Oxymoronical

In addition to her non sequiturs, updates on the rainfall in places in Indiana that I could care less about, and complete lack of understanding of my likes, dislikes and personality, my mother also likes sending on mass forwards through the email. And they are always oh-so-delightfully hilarious. Not just knee-slappingly funny, but wet-your-pants, I-can't-breathe-make-it-stop Jeff Dunham funny.

As was the case on Friday, when my mother sent me this gem titled "Oxymorons", which was a series of questions that were supposed to make you laugh. More importantly, none of them are oxymora (the proper plural of oxymoron), which are contradicting terms that are somewhat amusing if one thinks about it long enough.

With that in mind, let's check on the funny that she decided to bless my life with:

1. Is it good if a vacuum really sucks?

Yes, otherwise it wouldn't pull dirt out of your carpet, you filthy hippy.

2. Why is the third hand on the watch called the second hand?

Because the "second" is the name given to a division of time that is 1/60th of a minute, the minute being the name given to the division of time that is 1/60th of an hour. Therefore, a "second hand", in this case, counts and records seconds, just as the minute and hour hands count their designated sweeps of time.

3. If a word is misspelled in the dictionary, how would we ever know?

There have been several instances across various dictionaries of misspelled words, but since the dictionaries go through rigorous editorial review before final printings, usually misspellings and grammatical errors are caught. If they aren't, a correction is made in a subsequent edition.

Also, wouldn't this question have been at least somewhat clever if something had been mispelled?

4. If Webster wrote the first dictionary, where did he find the words?

Webster didn't write the first dictionary, dickhead. Samuel Johnson did. Maybe you should have paid attention during English class, that way you'd know that, if you string words together, you can write things like "clauses" and "sentences" and "definitions for words in the dictionary".

As an aside, Webster did write the first American dictionary. He wrote it as a way of thumbing his nose at the British, whom we had just defeated to gain our independence. He's the one who is to blame for dropping the 'u's out of most English spellings, such as labour and colour so that they'd look less British.

5. Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack?

If something isn't working properly, we sometimes resort to smacking the instrument or machine in order to get it to work for us (but mostly to vent our frustrations). This is giving it "a whack". If something is "out of whack", then it needs a smack upside the head...like the author of this particular forwarding.

6. Why does "slow down" and "slow up" mean the same thing?

"Slow down" implies a natural deceleration, whereas "slow up" implies a more rapid braking of speed. Also, these sayings rose from regional dialects which, as the population of America has shifted and communications have improved, has caused a mixing of otherwise isolated phrases and speech patterns. This also explains why the girl at my favorite restaurant speaks with the most outrageously offensive New Jersey accent.

7. Why does "fat chance" and "slim chance" mean the same thing?

"Fat chance" means there is no chance. "Slim chance" implies that, while the odds are against you, there is still a chance for you to achieve your goal. Which would you rather hear when you're trying to bang that chick at the end of the bar? Fat chance or that your chances are slim? I'll go with slim chances over no chance at all.

8. Why do "tug" boats push their barges?

While tug boats do sometimes push their vessels around, by-and-large most tugs still pull barges and large vessels through the water.

9. Why do we sing "Take me out to the ball game" when we are already there?

Tradition. Besides, how many other songs about baseball that don't involve John Fogerty are there?

10. Why are they called "stands" when they are made for sitting?

Because the people who originally were "seated" there were forced to stand during the entire match.

11. Why is it called "after dark" when it really is "after light"?

Because it's a shortened form of "after darkness falls".

12. Doesn't "expecting the unexpected" make the unexpected expected?

No, because you're still anticipating something to happen which you are exactly sure of. You know something will happen, but you just don't know what. Therefore, it's still unexpected.

13. Why are a "wise man" and a "wise guy" opposites?

Because "guy" is a somewhat derogatory word, based on Guy Fawkes' fucked up attempt to blow up Parliament. Wise men come up with sage advice; wise guys try to detonate government buildings.

14. Why do "overlook" and "oversee" mean opposite things?

You can look at something, but not truly see it. Therefore, if you overlook something, you are missing it entirely. The word "see" implies a more specific examination, therefore if you are overseeing something, you are focusing your attentions on getting the job done.

15. Why is "phonics" not spelled the way it sounds?

Because the Greeks, from whom we take the word "phonics", didn't have an F as we know it. Their letter that made the /f/ sound was phi. When the Romans adopted various Etruscan letters, they absorbed the letter that would become F and assigned it the sound that phi made (as the Etruscan F made a sort of /w/ sound that the Romans used upsilon for).

