Laodicean -- Lukewarm About Bees

What does it mean to own a word? Is it that you know how to pronounce it correctly? Is it not until you can spell it accurately? I think most of us would say you don't really own a word till you can accurately use it in speech or writing. My personal take is that spelling and pronunciation are nice and useful to be sure, definitely preferable, but I'll chuck 'em for a solid, spot-on usage any given day.

I suppose that's vocabulary heresy, especially coming right on the heels of the crowning of 13-year-old Kavya Shivashankar as this year's Scripps National Spelling Bee champion. Spelling bees have elevated the art of stringing letters together to the status of gladiatorial competition. As The Washington Post noted:

The high-gloss event, televised on ESPN and prime-time ABC, is perhaps the one time a year that sportscasters cover the English language with the same alacrity they do college football. The contest bore the trappings of an athletic event, with sweeping boom cameras, heavily made-up announcers and 41 semifinalists, who had been winnowed from a field of 293.

Spelling bees edged into popular culture with such fare at the critically acclaimed 2006 movie Akeelah and the Bee and the success of the Broadway production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which earned six Tony award nominations in 2005.

I celebrate bees achieving this level of appreciation and attention, and at the same time, the elevation of spelling over meaning irks me. Oh, sure, the contestants can request the meanings of the words or their parts of speech and ask to hear them used in a sentence, but such information is not always requested and really, did learning or knowing that Laodicean means "lukewarm or indifferent, especially in religion or politics" help Kavya spell it correctly?

In terms of the workings of language, meaning preceded spelling. Well before we finally agreed that it should be spelled l-a-u-g-h and most of us decided to pronounce it as |laf| rather than |lahf|, we in the English-speaking societies agreed that this set of letters and this sound means "to express one's amusement through a vocal exhalation produced by a series of facial and bodily movements." The simple word where has enjoyed a variety of spellings through the years, including wher, wheare, wair, whair, and were. A contemporary middle school student may find it a bit slow-going, but I dare say probably could comprehend one of William Shakespeare's plays with all the words as he originally spelled them (provided of course footnotes explaining archaic terms such as petard).

I'm not anti-bee, however. I guess you could say I'm somewhat Laodicean about them. Maybe I'd be fully enthusiastic if contestants were given points for being able to themselves correctly define the words they're challenged to spell or to use the terms in a sentence. Just think: it would add a whole new level of drama after the nail-biting wait to hear if the contestant correctly used ae instead of y to spell maecenas (meaning "generous benefactor" and the word this year's runner-up missed). A spelling and usage bee -- now that would be real competition!

Abide -- An Enduring Term

Twice today I used the word abide to mean endure in the sense of tolerate or put up with. The word randomly popped into my mind when I could've just as easily said put up with instead. But I like what the brain sometimes comes up with when it goes into vocabulary shuffle mode, spinning through the collection of synonyms stored in all those terabytes of memory and popping out a random term, perhaps one that hasn't touched the tongue for a while, but you welcome again when it turns up, remembering what a fine, versatile term it is. And like a song, words can churn up feelings, like nostalgia or bemusement.

Abide, for example, conjures for me the velvet-cushioned pews, suppressed coughs, stretching effect of high ceilings on shadows, and poetic psalms from the churches of my youth along with the sonorous lyrics of that oldie but goodie hymn, "Abide With Me." I can't sing the lyrics anymore, but still that slow, dare I say ponderous, tune abides with me, imprinted deep somewhere in my cerebrum, perhaps.

And yes, abide also means endure in the sense of to last, to continue on without fading away. Which evokes a chuckle from me as I hear in my head Jeff Bridges as Jeffrey Lebowski intoning in that middle-aged slacker voice, "The Dude abides." Ah, The Big Lebowski, a witty cinematic confection from the Coen Brothers, full of all manner of memorable quotes!

Abide means "to live or dwell with." It also means "to remain stable or fixed," "to stand fast and unyielding." And it's also used to mean "to submit to" or "to tolerate," as in to abide by a decision or precept. To endure and to endure.

We call on God to abide with us, seeking a steadfast, unwavering presence to see us through life's vagaries. The Dude assures us that he abides. The Narrator at the close of The Big Lebowski tells us, "I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh. I sure hope he makes the finals."

