Some "K" Words: "Kowtow"

       The kudos continue(s) for my line-up of “k” words as I  kowtow to the word “kowtow”:  “the action or practice, formerly customary in China, of touching the ground with the forehead as a sign of extreme respect, submission, or worship," the OED says, "figuratively an act of obsequious respect.”  The AHD tells us  Kou in Chinese Mandarin means “knock” or “strike,” and tou means “head.”  If your forehead strikes the pavement, you have definitely “kowtowed” to someone. 

       And don’t try doing it arms akimbo; you might not make it back up.

Some "K" Words: "Kudos"

       Everyone’s glad to receive “kudos,” which is “praise for achievement,” but where does it come from?  It’s Greek.  Kydos in Greek.  It means “magical glory.”  What more marvelous accolade to have bestowed upon one than “magical glory”? 

       The American Heritage Dictionary says the word is singular by derivation, but I’ll not get into that, believing that if one “kudo” is good (a “back-formation” from the original), then several “kudos” must be better . . .even if it's singular!?

Some "K" words: "Akimbo"

       Some words that find themselves together because they're "k" words and because they're strange and for no other reason.

       “Akimbo” is the only word that doesn’t begin with “k,” and we’ll begin with it.   I love this word but hadn’t the faintest idea what its root might be.  Those two hands planted on the hips, elbows jutting outwards, no other word to describe that, is there?  Just arms “akimbo.”

       What does it mean?  Literally, “in keen bow” from Middle English in kenebowe, in a “sharp” (kene) “bent curve” (bowe).  Exactly the picture of those elbows.  Taking the “keen” (kene) back to Old English cene, the meaning suggests “bold, brave,” to go along with the attitude that might be associated with that posture:  “King of the hill!”  I love that.                                                           

       Arms in keen bow!                                           

A Loss for Words

       I'm remembering our last "shoot" for my photography class in summer 2011.   It was at the Getty Villa in Malibu with art works and architecture from the Greeks, Romans, and Etruscans.
  
       Shooting these pieces and classic Roman architecture and landscaping, I was attentive to the visual, and my usual museum behavior with lots of reading went out the window.  We had visual art to be recorded, and I skipped a whole lot of verbal learning and acquired instead greater sense appreciation aided by focusing through the camera’s lens.

       Loss is sometimes gain; words can encumber the eye.

"I Do..."

       A certain choice of words can have meaning a similar wording doesn’t.  Not long ago in bed, side by side, holding hands, Connie said, “I do love you,” and I instantly responded, “I do love you too.”

       We had our emotional reasons for speaking this way, both experiencing recent help and support as well as the long-term relationship we have between us.

       The “do” adds something.   I recalled later “do” in the traditional marriage vows:  “Do you take this man/woman...” “I do.”  It asks for and asserts the firmness of intention.  In these latter days of marriage, “I do” confirms fruition of that early resolve. 

Thinking Outside the Camera

       It's summer, and I recall with pleasure the wonderful photography class I had two summers ago.  Early in the course, I noted two ironies of photography, each with linguistic implications:

1.  Still photographers need to be very much in motion:  they have to keep shifting their position in order to find the best shot; also they need to physically pose their subjects into more natural and relaxed postures, not let them remain stiff and "salami"-armed.

2.  Photographers need to think outside the box so that what goes in the box will be worthwhile.  Some word play here of course, partly because “camera” literally means “room,” “chamber,” and a room is a “box.”  (Interestingly, the old “box camera” is a redundancy.)

"Dressage"

       I learned something.  In the wonderful movie “Buck,” a first class documentary about the real “horse whisperer,” Buck Brannaman, someone pointed out the marvels of “dressage.”
 
       Horses are rehearsed in doing the most refined movements of which they are capable, almost ballet.  But the horse is actually being asked to do what is very useful in all sorts of work situations, herding cattle, roping steers, etc.  And once it gets the idea, “OK then, this is PRACTICE,” the horse goes right along with dressage (French dresser, "train," "drill").

       I guess I never realized all that side-stepping and backing and prancing were not just hoidy toidy stuff for upper class watchers to revel in, but useful maneuvers, and which provide the horse an added sense of self-worth. 

"a" and "an"

       At a dermatologist's office, I read a brochure on sunscreens that spoke of “a SPF of 15.”  To my speechy mind, that was wrong.  It should have been "an SPF of 15."

