Etymology of Cort

Maurice, the bagatelles, hurry up.

2011-04-08T23:12:00.001-07:00

Here, this is me trying to be more disciplined and write more often. I don't plan on writing anything good tonight. But I want to write something, you hear? So, I have a word for the day. I almost wrote about this one last night, but I was too tired. The word is "bagatelle." I'll give you three guesses as to which language English borrowed this word from. That's right, you don't need three guesses: it's French. Thank you battle of Hastings.

Oddly enough, a bagatelle is not something edible. Lexical delectation only. The most commonly used meaning of bagatelle these days is "a trifle." But again, not the kind of trifle you eat, rather "something of little importance." Its second meaning has to do with a game which involves "rolling balls into scoring areas," or so says Merriam Websters. Well, that sounded rather strange and a little suspicious to me, so I consulted other dictionaries and eventually YouTube, which revealed bagatelle to be something that looked like an ancestor of the pinball machine. It has little pins and obstacles blocking the holes that you are trying to get the balls in. Actually, it is a macro version of one of those little hand-held affairs that used to be popular before Gameboys came to be. They had little steel BB's that you would try to roll around and get to stick into various slots. Anyway, a bagatelle looks like a four-foot by three-foot version of one of those.

The third definition is "a short literary or musical piece in light style," whatever that means. I think Beethoven wrote a few bagatelles or something. The end.

So, most of the contemporary ways to introduce this word into your daily life would be to use it in the first sense--a trifle. Well, I started out thinking that this would be a good idea, but I have changed my mind. It just sounds rather pretentious, I'm beginning to think. I guess a lot of French words do, but can you imagine breaking out this new word in public:

Friend: Hey, Cort, how are you doing? My, but that is a fetching waistcoat you have on.

Cort: Oh, this old thing; it's just a bagatelle, really.

Friend: It's a what?

Cort: Just a bagatelle.

Friend: Is he a designer?

Cort: No, no, it's just a trifle.

Friend: Gross, are you supposed to eat it?

Cort: No, a trifle, you know, something of little importance.

Friend: Oh...

Cort: Sorry...I...

Friend: Um...Hey, I've got to run.

So, really, be careful with this one.

Wherefore art thou Farrago?

2011-04-06T14:07:00.000-07:00

I found a note that I sent to myself, months ago, about the word Farrago (pronounced Fuh-rah-go) if I ever wanted to do etymology again. This blog has certainly lost that original focus, though I admit that there was not much to lose as this blog consists of less than twenty posts. Unfortunately, I don't even remember where I came across this word, but it is just the kind of word I like to highlight here, as it doesn't get used much, but it certainly could.

Farrago is "a confused mixture or hodgepodge." See--there are endless possibilities. It comes from the Latin "farragin," which has something to do with "mixed cattle fodder." Some of the dictionaries I consulted also hint at some relation with barley, whose Latin counterpart I keep seeing as "far spelt", but I can't tell, with my limited linguistic training, whether "far spelt" is a translation, or if the "far" is Latin for "spelt". Sorry, just geeking out a little. Anyway, it's a very old word, used as early as 1623.

It can be used in so many charming ways. For example, "This gallery has a fine farrago of artwork." Or, "My life is a 'farragin' farrago right now!" Or as my wife might say to me, "Honey, what on earth is that farrago you are making in the kitchen...I'm not eating that."

I haven't once seen it used as a verb, but I think that's a shame. Think of how useful it could be: "Excuse me, sir, could you repeat the question--I'm a little farragoed from last night's office party." Or, "No, I still don't get it; I think my parents farragoed me as a child." Or, "How would you like your eggs: sunny-side up, scrambled, or totally farragoed?"

Seriously, this word is worth a test-drive. But please--farrago responsibly.

You Say Pajama...

2011-04-04T22:14:00.000-07:00

Just before going to bed the other night, my wife and I got into one of our favorite past-times...arguing about words of course. Usually, I use a word--something that might come up on the GRE--and my wife challenges it as though our life was a never-ending game of scrabble or something. Then we argue about the connotations in which it can be used and finally pull out Winston (my red, Random House Webster's dictionary) to settle the matter.

Well, on the night in question, instead of me commenting on her pulchritude and proceeding to argue its usage, we decided to guess the origin of the word Pajama. I know what you're all thinking; you want to invite us both to your next party. It was her idea this time. We were just lying there in the dark and she said, in a very serious tone of voice, "What language do you suppose the word 'pajama' came from?" I love this woman. At first, I guessed it was from some Arabic language, and said so very confidently like I had just looked it up this afternoon. I paused for effect... "You just made that up!" she exclaimed, calling my bluff. "You're right" I said, "but I bet I'm close."

I suddenly remembered that the word "Panjandrum" was Hindi--which is completely incorrect, by the way--and felt sure that pajama must be as well. Winston was called forth, and sure enough, he claims that "pajama" entered English in the late 18th century via Hindi and Persian. The pajama, which literally means "leg garment," (pay=leg jama=garment) was very popular in the Middle East and India when colonial English types noticed how much more comfortable Sikhs and Muslims were in their loose-fitting trousers. And of course they were embarrassed about being copy cats, so they took to only wearing them at night, when no one else was looking. Ha! The cat is out of the bag now, you empire-bent colonialists. Now, everyone knows.

Still, it's a shame that we in the West can't seem to make our fashion justify the wearing of comfortable clothing for more than a few years at a time, except for our nightclothes. Yeah, I'm talking about skinny-jeans, which I do not recommend sleeping in, or wearing on any occasion other than to 1980s-punk-rock parties.

I Apologize.

2010-06-18T18:15:00.000-07:00

After apologizing to BP for a White House "shakedown," and then (after some pressure from his own party) apologizing for his apology, Joe Barton, Republican representative of Texas was feeling much better about himself. Clearly on a roll, he picked up a phone and apologized to his wife for forgetting their anniversary. Then he called his son and asked forgiveness for missing all of those baseball games. He was feeling distinctly lighter, and didn't want this feeling to end.

On his way out of the committee hearing he stopped to apologize to the oil-smeared protester who was now sitting in handcuffs being questioned by a police officer. Suddenly, she began feeling bad for having interrupted the hearing. Tears welled up in her eyes and she sincerely apologized to the police officer. She reminded the officer of his mother, and he began thinking he should probably call his mother and come clean about the broken vase he blamed on his sister all those years ago. He hoped a good old-fashioned "I apologize" would do. Consequently, he let the protester go with a warning, and handed her a paper towel to wipe off the oil.

Barton saw the growing effect of his apology and realized he couldn't stop there. He immediately called a press conference and apologized to Joe Biden for having offended him. This inspired Biden to apologize to Barak Obama about all of the gaffs he has made over the course of their term of office. The President was deeply touched and decided to call the Tea Party and select members of the Republican Party to apologize for having scared the $&*# out of them with his more socialistic policies. The parties responded by saying sorry for all of the times they had called him "Adolf Stalin" in private, and vowed to take down all of the "Obamanation" posters they had put up.

