Yeah, it don’t sound like it means…
Definition: “Characterized by or having great physical beauty and appeal.”
Example: “In the next decade, Dogpatch became the backdrop of a Broadway musical with Peter Palmer as Abner, Edie Adams as his perpetual girlfriend Daisy Mae, and pulchritudinous showstoppers Tina Louise and Julie Newmar as, respectively, Ms. Von Climax and the truly Stupefyin’ Jones [see Jones above].” (bold mine)
Rubicon = A point of no return, one where an action taken commits a person irrevocably
In 49 BCE, Caesar crossed the Rubicon, a small river that formed the boundary between Cisalpine Gaul and Italy. As he crossed the river into Italy, he exclaimed “iacta alea est” (the die is cast) knowing well that his action signified a declaration of war with Rome.
Example: When your girlfriend moves in with you, you have in effect crossed the Rubicon. (And no matter how hard you try to hide them, she will find your Exposé records.)
My mom used to refer to the gunk that accumulates at the base of my eyelids as “sleep.”
But it looks like the doctors have another word for it—it’s called blepharitis.
So, what do I have to look forward to? Unfortunately, more “sleep.” More inflammation of the eyelids: Redness. Swelling. And more dried crusts!
Damn my eyelids!
A.Word.A.Day gives us what sounds like an obvious band name from the 60s. (It happens to be the name of a band in 2010.) The twist to the hippy-sounding nom de groupe comes in the definition.
Star Chamber
PRONUNCIATION:(star CHAYM-buhr)
MEANING:noun: A court or group marked by arbitrary, oppressive, and secretive procedures.
ETYMOLOGY:After the Star Chamber in the Palace of Westminster in London. It was the site of a closed-door court appointed by King Henry VII of England in the 15th century. Notorious for its abuse of power — rulings made in secret, no appeal — it was abolished by the Long Parliament in 1641. The chamber was so named because its ceiling was decorated with stars.
USAGE:“‘This is the most incredible Star Chamber proceeding, the most incredible lack of due process I’ve ever heard of,’ Mitchelson said. ‘I’m the alleged perpetrator, and I was not even invited.’”
Edward J. Boyer; Mitchelson Angry, Vows to Block Aid for Two Women; The Los Angeles Times; Jan 25, 1989.
Somnambulist = Sleepwalker
Whenever I see the word “somnambulist” —I never hear it spoken—I always think of this famed scene from Macbeth (ACT 5, Scene 1)*:
Enter LADY MACBETH, with a taper
Gentleman: Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.
Doctor: How came she by that light?
Gentlewoman: Why, it stood by her: she has light by her continually; ’tis her command.
Doctor: You see, her eyes are open.
Gentlewoman: Ay, but their sense is shut.
Doctor: What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.
Gentlewoman: It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands: I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.
LADY MACBETH: Yet here’s a spot.
Doctor: Hark! she speaks: I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
LADY MACBETH: Out, damned spot! out, I say!–One: two: why, then, ’tis time to do’t.–Hell is murky!–Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?–Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.
Doctor: Do you mark that?
LADY MACBETH: The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?– What, will these hands ne’er be clean?–No more o’ that, my lord, no more o’ that: you mar all with this starting.
Doctor: Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
Gentlewoman: She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: heaven knows what she has known.
LADY MACBETH: Here’s the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!
Doctor: What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
Gentlewoman: I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body.
Doctor: Well, well, well,–
Gentlewoman: Pray God it be, sir.
Doctor: This disease is beyond my practise: yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.
LADY MACBETH: Wash your hands, put on your nightgown; look not so pale.–I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s grave.
Doctor: Even so?
LADY MACBETH: To bed, to bed! there’s knocking at the gate: come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone.–To bed, to bed, to bed!
Exit
Doctor: Will she go now to bed?
Gentlewoman: Directly.Doctor: Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets:
More needs she the divine than the physician.
God, God forgive us all! Look after her;
Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her. So, good night:
My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight.
I think, but dare not speak.Gentlewoman: Good night, good doctor.
Exeunt
Yes, I just dropped some Shakespeare on your ass, biatch! I went to high school!
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* Edited
I’m done with “airport.” It’s “Flughafen” from now on.
In August 2009 I commented on Yale University’s decision to ban images of Muhammad from Jytte Klausen’s book The Cartoons That Shook the World. At the time of my posting I really wish I’d had the following word in my lexicon. It’s perfect—the word is, not my lexicon. And the word I’m talking about is not the word “perfect”— it is:
grangerize*
PRONUNCIATION:
(GRAYN-juh-ryz)
MEANING:
verb tr.:
1. To mutilate a book by clipping pictures out of it.
2. To illustrate a book by adding pictures cut from other books.
ETYMOLOGY:
After James Granger (1723-1776), an English clergyman whose Biographical History of England had blank leaves for illustrations, to be filled with pictures, clippings, etc. by the reader.
USAGE:
“Bagtoothian looked up from his reading, An Illustrated History of Sparta, which he proceeded to grangerize.”
Roger Rosenblatt; Beet: A Novel; HarperCollins; 2008.
It’s interesting how Mr. Granger became an eponym for book mutilation. His original practice of leaving “blank leaves for illustrations, to be filled with pictures, clippings, etc. by the reader” sounded like a lot of fun, actually.
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*Thanks to Anu Garg at www.Wordsmith.org for his “A.Word.A.Day.”
I subscribe to “A.Word.A.Day” at www.Wordsmith.org by Anu Garg. Even with the subscription, my vocabulary is still pretty limited—I often just glance at the daily (Mon-Fri) word before deleting the email that carried it—and my spelling continues to be atrocious. But every now and then I come across a cool word (via AWAD or my own chance readings of words) the definition and spelling of which I can remember. This is one of those words:
moirologist
“There may be found traces, too, of Lethe, the river of forgetfulness in the death ballads sung by the hired mourners… The moirologists will sing of the loneliness of the living, of the horrors of death.”
George Walter Prothero; The Quarterly Review; John Murray (London, UK); 1886.PRONUNCIATION:(moy-ROL-uh-jist)
MEANING:noun: A hired mourner.
NOTES:There are some things in life money can’t buy, for everything else, there’s MasterCard. With the right credit card you could even hire mourners for your funeral or find the right sentiment. While researching this word, I came across websites that offer “eulogy packs”. One such site lists a “Mother’s Eulogy pack” that includes “9 speeches, 3 poems, 3 free bonus”. Only $25.95 — have your credit card ready. Fathers go cheaper: $19.97.
Let’s not be too smug and look down upon those who buy these packs. When we go to the neighborhood store to buy a greeting card or a sympathy card, we’re also hiring someone to package words to help us convey our feelings.
Professional mourners are not a new thing either — there’s a long tradition going back to ancient Greece and beyond. As late as 1908 a New York Times article reported on a professional mourners’ strike in Paris.
Then there is claque*, a group of people hired to applaud a performer at a show.
ETYMOLOGY:From Greek moira (fate, death) + logos (word).
Some years back at an uncle’s wake in Brooklyn I remember there being a group of women in another room (with another dead body) who were raving** in a foreign tongue and disturbing our party. They were really putting on a show behind that closed door. I think it might have been my father who told me that they were paid to act like that. At the time I didn’t know what to call them. Moirologists has a more sophisticated ring to it than Inconsiderate Bullshitting Assholes.
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Please hire these guys to play my wake:
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* Another cool word, though I’m not sure I’ll remember how to spell it.
** “Histrionics” is another good one.
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