       The common thought is that if a word begins with a consonant, the article before it is properly "a".   It's true "s" is a consonant, but that "s" is an initial and is pronounced "ess."

       Before a vowel, the article "a" becomes "an".    I like things in print that recognize the way we’d  say something when reading it aloud (or even when "silent"-reading it for our own inner ear).

Aren't Words Wonderful?

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Junk Peddlar Redux

Click on photo to enlarge

        Seeing this sight in front of my own house this morning (they were picking up some stuff from us), it immediately took my mind back to the early days of Jewish immigrants in the U.S.  Collecting discarded or used stuff from others for resale was a major way to start making a living in this country for those without much of anything to begin with.

       This time it's gasoline and truck instead of horse and cart.   And the language I heard was Spanish mixed with a little English, instead of a bissel English mixed in with the Yiddish. 

56 Years and Counting!

       Our 56th wedding anniverary, and I looked it up online, asking what was special about the 56th; you know, paper, copper, whatever.  I found that there's nothing special about the 56th. 

       But I did like one of the comments made by an online reader after that answer was given to someone else's same question two years ago:

       "It's a bloody miracle!  You both should be wearing gold stars all day long."

Connie and I are assuming that attitude for ourselves.

"Behooves"

       I was curious about the word "behooves" because of its sound, and it took me on this journey:

       Behooves means to "be morally required of (a person), be incumbent upon; befit."  It behooves one to do this, we say.

       It is derived from Middle English behoven, from Old English behof "use, profit, need," thence from Germanic bi-hof:  "bi" is a reduced form of ambhi from Indo-European "on all sides" and is an intensifying prefix; so what is at root here is "to have a need all around"; "that which binds."

       If it "behooves" you to do something,  everything is pointing towards its necessity!

"Kvelling about Henry Cavill"

       A piece in the L.A. Times Tuesday morning about why the new Superman movie is doing so well.  The little internal headline on one section reads "Kvelling about Henry Cavill."  Henry was cast as Superman and apparently is successful in the role.

       Writing the article is Steven Zeitchik who I'm guessing is Jewish and may or may not have written that internal headline.  I don't think "kvelling" has quite reached the status of "chutzpah" as a Yiddish word adopted by English but may be on its way.  Kvelling means "bragging with pride," usually about a loved one.

       You might say it's a near opposite for "cavil," which is English for picking at or taking issue with a minor aspect of something.  I'm glad people are kvelling and not cavilling about Henry Cavill!

Father's Day, Plus 1

       Two years ago this day, I wrote the following:

       June 17, 2011--In honor of Father’s Day, daughter Elizabeth’s weekly poem to her mailing list was from “Song of the Open Road” in Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, a book I’d given her. Elizabeth cited the note I’d written, about my having performed Whitman’s poem:  “I loved doing it. He so energizes you.”

       Whitman did so again, but one line stuck out for me this time:

                        "[Wisdom] applies to all stages and objects and                     qualities, and is content..."

reminding me of the saying of an 18th century Chasid, Rabbi Michal:

                         "My life was blessed because I never needed anything until I had it. "

Elizabeth’s blog for today [June 17, 2011] reprints the Whitman excerpt.  You can find it here.



 

Connie's Refrigerator Dad's Day Greeting

"Pre"-Father's Day Card

       These are the words, some barely readable now, scattered about the poster-size Father's Day card hand-made by my son in 1992 when I was 62 and he was 26:

                                                            DONOS
               PA                                                                                          PADRE
               PAPA                             "DADDY"CATION                               POP
                                                                                                                     POPS
                                       MALE PARENTAL UNIT          ABA                         POPPY
       pere                              FATHER          "pop"ulation
                                                                DADA            Hope Springs Paternal
                               DAD                                                   IN
                                                                                                                   A
                                                                                   LOVE,                WORD....
                                                                                        DAvid
               ALPA PATER                                                                           YOU!

"Our Wantings"

       These words struck me in a poem by Rumi:  "our wantings."  A nice double meaning, things that we desire and qualities that we lack.

       They can take us in contrasting directions, worth considering.

       What we want may not be what we lack; what we are deficient in may not be what we desire.

       (The words are from "When We Pray Alone," translation by Coleman Barks, from The Essential Rumi.)    

"Jejune"

       Someone made the movie "Sleepless in Seattle" into a stage musical, and its world premiere in Pasadena last week was met with L.A. Times theater critic Charles McNulty's characterization of the vehicle's song lyrics as "jejune."

