Most English words we take for granted. Never think about them. They mean what they mean and ably serve their function. Then there are the smattering of words we love not because of their meaning but their sound. Actually more than sound: the pleasurable feel of speaking them. Mine include serendipity, euphoria, and melancholy. But what words would we love to hear and say if only we knew them? I’m not talking about any in the vast pool of 171,476 in current use and listed with full meanings in theOxford English Dictionary. Or even any among the OEA‘s 47,156 obsolete words.
There are the smattering of words we love not because of their meaning but their sound.
In classic serendipity while browsing Futility Closet, I stumbled upon an obsolete word not even in the OED, a word that immediately appealed to me because it describes something so deserving of its own word. But what seemed like the most logical way to pronounce kumatage — phonetically — gives it no aural or oral appeal. After much searching, I found the correct pronunciation courtesy of Endangered Words: A Collection of Rare Gems for Book Loversby Simon Hertnon.Koo-mah-TAHZH is rhythmic, exotic, and beautiful. How fitting given the meaning. According to The New American Practical Navigator, published in 1837, a kumatage is:
A bright appearance in the horizon, under the sun or moon, arising from the reflected light of those bodies from the small rippling waves on the surface of the water.
Why the word faded away into obsolescence is a mystery. If another word replaced kumatage, I can’t find it. And the fate of kumatage makes me wonder: is there a word for things that deserve a word but don’t have one?
Hear the applause? It’s me praising this articulate defense of writing with passive verbs when they’re the most effective way to communicate something. Avoiding the passive in favor of the active, like many “rules” of writing, is a well-intentioned but misguided proscription that I followed for years. Teachers preached it in high school. It was a mantra during my many years in the newspaper business. Some of my professors in a graduate writing program harped on avoiding passive constructions. Graduate students in writing critique groups, indoctrinated like me, relished pointing out passives. Countless times I twisted a well-turned passive clause or sentence into an active one, verbal contortions that reordered elements at the expense of the clearest possible expression. In the defense of passives linked to above, a professor of linguistics, Geoffrey Pullum, writes: “We really have to get over this superstitious horror about passives. It’s gone beyond a joke.”
Imagery that sticks with me often involves water. It’s also spare, several words that echo back in pictures of resounding clarity. For many months two images have replayed randomly, one from a song lyric, the other from a conversation.
The Portland-based band Casey Neill and the Norway Rats sings: 2 a.m., swimming in the quarry, bathing in all summer glory. How can I not see my ripples pulsing toward rock walls beneath stars, hear my breath, feel the embrace of warm water? In the conversation, a man recalled someone decades ago describing fishing at night in a lake near where I grew up. So clear was the deep water that the sandy bottom sparkled in moonlight.
With those words I’m back at the center of my boyhood universe, a lake. While pausing on the sandy bottom during a night swim, I held my breath and gazed at the sky. Through the lens of rippled water, I saw the moon.
Fame for a day, judging from this review of the book I co-authored. Observing reaction to Pendleton Round-Up at 100: Oregon’s Legendary Rodeo has been gratifying. Readers and reviewers like it so far, including on Amazon, where I’ve cajoled no one to plant praise. Granted the book’s approach doesn’t invite criticism. While not rah-rah, the tenor is certainly exuberant in its broad exploration of an event with remarkable staying power. Of course the Round-Up isn’t just a rodeo, which is key to its century of success. Few communities can boast of an annual happening so integrated into the lives of their residents from one generation to the next.
I hope Roger Cohen of the New York Times wins a Pulitzer Prize for his remarkable commentary from the streets of Tehran. (He discusses the coverage here.) But world-stage politics aren’t his only topic. Yesterday’s gem, “The Meaning of Life,” uses a study of monkeys’ caloric intake to explore universal themes. And his image of baboons in a zoo greeting his father is as poignant as you’ll find in a newspaper column. Newspapers may be in trouble, but the journalism that Cohen practices will always have an audience.
I’m a big fan of a guy’s blog. He’s a storyteller, and a damn good one. Even if he wasn’t, he’d win my award for best blog name: And I Am Not Lying.
Jeff Simmermon hasn’t posted much lately, and I just found out why: he apparently has testicular cancer.
His account of learning about the tumor and what’s ahead is entertaining yet poignant, like his other writing. The piece also conveys an attitude worth emulating when confronted with a serious medical problem.
The older I get the more I wonder how I’ll handle what’s likely inevitable.
What’s the context of these quotes from the epigraph page of a book I bought today? Not the unfolding torture scandal, though it could be. Instead they set the tone for Savages & Scoundrels: The Untold Story of America’s Road to Empire Through Indian Territory by Paul VanDevelder. Read More
I’m lost in the Lost City of Z. When I open the book in bed at night, my world disappears. Reality becomes author David Grann‘s riveting account of the obsessive hunt for a place that may have never existed.
Grann had phenomenal material without visiting what may be the remotest place on Earth. His adventure, blended discreetly into a multi-layered story, brings the narrator alive on the page and leavens his dire accounts of explorers forever lost in Amazon jungle. Read More
I can find just about anything at my neighborhood Safeway grocery. That was my reaction while perusing its modest books section for the first time. Romance novels pack the shelves, though some titles hawk a niche form of lust.
Romance novels apparently have sub-genres, including what I cynically classify as the rich-dominating-studs-knock-me-up category. Take these titles that caught my perverse eye: Read More
It sounded like a bunch of centaurs were following an exercise video upstairs, right above my bed this morning. Interesting visual, but at 7 AM there ain’t a damn thing more fascinating and beautiful than the backs of my eyelids underneath the blankets.
Thus begins another installment in a blog that I cruise to daily, hoping for a new entry. The best stories, writes the author, Jeff Simmermon, are “fertilized with a pinch of some amazing shit that always starts with ‘And I am NOT lying.’ ” Read More
Posting a comment on Facebook has landed me a radio show interview tomorrow. Topic: the implications of severe cutbacks at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library, where I spent much of the last two years researching this book. Read More
This is akin to shooting fish in a barrel, I suppose. But if you treasure words and how they’re put together, you’ll enjoy Mark Nickolas’ simple but clever idea: use Microsoft Word’s readability tool to compare the language Barack Obama used Monday answering questions at his first presidential press conference versus that of George W. Bush eight years ago. Read More
