attended a Bible Study meeting at First United Methodist, for reasons of children's health, and even though I don't always agree with Moore's points of emphasis.  I borrowed an Esther commentary from my brother-in-law Wednesday night to supplement the study.

Unofficially I am also reading How to Study Your Bible by Kay Arthur, God Calling by "the two listeners" and publised by A.T. Russell, and I'm studying Esther and Hebrews (for Sunday School) on my own using The Inductive International Study Bible, in which the guiding materials were provided by Kay Arthur.  I've been doing lots and lots of spiritual reading and study recently, and today I found out one of the reasons why, which I may share with my readers ("if any," to quote one of my son Isaac's favorite movies, "The Wizard of Oz.") eventually.  Besides this I am trying to finish my reading of the Bible, and re-read the New Testament by the end of the year.

This is not like me normally, I swear.  There is so much I want to learn, which is a subject I will embark upon at a later date.  For now, Michael is waiting for me to watch a particular program with him before bed.

It Sounds So Academic and He's Just a Baby

I try to be very careful about the wording I use with Parker. For instance, I try to give him a truthful indication of how long a task is expected to take. "Parker, mommy and daddy are going to leave you here (in the nursery) for a while. It's going to seem like a really long time to you, but it will really only be for three hours, and I promise we will come back and get you. If it is at all in our power we will come back and get you." I don't know how many of these words he understands, but still I try to be as accurate with my language as possible.

However, it is very difficult to break the habit of using "just a minute" to apply to all sorts of possible time frames. "Parker, I am going to take a shower now. You go and play with Daddy and I'll be out in just a minute." That of course is before he starts banging on the door and crying to get it. "Baby, you stay out there. I'll be out in just a minute."

So do you think he's too young to understand that words can have many different meanings? I think he probably is, and that being the case I fear that I have given him a very confusing idea of what a minute entails.

Of course, Parker understands much more of what we say than we necessarily know, and giving him accurate information now can only prepare us and him for understanding complicated abstractions later on.

When Parker was much smaller I would sit out on my front steps and tell him as many multi-syllabic words as I could think of. Then I'd choose a letter and think of words beginning with that letter. It was more an opportunity to let him hear my voice than any sort of learning exercise for him. Funny how I don't do that anymore, although the fact that he no longer sits still on my lap has much to do with it.

Curious Forms

While I'm not interested enough at this point to do the research myself, I wonder if any of you can enlighten me concerning this:

A friend loaned me a murder mystery by a British author in which the word "orientate" was used several times. I complained about this at the time. This morning I saw an episode of an old British televsion show called Waiting for God, which is about retirees living in a retirement home, and the "orientate" form was used there as well. Is this a distinctly British usage, or, if you're a linguist, is it something even more particular than that?

Another Word Game

I once found a lampshade back when I was working the sales floor at Lighting Plus. The shade had a tag attached to it that read "One of a Kind." At the time I joked that in this instance "one of a kind" was code for "That's one ugly lampshade. Please take it off our hands." Fortunately this particular lampshade was perfect for a lamp I had sitting in my apartment, and together lamp and shade weren't at all ugly, so I bought it.

Then I thought about those words, "one of a kind," a bit more.

Interpreted literally, "one of a kind" should really mean that this is one lampshade of a particular kind. In other words, there are lots of lampshades just like this one, and this is only one example of the kind. I think of an episode of Rugrats wherein Chukkie, pretending to be an ice-cream 'man, asks Lil what kind of ice-cream she would like. Lil responds, in that cute little toddler voice, "I want all the kinds."

Of course in actual usage "one of a kind" means that an object is unique, that there are no other objects that are like it. Usually the words "one of a kind" are paired with "original." Or maybe I'm mistaken. In reality "one of a kind" may actually be short for "one of a kind original" in which case current usage begins to make more sense.

Minutiae

Briefly: I started a new book last night, one that's been on my shelf for a while: More Than Words: Contemporary Writers and the Works that Shaped Them. From the title you may be able to tell that it is a collection of essays about significant works in these writer's lives. The book was compiled by Philip Yancy, and I'm really enjoying it so far. I can't wait to see what Madeleine L'Engle has to say about George McDonald, since I've given up on reading anything by him for the moment.

Don't think the starting of a new book means I've finished any of the ones I previously started. I don't know what it is that gets inside my head and compells me to read up to six different things at once.

When I talked to my brother on the phone this morning he said that he was alright. I interrupted him at this point and asked him, what does that mean exactly? We generally use it to mean that we are doing not too poorly, but not exactly brilliantly either. "Alright" sounds like it means that everything in your life is right. But there's only one "l" in alright he reminded me. So maybe "alright" is actually a contraction of "almost right." We don't really know much about prefixes, he contributed.

It's just a thought.