       Had I seen the word before?  Yes.  Did I remember what it meant?  No.  Of course it's an attractive word because of the little stutter syllable at the outset, making one wonder.   And no, it has nothing to do with the Roman Goddess Juno, quite the opposite of beauty in its meanings drawn from a part of the intestine--the jejunum--usually found empty upon dissection after death.

       Yes, the lyrics are empty, dry, devoid of life and sustenance, and with associations of intellectually vapid and arid and (maybe because of associations with "juvenile") sophomoric.

       Reading the "Sleepless" review on June 4th, my own association with the word?

                                      "JeJune is bustin' out all over,"

from a far better musical of my youth by Rodgers and Hammerstein, "Carousel." 

It's Not Exactly "June/Moon"

       Driving to broadcast in early morning today, sunless skies call to mind the ”June Gloom” we’re all aware of in Southern California before the sun breaks through around noon to warm us.

       I realize the weather’s less of a downer because we all have those words, June Gloom, to identify the condition.  As long as we have a name for it, it has less of a hold on us--rather, we’ve got a hold on it!

       And if it rhymes to boot--near rhyme anyway--we can almost make a song about it:

                 June Gloom, don’t try to rain on my day
                 You know the sun’s on its way
                 We’ve got your number, Hooray! 

"Echoic" Writing

       One of my pet peeves is "echoic" writing, re-using one of one's own previous words  absentmindedly or lazily.

       Today, an unusual example.   Under the headline "League can't close the deal" Bill Shaikin of the L.A. Times tells us closing pitcher Brandon League couldn't pull off a save and lost the game.  Then:

       "On what might be the most discouraging night in a season full of them, the Dodgers' beleaguered closer blew a two-run lead with two outs to go..."   "be-league-red"

       It might have been deliberate; if so, my congratulations.  Even if it wasn't, I can hardly complain.  But my hunch is it was unconscious as "echoes" usually are.  So this one gets a pass from me and maybe my smiling admiration.  It's a good pun.

A Cartoon Built on an Awful Pun

Click on Cartoon to Enlarge

       Here is the English nursery rhyme:
                              
                           Three blind mice. Three blind mice.
                           See how they run. See how they run.
                           They all ran after the farmer's wife,
                           Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
                           Did you ever see such a sight in your life,
                           As three blind mice?

Proud and Insightful Quote from the Tony Awards

       For all actors, who put their voices and bodies to "telling it like it is" but who may have doubted their calling or themselves in that calling, Tracy Letts, who tonight won the Tony Award for best actor in the revival of the Broadway play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, put things in the right perspective:

       "We are the ones who say it to their faces.  And we have a unique responsibility."

"Curation," "Curator," "Curate"

       Last Thursday's L.A. Times noted that the Ojai Music Festival was put together by choreographer and music director Mark Morris, "and his curation includes danceable and moving tunes by Terry Riley, Lou Harrison..." etc.

       I hadn't seen the word "curation" before, only "curator" and the verb "curate."  One keeps learning.  It's a word.  Then I discovered something odd:  81% of the American Heritage Dictionary "Usage Panel" disapproves of  "to curate"; it is a back-formation of the noun "curator" (i.e., formed after "curator" and developed from it).

       Personally, I think if people need a verb to declare what someone DOES who is a curator, and come up with the word for it, it's a WORD.   You'll only consign yourselves to the dust-bin of history, "Usage Panel,"  huffing at a word widely present and useful.

"GUMPTION"; "PAWKY"; "SMIDGEN"; "FLUKE"; "FLUMMOX"

       It's interesting that when you've gotten to the root meanings of this elusive set of wild sounding words, the trail has led ... NOWHERE.

       I'd say "Huzzah," but we'd have to look it up and find that they're not too sure about that one either.

       So we're left simply with this rootless but wonderful array of words:  Gumption, Pawky, Smidgen, Fluke, and Flummox.

"GUMPTION"; "PAWKY"; "SMIDGEN"; "Fluke"; "Flummox"

       Now it could be that three of these words have taken what I call the "low" road back to Scotland.  I begin to wonder if the English who make the OED don't inherit a little of their great predecessor Samuel Johnson's attitude towards the "outside."   Johnson's definition of "oats"?  "A grain which is generally given to horses but in Scotland supports the people."

