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Words

Part of my dictionary collection

I am a word lover. The other day, during a pickleball game, I remarked to my partner that my shot had been lackluster. He was clearly amused, as he repeated, “lackluster,” with a smile and a slight shake of the head. Not the sort of word you normally hear during a pickleball game. However, another guy who plays with our group often says, “Piffle!” when he muffs a shot. Also not your usual sporting term, but one for which I have a great deal of respect. As a noun, piffle means “trivial nonsense.” I used the word Piffle as the name of a character in my ABC book for children (below). Thus I am charmed by my friend’s use of it at pickleball.

According to Merriam-Webster, synonyms for this wonderful noun include “applesauce, balderdash, baloney (also boloney), beans, bilge, blah, blarney, blather, blatherskite, blither, bosh, bull, bunk, bunkum (or buncombe), claptrap, codswallop [British], crapola, crock, drivel, drool, fiddle, fiddle-faddle, fiddlesticks, flannel [British], flapdoodle, folderol (also falderal), folly, foolishness, fudge, garbage, guff, hogwash, hokeypokey, hokum, hoodoo, hooey, horsefeathers, humbug, humbuggery, jazz, malarkey (also malarky), moonshine, muck, nerts, nonsense, nuts, poppycock, punk, rot, rubbish, senselessness, silliness, slush, stupidity, taradiddle (or tarradiddle), tommyrot, tosh, trash, trumpery, twaddle.” Piffle can be used as a verb, as well, but I’ll spare you the list of those synonyms.

From my ABC book, A to Z With Puff & Piffle

Whose vocabulary could not be improved by the use of these wonderful words? And of course, there are so many more where these came from. And yet, we slog along, using very few of the 40,000 words the average English speaker recognizes and can define. Instead, we generally use only about half of those in speech and writing. I myself am guilty of over-using the word “awesome,” as well as many other common words.

The New York Times Mini Crossword for September 19 gives as a clue, “Adjective that’s been called ‘possibly the worst word in the English dictionary.’” The word I eagerly attempted to divine turns out to be “moist.” This judgment seems harsh. Why is this innocuous word deemed “the worst?”

On the other hand, I can think of many words I would judge to be among the best. Palaver is one. Pandowdy. Kerfuffle. Flummoxed. Befuddled. Bumble. Shivoo. Allwither. Rapscallion. Scallawag. Scofflaw. Hooligan. Penultimate and Antepenultimate. Whiffle. Diphthong. Knackered. Bandersnatch.

I adore, as well, imaginative phrases, most of those being British. In the online painting class I took this summer, I was delighted to hear the British teacher refer to one of her own paintings as “a bit of a dog’s breakfast.” !! I find myself repeating the phrase often, but alas, out of context. Then there’s “Bob’s your uncle.” “I’m chuffed to bits!” “We just need to crack on.” And “Just stop whinging and get on with it!” I also love the phrase “More anon,” used by a retired English professor I know.

Particularly great estate sale find

I feel we are all missing out by not using or even inventing more words. Shakespeare is said to have invented 1700 words and Lewis Carroll conjured up 24 absolutely frabjous ones, many of those portmanteaus. Language is evolving every day, with words being given new meaning or actually being dreamed up. Speaking is a pastime in which we all engage, so why not jazz it up a bit?

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” – Rudyard Kipling

“Don’t gobblefunk around with words.” ― Roald Dahl, The BFG

If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. And if you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems on my blog.

Thanks for listening,
Kay

P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”

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Poem

I wonder if I will always note that this was the date

upon which my friend died now two years ago.

The moon was full that night, there was no drought

and it was certainly not as hot then as it is now.

I saw a colleague of hers the other day

who said he’d thought of her recently.

I think of her every day,

I said and he looked rather startled.

Words and phrases that passed

from her everyday language into

mine and mine to hers I suppose

that is the biggest culprit as we

were both always keen on words.

I noted in my journal that in those last days

out of her head and drugged with morphine

the word poem popped into her ramblings

again and again not so surprising as she

was likely writing one in her head even then.

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Interpretation

Who was that little bird I heard
its clear voice calling He’s he-ere!
across and back through the trees
to a like-minded other who called
it back again and again?
I had no good sighting but committed
the sound to memory with those words.
He’s he-ere!  Now I hear Teacher Teacher Teacher
outside my window, my clumsy ears
converting the calls of birds to 
human words. In like manner we
interpret each other’s words as we
see fit, right or not and if not
oh what trouble we bring
upon ourselves.

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Penultimate

I have waited all year long
to name this the penultimate day
of the year for who (not I) can 
resist that marvelous word 
given the chance to use it 
since to be spoken written 
down typed used in a phrase 
is the be-all end-all of a word 
itself otherwise lying flat
on some dictionary page, heart
thrumming in anticipation
someday to be thoughtfully 
placed into a sentence not to mention
a poem! and murmuring with profound
incredulity Look!  Oh my just look
where I am! and to know in its 
bones it is absolutely the most perfect 
word for that particular sentence.
Oh the pure joy!  
But imagine if you will
the heartless glib erasing 
the painful scratching through or
worst of injuries the absolute
cold horror of the delete key backing
over removing one letter at a time
leaving the tiny word pen and finally
nothing at all as some other 
clearly inferior word is substituted
when everyone knows there is no 
other single word that adequately
fills the shoes of penultimate.