The true irony in the question is that the Greeks didn't use C in their words and opted for the use of kappa, which should make the spelling of "phonics" as "phoniks". Apparently, the dumbass who wrote these questions overlooked that tiny little detail. Perhaps he should have had someone oversee his work.

16. If work is so terrific, why do they have to pay you to do it?

I think I'm beginning to see the "moron" part of the title here. In order to achieve work, some bit of force has to be applied to the system. In most cases, work is repaid with the desired or intended change on the system. In others, its reward is monetary.

17. If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?

Anyone who is witness to any of the marvelous mishaps and dramas that unfold in the world around us on a daily basis is the audience. All the world is a stage does not imply that the performance is taking place upon a designated site, but that it is happening in the world around us.

Again, the author of these questions must have failed English class and missed out on metaphor day. Also, you'll note, "metaphor" is a Greek spelling.

18. If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?

Love is blind. Sexual desire is visual in nature, especially for men. A feeling of sexiness is also important for women, which is why lingerie is so popular. I'm guessing, in addition to being a dickhead, the author is uxoriated, sexless or a Dolores Umbridge-like troll of a woman.

19. If you are cross-eyed and have dyslexia, can you read all right?

No, presumably you'd still read left-to-right. Dickhead. This question is so obnoxious and offensive, it begs to have disdain and insults thrown upon it. And, no, you would still have dyslexia and you would still have the unfortunate luck to have your eyes focus on a point not far before your nose. Way to be compassionate for others, assface.

20. Why is bra singular and panties plural?

Is not a brassiere a single piece of clothing? Panties is a shortened form of "pantaloons" (via pants) which comes from Pantaloun, who is a silly old man character who wore tight pants over very skinny legs. Pantaloons then became any sort of tight trousers in the same vein as Pantaloun's pants, and the pluralized form has stuck ever since.

21. Why do you press harder on the buttons of a remote control when you know the batteries are dead?

For the same reason that you whack an instrument that isn't giving you the result you want, mostly out of frustration. We've also been taught that if you do something harder, you will get the result faster, so pushing harder will, apparently, get the remote to work that much faster.

22. Why do we put suits in garment bags and garments in a suitcase?

Because before suitcases were used, most clothing was stored in bags. Therefore, garments would be stored in garment bags. The suitcase comes from the idea that men would carry a briefcase with them to work. As that was a smaller case, therefore "brief", a larger case would need a bigger name, therefore a suit.

23. How come abbreviated is such a long word?

Because it comes from Latin, "ab" meaning "from, of" and "breve" which means "short" (*ahem*). The ending is used to denote an action, which in the case of "abbreviated" means it happened in the past.

Abbreviation's abbreviation is abb.

24. Why do we wash bath towels? Aren't we clean when we use them?

You are clean when you use them. Unfortunately, the towels themselves are not. Tiny spores of mildew and bacteria live on the towels' surfaces and when they are used, the mildew and bacteria take up the water and start growing. We wash the towels to get the stuff that lives on them off.

Of course, after we toss them in the dryer and it cools off, the mildew and bacteria come right back.

25. Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?

Because if it's still wet in the bottle, it's not completely adhesive. Once it dries though, it's stuck--whether it's in the bottle or not.

26. Why do they call it a TV set when you only have one?

Because there are a lot of component parts in a television. Also, "set" has the most meanings of any word in the English language, so it doesn't just imply that you've brought together a collection of things. It could almost mean that "this is where you've placed it".

27. Christmas - What other time of the year do you sit in front of a dead tree and eat candy out of your socks?

Christmas - What other time of the year do we celebrate the most famous failure of birth control in the history of humanity?

28. Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?

Because "driveways" used to take us from the street to our garages, thus it was a way to drive. As garages became more full shit, it became impractical to park your car in them (apparently) and so now we park on our driveways. "Parkways" used to imply that the road went through pastoral settings, hence "parks".

There was, of course, at the end of the mass forwarding something about how God loves us and wants us to be happy and some other feel-good bullshit about friendship. I skipped that here because, if anything is oxymoronical, it's defining Christmas as eating candy from a sock in front of a dead tree and then talking about how buddy-buddy chumly we are with God.

Oh, wait. My mistake. That's not oxymoronical, it's just moronical, like the rest of the forwarding.

Okay...Really?

Last night, as I was working on the current manuscript, I needed to relate a story about Athena between my characters. Athena, of course, was a war goddess (among other things) in Ancient Greece, and, as such, she was typically shown garbed in the dress of a warrior. This usually involves holding a spear or a shield or a helmet or any combination thereof.