This overwhelming feeling of reconciliation and love spread throughout the country. It became so powerful that all of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico voluntarily gathered itself together and retreated back into the ground. Expert oil translators reported a gurgled apology right before the last of the oil disappeared. Then, in an unprecedented move, Greenhouse gasses sent an email to Al Gore saying they were sorry for all of the trouble, and that they knew when they weren't wanted. Baffled scientists have not been able to find any in the atmosphere since and Al Gore finally said sorry for flying in private jets. The French apologized for their snobbery, and then they apologized again for being skinnier than us even while eating better food. And Texas even vowed to be a little more humble.

Don't underestimate the power of an apology.

Bizarre dreams and fighting off old age.

2010-06-12T18:53:00.000-07:00

I have been having really bizarre dreams lately. I can't say that this is anything new. If you know me you have heard the one about the kittens attacking the poor toothless baby alligators. I'm not sure why my dreams are so often violent, and just down-right strange. I really don't take any drugs, I promise, unless you count Breyers Butter Pecan ice cream. I have heard that ice cream can give you strange dreams, but I thought it was merely folklore--maybe not.

So the other night was in a concentration camp with my wife, at least one of my children, and a few friends. It was a small camp and we were planning our escape by staging a violent coup. For some reason there was a lot of junk in all of the barracks. We scoured the place for weapons, and I suddenly remembered that one room had, at the bottom of a pile of junk, a sword and a battle axe. So I went to go dig them out, but our captors came looking for us, just as I got into the room with the junk. There were about five of them after me and they all had billy clubs. I decided to try and hide under the junk. They were poking around in the pile trying to find me when I found the sword. The only trouble with the sword was that it had a rat-tail tang, so I knew it was good for about one hit.

Now, in retrospect, I know that what I am about to describe might sound slightly humorous, but it was terrifying at the time. I had to make the decision to fight for my life and potentially kill other human beings. This was not something that my dream mind came to lightly. The decision to kill was further complicated by the fact that the longer the people looked for me the older they became. Within seconds they were all between the ages of 65-85, and wearing retirement garb--complete with cardigans and baseball caps. But I knew that it was either them or me, so I finally lashed out with my sword, and instead of breaking immediately at the thin tang, it sort of deflated. That first hit was good, and it drew blood in my pursuer, but right then my sword became as limp as a ribbon (please no Freudian interpretation of my dreams, if you chose to comment).

As the elderly guards/retirees, closed in, I managed to run to a near-by closet and grab my battle-axe. I started hacking away at my foes, and the feeling of the blade lacerating their flesh was a truly horrible. Amidst the gore, they started cracking jokes and growing very cavalier about death. Then I woke up.

Description of the ocean waves...abridged

2010-05-26T00:09:00.000-07:00

Oh thou elusive short post, how I seek thee--so often in vain. Even now as I sit by an open window with the ocean crashing less than 30 yards below me I fight the impulse to drone on about its beauty in clumsy attempts to avoid cliche. Who will win in my quest for brevity--the soul of wit, or the Charles Dickens wanna-be that is my soul?

As I sit, typing, and tasting the salty mist wafting into my room, filling me with Wordsworthean rapture, I struggle against the second-rate Russian novel begging to be born...Ah, Moscow...No! I must fight the tuggings and the tantalizing call of the imp of the verbose.

But the waves are so spectacular, the call of the seagulls so haunting. Let me describe them--describe them in the same ways that they have been described for centuries--let me talk about the the sublime--let me use 20 words where five will do. I want to put Tolkien to shame with my my description!!!

See?! Here's the problem. Now that I have this at about the right length I have no way to end it. It seems that I am doomed to ramble on in an attempt to craft some kind of misguided arch, or to stop in a place so awkward that

Power-point, bullets, and parliamentary procedure

2010-04-30T06:27:00.000-07:00

I feel like talking a little news this morning. There is so much interesting stuff going on. That's probably always true, but I seldom have time to read newspapers. First of all, I have to say that I am terribly proud of the military for they way they are questioning their current excessive use of power-point. Yeah, I didn't even know that the military used power-point, I thought it was more like point and shoot for them--okay that was dumb, sorry. Anyway, apparently they use power-point in high-ranking military councils, debriefing troops etc. Why not? That makes sense.

Everyone else is using power-point, why not the military? Plenty of people in my field (oh, let's face it, I don't have a field) think of the military as a gathering of mindless automatons, but I am happy to report that they are not. No, they are not thinkers because they use power-point, but because they very responsibly analyze their use of it, and its effect on humans. According to a New York Times article about it, Brigadier General H.R. McMaster said that power-point can be an internal threat: "It's dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control." He also said, "Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable." Sure, all of his statements have that definite and laconic feel of your iconic tough guy, but with his frequent use of the word, "illusion" and his knack for creating new words for the English lexicon (bullet-izable) I would almost suppose that he has been reading philosophy--at least Baudrillard.

He dislikes bullet-points (no one in the New York Times article picked up on the irony of how often the Military was using the word "bullet" in a non-combat sense) because of the way they de-humanize a situation and take away from the interconnected social, political, economic and religious factors: "If you divorce war from all of that, it becomes a targeting exercise." I don't pretend to understand, in these contemporary conflicts, when exactly war is necessary and when it is not, but I think this shows at least the beginning of some fairly responsible thinking.

In other news, if you haven't seen the brawl that broke out in Ukrainian Parliament you ought to check out one of the videos on it. It's almost surreal. You see a completely normal-looking parliamentary room and people are behaving like it is junior high--at least my junior high. I'm not saying that people have always behaved in parliamentary rooms, but there aren't many bar-room brawls in them. It was like a John Wayne movie. People where throwing eggs--seriously, who brings eggs to Parliament--that the house speaker was deflecting with umbrellas (PS they don't have the superstition in Ukraine about opening umbrellas indoors). There were choke-holds, punches, kicks, bloody noses, and head slaps. I kept waiting for the three stooges to come out with pies.

One New York Times article about it was titled, "Fight in Ukraine Parliament Reflects Turmoil in Politics." No, really? You think? Isn't there something else it could reflect?

I think I'm going to stick with paper.

2010-03-03T19:01:00.001-08:00

So, the disadvantages to an electronic journal would be:
1) that I can't really take my laptop camping with me--at least not on the kind of camping that I enjoy, nor can I just take it out into nature anytime I want without worrying about the battery or about the laptop getting dirty.
2) If I am ever in a position where I am without electricity for an extended period of time a laptop is useless.
3) If my computer is not on at the moment I want to write in my journal my laziness factor could keep me from making an entry.
4) If my hard drive dies, explodes, etc. then I have to worry about having back ups, but there are some advantages to that as well, a paper journal can certainly burn in a fire.
5) There is something organic and particularly pleasing about writing with ink. I like the way that it bleeds onto the page. There is something artistic involved here. Certainly not high art, nor commercial art, as my handwriting is not something you would want the Declaration of Independence written in, but it has its own folksy stamp to it. Again though, the point is that I am doing it for myself, and possibly some really bored progeny; therefore, it falls into the doodling on scratch-paper category of art.
Yeah, I think that I am going to stick with paper.

