Pieces of words
Let’s recapitulate…how can I even say Recapitulate and keep standing…re cap….to head (latin capo) re prefix meaning again…go to the top again literally….a three-ring circus is going on under our tents…brain signals my diaphragm to push up v. my lungs to blow air through my throat, across my vocal chords into the chamber –yes, chamber, the room of my mouth….well, it has a roof…thru my teeth and lips…the brain has signaled from it Broca’s area what I wished to say. A wish, an act, a meaning.
But without a medium between you and me, my words would fall from my mouth like so many Scrabble tiles and clatter on the floor. No not quite true---if there were no air molecules for my words to vibrate across, if we could exist in a vacuum my words would clatter silently. Clatter silently—can something clatter in silence? an oxymoron…like sweet sorrow of a child growing out of innocence or a JUMBO shrimp oxy Greek very moron grk silly….So where was i…yes, our words charged by the electricity of our brain and nervous system do in fact skip across and deflect the air molecules between us like confetti….our speaking and our hearing…can you feel the electricity??…..
Let’s return to the physical world..….PLOP….531 pages….a ¼ of a million words…I helped a friend edit this novel about four young people, their trials and triumphs, personal losses and painful growth…it ends in a wonderful episode in which they are together, harvesting an orchard as if they were in the Garden of Eden with all the cherished hope of friendship and accord….Accord—you’d think the root of the word would be a piece of rope…but no…Accord…cord comes from cardiac—the heart…so to be in accord with another is to have your hearts beating together…..In the magic of this book’s language there were times when I felt I was there with the young people, even in my own youth…as editor I spoke with the author about the characters as if they were friends from a mutual past…there was an incredible, Ver I sim il I tude…..wow….six syllables and I haven’t fallen down…..verus latin for true…simililitudas likeness…so like what is real as to be true….this book even has the power of causing my mind to recall events from my own youth that were similar….events I had forgotten…and think about this….this weighs 5 pounds, 8 ounces….i weighed it….531 blank pages would weigh 5 pounds 6 ½ oz…..yes, to add words to the pages weighed 1 ½ oz. –the weight of the ink…you see how light words are….yet it is that lightness that carries the meaning……read the words…what the eyes do, that is processed in the brain, that visualizes the characters, the makes the words combine into meaning…the process the author went through, the process the reader went through….this is why we make these efforts to speak at TM….transition
Farenheit 451, I saw the movie in 1966….Ray Bradbury wrote it in the 50’s about a dystopian Dis Topia topia Greek for PLACE…DYS Grk for chaos, difficult or ….dystopian society—totalitarian, repressive, in which the citizens were dumbed-down by sensational fake news, propaganda, and drugs to make you feel that everything is still alright. The firemen don’t put out fires, they start them. As part of the government censorship all books are banned….hence the name of the novel…. a blow torch 451 degrees Fahrenheit to set a book afire….Now you have to remember…this form of censorship could have been effective because this took place before cell phones, blackberries even, 24-hour cable TV. What makes the movie interesting is that there are a small group of subversives operating in deepest, densest forests that the governments surveillance cannot penetrate. The manner of the subversive’s resistance? They memorize classics so that the important books won’t be lost and they transmit them to younger people, who are always the ones to the barricade anyway. It was a rebellion to keep culture alive. Gloriously idealistic. How foolish and inefficient today. And when you think about it, Why would someone spend all that time memorizing someone else’s narrative. I see the metaphor…we wouldn’t want The Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, Evangeline lost because they plumb the depths….not this kind of plum….plumb latin word for lead as in lead weight attached to a string to measure how deep or long something it i or how right as in right angle….those books plumb the depths of human relationships and sacrifice, measure the cause of justice v. injustice. And it is possible that if read at the right time, words can change your life. Perhaps to read one might make you want to write one about yourself. Narrative comes from latin root ignorant…so story telling can make you unignorant…turn you away from ignoring yourself
Don’t we live vicariously enough….vicarious from the Hindu-european VIX transmitted into latin as vicus substitute…English vicar stands in for the pastor…all the movies and Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming episodes that for our watching entertainment…all other people’s stories…And our brains are so perfectly programmed to parrot others, to take on the words of others as our own.
When we moved and downsized, we gave up a lot….in the day, in our day….people read a lot of books and usually kept them….i lugged 24 boxes of books to the library for their fund-raiser. I don’t know the weight of those books. I do know many of those books are in here….over 150 books in here 15 oz….how light now those words are…what if the government turns off Jeff Bezos or takes over Amazon….and censored the library….lot easier than sending out a fireman with a blow torch….
This final image…the moment is fixed in my memory…. was 19….leafing through the volumns in a dorm room at college…. Socrates is apologizing for enlightening the young men of Athens which had become a dystopian totalitarian repressive society….I was 30-odd pages 10,000 words into it, struggling to keep the ideas sorted and my attention from wandering…I could have slid right over it…suddenly, .it was as if Socrates himself turned to me with his homely aged face, matted beard, unkempt hair and wine saturated breath……THE UNEXAMINED LIFE IS NOT WORTH LIVING….it was a revelation…..re veal a tion….vel veil, re draw….to draw the veil away from illusion so you see the truth….revel….to have a really good time….same source….draw the veil away from old sober-sides…..now, Socrates could have said it gentler---"The only life, my dear, worth living is the examined one.” It was as if I was judging myself…was he telling me what to do? Did I fall prey to taking the vicarious as my own? I thought about the phrase…The unexamined life is not worth living he was not telling me how to live or what to do with my life he was telling me To Look at myself look to yourself for questions and answers….no longer ignore the life you are living….
So much of us is derived de rivas taken from the stream or river…..the word examined….exam from the Grk : it means “the tongue of a balance” the stream of 20,000 words we take in from all the talking heads in our lives….Life is a stark raving Magpie, one that you must verify…..Weigh them carefully, someone may be telling you that you should be living their narrative…..what do YOU have to say about that?
This is number 2 in a series of 30 speeches on the English language as Vince has come to cherish, relish, embellish and punish it. The speech is about the messages of stories, the origins of words and some moments of truth. It is entitled “Pieces of Words and Pieces of Stories.” He will endeavor to do this within 6-8 minutes. He will pick up where his last speech left off.
Accord—To be in harmony, to be in peace with another. Origin….Latin Cardium---heart
Oxymoron—A combination of words that seems to contradict each other…..i.e. gentle warrior, original knock-off.
Recapitulate—to state over again….”re” a prefix here meaning again…”capo” word root meaning head or top.
Verisimilitude….to be very much like what is real…words close to it are virtual, replicant….from the Latin Veras meaning Truth and Similitudas meaning Likeness
Dystopian—a harsh or difficult place to live in….comes from the Greek Dys—chaotic or unfortunate or difficult Topia--place
Plumb—to measure the depth of something….comes from the Latin Plumbum meaning the element Lead…as in a lead weight
Narrative—from the Latin ignorare to ignore…so narrative means to unignore or to inquire ….yes, a narrative is a story
Vicarious—from the Indo-European Vix meaning substitute and was taken by the Romans and transformed into Vicus and finally English as vicar who stands in for the priest…has come to mean in American to live indirectly through another as in a parent living indirectly through the child
Derived—De a prefix meaning away from….Rivas meaning stream or river…..so to derive means to take something from another source
Exam—you know what an exam is; it is a test or an inquiry, a questioning…the root of the word comes from the Greek meaning the tongue of a balance scale…
Reveal, Revelation, Revel…..from Latin or French –the root Veal or Vel comes to us as a Veil….re is a prefix here meaning to draw away….so reveal means to draw the veil away from something so you can see it clearly.