Since, of course, Athena is female, I was going to use the term "warrioress" as an epithet for her. Unfortunately, I wasn't sure if "warrioress" was a word or not, so I turned to the online dictionaries that I often frequent when I'm unsure of a word's true existence or not. Turns out, warrioress is in a dictionary and it is defined, as you might guess, as a female warrior. I then decided that I didn't actually like the word "warrioress" and just went with "warrior goddess", figuring that that covered both bases when it comes to epithets for Athena.

I couldn't leave well enough alone, however. I decided to check out images and pictures that would come up if one searched for "warrioress". I almost immediately wished that I hadn't.

My cursory study of female warriors reveals that, when a woman becomes a warrior, she no longer has need for armor. Or, any clothing at all, for that matter. Her breasts grow as big as or bigger than her head. Her hips flare, her waist shrinks, and--naturally!--she pulls on a pair of high-heeled boots or sandals in order to go running off into battle. All of this seems rather impractical--especially in the costuming department--but perhaps I'm just misguided. To my eye, it seems as though a woman's flesh would be pierced by an arrow or a sword since there is absolutely nothing there to slow the weapon's progress. Silly me, I guess, assuming armor was for protection.

Also, the Amazons, a famed tribe of warrioresses, cut one of their breasts off so that they wouldn't be hindered in drawing a bow. It does seem to be a bit of a hindrance for a female warrior's big, floppy breasts to be in the way when in the middle of battle--especially when she opts for either no bra, or one that really doesn't do anything for support. But, hey, what do I know?

Apparently, not enough about female combatants...

This is something that I have vowed never to do. Though I have no objections to scantily-clad women, writing a female character into a story simply to have her strip and/or run around naked for long periods of time for no apparent reason is something I refuse to do. Female fighters in my stories tend to follow the path initiated by Eowyn (she of Lord of the Rings fame); that is, they dress for battle just like men, they fight just as hard as men, they die just as easily as men. I might be writing stories that can be classified as "fantasies", but they certainly aren't going to be sword-and-shield erotica.

Not that it really matters for my current work, since there isn't much in the way of women on the battlefield anyway. The closest thing I have is appearances by Athena, and she's wearing a chiton whenever she shows up, anyway.

I'll end my rant now.

I'm nearly finished with the sixth chapter of the manuscript, and the main arc of the story is finally shaping up. When I finish this chapter, it will be as the hero of the story is embarking upon his quest. He just got the information for the quest...though he doesn't know it yet...and is about to do his big impulsive, hot-headed act of braggadocio that will see him on his way and the quest undertaken. Fortunately, I have the subsequent chapters already mapped out, so I don't need to pour a lot of extra research into what happens.

While I was researching ancient Greek funerary practices this week (turns out, they're not that different from our own...though we don't typically sacrifice rams on top of the fresh graves of our dead family members...much...these days), I came across one of my favorite words, and I thought I'd share it here. It is Sunday, after all (at least where I am).

threnody: n. a poem or song of mourning or lamentation.

It comes from the Greek word threnos which means "lament" or "dirge" and oide which means "song" (such as in "melody" or "ode"). A threnos was a song of lamentation sung at during the period of mourning during a funeral. The Greeks, afraid that they would offend their dead relatives, really put their all into mourning them by wailing and beating their breasts and clawing at their faces and even hiring professional singers to come and sing the songs of lament. A professionally-sung song was called a threnos.

After digging through my rant about the dress code for women on the battle field and the boring ancient Greek lesson, here's the writing updates:

6883 / 50000 words. 14% done!

25915 / 100000 words. 26% done!

The Funniest Word I Know

I'm sure you've probably played that annoying game with the cup and a ball on a string. Myself, I've never been very good at it, which I know must be a shocker to you. We're talking about a guy who, upon his first attempt at playing tennis, decided to hit the ball as hard as humanly possible. As my friend Joey and I stood there, watching the ball sail off into orbit, we decided perhaps we should play basketball, instead.

I don't do things lightly, which is why I'm always flicking my wrist as fast and as hard as humanly possible in order to send the ball (or ring) out into the space around my hand. Sure, it flies fast, but it doesn't hang in the air long enough for me to get the cup under it. After a few thousand tries like this--because it doesn't occur to me to not fling the ball as hard as possible--I give up and go play basketball.

Anyway, this little game has a name: bilboquet.

I wonder if trying to get a large-breasted, air-headed blond on a stick would be "bimboquet". Or just easy. Hahahahahahahahahaha! I made a sexual joke about the ease with which one may part a blonde's thighs. I'm so original!!!

The word--and hold on, because this might shock you--is French in origin. The French word bille means small ball (CQED...get it? It's a French joke!*) and coupling it with the word bouquet, which is a spearhead found on a coat-of-arms.

