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Aug. 15th, 2006 03:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
d_aulnoyMy new favorite word: abligurition. A word which specifically describes the phenomenon of dining out in NY! I am enraptured.
Also, as friend J. points out, it would be a fantastic name for a self-aware hipster-fusion-type restaurant.
The other day, friend J. asked me how I was doing: I replied that I was copacetic. What the hell is that, when it's at home, he asked? Well. Well ... what was the difference between copacetic and well? And that brought us into a nice discussion of connotative vs. denotative words, and specificity in context (I seriously doubt that anyone will ever order a copacetically-done steak, but if they do, please make sure that they do it in my presence, as I could use a bit of humor), and the value of having multiple terms for referencing what is more or less the same thing.
When I was in the 7th grade, my guidance counselor said that I was arrogant, pompous, and aloof, and that I should be set within a circle of the individuals who most disliked me so that they could explain to me the error of my ways. This has always struck me as being the 7th grade guidance counselor equivalent of trying to reinstitute stoning as a means of social correction, albeit in a slightly more figurative manner - I'm sure we all remember the children's rhyme. (And, hell, the concept stuck with me well enough that the other night, I dreamt that I was at a dinner party composed of the same. But given that the incident that prompted his suggestion had involved me throwing someone over a desk when they tried to twist my arm, and that the dream ended when I got a phone call in the middle of giving a character in the dream a black eye ... I wonder how effective his little experiment might have been. Or how much property damage it might have resulted in.) But the only one of his criticisms that stung a little was pompous: the other two were as much points of pride as they were anything else. But being verbose, wordy, eloquent, facile, fluent ... that had always also been one of my points of pride, so to have it taken down a notch with "pompous" stung. Even grandiloquent would have been better. But, then again, given that he wasn't a very bright man, pompous may have been the only word encompassing the concept with which he was familiar, and, given his animosity to the concept of justifiable pride in speech as in behavior, it's unsurprising that he went with the most prejorative option.
Words are power: words are beauty; words are the coin of experience that can never be spent, but which continually replenish themselves the more they are used, like a magic pouch from Fairy which will never stop producing gold.
Even when, or perhaps especially when, they are incredibly specific words which inspire voracious readers to heights that abliguritionists like Caligula can only dream of.
So, what are your favorite new words? Or old ones, for that matter?
Also, as friend J. points out, it would be a fantastic name for a self-aware hipster-fusion-type restaurant.
The other day, friend J. asked me how I was doing: I replied that I was copacetic. What the hell is that, when it's at home, he asked? Well. Well ... what was the difference between copacetic and well? And that brought us into a nice discussion of connotative vs. denotative words, and specificity in context (I seriously doubt that anyone will ever order a copacetically-done steak, but if they do, please make sure that they do it in my presence, as I could use a bit of humor), and the value of having multiple terms for referencing what is more or less the same thing.
When I was in the 7th grade, my guidance counselor said that I was arrogant, pompous, and aloof, and that I should be set within a circle of the individuals who most disliked me so that they could explain to me the error of my ways. This has always struck me as being the 7th grade guidance counselor equivalent of trying to reinstitute stoning as a means of social correction, albeit in a slightly more figurative manner - I'm sure we all remember the children's rhyme. (And, hell, the concept stuck with me well enough that the other night, I dreamt that I was at a dinner party composed of the same. But given that the incident that prompted his suggestion had involved me throwing someone over a desk when they tried to twist my arm, and that the dream ended when I got a phone call in the middle of giving a character in the dream a black eye ... I wonder how effective his little experiment might have been. Or how much property damage it might have resulted in.) But the only one of his criticisms that stung a little was pompous: the other two were as much points of pride as they were anything else. But being verbose, wordy, eloquent, facile, fluent ... that had always also been one of my points of pride, so to have it taken down a notch with "pompous" stung. Even grandiloquent would have been better. But, then again, given that he wasn't a very bright man, pompous may have been the only word encompassing the concept with which he was familiar, and, given his animosity to the concept of justifiable pride in speech as in behavior, it's unsurprising that he went with the most prejorative option.
Words are power: words are beauty; words are the coin of experience that can never be spent, but which continually replenish themselves the more they are used, like a magic pouch from Fairy which will never stop producing gold.
Even when, or perhaps especially when, they are incredibly specific words which inspire voracious readers to heights that abliguritionists like Caligula can only dream of.
So, what are your favorite new words? Or old ones, for that matter?
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Date: 2006-08-15 11:29 pm (UTC)Random: parse.
And I like way the word improbable feels in my mouth.
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Date: 2006-08-16 12:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-16 12:01 am (UTC)where did you go to school? shirley jackson academy?
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Date: 2006-08-16 12:03 am (UTC)P.S. - After that, the vice principal tried to tell me that no man was an island, using, not Donne, but what I believe to be a Beatles song, trying to "relate" to my youthful ways. I'm still not sure which one was a worse idea ....
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Date: 2006-08-16 12:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-16 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-16 02:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-16 04:00 am (UTC)Apparently, I am ....
Date: 2006-08-16 03:16 pm (UTC)Had never taken the test before. Eeenteresting ....
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Date: 2006-08-16 04:28 am (UTC)I think those right there are my new favorite words, all strung together just like that.
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Date: 2006-08-16 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-16 01:49 pm (UTC)Speaking of words, here's my favorite quote, from Broken Koans:
One afternoon a student said "Roshi, I don't really understand what's going on. I mean, we sit in zazen and we gassho to each other and everything, and Felicia got enlightened when the bottom fell out of her water-bucket, and Todd got enlightened when you popped him one with your staff, and people work on koans and get enlightened, but I've been doing this for two years now, and the koans don't make any sense, and I don't feel enlightened at all! Can you just tell me what's going on?"
"Well you see," Roshi replied, "for most people, and especially for most educated people like you and I, what we perceive and experience is heavily mediated, through language and concepts that are deeply ingrained in our ways of thinking and feeling. Our objective here is to induce in ourselves and in each other a psychological state that involves the unmediated experience of the world, because we believe that that state has certain desirable properties. It's impossible in general to reach that state through any particular form or method, since forms and methods are themselves examples of the mediators that we are trying to avoid. So we employ a variety of ad hoc means, some linguistic like koans and some non-linguistic like zazen, in hopes that for any given student one or more of our methods will, in whatever way, engender the condition of non-mediated experience that is our goal. And since even thinking in terms of mediators and goals tends to reinforce our undesirable dependency on concepts, we actively discourage exactly this kind of analytical discourse."
And the student was enlightened.