Dictionary Definition
Pronounced: ə-bīd
Roots: Old English ābīdan meaning wait from ā- meaning ‘onward’ + bīdan.
1. accept or act in accordance with (a rule, decision, or recommendation)
2. able to tolerate (someone or something)
3. continue without fading or being lost.
4. (archaic) live; dwell

Apoplectic -- Rage Hard

The driver behind me in the big white SUV was in the throes of an apoplectic fit. It was quite a sight filling my rearview mirror. Hands and arms jerking in gesticulations of rage, mouth stretched wide in one bellow after another, veins in his neck throbbing. Even his eyebrows seemed to stand up and bristle. If the hairs on his head could've acted independently, I'm sure they would've cussed me out in semaphore.

I could indeed see all this pretty clearly since he was tailgating so close he might as well have been in my backseat. My crime? Refusing to drive over 70 mph in the far left lane on the Dulles Toll Road. Ok, sure, I could have taken the hint from his gestures and moved over a lane to let him fly by unimpeded any longer by my pokey vehicle. But I had gotten over to the left so that I could exit onto the access road for the airport where I had a flight to catch. Yeah, I got over a few miles earlier than I really needed to, but I didn't want to miss the exit and besides, this is a 4-lane road and anyone behind me who insisted on doing no more than a minimum of 70 on this 55-mph-limit highway had plenty of space to go around me on the right. Which is finally what my neanderthal buddy did, though he kept pace alongside me long enough to send a few more choice words my way along with a copious amount of spittle. He even tossed a Coke can out the window as he gunned the engine to fly ahead.

I'm only exaggerating somewhat. This guy was the picture you'd see in the encyclopedia entry on apoplexy, a term used since the days of ancient Greece to refer to the symptoms of suffering what we now call a stroke. It morphed into a figurative term for the sort of furor that makes people's eyes bulge and chests heave. The incident might've been -- perhaps should've been -- scary to me at the time given how close he followed for a while. It's funny in hindsight. Yet mostly what I felt at the moment was sadness. For him and for me. What a senseless waste of energy on this guy's part. All that anger, all that emotion, and to what purpose? It didn't get him anywhere any faster, didn't make me repent for being such an impediment to others and swear to mend my ways.

But perhaps it at least made him feel better to let off some steam? I have to think this guy was having a really bad day given the level of rage he demonstrated. Letting off steam is how I justify my own incidents of road rage. Which is why the incident made me feel sad for myself as much as for apoplectic SUV man.

I'd like to think I've never been as bad as this guy, but truth be told, I've done my share of top of the lungs yelling at someone who has cut me off, braked too sharply, coasted too slowly, or just generally driven in a manner that I consider to be moronic. Yet, to what purpose that waste of energy and emotion on my part? It didn't make the other driver mend her error, get me where I needed to go faster, or otherwise do anything other than send some ugly karma out into the universe. If I were honest with myself I'd say it didn't make me feel any better, either. It probably only helped the rancor linger since my pointing out the flaws in other people's driving has never yielded any signs of remorse on their part that would soothe my nerves.

This is true of so many of the annoyances and inconveniences we inevitably encounter throughout our lives. Airports with their long lines at ticket counters and security are notorious for such irritations. So, thanks to apoplectic SUV man, I arrived at the airport in a zen frame of mind. The teen sports team members who had no clue about the new security rules and held up the line? Whatever. The guy in front of me on the plane who reclined his seat as far back as it would go and then occasionally tried to treat it like a rocking chair? Eh, he never hit my book and interrupted my reading.

I can't promise that I'll be able to maintain this zen state of mind on a continuous basis. In fact, I've already reneged a few times since that flight. But I'm going to try to remember the sight of apoplectic SUV man in my rearview mirror and remind myself, you don't want to be such an unhappy, pathetic character yourself so just chill out.

Dictionary Definition:
Roots: Latin apoplecticus, from Greek apoplēktikos meaning ‘disable by a stroke’
Prounounced: ap-uh-plek-tik
1. Of, resembling, or produced by apoplexy, a sudden impairment of nuerological funtion esp. when resulting from a cerebral hemorrhage.
2. Having or inclined to have apoplexy; exhibiting symptoms associated with apoplexy.
3. Extremely angry; furious.

Humidity -- Oh, the Fun of It!

I have a new colleague who hails from northern California. She's a recent transplant to the D.C. region and everyone keeps warning her about what to expect during her first summer in the American South. Yes, D.C. is in the South, as much as folks here may wish to deny it, thinking themselves oh so cosmopolitan. (I remember when I was in high school in Birmingham, Ala. reading an article that noted "bama" was a slang term used in D.C. to denote a hick with no style. To which I say, bless their hearts, some of those D.C. denizens just can't seem to remember where that Mason-Dixon line runs.)