The use of this one might be a touch tricky, but I think I can work it in. Since the magnum opus features lots of nobility, I can see a scene at a court and then I can mention some attendant or advisor sitting in the corner, idly amusing themselves with a bilboquet. Sure, it might seem a touch out-of-place, since there's no France in the story, but I don't care. It would still be somewhat timely, and besides, you don't need a French maiden just to use a French-derived term in a book, right?

And, you never know...maybe someday it will help you answer a question of Jeopardy, kind of like when I told you what "thaumaturge" means or, like this past week, when the Battle of Actium was an answer of Jeopardy. And, if you ever get on the show, you can thank me with a small sliver of your winnings.



* CQED = "C'est qu'elle dit" which means "that's what she says".

Award Winning Sesquipedalianism

Finally! All of this crap hard work that I put into this blog has paid off, especially on the Sunday slot. Okay, sure, there's the 131+ gorgeous followers and then of course Some Guy telling me about how I helped him with Jeopardy once. Oh, and Soda & Candy giving me a golf clap whenever I use the word "paucity".

But now...now I have something to polish up and put in the trophy case.

Have you guys met Travis? He likes to fish. He's also a big fella who doesn't like sleeping in the back of Mitsubishi Outlanders, and he wonders if there will be bacon in heaven...a curious query, to be sure, since God was pretty cut-and-dry on that whole "don't eat the flesh of pigs" thing, and Jesus was the King of the Jews. But then, there's a company called Blue and Gold that makes delicious peppered bacon, and Blue and Gold just happen to be Notre Dame's colors and God loves Notre Dame, or so I was led to believe while I was there. Therefore, with Blue and Gold getting God's blessing, there probably is bacon in Heaven.

Can you see why I like reading this guy?

Anyway, Travis skated in here one day on a TMI Thursday (I think the one where I was kissing Margaret and puking at the same time). I went to see what he was all about, found discussions of bacon and a color-coordinated dissection of his...ampleness...and was like "I'm following this guy."

I'm even able, as I am with so many others, to overlook the Twilight references to see the truth and beauty behind the writer and the exquisiteness of his blog. But, seriously, people, stop with the Twilight obsession, okay? I mean, Christ, you don't find me obsessing over poorly-written stories, do you?

Oh.

Touche.

Anyway, Travis saw fit to saddle enrich my life with an award, and this one is one I can actually be less ashamed proud of: The I Use Big Words... Award.


I was relating the whole saga of not wanting to turn on the heat in my poorly-insulated house the other day in his comments section and trotted out the word "parsimonious" (you know, just like I did yesterday when I recycled the not-wanting-to-turn-the-heat-on story?). So, I figure that's a good one for my Sunday bout of wordly edification:

parsimonious: adjective frugal to the point of stinginess, restrained, sparing. Exhibiting parsimony.

It comes from Latin parsimonia from pars-, part of the perfect tense of the verb parcere meaning "to spare, to save" and -monia, which is a suffix denoting an action or condition. Like pneumonia (a condition of the lungs).

I've described a couple of characters in the big story as being overly parsimonious, which allowed for them to, in times of war, hire more knights for their personal protection. So, it's already been used, but I'm too lazy to look up where I've written it in.

So, there you have it. A brand new award and a how the word parsimonious secured it for me. Plus, you have a new blog you may or may not want to read, depending on your opinion of bacon and Heaven.

Also...I wore a green shirt yesterday. It was the only long-sleeved t-shirt I could find. That's why Notre Dame lost. It has nothing to do with the fact that our defense still can't figure out how to tackle. It was my fucking green shirt.

*sigh*

The Color Purple Violet

When I was a mere lad, spending my days in grammar elementary school, I had an art teacher who was a bit off. I mean, she was a nice enough lady, but I don't know if I learned anything of art from her. Most of the time, she gave us a bunch of projects to do, and then kind of tut-tutted about when we weren't creating works on the scale of Rembrandt. Except for this one kid, Ricky LaFollette, who was a phenomenal artist. He also kept getting caught jerking off in the bathrooms. Maybe that's the key to good art: constant masturbation.

Anyway, this isn't really about how often Ricky was pounding putz. No, this is about the one particular obsession my grade school art teacher had: the word purple. In fact, she would have been happy to stamp that word from the lexicon. Purple was the Jews to her Hitler. That might be a bit dramatic sounding, but she would actually dock your grade if she heard you say purple.

Her claim was that purple was not a word, that the shade should be called 'violet'. And she was ready to back her claims up with a half-grade drop, should one utter that profane word in her presence. Problem is, purple is most definitely a word. And...it's probably the right word.

Fat lot of good this does me twenty years later, but...

