Words: A History Lesson

Today could not be any wetter if we dunked it in the ocean. Fortunately, I have a new and lovely pair of rainboots! They are navy and hot pink plaid on a cream background and solidly waterproof. They even have a cozy, hot pink fleece lining. I amused myself on the way to work thinking of other words for rainboots. Shall we?

Wellies: British, from Wellingtons or Wellington boots. Named after Arthur, First Duke of Wellington (1769-1852). He apparently was a dashing, well-dressed fellow who set many fashion trends, and thus had boots, trousers, coats, hats, and even a few trees named after him.

Rubbers: also British; relatively modern slang for rubber boots or rubber waders.

Mukluk: also "muckluck." Eskimo word for sealskin, describing the material of their traditional footwear: waterproof and often lined with fur.

Galoshes: Latin for "Gallic shoe." A wooden sole strapped to the foot with leather. However, there's an alternate (and more interesting) etymology: Greek from the word for "shoemaker's last;" the shoemaker had run out of expensive leather and resorted to the cheaper, last-resort wood.


Whoo! That was fun. And I've branded myself a perma-nerd.
[Thanks to the Online Etymology Dictionary for my info.]

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

See if you can identify the word I didn't know in this sentence: "The personality might slowly elide until it is no longer recognizable or regainable as itself; it may cease to be the personality that goes with a particular self." (Larry McMurtry, from Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, in "Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression," by Nell Casey)


elide: to omit, or suppress; to merge, as in "whole periods are elided into mere seconds on the silver screen;" from the Latin for "strike out"


McMurtry's essay explores self-hood after a quad bypass. It's frightening, yet puts words to things I have always wondered about (anaesthesia, major surgery, and the emotional/spiritual effects). The book is a collection of essays by writers on depression, and as morbid as it sounds, it's very well-written and engaging.


The book only confirms my private opinion: all writers suffer what I call "Virginia Woolf days": days when you feel those dark voices nibbling along the edges of your mind, when the clouds press down on your shoulders, when all you can see before you is a calendar list of like days and your mind simply refuses to open up enough to consider the possibility of sunshine. Woolf filled her pockets with stones, walked to the river's edge, removed her shoes, left her stick in the grass, and walked into the river. Her letter to her husband is a beautiful, bitter-sweet testament of their marriage, his courage, and her sensitivity:

Dearest, I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that - everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer.
I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been.

V.

On that note, I'm going to look at some LOLCatz...

When his wings enfold you yield to him, though the sword hidden among his feathers may wound you.

I'm learning about wings this week.

He will cover you with His pinions,
And under His wings you may seek refuge;
His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark.

Pinions are the long, stiff flight feathers at the furthest tip of a bird's wing. They are individually controlled by the bird to adjust to changes in the wind and air currents. The feathers on a bird's wing get smaller as they recede along the wing toward the body. Each feather has small barbs that lock the feathers around it into place, forming a solid, air-resistant wall of wing.

The bone structure at the end of a bird's wing is referred to as his "hand" - it's made up of various parts, specifically phalanges. In the Greek, phalanx was a tight formation, used in military and anatomical definitions. Anatomically, it describes the knuckle bones along the ridge of your hand - "originally the whole row of finger joints, which fit together like infantry in close order" (Online Etymology Dictionary). They form a barrier, a unified front that cannot be penetrated.

Think along those lines. Mother birds shepherd their chicks and sweep them under their wings at any sign of danger. If an enormous wing were to sweep down and cover you, the feathers would be stiff and tumble you, possibly bruising you in the movement. But you would be pressed into the soft down feathers along the bird's side. From the outside, nothing could get through to you.

Now look at this: the word "bulwark" derives from bole, meaning "plank, tree trunk" (OED). The word "phalanx," before it was used in the Greek, derives from the Proto-Indo-European word meaning "round piece of wood, trunk, log" (OED).

I'm still working on the significance of all this. But it's reassuring to know that I am in a place that is warm, safe, and impenetrable. I am protected, kept in line, mothered tenderly. And yet the protection set up around me that is so stiff and fierce is also a force that nurtures and soothes. Again...paradox.