Blogger Killed the Journal Writer?

2010-03-02T20:05:00.000-08:00

For some reason today was the day that I suddenly had a moment of hand-written journal crisis. Meaning that I began to seriously consider making the switch to an electronic journal. Maybe just in a Word Document on my laptop, or something similar. I am currently on volume XI of my old-fashioned, pen-and-ink, love-affair with my own life, and I am starting to get a little frustrated with the medium. It is pretty much the only thing that I hand-write anymore, and I am becoming increasingly aware of how much slower things come out when using just one hand and a pen.

At work I occasionally do transcriptions of 19th century journals, and I am constantly frustrated by one journal writer in particular who is fairly esoteric (he himself being the only initiated) in his handwriting. I then look at my own journal and realize that I am not really one to be calling the kettle its proverbial dark color. Granted, it is likely that not even my children or grandchildren will read more than a page or two of my journal--if that. Still, on the off-chance that they do I would like it to be legible, but since it is the only thing I hand write these days my penmanship is going the way of certain 19th century journals writers that I complain about.

I can see some disadvantages as well though. I think I will have to come back to this dilemma.

Church Dance

2010-02-26T20:49:00.001-08:00

My wife and I went to a church dance tonight, and we even brought our children because it was a "family" dance. For the first hour or so everybody stayed glued to the tables and finger food lines, and not a soul was dancing. There was some palpable awkwardness in the air to the point that I was reminded all too well of junior high. Well, it reminded me of the stereotype of junior high, not of my actual junior high because the dance floor was never empty at my junior high, though there was plenty of awkwardness back then as well. .

This church dance was also different from my junior high dances because when people finally did start dancing there was no bumping and grinding, or "freaking" as we used to call it. Wow, I feel old when I say things like "as we used to call it." Yes, in terms of dirty dancing, my junior high dances resembled the Viper Room--though probably not quite as many drugs, but close. I swear the school spend its entire budget on the DJ and the electricity used by his light show, etc...I was also always a little deaf for several hours afterwards.

With what went on you wouldn't have thought that we had chaperons, but we did. Sure, they were usually huddled in the the corners in the fetal position, but they were there, and they sure didn't stop the near copulation set to music. I'm sure that I had some sense of the inappropriateness of 13-year-olds trying to become one flesh with clothes on, but it was certainly difficult to avoid if you didn't want to sit on the bleachers. I would be dancing in a small circle with a group of friends, none of us actually touching, when all of a sudden there was some girl I had never seen before somehow attached to me at the leg or hip. Ah, those awkward adolescent moments.

I'm happy to say that there were no jiggy leeches at this church dance. Once all of us married folk loosened up with a nice, classic Limbo-rock things went pretty smoothly from there. It was obvious that a lot of us hadn't danced in a while, but thankfully we stopped caring how we looked after a few songs. And, hey, we got to take home some vegetables--always a sign of victory in my book.

Lock and Load.

2010-02-02T10:02:00.000-08:00

Whenever I try to staple together a few papers with an empty stapler I must own that I get a little miffed. But then I remember that what this means is that I get to load it. Now, I'm not sure what it is, but I really do like loading staplers. There is something about that subtle metallic clicking when things get put into place that relaxes me, and at the same time makes me feel powerful. Maybe it is just the ten-year-old boy in me, but I feel a little like I am loading a gun, and I like it. There is something relaxing about loading a gun--I really probably shouldn't say this online. Now, I should say that I am a little left-leaning in most of my politics, but as far as guns go...well, I like guns. I grew up in a family that enjoyed going to the mountains a couple of times a year to shoot. For further clarification, we don't hunt, and I am really not interested in it, but we like to shoot at bottles, cans, paper plates etc...I'm not interested in creating blood when I shoot--unless of course there were a mountain lion or a rapist charging my family or myself. I actually only own one gun, and it is a WWII Russian, bolt-action, riffle. The bullets are so darn expensive that I have actually only fired my gun 15 times, and at the present time I only have one bullet. So, its not like I am going to be taking down any mountain lions or rapists with it--that would be unpractical, and I really hope to never encounter either. I just take a little pleasure in loading things.

Yes, He's Human

2010-01-29T13:07:00.000-08:00

I went to the career fair earlier this week and there were mostly businesses there this time. Okay, actually I think that there are always mostly businesses there, but I never talk to them. I don't think that I would enjoy working for most businesses, which really limits my pool of potential jobs, but that is another story. What I was struck by at this "business" fair, was that people with finance backgrounds look just like anybody else.

I don't know exactly why I was so shocked, but there were people in front of me talking about their backgrounds in finance and marketing, and they looked so completely normal. I mean, it struck me that I could have been giving that spiel--in a strange, nightmarish, parallel universe of course, but still...they were human.

I don't know why, but I always expect finance people to look a little robotic--you know, like androids or something. But I am here to tell the rest of you people who have been completely insulated by the Humanities for the past few years like I have, that They (at least by all appearances) seem to be full-fledged members of the human race--not just humanoid creatures as I had supposed.

And then today, in the New York Times, I saw a picture of Ben S. Bernake, the man just voted in for his second term as the Fed chief. This is a major panjandrum of finance and he looks...well...almost cuddly. He looks like a guy who might read Charles Dickens to you, and all of the other kiddies, by the fire. You certainly wouldn't know to look at him that he has numbers flowing throw his veins.

Well, just another day that confirms the suspicions of my ignorance. I guess a person's a person, no matter how financial.

Broad Roads

2010-01-27T16:20:00.000-08:00

I have got to learn the art of the short post, or I will continue to let months go by without writing anything. I keep thinking of little ideas here and there, but I am never in a position to write them down. Also, I find myself constrained by my own artificial constraints. This is unfortunate. I feel obligated to write about the etymology of words only. THIS IS A BLOG, for crying out loud, and no one is really reading it, so why the *&%$ do I care about constraints?
I had meant for there to be a double meaning in this blog's title: not only would it be the etymology (history and origins and linguistic stuff) of words, but also my life. And if I write anything, it should fall under that category. But again, I am bound by my own unintentional rules. I tried to give myself a broad road, and frankly I like broad roads, at least I think that I do. I don't know, the fact that I tend to create new rules for myself, in addition to all of the rules I am already living by would suggest that broad roads aren't my thing.
Broad roads are great: I can breathe on broad roads, but I also find breathing constricted without rules. Paradoxical? Yes. So, I guess I need more balance. I think I need to break a few more rules. Not laws or anything (this bit of clarification in here is especially for any future employers who might be reading this) but definitely some of my self-imposed rules. I think that I should down right rebel against some of my arbitrary rules.
I want to stop thinking about writing for an audience for a couple of reasons. For one thing, there are only about three to five people who might read my blog anyway (my wife hasn't even read my last five entries), and as much as I would like to entertain them, if I go into it with that attitude I will probably do stupid things, or just not write very often. Secondly, I need to place to experiment, to babble etc. In other words, I need to combat my paranoia about being read certain ways, or being read period.

