Vertiginous -- Dizzying Word Choice

In a recent review of the new Sasha Baron Cohen film Brüno, critic Ann Hornaday made this laudatory reference to the movie's predecessor: "These are all quintessential Cohen moments, and in Borat they possessed the vertiginous sense of spontaneity, danger and unwitting honesty that made that movie a cross between Jonathan Swift and Andy Kaufman. But in Brüno, the skits don't add up to anything substantive."

Vertiginous? Ok, so I admit, I had to look it up. My brain got sidetracked by the vert- which led me to thoughts of "green" and "fresh." If I'd paid closer attention to the first two syllables I would've realized that vertiginous is the adjectival form of vertigo and means, "whirling, spinning," and "affected with vertigo or capable of causing a state of dizziness."

So, the real question raised by this is not whether Hornaday is spot-on or off-her-nut in her assessment of the virtues of Brüno v. Borat. It's whether a word like vertiginous belongs in a newspaper movie review. Dredging through my vague recollections of my collegiate journalism courses, I recall the adage that newspapers are written at a fifth-grade reading level. Have they ever challenged the contestants on that "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" reality show to define vertiginous? The point being that if readers have to run for a dictionary to get the gist of what you're saying, you've failed to communicate. And, some might say, you've contributed to the melting of the paper's readership.

On the other hand, I'm tickled to see a term like vertiginous show up in a film review, especially one about a movie making equal opportunity fun of elitist sensibilities about high culture and P.C.ism as well as lowbrow prejudices and willful ignorance. But vertiginous is a 10-dollar word, I grant, and dizzying would've been a perfectly fine, more readily accessible word choice. So does a preference for vertiginous reveal me as one of those latte-drinking, Volvo-driving, sushi-eating, New York Times-reading, Hollywood-loving, liberal elites -- what Sarah Palin perhaps would call one of the "un-real" Americans? Maybe (though I drive a Prius). But I'd note that my propensity for 10-dollar words puts me in a camp that includes columnist George F. Will, whose word choice merited notation in his Wikipedia entry -- "[his] columns are known for their erudite vocabulary" -- and National Review founder and Firing Line host William F. Buckley Jr., whose prodigious use of arcane words led to the creation of The Lexicon, an entire book devoted to citations of the unusual words he employed.

Though I just checked and vertiginous isn't in The Lexicon.

Facetious -- Frivolous Word Play

I have to grudgingly give credit to the most recent Sunday Puzzle segment on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday for providing me new appreciation for the words facetious and facetiously. I say grudgingly because I'm not a huge fan of this feature of the show, particularly since they added guest stars' recitations of the rote list of prizes players receive, like it's so much more exciting to hear some minor celebrity's prerecorded voice yammering about lapel pins and dictionaries than hearing show host Liane Hansen tick off the prizes. Anyway, this weekend's puzzle player, Bob Brereton of St. Paul, Minn., enlightened me to the particular significance of facetious and its adverbial form: "[These] are great words because facetious [contains] all the standard vowels of the alphabet in order, and facetiously incorporates the y," which can be used as a vowel, too. That's pretty darn cool!

According to the Web site Fun-with-words.com, the shortest word in English with all five standard vowels in alphabetical order is aerious meaning "airy." The longest such word is phragelliorhynchus, a protozoan (although y as a vowel intrudes before the u so I would argue this isn't a perfect hit). The site also notes that suoidea, meaning the taxonomic group to which pigs belong, is the shortest word in English with the standard vowels in reverse alphabetical order, and the longest such word is punctoschmidtella, a type of crustacean. (Check out the link for more vowel word records.)

Facetious is also curious given the dissonance in the tone accorded to the term by various dictionaries. The granddaddy of dictionaries, the OED, defines facetious as a positive quality: "Characterized by or addicted to pleasantry; jocose, jocular, waggish. Formerly often with a laudatory sense: Witty, humorous, amusing; also gay, sprightly." The New Oxford American Dictionary defines it as a negative quality: "Treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor; flippant." The American Heritage Dictionary says simply: "Playfully jocular; humorous," while the Random House Dictionary offers both: "1. Amusing, humorous. 2. Lacking serious intent; concerned with something nonessential, amusing, or frivolous."

The term came to English from the French facétieux and facétie, which the French had in turn incorporated from the Latin facetia meaning "jest," from facetus meaning "witty."

Vocabulary an Alzheimer's Shield?

A sophisticated vocabulary helps ladies stave off Alzheimer's disease, says a health news story today. Yeah, in your face, brain lesions!

As someone who works in the health arena, I'll be the first to say NEVER believe without question everything you read or hear about the latest, hottest new health finding. Health research is a gradual accretion of discoveries and evidence, some of which hold up over time and some of which are refuted by further investigation. The researchers who conducted the study that's the focus of this news report cautioned that no conclusions can be drawn from this small, preliminary study.