See, purple entered into the English language in the northern parts of England late in the 10th century. It's origin comes from the Latin word purpura, and evidently the word drifted north and was carried over by some of our Danish friends that we discussed on Friday. Words have a tendency to drift across the lands and change slightly as they do so, and even though Rome had fallen by the time purple shows up, Latin was still being spoken as a way of communicating back and forth with the various tribes and kingdoms that comprised the wilds of Europe in those days. When purple originally hit English, it came in as the Old English purpul. The shift from an /r/ to an /l/ is a common shift when words hop languages, or when people have been drinking too much malt liquor.

Violet, on the other hand, doesn't show up until the fourteenth century, and comes to us via Old French in the form of violette. This, in turn, is a diminutive form of the Latin word viola, meaning violet. The important thing here is that violet, in this sense, was in reference to the pretty little flower, the blue to rose's red. Once the word showed up, it was used to describe the color of the flower, and by the measure of it coming from the Old French, then it was used primarily by the aristocracy, who still spoke French in England following the Norman conquest in 1066. By this time, purple was firmly rooted with the common man.

To take this one step further, "purple" is used to describe the color and "violet" is used to describe the wavelength in the visible spectrum, you know, the old ROY G BIV acronym you were forced to learn at some point.

And, because it's Sunday, I looked up some synonyms of purple, trying to find a cool-looking shade. Amaranthine is a pretty cool sounding name, and it's apparently a deep shade of reddish-purple. It can also be used in the sense of eternal, unfading or everlasting. It is derived from the word amaranth, a type of flower, and comes originally from Greek amarantos, unwithering.

So, there you have it, Mrs. Chenoweth. I was perfectly fine in saying purple--especially when it was written on the crayon sleeve--and you were just being a nutty old fruitcake. However, she was a Purdue fan, so that probably explained a lot.

Asses are Made to Bear...

...quoth the Bard. It's true. In Taming of the Shrew, upon the initial meeting of Petruchio and Katharina (Kate), Petruchio invites Kate to come sit upon his lap. The Bard was such a dirty old man. Anyway, Kate responds to Petruchio's request with "Asses are made to bear, and so are you." I'm sure there was a little of that famous Shakespearean double-speak going on here, where Kate was not only pointing out that Petruchio was an ass, but he was also telling us how we should see more shapely buttocks flaunted in the open.

This all brings us to today's word. It's one of my favorites. I'm sure you've heard it before, maybe even used it. I know I've written it here. I must thank my friend, Asian Jim, for teaching me this word. This one is for you, Asian Jim (if you still read this).

callipygian: "kal-uh-pidge-ee-uhn" adjective pertaining to or having beautiful buttocks.

This word comes from Greek, kalli meaning "beautiful" and puge meaning buttocks. It shows up in the middle of the seventeenth century (so, well after Shakespeare tells us that asses should be bared) and originally was used in reference of a statue of Aphrodite, the Ancient Greek goddess of love, beauty and desire. In Rome, they called her Venus.

You can probably see why this is one of my favorite words in the English language, and why I thank Asian Jim so much for teaching it to me. Thanks, buddy.

Anyway, I know exactly where this is going. There's a certain young princess that will have her "callipygian curves" described, most likely in reference to the spray of sea water on her garments, causing them to cling tenaciously to her skin. That is, if she's wearing clothes at all at that point. I haven't decided yet. We'll see.

So, the next time you see some attractive young woman walking down the street with "Juicy" written across her ass, now you know how to describe it--providing she's over 18, that is. Pervert.

But wait...there's more!

In the course of looking up the etymology of the word, I stumbled across a few others, and I just have to share them with you. Mostly because I'm twisted like that.

The opposite of callipygian is cacopygian, meaning "having an ugly buttocks", coming from kakos meaning "bad, evil" and the aforementioned puge.

A related form is steatopygous, meaning "having a prominent or fat buttocks", this time coming from stear or steat, meaning "tallow, fat" and puge.

And then there is possibly my new favorite word that I've learned in the past ten minutes, dasypygal, meaning "having a hairy buttocks", coming from Greek dasus with the meaning of "hair, dense" and puge. Awesome.

So, there you go. Four words for the price of one, all of them related to your sweet ass. Wait a second. I'm not sure if this word exists or not, but I'm going to try and take credit for coining glycopygian, meaning "having a sweet ass" (glycys being Greek for "sweet").

Words are awesome.

Well, This Stinks

I don't really believe in luck. I don't believe that every step of our lives is determined by destiny, either. I think we make our own luck, and that we have to pay for bad decisions and whatnot.