Moustache Movement Update

2009-12-02T10:42:00.000-08:00

Just an update on the Moustache Movement. I did some online research only to find out that I did not discover what was going on. I am relatively late in studying the scope and timeline of this phenomenon. I'm still quite fuzzy (no pun intended) on the foundations--maybe that is something that we won't be able to see for years to come, but I think that I have discovered the flash point. Brad Pitt grew a moustache in 2008, reputedly for his film Inglorious Bastards, but he wore it proudly off set, even out to Hollywood social events.

And let's face it, Brad Pitt is like the Queen of England. Not so much Elizabeth II, but Elizabeth I. If any of you have taken a college Shakespeare class you probably know that the Queen was the trend setter in terms of fashion. Men's and women's fashion changed in "Elizabethan England" depending on what the Queen wore. Who knows, maybe someday historians will call our time Pittian America. Okay, so that's going a little too far, but seriously, Brad Pitt is a force to be reckoned with.

Okay, so the moustache has had no credibility for over a decade, and during that time you risked looking like a pedophile to wear one. But put one on Brad Pitt, the man who consistently wins "Sexiest Man Alive" (and is a family man to boot)and some of that pedophile exoskeleton begins to be chipped away.
So what happened after that? That's right, George Clooney--bosom pal of Mr. Pitt and another Sexiest Man Alive emeritus grows one. When you have that kind of credibility behind a moustache people are going to start questioning those negative assumptions that they had. Since the Pitt-stache, Mel Gibson, Matt Damon, Orlando Bloom, and Jude Law have been caught with Moustaches. I predict that once the entire cast of Ocean's 11 (including Julia Roberts) has had one, moustaches will be fully embraced by American society.

There is still an element of humour behind this movement. I still maintain that no one is wearing one in the same spirit that they would wear Prada, though it certainly is a statement either way. Wearing a moustache is also a sign of supreme confidence. You have to be very secure in yourself, and your appeal, to disregard the usual connotations. But now people can say, even if it is only subconsciously,"Well, Brad Pitt had one; why not?"

I typed in "moustache comeback" into Google, and there is no end to people with pictures of themselves who are bravely "reclaiming the moustache." This grassroots movement smacks of freedom and is marked by bold self-expression. Again, I find myself being seduced by the message. I have been appalled in the past by the negative connotations that have unfairly been attached to lip-hair, and it is high time we stopped discriminating against and porn-profiling those who choose to have a push-broom on their face.

A day late and a dollar short: Movember

2009-12-01T10:02:00.000-08:00

Okay, I know that November was so yesterday, but I have been wanting to post about Movember all month. Yeah, that's right--Moustache November baby.

During the second half of November I couldn't help noticing that mustaches were on the rise, growing, perhaps, to epidemic proportions. Could it be that mustaches are making a comeback? Something must be horribly wrong, I thought. I have been having flashbacks to the 70s, even though I never lived in that decade, and my fear of being mugged or molested has increased. Come on, mustaches have very few positive connotations these days. I must admit, though, in all honesty that I think it is very sad that they have come to be associated with pedophiles--I think that is pretty unfair. But I am a product of the aesthetics of my time in that I only know about 10 people who look good in a mustache. I should mention here that my father is one of those people, and he's one of the least creepy people on the planet. He just looks like a Tom Selleck throw-back from the seventies--harmless.

So, despite the fact that a well trimmed beard or goat-tee looks infinitely more respectable these days than a stash, my university's grooming standards only allow facial hair on the upper lip. Unless you are a woman, of course, in which case you could look like Karl Marx if you could grow it. Perhaps the University knew that only those men who didn't care about getting dates, and didn't mind frightening small children, would grow one. Perhaps this was the master plan to achieve bare faces across campus. Anyway, so when I started seeing all of these moustaches last month I thought it evidence of an organized, underground, cabal--bent on reclaiming at least a modicum of facial freedom. There is even a prominent work of art on campus, that appeared in early November, of a large metal-tubed moustache that is apparently filled with kerosene because at night it becomes a flaming stash. It's even in the style of the 19th century saloon keeper moustache--you know, it perks up at the ends, like an extra, hairy smile. Well, the work is entitled, "Self-Portrait" and I have seen the artist--who looks like he must be the leader of the underground movement.

Then I heard of no-shave November and figured that growing a stash is the only thing that BYU students can do, so no surprise there. Though it is definitely more prominent this year than ever. Well, then I stumbled upon Movember in the urban dictionary. People grow moustaches in November and then compare them at the end to see who grew the best one. What a fabulous fad--or is it only a fad? I am going to keep my eyes open today to see if they begin to disappear. I'm going to make a prediction, however, that Moustaches will make a brief comeback in the next few years.

First, they have to get past the ridiculousness that moustaches seem to invoke right now. Moustaches have to be brought back into fashion through a joke. There's no feeling on campus that people are growing moustaches because they seriously think that they look good. There's really something tongue and cheek about it, with a bit of a wink, wink in every moustache that I see. It's a bold, slightly subversive, expression of whimsy and I think I like it. I am tempted to be part of this group myself, but now I fear it is too late. If I grow one now I will be that guy who is still making April fools jokes on April 2nd. So, I'm going to keep watching faces to see if the lip hair trend continues. Time will tell whether this was just a Movember thing or if there really is an underground coterie that will accept me into its ranks.

P.S. Notice the two different accepted spellings of moustache/mustache--nifty.

Aposematic: "That red head of hers is no lie."

2009-11-20T10:06:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking about aposematic coloration, or "warning coloration" lately. This term is usually applied to many of those bright colored animals--often insects, frogs, snakes, etc... that you might see in a nature program. These bright colors, most often red, act as the opposite of camouflage. They are a clear signal to anyone that there is something toxic, obnoxious, foul- smelling, distasteful, or generally dangerous about the creature that bears them.

So what about red-headed people? Is this aposematic coloring, or does this rule only apply to non-humans? My wife is a redhead, so I occasionally tease her about this when I think she is being a bit "fiery."

Certainly, tradition would hold that the redness of a person's hair tells you something about their personality. Everybody has probably heard at one point or another that redheads are hot-tempered and feisty. This may be true, but I would have to question whether it has to do with some sort of genetic predisposition or the fact that they are so stereotyped. You know, I might be a little testy as well, if I was painted with such a reputation. Perhaps it is easy to marginalize redheads because red hair really is something of an anomaly. Less than four percent of the world's population have naturally red hair (though, somehow, the highest percentage of hair-dye jobs are red). There is, in fact, a gene for red hair (amazingly not discovered until 1995), though it has often been called a "genetic mutation." Well, it's been called worse things before.