But I sure hope further research confirms this tantalizing suggestion that women who developed sophisticated language skills as young adults were less likely to develop dementia or Alzheimer's later in life -- even if they had the tell-tale lesions associated with Alzheimer's at their deaths. The hypothesis is that developing complex language skills builds neural connections that may help stave off the ailment's symptoms. I hope it proves true, because then I could add a tagline to my blog that says, "Vocabulary: It's Not Just Fun; It's Good for You, Too!"

Encomium -- No Faint Praise

To say the media and blogosphere have been filled with encomiums for Michael Jackson would be like saying the OED contains a smattering of words. Today, the date of his massive memorial service in L.A., you could hardly escape the tidal wave of encomium for the late King of Pop short of renting a rocket ride into near-Earth orbit. A week ago, I'd already found myself rolling my eyes at the outpouring of emotional language about Jackson. I admit, I couldn't quite fathom the level of public reaction even though I once eagerly absorbed the videos for "Billie Jean," "Beat It," and "Thriller" on that dazzling new medium called MTV back when the "M" actually stood for "music." Still, for heaven's sake, I said, he was just a singer and dancer!

My dear hubby has had his fill of the Jackson coverage, too. But as he noted, it's not inappropriate to say that Jackson's death is the contemporary equivalent of the passing of Elvis. And when people mourn the death of a major star or pop culture figure of their time, it's as much -- or more -- some element of their own lives for which they're feeling those heart pangs. Jackson's hits certainly permeated the 80s and 90s: "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough," "Rock With You," "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," "P.Y.T.," "Beat It," "Billie Jean," "Man In the Mirror," "Human Nature," "Bad," "Black Or White," "Smooth Criminal," "The Way You Make Me Feel," and, of course, "Thriller." Jackson's songs provided the soundtrack for many a date, school dance, amusement park thrill ride, smooth move at the roller rink, beach trip, slumber party, pool party, talent show, summer camp, cruise down the highway, yearbook work weekend, etc. etc. Kids of all ethnicities in middle schools and high schools across America mimed his signature moonwalk step -- they certainly did in the thoroughly white-bread suburban schools I attended.

Yes, Jackson's music was part of the soundtrack of my formative teenage years, too. Though I was not necessarily the typical teen. I hazard a guess that I'm among the very few people who thought that the most impressive element of "Thriller" was that they got Vincent Price (!!) to do that voiceover punctuated with his diabolical laugh -- although the dancing with zombies was pretty sensational, too. But none of Jackson's songs was an "our song" for me and hearing "Don't Stop" or "Billie Jean" doesn't carry me back to a particular youthful experience on a wave of nostalgia. Even so, I can certainly understand how Jackson's songs evoke those memories and emotions for millions of people. And I can understand the pangs of the sense that some part of those memories has slipped away, making those ghosts of feelings seem a little thinner and fainter.

Hence the use of encomium to describe the accolades heaped upon the entertainer today at his memorial service and carried across airwaves and cyberstreams throughout the day. Dictionaries note the formal character of the term. It's more than praise. It's "a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly," says the New Oxford American Dictionary. Encomium derives from the same Greek roots as eulogy: enkōmion from en- meaning "within" and komos meaning "celebration."

I will be thrilled when the media hoopla over Michael Jackson dies down. But I will not roll my eyes at those who tell me they had a videostream of the live coverage of the memorial open on their computer screens all day or that they pulled out and played all their old Jackson albums one evening after hearing about his death. I get it.

Inculcate -- Making an Impression

As a word connoisseur, I'd like to argue that use of unusual, attention-grabbing terminology would aid listeners' memory by making a real impression. However, I disprove my own hypothesis. On Tuesday, my wandering attention snapped back to a speaker's presentation when my ears caught the word inculcate. Ooh, there's a choice term! However, for the life of me I couldn't tell you now what exactly he was saying should be inculcated.

Even so, the word has stuck in my brain with the stubborn clinginess of a dryer softener sheet on a wool sock. Which is kind of apropos considering inculcate basically means "to impress upon" as well as "to influence" and "to instill via teaching."

Now, maybe it's just me, but I can't help but think the word sounds kind of sinister, its syllables punctuated by the sharp raps of those two hard c's. But obviously you can't always judge a word by its sound any more than you can tell the state of a politician's marital harmony by how many times he invokes "family values." The usage is what counts.

Webster's Third New International Dictionary defines inculcate as: "1: to teach and impress by frequent repetitions or admonitions; urge on or fix in the mind. 2: to cause (as a person) to become impressed or instilled with something." The term, the dictionary notes, derives from the Latin root culcāre meaning "to tread on, trample."

So inculcate seems to occupy linguistic terrain somewhere between "to teach" and "to indoctrinate." It's not directly synonymous with brainwash, but it means more than simply "to present ideas for consideration." Many an independently minded student has posed the question: Where does teaching stop and indoctrination begin? It comes down to the intent behind the action. Likewise with inculcate: Do you intend to impress an idea on someone or to have your ideas tread on someone else's?