However...I'm beginning to rethink my ideas about what shirts I wear on the days Notre Dame plays. In 2006, I wore a t-shirt with a skunk on it the day Notre Dame played Michigan, because a nickname for the wolverine is the Skunk Bear. See? Much like our fat coach, I was trying to be too cute and clever. Anyway, we know what happened that day...and in case you've forgotten, Notre Dame got beat by Michigan. Badly. Kind of derailed all shots at a National Championship and a Heisman for Brady Quinn. I attributed the loss to the shirt I wore, jokingly.

A few weeks later, I wore a t-shirt with a bear on it for the day Notre Dame played UCLA (the Bruins), and, well UCLA was leading late. Disgusted, I went upstairs and changed into a different shirt. I come back downstairs, Notre Dame scores late and wins. Coincidence? Most likely, but now suddenly I'm having second thoughts.

Then, in 2007, I decided I'd wear green shirts instead of Notre Dame shirts, just to see what would happen on game days. Well, I wore green shirts for the first 9 weeks of the season, and it was a disaster. So, I scrapped the green shirts. I scrapped them last year, too, and we struggled to mediocrity.

I say all of this because last week, I wore a green shirt. Notre Dame lost. Today, I wore my favorite shirt--a gray shirt with dark green sleeves. And, well, Notre Dame struggled mightily to pull out a victory. The defense--or the lack thereof--stunk the joint up.

This whole thing is not only a cathartic working out of the pain and suffering of yet another nail-biter of a game that Irish fans had chalked up as a win, but it's also the lead in to a fabulously awesome word I stumbled across last week while putting together the Latin lesson: mephitis.

And Notre Dame's defense has been rather mephitic these past two weeks.

Mephitis (meh-fight-is): n. 1.) a foul smell or stench, 2.) a foul-odor or poisonous gas emitted from the Earth, such as in a swamp or bog.

Mephitis is also the name of several genera of Skunks, because of the whole stink thing. Adjectival forms are mephitic or mephitical.

Mephitis is Latin in origin. Mefitis was a Roman goddess that was the personification of the noxious odors emitting from the ground, specifically from swamps and volcanic systems. The closest thing she had to a temple was at a place called Mefite (May-fee-tay), which was a part of the Vesuvian volcanic system. While marching along the Appian Way (via appia)--the most famous Roman road, stretching from Rome (around the knee of the boot) to Brundisium (on the heel of the boot)--Roman soldiers would rest at Mefite. There, they sacrificed animals to Mefitis, apparently by holding them in the areas where the poisonous gases were most concentrated so that they succumbed to Mefitis' natural aromas.

I haven't really thought of how to use this particular word, yet. However, I'm guessing that I'll be more able to use the first definition rather than the second. Hell, I'm guessing I'll be able to work mephitis into a TMI Thursday story, given the joyous fun that my bowel system, minus the gall bladder, tends to provide.

Oh, and by the way...I'm wearing a red shirt next weekend.

Yet Another Interesting Word Find

So, in the past few months I've been reading a lot of things that deal with the history of the English language, etymology, the influence of Latin, and even a fair bit of that whole "how to learn Latin without taking any real classes because you're a cheap bastard" thing. Well, having a bunch of books around the house helps with that last one.

Anyway, while reading something about the name Peter and its influence on the Christian church and all (remember, the "rock on which I will build my church" and all), I came across another word that wasn't just cool and interesting, but also very useful for my work on the magnum opus. The word is "saxicolous".

Saxicoulous/saxicoline: adjective Living on or growing among rocks. It comes from the Latin (surprise!) saxum meaning rock and the verb colere, to dwell. Both forms are acceptable, though I think "saxicolous" is more the botanical term.

So, the main noble house in the story is called Montgomery. Montgomery, itself, is French and means "Gomeric's hill", and Gomeric is German and means "power of man". So, it makes sense then that House Montgomery lives on a hill. And they do. They live on the side of a mountain, which was land given to them by their liege lords, House Hall. The bestowal of the land was supposed to be a gift for services rendered and the undying loyalty of the Montgomerys to their lord, however, the land was at the end a low mountain chain and was not exactly lush. The rocky soil was not good for growing crops, and so others joked about how the only things that would grow on that mountain were thistles. While the Montgomerys discovered that the ground wasn't good for growing crops, they did find that it was good for providing mineral wealth, specifically gold. The Montgomerys then adopt the Thistle as their symbol (it has previously been a Hound, symbolizing their servitude and faithfulness), to mock those who had mocked them previously. It's kind of an acceptable form of "neener neener neener!"

As you can see, working the word "saxicolous" or "saxicoline" into that little narrative shouldn't be difficult (I'm kind of leaning toward the latter...sounds a little more keen). I'll bring it up from time to time while people are discussing the Montgomerys and their home on the side of the mountain.