In the middle ages women with red hair were often taken for witches, not only for their fiery mane, but freckles ("marks of the devil") were also seen as a sign of witchcraft--oh, and then there was that "temper" of course. Egyptians went so far as to burn redheaded maidens, as the color was considered unlucky. Ah, those crazy, brilliant Egyptians--not brilliant because they burned redheads, but you know...the pyramids and stuff. In many early depictions of Adam and Eve, Eve is either blond or brunette before the Fall and becomes a redhead after partaking of the forbidden fruit. Judas also is usually a ginger knob in paintings. (Hey, maybe "Ginger Knobs and Broomsticks" would have been a better title for this post.)

At the same, time humans seem to be attracted to the color red, well, at least men do. A recent study suggested that men can't help but be affected by the color--not just with hair but in clothing, etc. The study had men look at different pictures of women, and they would photo-shop in different colors of shirts. The results: when the photos included a red shirt, the women appeared more attractive. It had nothing to do with her eyes, the shade of her hair, or any of those types of factors because it was always the same shirt and the same woman, just a different color.

There is really no need for me to bring up the many connotations of the color red in society, but--Valentines Day, red-light district, I love Lucy--need I say more? The article I read with the red-shirt study was even rude enough to draw a correlation between the results of the study and the fact that the....uh...the..."posterior" of female baboons turns red during ovulation. If you have ever read any of those Georgia Nicolson books, you will be familiar with the term "red-bottomosity." Anyway, I don't think I would go that far, but there does seem to be something going on here.

Hypergraphia: Disorder or Sweet Nectar of Life?

2009-10-29T13:55:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure that my mojo (if I have one) is with me today or not, but once again I feel the need to do a little rambling. My other work is calling pretty loudly, so I feel a bit like a I am ditching school right now.

And, by the way, you should note the striking resemblance of this picture of Dostoevsky to my Halloween profile picutre.

So, hypergraphia really is interesting, even if the OED and Webster's dropped the ball on definitions. Wikipedia was a good place to start, but I soon found myself on a medical website. Basically, they said that hypergraphia is the overwhelming urge, or compulsion to write. It compels some to keep a voluminous journal, others to write some of the longest novels in history, others to write on any surface they can find (including toilet paper and their own skin), and still others to keep up staggering correspondence (including letters to editors, etc.). It was interesting to me that almost all of the instances I found discussed online referred to writing on paper, as opposed to typing. Was this because there is something inherent in writing with pen/pencil and paper that is tied to the pathology of this "disorder", or was it because most of the famous examples of this were authors who wrote in the days before computers?

It seems to me that, essentially, the urge in both cases comes from the same place--the urge for expression and/or communication. Some scientists suggest a connection to lesions in the temporal lobe, or more specifically--temporal lobe epilepsy. Others have suggested that in some cases the part of the brain affected is also used to control movement in the hands. For me, the urge to write seems to come from that expressive place, though I must admit that I haven't had a good look at my temporal lobe lately. But hey, I should not be working from the assumption that I have hypergraphia. None of the places that I looked gave a fool-proof formula for diagnosis--except extreme volume of material of course.

I wouldn't consider myself extreme. I do keep a journal that I write in everyday (I miss probably two days a month). Some entries are very short--a couple of lines--others go on for 3 or 4 pages. I have been doing this for a little over ten years (since 1998) and I am currently on volume 11--I have never counted pages, but I think that for the last couple of years I have averaged 280 or so pages a year.

And now I have felt the need to add a blog. I remember when I was ten or so, writing in a notebook and writing crap really (and I knew even then it was crap--you may wonder why I haven't changed since I was ten) but really enjoying watching the pages fill up with ink. I contemplated how many pages of material I had written in my 10 years, and wondered what the pile would look like if all of my family stacked everything they had ever written in one place. It was terribly fascinating to me, but I still don't think that I have hypergraphia.

The real hypergraphics that you encounter in articles, etc. fill up a notebook every two or three days, or write 1000-paged novels (maybe people of Russian descent are more prone to it). I just keep a journal and write a blog. Maybe all that I really have is "hypergraphic envy". It sounds terribly romantic to me--writing constantly, head down, in an almost frenzied passion. Fingers flying across the keyboard like you are the Beethoven of word processors. Ahhhhh, fits of passion are marvelous, though perhaps a little narcotic-like. Most hypergraphics, according to a Psychology Today article, certainly don't feel that it is a disorder, but a gift. Some called it the opposite of writer's block. It is quite enjoyable, except when you are writing poor quality stuff, of course. But hey, if being more interested in volume than quality is a symptom, then maybe--just maybe--I am afflicted with this delicious disorder. Part of me really wants it to fester and spread like...you know, something that spreads: flesh-eating viruses, bacteria, dandelions--take your pick.

P.S. Famous Authors who were/are possibly under the influence of hypergraphia--Dostoevsky, Poe, Sylvia Plath, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, and Lewis Carroll.

OED: An Affair to Remember.

2009-10-27T11:06:00.000-07:00

It has been a few days so I have to write something. I really don't have time at the moment; I really should be studying Russian right now--no really, I have a class. I find that if I don't write I hear the siren call of the blog, all day, and nothing will silence it but writing something. Unfortunately, even if it is a crappy something I feel a little better. Yes, I am writing for writing's sake.

You know, several times I have wondered whether or not I am suffering from hypergraphia. Hypergraphia is an uncommonly strong urge to write, by the way. I wish I had a better definition, but the OED doesn't have an entry for this word, and it's driving me crazy. This is the first time in a long time that the OED has let me down. She has enriched my world, the OED, but I must admit that I am disappointed today--left wanting. You may not know this about me, but I anthropomorphize dictionaries. One of my dear friends is a dictionary that I bought in 1998; it was the first dictionary I ever bought. It is a red-covered Webster's dictionary, and his name is Winston. I really don't know why that is his name--it is almost as if he told me. I used to highlight words in it, and I aspired to have several highlighted words on each page. Eventually, I wanted to know them all, of course. But as it is now, there is probably only an average of one highlight per page.

Winston and I haven't been as close lately--for the past couple of years actually--we haven't hung out as much. And I must confess that it began when I met the OED online. I had heard about the OED for years, and her lexical prowess, but I had never actually seen her printed words or smelled her pages. (I really love the smell of books, by the way--even the old ones) Then one day, someone told me that through my university's web-site I could access her for free. I was hesitant at first, as I generally preferred something more tangible--something I could hold in my hands to read, but out of curiosity I checked it out. And I ended up spending several hours that day feasting upon etymology. Oh, the examples, so many examples--all the way back to Middle-English it seemed, and even some contemporary references.