People who move to the South are given to fear humidity like brain-eating zombies or swine flu. Ok, yes, humidity feels yucky. Even us native Suth'ners cop to that. For those of you who've never experienced it, take a roll of cellophane and wrap yourself in it. The whole roll. From crown to toe. Once you're fully wrapped, have someone blow a hairdryer at you at full heat. While you're standing in a sauna. Now breathe.

Humidity in the Southern summer is that continuous clamminess that comes from hot, moisture-laden air through which you almost feel the need to push yourself with some amount of physical exertion. Fan blades turn slower in the South because the air is that much heavier. A glass of lemonade doesn't just sweat, it cries uncle 30 seconds after you take it out of the fridge.

Humid derives from a Latin term umere meaning "to be moist." It also relates to the medieval physiological term for the elements that, it was thought, determine personality, namely, the four humours. This concept fascinated me as a lit student when I was studying Chaucer and other middle English writers. Back then, people believed that their temperments were ruled by the balance of these humours in their bodies. Your level of blood (emanating from the liver -- so it was believed at the time -- and characterized by courageousness or amorousness), phlegm (secreted by the brain or lungs and associated with calmness or aloofness), yellow bile (stemming from the gall bladder and associated with anger and impulsiveness), and black bile (secreted by the spleen and linked to despondence and irritability) determined your outlook on life. Too much of one or the other explained why you were either melancholy, hot-headed, unflappable, or easily annoyed. I love the adjectives associated with each, pretty much still in use today (though not all in their original sense or usage): sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric and melancholic, respectively.

Nowadays, humour in its medieval sense of fluids is no more and humor means laughable or having a sense of what's funny. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the term humour led to the sense of "'mood, temporary state of mind' (first recorded 1525); the sense of 'amusing quality, funniness' is first recorded 1682, probably via sense of 'whim, caprice' (1565), which also produced the verb sense of 'indulge,' first attested 1588.... Humorous in the modern sense is first recorded 1705."

So the relationship between humidity and humorous is fractured. But if we Southerners couldn't make fun of all the Yankees wilting in the heat, what fun would we have?

Pluvial -- Rain O'er Me

I nearly had a heart attack today brought on by the shock of a sunbeam streaming through my office window, piercing the chilly clamminess in which I've worked for the past several weeks. It flitted away all too quickly and by the time I exited the building I was once again slogging through the rain, toes all too soon squishing against soggy soles, under the perpetual gray sky that has shrouded D.C. for what seems like weeks. I know it's good for my flowerbeds and shrubs. I know it's keeping the pollen down and alleviating my hubby's seasonal allergy misery. I know I'll be whining about the lack of showers come the dusty, droughty dog days of August. But right now I am sick and tired of this pluvial weather!!!

Not my friend Eric, however, who suggested pluvious to me, another adjectival variation of the term. Looking it up, I half-expected to discover that pluvious or pluvius (yet another accepted spelling variation) was the name of some minor Roman god of rivers, floods, or downpours. According to some online sources, Pluvius was one of a multitude of epithets attached to the big guy himself, Jupiter, the chief god of the Roman pantheon. Makes sense given that Jupiter, or Jove, was depicted as lord of the skies and hurler of thunderbolts. These sources suggest that drought-stricken Romans would pray to Jupiter Pluvius to send rain and relieve their suffering. Does the reverse work? Can I send him a prayer asking him to cut it out already?

According to the OED, however, the root of pluvial is merely the Latin pluvia, meaning rain. But pluvial doesn't mean just rain. It means lots of rain. Characterized by rain. Heavy rain.

Pluvial is a term more likely to turn up in geographical or geological contexts -- e.g., "there were two pluvial periods in the Pleistocene." I doubt Willard Scott ever uttered the term during one of his Today Show weather forecasts slash centenarian birthday shout-outs.

Checking the weather forecast for tomorrow: oh, surprise, surprise -- more pluvial weather! But there's the promise of at least a little sun in the morning, maybe even into the early afternoon. Maybe I'll be visited by that happy little sunbeam again, at least for a few minutes. Right now, I'll take every second's worth of sun I can get.

Factotum -- Jack or Flunky?

