A Few of My Favorite Words

On one my Facebook groups, there is a discussion of people's favorite words. As a language lover, I thought I would list some of my many favorite words and phrases here. Some are my favorites simply because of how they sound, others for what they mean, most for a combination of the two. Here they are, in alphabetical order, with brief definitions and notes.

Antediluvian literally "before the deluge," used to describe the time before The Biblical Flood. Also: old. Avuncular: of or relating to an uncle; benign.

Bellicose. Such a pretty word to mean warlike or combatant. Likewise, I love the country name Belarus, which means something like "White Russia." Bemused which many confuse with amused but actually means bewildered. Betch--my favorite way to say bitch. Blasé, which I believe I first learned from Titanic. Bloody hell is a favorite as both British slang and profanity.

Chimera--a gargoyle that isn't actually a waterspout. Also: fancy, fantasy. Cosmopolitan. Such a sophisticated word to mean worldly and sophisticated. Coup de grâce--deathblow. Pronounced more like "grass" than "grace."

Dendrites. One of the SUU counselors was obsessed with this word. It has to do with neurons and brain stuff. Dénouement: the falling action/resolution of a narrative. Love the barely-there "nt" at the end. Detritus. Dulcet: a sweet and soothing word to mean just that.

Effulgence: radiance. Like many of my favorite words, it flows with Fs and Ls and soft Gs and Cs. Élan: stylish elegance; panache. A frequent crossword solution. Ennui: "Listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement." That is so my life. Ephemeral. Another word with the soft F sound. Eschatological. From the branch of theology dealing with the end of the world. First learned reading Graham Greene's Brighton Rock. Ethereal: sounds similar to ephemeral. Evanesce: to vanish.

Fecund. I love/hate this word. The hard consonants and short vowels. It's fun to say but also sounds dirty. Foppish. Fuck. It can be used as nearly any part of speech. The short "u" and hard "ck." Highly effective.

Gruyère. A delicious cheese and delicious word. "Don't be shy. Say it with me: Gruyère." Gerrymander. A fun word meaning to unfairly map political districts. Learned in AP American History.

Hella janky. Learned on TBTL, meaning inferior quality. Hubris. "Good. Cause you know why? Cause hubris always wins in the end. The Greeks taught us that."

Iconic. Iconoclast: a destroyer of (esp. religious) images; a subversive. Ineffable: incapable of being expressed. Internecine: mutually destructive.

Je ne sais quoi: that intangible, attractive x factor. "Jeuge." Or is it gjush? or zsuzsh? Learned from TBTL via this video about folding jeans. Actress Emily Watson says "It's kind of term for a bit of fancy stuff."

Kummerspeck: a German word for weight gained from emotional overeating. Literally, "grief bacon."

Liminal: relating to the threshold or transitional process. Loquacious: chatty. Luxuriate. It's a wonderful word to luxuriate in.

Mellifluous: melodious. Such a pretty word to say. Métier.: forte. Munificence: generosity; largess.

Occipital. I first came across this word reading Marianne Moore's poem, "To a Snail." Fun to say.

Penultimate: second to last. First learned the definition from Gilmore Girls. Perfidy: deceitfulness. Perspicacious: ready insight, understanding. Also heard on Gilmore Girls. Phantasmagoria: fantastic imagery as in art; associative, dreamlike imagery.

Queue. What an excessive use of vowels. Quixotic: unrealistic and impractical, after Don Quixote. I learned this word in 10th grade AP Euro.

Sagacious. Sanguine: cheerful; having to do with blood. Savoir faire: able to do or say the right thing; social graces. Literally: "to know, to make." Schadenfreude: pleasure from another one's misfortune. Good ole' German words. Shibboleth: watchword, from the Book of Judges. Solipsism. I first learned about this word when studying Virgina Woolf. Somnambulism: sleepwalking. I first came across this word from Charles Brockden Brown's short story "Somnambulism" in Am Lit I. Sonorous.

Teleological. Troglodyte: cave man; hermit. Truculent: isn't this word succulent? It means defiant, aggressive.

Ululation: to howl, wail, or lament loudly.

Voluptuous. What a sensual word.

All of these wonderful words remind me of a poem I like called "Saying Things" by Mariyln Krysl. Check it out.