However, I must admit that, these days, I am even shamelessly neglectful of her. Hey, life's busy--it's not like she ever calls me. It is really this blog that has helped me to reconnect. Poor old Winston though, I'm afraid I will never spend the kind of time with him that I once did. Obviously, he hasn't been able to add any words in over a decade, and his etymological notes are never anything more that stepping stone for me. We were real pals once. I came to him for advice, and trusted his every word. He still knows more than I do, obviously--and I still look stuff up in him on occasion. We have a laugh now and again. He's still my buddy, even though the OED has come between us.

Well, OED, I will still come to you often, but I have to tell you--Wikipedia was the only good source today for "hypergraphia". In the words of my friend KP (not a dictionary)--you are going to have to bring your 'A' game in the future.

Anglo-Norman Extraction

2009-10-22T13:54:00.000-07:00

Warning: today's post is quite NERDY, but fun. Give nerds a chance.

Not too long ago my wife was reading a book that included a section on names--their meanings, implications, and which names give you the greatest chances for success. We found this at least mildly interesting as we plan on adding to our brood in the future, and are always on the look-out for potential baby names. And no, in case anyone jumps to this, my wife is not pregnant. Well, one prefix we will not be considering for a future name is "Fitz." Not for the reason that I am about to divulge, but because there aren't any Fitz-names that have the right ring for us. So anyway, what we learned about Fitz is that it was used by royalty to create surnames for their illegitimate sons. The book was in the category of pop-non-fiction, and wasn't great about citations so I had to look this up for myself today.

Etymologically, "Fitz" is the Anglo-French word for son (thank you OED). It was used for patronymic designations. I'm sorry if this is "patronizing" to anyone, but I will digress for a second to define patronym. (I'm also sorry for the pun I just made on the root--"patron", meaning father--I'm sure that my wife is rolling her eyes as we speak). A patronym is a name derived from the name of one's father. So if you were ever reading Anna Karenina and were lost because of all of the different names people could be called by, that was partly because of the Russian use of patronyms. In Russian a person's middle name is always the name of their father with the appropriate ending for a male or a female. So, if you saw someone in a Russian novel called Masha Petrovna, whose brother's name was Oleg Petrovich, then you would know that their father's name was the Russian equivalent of Peter. Anyway, back to Fitz--so if a King's name was William, for example, his progeny through the local milk maid very well might have had the last name Fitzwilliam.

You've probably heard of names like Fitzgerald, Fitzpatrick, etc...and you might be thinking, "Hey, isn't that more of an Irish thing than an English one?" And if we were watching Blues Clues I would reply, "Wow, you're really smart!" Several hundred years after the use of this Anglo-French word for illegitimate children of royalty in England, it became a common prefix for surnames of Irish families of Anglo-Norman extraction--which basically means (though I am oversimplifying) that these families were living in England sometime around the Norman conquest (including its aftermath of amalgamation of so many things Saxon and Norman) and then they relocated to Ireland, establishing themselves there.

In my original conversation about this topic with my wife, we noted that in Pride and Prejudice Mr. Darcy's first name is Fitzwilliam. Now, by the early 19th century, when Pride and Prejudice was published, the connotation if illegitimacy with the prefix "Fitz" had more or less gone out. But in the earlier parts of the novel I'm almost surprised that Lizzie never remarked to Jane that Darcy was a bona fide bastard.

Opossums: everyday pest, or fiends of the underworld?

2009-10-21T10:32:00.000-07:00

I keep wanting to return to actual etymology, rather than the etymology of my life--if I may be so bold as to stretch the meaning of the word "etymology". Yes, the title of this blog has a double meaning. Forgive my sporting with your intelligence though, as I'm sure you already knew that. The more I read other blogs the more that I feel compelled to write about my life--not simply from peer pressure (though that is probably a factor), but from the joy and release of doing so. I'm also wondering about how to combine the two--the etymological and the personal.

One of my friends' blog posts that I read yesterday was about opossums, and I am wondering if he would mind terribly if I stole, or borrowed, the topic for today. I wonder if he would mind, but I'm not going to ask. Neither am I going to copy anything that he said. It's just that since yesterday I can't stop thinking about my own memories of opossums.

Speaking of etymology though, as far as I could find out this word is of Algonquian origin and entered our lexicon in the early 16oos, and means "white animal". "White Animal"? That's it? I thought for sure it would mean rodent of unusual size, or scary minion of satan. This should tell you something of my childhood memories of Opossums. I grew up in California, sort of out in the country--at least there was a fair amount of agrarian things going on near by. Anyway, when I was little there must have been more of these things than when I got older. It seemed that early in the morning and late at night they were every where. Mind you, when I was this young I wasn't out roaming the streets late at night or early in the morning, so most of my first encounters were looking through the windshield of the car. But I clearly remember beholding these hideous creatures that looked like gigantic rats with their beady, black eyes--eyes that would flash strange colors in the head-lights. They had these terrible long snouts with large fangs that they barred as they stared down the car--as they seemed to be saying, "Hit me, and I shall become more horrible than you can imagine!"--which is true if you have seen opossum road-kill.

It's really so anti-climactic now as I look at images of opossums on the Internet. Where are the demons of my youth? I swear the ones online are almost cute. I thought for sure that I was looking at the wrong breed or something. Has my childhood memory really played that much of a trick on me?

One of our cats, when I was in my teens, was particularly good at catching rats, mice, gophers, and even birds. His name was Rafael, after the ninja-turtle, and I didn't want to think about what the local rodent population would have been without him because he seemed to bring in one or two a day. I even saw him one day toying with a magpie that was half his size (and roughed up enough that it couldn't fly away). Later that day I saw just the head and a few feathers. He always left the heads of his prey, and one of the organs that I couldn't identify. I can't tell you how many times I have stepped on rodent heads. I was careful to always wear shoes outside.

Well, there was this period of time when Rafael kept begging for more cat food, which was impressive considering the amount of vermin he was eating. He wasn't getting fat either so we started to wonder whether or not he had a parasite. We had heard about rodents eating cat food before but considering his reputation with them we were sure that if that was happening it must have been at the times when Rafael was roaming the neighborhood--which he was wont to do in the evenings. He was such a cat, if I didn't know better I would have thought that we hadn't neutered him. Anyway, one night when we suspected that he was out, we heard the crunching of cat food. I slowly opened the door and there was an opossum, possibly larger than Rafael, eating his food with impunity. And there was the brave Rafael, the great rodent killer of the neighborhood, the vanquisher of voles, cowering in the corner with the most terrified look I have ever seen on his face. I made a move toward the opossum to scare it a way, and normally opossums hiss in the most horrible way when you confront them, but this was an obese opossum. It simply turned and waddled away.