Mark has gotten a lot of attention for a column he did on high-speed rail, including invitations to chat with people in the business. "They do know you're just a dilettante expert, right?" I pointedly remarked, ever supportive of his journalism. Which ultimately led to my dubbing him a factotum (which, I thought, is the nature of the game in much of journalism) to which he took umbrage. "I am not a flunky," he retorted. Well, wait a minute; I didn't call him that. "No, a flunky is a sycophant. I'm calling you a jack-of-all-trades" (which, again, is the nature of much of journalism, or so I thought). Clearly, we had a difference of usage, and the way to settle that is to go to the dictionary.

OED notes the Latin roots of factotum, as facere, meaning "to do," and totum, meaning "the whole." The moniker "Johannes Factotum" and "Frère Jean Factotum" showed up back in the 16th century, meaning "John-do-everything." The term also is akin to the Latin phrase "Dominus factotum," meaning "one who controls everything." It's hard to tell if the term was applied from the beginning with complete straight-faced sincerity or ironically or has always had a dual usage, though the OED seems to indicate the former.

Today, both terms jack-of-all-trades and factotum can be used either admiringly or derisively, meaning either one who can do a bit of everything or one who dabbles or meddles in everything. So, yes, a factotum can designate one hired because she is versatile or because she's suited to be a general go-fer. The OED seems to suggest that factotum is a term for someone above being a sycophant or simple go-fer. It notes that in modern sense, the term signifies, "a man of all-work; also a servant who has the entire management of his master's affairs." (Momentary pause to think that the "modern" sense in the OED still includes the idea of "masters" and "servants.") Our dictionary for college students defines factotum simply as, "an employee or assistant who serves in a wide range of capacities."

Mark contends that using the term factotum to describe journalists is giving them too much credit. He believes dilettante is the appropriate term. As he notes, he has written articles about space travel, genetic enginnering, and any number of other complex things and yet he'd never proclaim any real ability in rocket science, genetics, or other fields. Upon reflection, I think he's generally right, but with caveats.

Dilettante is originally defined as, "one who cultivates [the fine arts] for the love of them rather than professionally, and so = amateur as opposed to professional." Yet, the term carries its own weight of deprecation as it evolved to also denote one who interests himself or herself in an area "without real commitment or knowledge" (see the New Oxford American Dictionary).

Well, the journalists I know and work with on health and science beats by and large are committed to understanding what they're covering even if they don't have M.D.s after their names. They strive to grasp the complexities of what they're reporting on and to present it accurately and in a way that we not-even-dilettantes can understand and care about. The loss of this dilettante expertise is what I most lament in the slow demise of traditional mainstream media.

(Thanks to spellcheck and dictionary sites for ensuring that I spelled dilettante -- a French term -- correctly throughout.)

Formidable -- A Force to Be Reckoned With

Formidable -- there's a term that carries some gravitas. Not a term to use lightly and not a descriptive you hear pinned to the average joe or jane. It's reserved for people like Bea Arthur, the actress who played TV's tough broad Maude in a popular sit-com of the 1970s. Several of the articles about her death last week employed the term formidable about her presence, about the characters she played, about her voice. "Tall and formidable, with that deep voice, Bea Arthur was a star for all the reasons that women aren't stars on TV," said a Washington Post writer.

Or like Britain's former prime minister, who was profiled in London's Daily Telegraph on Saturday under the headline: "Margaret Thatcher: Formidable, Determined, Kittenish, Kind." I wonder which reaction that headline evinced from "the Iron Lady," a smile or a roll of her eyes?

A cursory scan of recent news reveals that formidable turns up more frequently in the sports section than in entertainment or daily news. That's because it's most commonly used to describe a tough or fearsome opponent or situation, like a particularly challenging game.

Formidable has become something of a compliment, albeit a nuanced one. Interesting since the term's original meaning and its Latin root formidare mean "fear." Formidable's principal definition in many dictionaries is a variation on "inspiring dread." I'm sure that seeing a 6-foot, 250-lb. linebacker steaming toward you, ready to pound your helmet into the mud, probably inspires a certain amount of dread in many a freshman recruit. But for all that Arthur's character Maude occasionally made her TV hubby quaver and perhaps Thatcher had some British parliamentarians quaking in their brogues, it seems a little ludicrous to think of these ladies as menacing, terrifying figures.