O Blog, Thou Art Sick

I have neglected my poor blog, and the less I write the less it is read. (I have also been reading others' blogs less.) I am unsure if I will keep blogging in the future. I suppose I will see what happens this summer.*

I am nearly done with graduate school. On Friday I had my last lecture in 508--The History of Recorded Information. There are still two more weeks of classes, but those will be taken up by student presentations. And yesterday, I had my last class with Nancy Pearl in Readers Advisory. I am nearing the end--and I do mean The End. All I see is a great abyss in front of me. (The world may have survived yesterday, but we still have 2012 to get through.) Anyway, aside from my presentation, I also have a 20 page paper to write for 508. My topic is on Charles Dickens as the professional author and serial publication in the Victorian Age as manifested primarily by David Copperfield (and The Pickwick Papers). I have been able to handle the original monthly issues of David Copperfield which are held by UW's Special Collections. I need to finish my research this week, and then pound out a 20 page paper the week after. I hope I can still do it; I haven't had to write a paper that long since 2007 during my final undergraduate semesters at SUU.

I have been very disheartened by my experience with the iSchool and the UW and academia at large, but I really haven't been able to express my dissatisfaction. On Friday's class though, I had an epiphany as represented by Walt Whitman and Melvil Dewey. My personal experience with my high school and undergraduate education was Whitmanesque: expansive, embracing, affirming.** However, my experience with the Information School has been Deweyan, which is to say monomaniacal. It is a trend I fear is taking place in education at all levels--learning is a business with a focus on test scores and analytical intelligence. Where is the critical thinking? Where are the arts? Where is the humanism? In the end I have been buried in debt, and I wonder "Have I grown intellectually? Have I been prepared [for the MLIS is a professional degree] to be a librarian?" I really don't know.

*Speaking of the summer, I will be moving back in with my parents in June (education and the economy are in fantastic shape!). I am, however, excited to be back in Utah, for a while anyway. (And, also, I might just miss Seattle, but just barely.) I keep forgetting that it will not be summer vacation--a stasis in my personal and academic-now-professional life spent drinking iced coffees and reading books by the pool--it will be consumed by job hunting (my least favorite thing in the world), and hopefully before the summer's over I will have a real-life, professional, adult job--somewhere--and be moving again (my second least favorite thing in the world).

**I just wanted to quote the first and last stanzas of Leaves of Grass (the 1855 edition):

I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease . . . observing a spear of summer grass.

. . .

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop some where waiting for you.

A Day Late

Yesterday was World Poetry Day and you can read more about it at the UN's webpage. However, and perhaps more importantly, it was also my good friend Dain's birthday. This I forgot because I'm not all that good with dates and it's not on his Facebook profile. So, Happy Birthday, Dain!

And here are a couple of poems, both by Christina Rossetti, the good-natured and long-suffering sister of the more devilish Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Both contain hints of ecstasy, erotic and spiritual respectively, which is fitting since it is now officially spring and the weather has been gorgeous in Seattle today.

"A Birthday"

My heart is like a singing bird
     Whose nest is in a watered shoot:
My heart is like an apple tree
     Whose boughs are bent with thickset-fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
     That paddles in the halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
     Because my love is come to me.

Raise my a dais of silk and down;
     Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve in it doves and pomegranates,
     And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
     In leaves and silver fluers-dy-lys;
Because the birthday of my life,
     Is come, my love is come to me.

"Passing Away"

Passing away, saith the World, passing away;
Chances, beauty, and youth, sapped day by day;
Thy life never continueth in one stay.
Is the eye waxen dim, is the dark hair changing to grey
That hath won neither laurel nor bay?
I shall clothe myself in Spring and bud in May;
Thou, root-stricken, shalt not rebuild thy decay
On my bosom for aye.
Then I answered: Yea.

Passing away, saith my Soul, passing away;
With its burdens of fear and hope, of labour and play,
Hearken what the past doth witness and say;
Rust in thy gold, a moth is in thine array,
A canker is in thy bud, thy leaf must decay.
A midnight, at cockcrow, at morning, one certain day
Lo the Bridegroom shall come and shall not delay;
What thou and pray.
Then I answered: Yea.

Passing away, saith my God, passing away;
Winter passeth after the long delay;
New grapes on the vine, new figs on the tender spray,
Turtle calleth turtle in Heaven's May.
Though I tarry, wait for Me, trust Me, watch and pray:
Arise, come away, night is past and lo it is day,
My love, My sister, My spouse, thou shalt hear Me say.
Then I answered: Yea.

Double Ninth Festival

Here's a lovely autumnal poem for your delight. Enjoy!

To "Drunk in the Shadow of Flowering Trees"

Pale fog, then dense clouds—
     gloomy all day long;
in the animal-shaped censer
     incense burns away.
Once again it is that autumn holiday:
to my jade pillow behind the gauze screen
at midnight the cold first comes.

By the eastern hedge I took wine in hand
     after twilight fell.
A fragrance filled my sleeves unseen.
Don't tell me this does not break your heart—
the west wind blowing up the curtains
and the person,
     as gaunt as the chrysanthemums.

by Li Qingzhao
translated by Stephen Owen