I can imagine though, from Rafael's point of view, what that must have been like. He ate rats for breakfast, and now here is--as far as he's concerned--a rat, larger than himself, eating his dry cat food. Imagine walking into your kitchen and seeing a 200 pound chicken eating Captain Crunch. You might cower in a corner as well.

Okay, for those of you who have been annoyed this whole time because I have been insinuating that Opossums are rodents, let me take the edge off of your annoyance by saying that I am fully aware that they are marsupials. They just look like large rats to me.

Flirting with personal information

2009-10-20T10:15:00.000-07:00

I decided to read a few blog posts of friends today before starting mine. They were all deeply personal and recorded memories that are important to their authors. I'm pretty new to this blogging world, but I have heard that many blogs are this way. In fact, another one of my friends said that he didn't want to start a blog because he didn't want to have people reading personal things about him. I wondered why, in his mind, a blog had to be about intimate stuff. Well, of course it doesn't, and I haven't had much intention of getting personal in mine--at least not directly, but I'm beginning to see some of the appeal.

I imagine that more intimate posts can be pretty cathartic, and I also see the value of recording memories. The memories I read about today in the blogs of my friends had a certain beautiful, yet haunting quality, like a lot of my good memories do. Okay, I realize that you don't have the same context for this conversation that I do, because you probably didn't just read the same blogs that I did. I'm talking about the kind of memories that are triggered by something in the present, but plunge you into your past in an almost dream-like way. You could probably stop yourself from being swept away, but there is something sweet and kind of mystic in the indulgence. Honestly, there is something transcendent about these types of memories, for me. I can't just get myself in the mood for them, they sort of have to strike me, when I'm not expecting it. I would give you an example, but I'm not being struck today. I only just read about it happening to other people.

Anyway, when they do strike, I get the sense that my life stretches far beyond the usually perceived confines. There really is something of the eternal and infinite in these echos, or shadows of the past. (ugh, "shadows of the past?") I hate these cliche words I am using, by the way, but I can't seem to muster enough creativity today to come up with something more original.

Okay, now I feel a bit awkward about this post. I haven't actually shared any personal information, but I flirted with doing so to the point that I feel like I have. People who know me might find it strange that I feel somewhat uncomfortable being personal here, since in conversation I am usually a little too open. I think the reason is that I can't get my father's voice out of my head, warning me about putting any personal information on the Internet. He won't even purchase anything online because he seems to think that someone is just waiting to steal his identity. The fact that I am mentioning him at all online would probably make him sweat, if he knew about it. Anyway, my undergraduate degree is in acting--I usually quite enjoy vulnerability, but I'm not crazy about it right now. This will probably change.

Remember the London Beer Flood?

2009-10-19T10:25:00.000-07:00

So, my once-a-day streak has ended. It wasn't' a very long run, but I'm pretty pleased that I kept it up during that first week. It's harder on the weekend because my desk-top at home is ancient--and by ancient, I mean five years old. And we don't get wi-fi at our apartment. My wife and I decided that in our future life (once I finish school) we should probably budget to buy a new computer every two years, if we want to stay relatively on top of things, and more importantly, if we don't want to waste large amounts of time waiting for our old, slow computer.

Well, I really wanted to post on Saturday because it marked the anniversary of a tragedy that I don't think nearly enough people are aware of. We talk about where we were for 9/11; our parents may remember where they were when Kennedy was shot; our grandparents may talk about where they were when Pearl Harbor was bombed, but who ever talks about where their ancestors were for the Great London Beer Flood of 1814? That's right, on October 17th 1814 vats of porter, at the Henry Meux Brewing Company began to explode causing a chain reaction that released 1,224,000 litres of beer onto the unsuspecting, poverty-stricken local public. The beer burst through a brick wall, flooded the streets, destroyed two poorly build houses, and filled the basement dwellings of many of the local poor folks.

All of the sources that I consulted reported 9 dead. At least three of them drowned as their basement apartments filled too quickly with beer for them to escape and a few others were trampled in the attempt to reach higher ground. One heroic man died of alcohol poisoning, in an attempt to save those trapped by drinking as much beer as he possibly could. Others rushed to the street with pails and buckets, though many just used their hands to lap up the beer filled streets. In the aftermath, the police had to shut down a couple of operations where relatives of those drowned were displaying the corpses for a fee. In fact, before the police intervened, there was one case where too many people entered a room (to see one of the deceased) which caused the floor to collapse, plunging them all into the beer-filled cellar.

So, no etymology today, because I thought that we should take a moment's pause to remember this marginalized event.

Don't be a bamboozled Gypsy hater.

2009-10-16T16:15:00.000-07:00

So, I wonder how long it will take for this new blog excitement to wear off. Right now, I feel like I could write all day, everyday and still be having a good time. In fact, it has become harder to concentrate on, and find the desire to do, the mountain of other things that are my responsibilities. I'm sure it is at least in part a phase, but who knows. It was suggested to me that I should cut back to once or twice a week, due to my schedule, but I'm afraid that I might stop doing it all together if I did that. I seem to need to establish a daily habit for things that I want to do regularly. This is why I write in my journal everyday, and exercise 6 days a week, and brush my teeth everyday (even twice a day most of the time).

Okay, so this personal stuff seems boring, I think that I will get back to my strange British words that people hardly use anymore. So Jingoism and Panjandrum were a bit obscure, but I bet you have heard of today's word: "bamboozle." When was the last time you said this word? You should try it--no really, give it a go. It does something wonderful for your inner child, at least it did to mine. As soon as I said it, I felt transported to a time when I was a lad, and in this transportation (sp?) I was at zoo, run by Dr. Seuss. I was standing next to the legs of people that were probably my parents, but I couldn't be bothered with the rest of them because I was holding a gigantic, multicolored lollipop--you know the kind that have that hypnotic swirly pattern--and I was gazing at the magnificent bamboozle that was climbing the tree in front of me...

Well, after I swore off unidentified mushrooms I decided to look the word up, as I wondered how closely related to "hoodwink" it was. OED says, "To deceive by trickery, hoax, cozen, impose upon." Other definitions included, "to practice trickery" and "to mystify, perplex, confound." So pretty close to hoodwink, which I might look at later. The most diverting part of this, however, is the fact that once again, this is a word that is very difficult to trace. It appears to be another made up word-ish. It appeared in the early 18th century, and was speculated to be of "gypsy" origin. Of course, that could have simply been prejudice because the person speculating was concerned with the "corruption of our English tongue."

This brings me to an interesting tangent. I recently learned that it's not okay to be prejudiced against Gypsies. Yeah, this should have been a no-brainer for me, I know, but I didn't realize that the term "Gypsy" could actually refer a race of people. See, I had been judging Gypsies by the content of their character, or, rather, defining them by their actions. If you lived in the forest under the rule of a Gypsy King and went into the city by day to steal from people--then you were a Gypsy in my book. Though, now that I have thought more deeply about it, I guess the only problem I have is with people who steal stuff. I think it's fine if you live in the forest under the rule of a Gypsy King, if that's what you want to do with your life. Anyway, I dearly hope that I haven't offended anyone in this post, unless you are a person who steals stuff.

