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?

Concatenation -- The Chain Gang

During a recent catching-up-on-our-lives chat, my college friend Claressa reminded me once again why I've always admired her. Talking about her lab work or new beekeeping hobby -- can't remember which -- she employed the term concatenation. There was no particular motive: She wasn't aiming to be formal or ironic or anything else. We were casually chatting. She just knows such words and employs them as breezily as others use the or going. (And before you go thinking she's just some prissy vocabulary geek, let me note that this is a woman who introduced me to Sid & Nancy, who cultures Legionella bacteria, and who displays on her mantel a black velvet painting of Yoda that she got as a gift from a Hell's Angel.)

Concatenation has been stuck in my head since I started this blog with my hubby's encouragement. Among the helpful tools he bought to noodge me into the blogosphere was a copy of The Lexicon, a compendium of words collected from the writings of wordsmith William F. Buckley Jr. Flipping through this pocket-sized tome, one of the first words I landed on was concatenation. As Mr. Buckley knew, the word means "a series or order of things depending on each other as if linked together," or, in the most basic sense, "a chain of events." It's not a term I happened to have had at the ready in my vocabulary bag of tricks at the time. Nor is it one I've had opportunity to employ since then. So my ears pricked up and I had to smile a little when concatenation tripped off Claressa's tongue. Ah, there it is! If I can't get around to using it, I'm glad someone else could.

Dictionary Definition:

Roots: Latin catēnāre, "to bind," from Latin catēna, meaning "chain"

Pronounced: [kon-kat-n-ay-shuhn]

1. union by chaining or linking together

2. union in a series or chain, of whihc he things united form as it were links

3. an interdependent or unbroken sequence

Lachrymal -- Up to Here in Tears

Ok, call me a softie, a bleeding heart, whatever, but sure enough, three-quarters of the way through the opening sequence of Pixar's new movie Up, my lip was quivering and the moisture gathering on the edges of my lower eyelids threatened to trickle down my cheeks in the image of the waterfall depicted on-screen. And this is a cartoon, for Pete's sake! What gives with this lachrymal impulse?

Up isn't the first movie to get me teary-eyed and won't be the last, I'm sure. Earlier in our marriage, when Mark was traveling a fair bit, I learned the hard way that revisiting The Sixth Sense when he was away on a business trip wasn't perhaps the best cinematic option to watch solo. The penultimate scene, when Bruce Willis's character realizes the truth of what's happened, had me looking like a cross between a racoon and W.C. Fields, what with my smeared mascara and rubbed-red nose.

Of course, these cinematic scenes strive to be lachrymorose, to jerk those tears right out of our lachrymal ducts. And also, of course, some efforts work better than others and what elicits sniffles from one person as easily evokes snickers from others. But I expect that for just about everyone, there's a scene or song or some other surrogate that has elicited that lachrymal reflex.

So how does this happen? How can a bit of what's so clearly fiction incite this kind of emotional response? The ancient Greeks understood the power of fiction to hold a mirror up to life and to purge oneself emotionally through the experience of catharsis, a term originally meaning "cleansing" and "purification."

But why do we respond with such real emotion to something that we know is, well, not real? Empathy. I can watch Carl's life with Ellie unfold onscreen in Up and relate to these cartoon characters' all too believable experiences. I can see Bruce Willis's character's emotion as he watches the video of his wedding and feel the emotions of my own wedding. Doesn't matter if their fictional experiences are not mirror images of my own; the emotions are the same.

This is the boon of consciousness, the ability to relate to the experiences of others -- even strangers -- because in them we can recognize ourselves. It's both selfish and altruistic at the same time.

So I don't apologize for my lachrymal response to Up. Those tears are part of what makes me human. The trick to being fully human, however, is to be as equally open to the real scenes and emotions around me in the offscreen, mundane world and to be as equally emotionally responsive to them and not jaded or flummoxed into inaction. That's harder than when you're sitting in a theater or movie seat and the lights come back up. A curtain will not magically fall over the hurts, the hunger, the loneliness of the real people around me. Catharsis and tears may be about purging, but it doesn't hurt if they provide a solid kick in the conscience, either.

Acidulent -- Sour Grapes

Acidulent tripped me up on FreeRice.com tonight and prevented me from donating 450 grains straight without missing a term. If you've never tried FreeRice, give it a whirl. It's a vocabulary building quiz AND hunger-assuaging program all in one site. The site donates 10 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program for every vocabulary word you get right on its quiz.

FreeRice is based on the principle of synonyms. Space on the site is limited as is people's time. Who wants to read long, detailed dictionary definitions while playing a quick game between attempts to finish the document you need to turn in already, because, after all, it's good to stimulate your brain's thinking capacity and get the juices flowing when writer's block has derailed your ability to finish that draft you're already past deadline turning in, right? On FreeRice, you select from four possible synonyms (or an occasional phrase like "strip blubber from") for the word you're given.

Synonyms are useful, but sometimes seem lacking. For example, I recognized that the correct choice for capricious out of the four options given was whimsical. But I think of capricious as meaning "fickle" or "volatile" more so than "whimsical." Still, someone will get some rice for that right answer on the quiz.

But acidulent got me. My choices were "inharmonious," "frisky," "sour" and "temporary." "Sour," I should've concluded, made the most sense given that citric acid is a puckering substance. But I second-guessed myself and bet my grains on "frisky." Doh! Darn my capricious gut instinct! Instead of free rice for a hungry person, I got sour grapes for my wrong answer. Oh well, the next word pops up straightaway, so you can make up for your mistakes and fill that rice bowl.

Dictionary Definition
Pronounced: [uh-sij-uh-luhnt]
Also, acidulous
Root: Latin acidus meaning "sour"
1. slightly sour
2. sharp; caustic: the movie critic's acidulent tone