       When the OED writers came to a word they couldn't find the root of, did they tend to dismiss it to Scotland:  "gumption"; or to Scotland and "northern":  "pawky"; or even beyond, to Scotland and North America:  "smitch"; or worst and consigned to total oblivion:  "smidge"--"originating and chiefly North America"?

       Just kidding, OED, where would we be without you?

       (Concluded tomorrow)

"Gumption"; "PAWKY"; "SMIDGEN"; "Fluke"; "Flummox"

       Last week I came upon the word "squandering" and said to myself, "That's an interesting sounding word.  I'll bet it has a fascinating background."  ORIGIN UNKNOWN.  Always disappointing.

       I remembered an essay I wrote about some attractive words with no identifiable "primeval" ancestor, and I'm drawing on that this week.

       "Pawky" does come from "pawk," which is obsolete but meant "trick," and pawky is "crafty, artful, cunning," but no one knows where pawk came from.  Similarly "smidgen" probably comes from "smitch," "a particle, a bit," but no one knows where that came from.

       (Continued tomorrow)

"GUMPTION"; "Pawky"; "Smidgen"; "Fluke"; "FLUMMOX"

       In continuing our look at a group of words that have etymological dead-ends, only a quick glance at "gumption" about which apparently the less said the better.  But you gotta revel in its definition:  "Boldness of enterprise; initiative or aggressiveness.  Guts, spunk.  Common sense."  Gumption!   A great word that I'm glad to have in the language.

       "Flummox" (FLUHM-ihks) has thankfully flummoxed ("perplexed" and "confused," AHD) all lexicographers as to its roots.  But the OED says "probably imitative."  Now that sounds right to me, a word expressive of its meaning in its sheer utterance:  flummoxed.

       (Continued tomorrow)

"Gumption"; "Pawky"; "Smidgen"; "FLUKE"; "Flummox"

 
       Fluke as "an unlikely chance occurrence" was at first "an accidentally successful stroke at billiards or pool," but no one knows why, or what the root is.

       This fluke is unrelated to two other flukes, one of them flatfish or flatworms from German flach "flat," and the other being either of the lobes of a whale's tale, perhaps because they're flat.  Uncertainty is rampant.  "Just check it in the dictionary" will not net you certitude.

       To me it seemed a fluke that "fluke" and "flummox" appeared within a couple inches of one another on the same page in my dictionaries.  I was glad to see it!  (Continued tomorrow)

"Gumption"; "Pawky"; "Smidgen"; "Fluke"; "Flummox"

       "Gumption," pawky," "smidgen," "fluke," and "flummox."  Now there's a handful of words.  They're together because they sound funny and make you wonder where they came from.  I like this:  no one knows where they came from!

       These words happen to be "dialectical," a form of speech peculiar to a person, class or district, and no one knows or remembers just how the words began.  Like folk tales that have no real author but "the people," these words were simply adopted and passed on.  FINE.  Speech in  my lexicon should have some secrets from nosy literate researchers!

       But because they're from the people, these words are interesting.  Continued tomorrow.                                                                                                              

A Rabbi Retires

       Twice in a year we've "lost" a rabbi.   One advanced to senior rabbi at another congregation, and now our own senior rabbi, is retiring to live in Israel.   Don Goor, rabbi for 26 years with us, left some text-based thoughts on Friday night to ponder for our lives.    The first is from the Torah in Deuteronomy:

       "Do not say, 'My strengths and my might have allowed me to achieve greatness.'  No one individual, not even Moses, can say, 'Look what I did.'"

The second text is from Pirke Avot (The Sayings of the Fathers):

       "Who is rich?  He who is content with his portion."

I treasure these, and they very much marked the man himself, including that he never taught a class without a text in hand to read and ponder with us together. 

"Macbeth" Yields More

        Two more lines from Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 7, strummed on my memory as I looked up yesterday's passages.  Lady Macbeth, in bolstering Macbeth's will power, says,

                    Screw your courage to the sticking place,/And we'll not fail.

Since it is the killing of Duncan they are contemplating, Macbeth ends the scene with this rhymed couplet to his wife:

                   Away, and mock the time with fairest show;
                   False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

       And only "a page or so later" in Act 2, Scene 1, Macbeth,  soliloquizing about the imagined bloodiness ahead, says,

                                                         Whiles I threat, he lives:
                  Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

       Shakespeare captures by vivid language psychological truths.