P.S. Bamboozle is also the name of a popular U.K. quiz-based game show, as well as a New Jersey music festival.

The Grand Panjandrum is comming...Look Busy.

2009-10-15T13:14:00.000-07:00

Since I'm on a 19th-Century-British-word jag, today's word is "panjandrum." According to the OED, a panjandrum is, "A mock title for a mysterious (frequently imaginary) personage of great power or authority; a pompous or pretentious official; a self-important person in authority." The legend about this word is that Samuel Foote (1720-77) made it up in an extemporaneous speech meant to test the memory of Charles Maklin, who claimed to have total recall (not the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie). In that context Foote was referring to the "grand panjandrum"--some faux figure of great authority--entirely made up in the moment. That is one of the lovely things about this word: linguistically it impossible to trace. There is no Old French or Old Norse root or version of this word because it is completely made up. Now, normally I wouldn't say that a word describing an authority figure would be onomatopoeic (and it isn't exactly), but doesn't panjandrum just sound like some bloated muckamuk who has let his sense of self-importance run away with him?

Well, the phrase had fully arrived by the 19th century, but it took an unexpected turn, or roll, as the next case will show. Late in WWII the British tested a new weapon called the "Great Panjandrum." It was basically two huge, ten-foot in diameter, wooden wheels connected by a drum in the middle, which contained four thousand pounds of explosive. Oh, and it was rocket powered, and could apparently achieve speeds of 60-70 miles per hour. On the day of the final test,

"It hit a line of small craters in the sand and began...careering towards Klemantaski who, viewing events through a telescopic lens, misjudged the distance and continued filming. Hearing the approaching roar he looked up from his viewfinder to see Panjandrum, shedding live rockets in all directions, heading straight for him. As he ran for his life, he glimpsed the assembled admirals and generals diving for cover behind the pebble ridge into barbed-wire entanglements. Panjandrum...crashed on to the sand where it disintegrated in violent explosions, rockets tearing across the beach at great speed"(Brian Johnson BBC).

It has since been claimed by some historians that it was never intended to be used in battle--which it wasn't (surprise, surprise)--but rather intended to intimidate the Germans. Gee, it's too bad that Hitler never saw our rocket-powered spool of death. That would have ended the war for sure.

So, whether the panjandrums in our lives are jerk bosses, the proverbial "they", "the powers that be", a ten-foot flaming wheel, or all of the above at least we will know what to call it.

Maybe The Jingo Ate Your Baby

2009-10-14T13:34:00.000-07:00

One thing that I would like to do on this blog is have a "Word of the Day." There are so many fantastic words out there that just aren't getting used enough, or when we come across them we might think "that's a cool word," but we don't have time to look them up. So I would like to pause more often an savor some of these verbal delectables. My first choice would have to be "Jingoism." It just rolls off the tongue doesn't it? It makes me think of exotic foods or something. When I first saw it, I thought it must refer to a cult-following of some character from one of the off-shoot Star Wars novels (none of which I have ever read by the way--not that I think they are bad).

So I looked it up, and according to Webster's it means, "extreme chauvinism or nationalism, marked especially by a belligerent foreign policy." Well, that's nice, but to get some real etymology I did some more research. And etymology for me is the fine-dining of definition searching. A quick look in Websters is more like a banana with nuts (please no Freudian interpretations, it just happens to be my favorite snack these days--and sometimes a banana with nuts is just a banana with nuts). Websters is a wholesome snack, in other words, that tides me over until lunch, but leaves me feeling like I internalized something healthy.

Anyway, this usage of the word originated in Britain in the 1870s, referring to the ideology of the Jingos. Jingos were confident chaps that had a an aggressive stance towards Russia in that decade. In fact, (as I learned in the OED) it probably came from a song in 1878 with the lyrics-- referring to Russia-- "We don't want to fight yet, by Jingo! if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, and got the money too." Apparently, the American version of this phrase in the 19th century was "spread-eagleism," which, by the way, I will not be putting into Google as search terms, so, sorry, there will be no future post on it. But the Yanks got around to adopting "Jingoism" by the turn of the 20th century.

So people have applied this term to many politicians like Teddy Roosevelt (of course), and even George W. Bush was accused of "reviving Jingoism in America" (surprise, surprise). I must say that, in my opinion, a little Patriotism never hurt anyone, but extreme nationalism, especially when it gets pushed as "my country is better than yours, or all others for that matter" is dangerous and possibly destructive. Yet, somehow, many Americans say that theirs is the greatest country in the world. Now, I love America, and am grateful for the sacrifices made for this country, and hey, maybe it is the greatest country in the world (depending on how you define "greatest"), but I don't think the phrase is helpful, and it can be harmful.

My Wife is Canadian and her brother recently came down from Canada to visit us. He brought a friend with him who wore his bright red Canadian sweatshirt with his Canadian hat (not made of beaver--just a regular ball cap). This "friend" kept going on and on about how Canada was the best country in the world, and that he can't believe how poorly Americans do everything. I like Canada a lot, and my kids are half-Canadian, but by the time he started trying to train my daughter to say that Canada was the best country in the world I was ready to poke him in the eye. Now, in this case, we are not talking about the kind of Jingoism that caused the Jingos to be ready to fight Russia, nor are we talking about invasion, etc...but on a micro level I really did want to deck him, by Jingo! Maybe we can start dismantling larger Jingos by being respectful and appreciative of the good in all countries. Sorry for the moral at the end.

Hello Cruel World

2009-10-13T11:04:00.000-07:00

This was actually going to be the title of my blog, but I found out that a) it was already taken and b) it is apparently the name of album by a New Zealand band, as well as a book about alternatives to suicide. Anyway, the phrase just sort of popped into my head this morning in a positive light. I am adding the clarification of "positive" just in case I end up dead in the next few days. Let me be clear, I am NOT contemplating suicide, so if I do end up dead please look for a murderer. You can pretty much rule out my wife, or any of my family, and probably most of my friends. (James Goldberg didn't do it--please authorities, no beard profiling.) Though, there is this guy at the gym who looks at me funny sometimes. He wears a wife-beater (to the gym?) and drives a small, white pickup--definitely killer material. Well, okay, even he seems harmless, so I guess you will have to start from scratch. Okay, this is getting too morbid.
I'm not sure that I am ready for this. I have been contemplating starting a blog for some time, but I'm not clear yet on what, exactly, I want to do with it. For the time being, I will just use it as an outlet for expression--I know cliche, right? Well, I need something, as my schooling/work are making Cort a very dull boy. The business would seem to preclude the option of a blog, but I'm getting desperate to write something that I am not required to. Therefore, without any real ado, and not a trace of fanfare, I begin my blog.