In case you were dying to know, "saxatile" is the term used in describing a saxicolous plant via its species name. For example, the Heath Bedstraw found in the UK is called Galium saxatile.

Now hopefully Jeopardy will ask a question about this and once again make me look like a fucking genius (though I doubt it since they're mired in the College Championship reruns right now).

It Feels Like...Another Weird Word Day

So, yeah. It's been awhile since I posted one of these. Sunday being a day of rest and all, where you don't work and you don't play and--above all else!--you don't blog. I'm pretty sure that's in the Book of Leviticus somewhere. Right by the rule about not eating camels.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a bookcase to put together.

Ha, I'm kidding. Well, not about the bookcase. I have to do that, which is why I'm here, avoiding any semblance of real work. So long as my fingers are dancing over the keys, then they don't have to be tapping fasteners into the panels of the bookcase.

Do yourself a favor and re-read that last sentence. That, my friends, is what I call fine writing. It's like a spectacle crafted out of words. What? A train wreck is a spectacle, too. So, it's not like I was lying to you about it.

This week's weird word is one you've all seen way too often, especially around here. And yet, I loves it like the Precious. The word is "indefatigable".

Indefatigable means "tireless, inexhaustible" or "unable or seemingly unable to be fatigued". It comes from the prefix in-, which in this case means "not", and a second prefix de-, which is used to intensify the root word -fatig-, itself coming from the Latin fatigare, "to weary" (check it out, a first conjugation verb!). Hang the suffix -able on there for good measure in order to add the "capable of" meaning, and you've got yourself a mouthful of wordy goodness.

There's the origin of the word, but how did I come about using it as my own epithet? Originally, my "screen name" had been my real name, and then for "anonymity's sake" I decided to go with the rather blase and bland mjenks. After a few months of being utterly and completely bored with my own name (I've only been seeing it for the 33 and a half years), I thought I'd toss in something new. Since I'm a bit of an egomaniac, I added "the incomparable" at the beginning of my name and went around commenting in people's blogs as such for about a month. I then opted to change it to "the incorrigible", because, well, that's a pretty apt descriptor, too. Along about the time I changed it to "the incorrigible", one of my first loyal readers, Chemgeek, posted an entry to his blog about the "Word of the Day" and the word was "indefatigable."

Being the clever wordophile smartass that I am, I dashed off three different definitions for the word, none of which were "tireless". A few days later, I quietly changed the epithet from "the incorrigible" to "the indefatigable". About a week later, college football season kicked off, and since I'm an alumnus of the University of Notre Dame, I thought it would be clever to capitalize only the ND and of "indefatigable". That is how the screen name has evolved into what you see before you.

Using it in a book won't be too difficult, especially since I've got armies marching to and fro. They'll seem "indefatigable" in their efforts to get from one place to another, or to scale the walls of a besieged city. Also, the lead female protagonist will be "indefatigable" in her efforts to protect her home and her family, all the while she tries to raise the status of her husband's home city to what she thinks it should become. Oh, yeah, and then there's the whole main plot of the story in which she is integral. So, yes, Lillian will be quite indefatigable as she tries desperately to bring about the conclusion of the tale.

More Goofiness for a Sunday

Whilst perusing the hagiography for a new saint to make fun of discuss the life story of, I came across the word "thaumaturge". At first, I thought, "Hey, that's a good, silly word." And then I learned what it meant, and I was like "Holy cats! I must use this word somewhere!"

Yes, in my mind, I say shit like "Holy cats!"

Thaumaturge: noun One who performs miracles, especially healing.

The derivation is from Greek, actually, and not Latin. Thaumat is the Greek word for "miracle" or "wonder" and "-urge" comes from ergon which means "work". It's been Anglicized a bit to get to the current ending you see before you.

I think this word will actually pop up a lot (despite the definite lack of Greeks in my story); I'm thinking of making it a title. I have a character named Brandon Voskuil who is one of the first to perform healings through magical powers. I know, I know, fantasy stories suck. You don't have to read it if you don't want to. Anyway, he'll eventually, as his healing powers become more widespread and better known, become Brandon the Thaumaturge.

Of course, religious references don't make any of the various thaumaturges have any magical powers, and so religious translations often translate "thaumaturge" as just "wonderworker." Boring. Bring on the magic, says I. Fuck, it's put a loaf of bread or two on J.K. Rowling's table.

Another Sunday Goofy Word

Well, my in-laws have all left from the grand celebration surrounding my daughter's First Communion. There's a soft, sort of fragile quiet hanging over the house. It's blissful. You might think that, in this case, I'd opt for a word like "palliation" to highlight in this Sunday goofy word thing that I'm striving to work into my writing(s).