Formidable has evolved through the years from its roots in fear to emphasizing the sense of admiration and respect that frightful and powerful -- or just powerful -- entities can evoke. You can use the term to convey dread or apprehension -- Rocky faced a formidable foe in Mr. T's "Clubber" Lang -- or respect -- see the references to Bea Arthur above -- and not infrequently both at the same time. E.g., Everest offers a formidable challenge to mountain climbers. Julius Caesar proved to be both a formidable military tactician and politician. In that way, I suppose it's no surprise that a tough, no-nonsense woman who takes charge and brooks no guff from anyone could find herself tagged with formidable in profiles and obits. I expect that a search of the reams of coverage of Hillary Clinton would turn up more than a few instances of the word. Whether you think that it evokes more respect or fear in her case -- well, formidableness is in the eye of the beholder.

Dictionary Definitions
The New Oxford American Dictionary says: "inspiring fear or respect through being impressively large, powerful, intense, or capable."

The American Heritage Dictionary gives: "1. Arousing fear, dread, or alarm: the formidable prospect of major surgery. 2. Inspiring awe, admiration, or wonder: "Though a true hero, he was also a thoroughgoing bureaucrat and politician, a formidable combination" (Mario Puzo). 3. Difficult to undertake, surmount, or defeat: a formidable challenge; a formidable opponent.

The OED seems to resist the evolution of the term's meaning toward conveying admiration. It says, "That which gives cause for fear or alarm; fit to inspire dread or apprehension. Now usually (with some obscuration of the etymological sense): Likely to be difficult to overcome, resist, or deal with; giving cause for serious apprehension of defeat or failure."

Temerity -- How Galling!

"It didn't storm today, like the weather report said it would," Mark noted. "No, but it had the temerity to rain on my bike ride!" I retorted. We're still watching out of our windows to see when the downpour comes. But, meanwhile, I'm occupying myself exploring that choice word, temerity.

Whenever I see or say it, I can't help but think of termites. That's stupid, of course, and does nothing to help me retain the word's true meaning. Except if I think to myself, what temerity those termites had invading my home! Even if its framework is made out of wooden beams, like a giant banquet hall for these cellulose-chomping critters, I'm appalled that they'd invade my space! I did indeed endure a termite infestation in one of the apartments I lived in during my college years. It was mating season and an orgy was taking place in the living room, mostly in the sunlight of the one large window in that room. In hindsight, I should've burst into a resounding chorus of "Let the Sun Shine In." At the time however, I was reduced to semi-articulate shouting into the telephone to the apartment manager that I was very put out by the lack of effective pest control.

So, anyway, temerity has nothing to do with termites. No, it stems from Latin root temeritas meaning "rashness." Hmm. Accusing Romans of rashness needn't raise any eyebrows -- et tu, Bruté, and all that -- but kind of silly to suggest that the weather acted out of rashness.

Proper usage of temerity merited a special note in the New Oxford American Dictionary, interestingly:

THE RIGHT WORD
The line that divides boldness from foolishness or stupidity is often a fine one.
Someone who rushes hastily into a situation without thinking about the consequences might be accused of rashness, while temerity implies exposing oneself needlessly to danger while failing to estimate one's chances of success (she had the temerity to criticize her teacher in front of the class).
Audacity describes a different kind of boldness, one that disregards moral standards or social conventions (he had the audacity to ask her if she would mind paying for the trip).
Someone who behaves with foolhardiness is reckless or downright foolish (climbing the mountain after dark was foolhardiness and everyone knew it), while impetuosity describes an eager impulsiveness or behavior that is sudden, rash, and sometimes violent (his impetuosity had landed him in trouble before).
Gall and effrontery are always derogatory terms. Effrontery is a more formal word for the flagrant disregard of the rules of propriety and courtesy (she had the effrontery to call the president by his first name), while gall is more colloquial and suggests outright insolence (he was the only one with enough gall to tell the boss off).

I suppose I've been accustomed to using temerity as a direct substitute for effrontery to mean the derogatory sense of disregard for propriety and I need to adjust my terminology. Darn it, I knew I should've just stuck to good ol' gall! But then, did Woody Allen use temerity correctly?

From Love and Death:

(Allen as Boris) Don't you know that murder carries with it a moral imperative that transcends any notion of inherent universal free will?
(Diane Keaton as Sonya) That is incredibly jejune.
(Allen) That's jejune?
(Keaton) Jejune!
(Allen) You have the temerity to say that I'm talking to you out of jejunosity? I am one of the most june people in all of the Russias!

Dictionary Definition:
Pronounced: |tə-mer-i-tē|
1. excessive confidence or boldness; audacity