Instead, I'm picking a word that I meant to mention last week, but I spent most of the day Sunday laying on the couch, suffering through some malaise or another, which is a moderately poetic way of saying "I didn't feel like it."

Anyway, the word today showed up at Vic's joint, What Were You Thinking? The lovely Vic, in her bounteous and loving heart, adopted a word from SavetheWords.org. It was such a lovely word, I've decided I needed to use it a book somewhere.

Vicambulate: v. to walk about the streets

The word finds its roots in the Latin verb ambulare which means "to travel/to traverse" or "to walk". This root pops up lots of other places, like circumambulate which means "to walk around" or, one of my very favorite Cenozoic creatures, ambulocetus, which is an ancient whale ancestor and literally means "the walking whale". The vic part comes from the Latin vicus which means "a grouping of houses" or "village."
This one is easy. I already worked it in while I was doing a bit of rewriting/revision the other day. The scene here is that the main character, Nathaniel, is returning home after three years away at war. As he returns home, a storm breaks out over the city (oh, symbolism!).

"Nathaniel raced through the streets, despite the sheets of rain slicking the paving stones. Neither the city guards nor the commoners who could normally be seen vicambulating Rock Creek were to be found; even the cutpurses and beggars had sought shelter against the pounding rains of the storm. The only people who could be seen in the streets were Nathaniel and those knights who formed the honorary guard around him."

So, there we go. Three words thus far, and two of them have actually been worked into manuscript form. Working "ambulocetus" into a story may prove to be a touch more difficult.

Another Goofy Word I've Recently Come Across

I've got another goofy word to hit you with. This one is incredibly odd. Well, maybe I think it's odd because I'm not overly familiar with ancient Greek. Still, it seems like an overly goofy word and the meaning might not be immediately apparent (I had to look a the etymology in order for it to make more sense).

Psychopomp: a conductor or leader of souls to the afterworld. Charon was a psychopomp who carried the souls of the dead across the River Styx into the realm of Hades. Hermes served as a psychopomp when he guided Eurydice's ghost to Orpheus. Psychopomps aren't limited to Greek mythology (Heimdall is a Norse psychopomp), but these are two better known instances that I could think of.

I mean, seriously? We needed a word for this? Apparently so. Given that my BIG BAD EPIC STORY is a fantasy story with gods and shit in it, working this one into a book would probably be easy. The real challenge should be to work into a piece of fiction that isn't a fantasy. Still, I'm going to pop it in somewhere, probably dealing with the God of Death. I've already formulated the scene in my mind. Not having a psychopomp will be one of the reasons why the God of Death has gone mad: he is the one who has to guide the souls of all the deceased to their final realm. It will probably appear in the conversation between one of my main characters and one of the gods, probably the Death God's sister, the Goddess of Life. See how that works? Almost brilliant, eh?

Oh, apparently, "psyche" doesn't pertain just to "mind" in Greek, it is used as the word for "soul". "Pompos" means "sending", so I guess it literally means "one who sends souls" somewhere.

And, by the way, Happy Mother's Day. May your mama--or you, if'n your you're a mama--not meet up with any psychopomps for a good, long while.

Goofy Words I Want to Work into a Book

I don't know if this will become a somewhat regularly appearing feature or not; we'll see. Being that I'm, you know, doing that whole whoring myself to any literary agent willing to listen...or at least read their email...I've started back into writing. Slowly, to be sure, because it's been a bit painful. I'm currently reworking some of my chapters in the BIG BAD EPIC STORY so that they, you know, don't suck. A lot of shit I'm redoing I worked on while still in college, so it's not...good. I mean, it conveys the story, but it's not where I am now as a writer (you know, with dick jokes every other paragraph).

Anyway, I've come across a few words in my reading (in that whole trying to become a better writer game I've been playing with myself) that I think "Wow, that shit's goofy enough that I should work it into my book somewhere."

And I have. A couple, at least. And I was mighty proud of it, too. Even now, when I re-read this shit and I come across your face the word that I slipped into the writing, it makes me smile.

The first of these words--surprise!--has a heavily Latin influence:

uxorious: characterized as being excessively fond of or submissive to a wife.

It comes from the Latin uxor, which means "wife".

And here's a sample:

"Count Alsace was a small and uxorious man, with beady eyes, a balding pate and a propensity toward twitching his upper lip. He spoke softly and stepped quickly and was exceedingly deferential to anyone who asked anything of him, as if he had spent his entire life bowing and scraping before another, despite his noble station in life."

As you can see, I chose the latter part of the definition, where poor Count Alsace was submissive to his boorish wife. Strangely enough, we never meet her in the course of the story. It's for the better, I'm sure; my inheritance rests on Countess Alsace not making an appearance in the story.