New Free Rice Words--Getting to Some Really Useful Ones--Branle, for Example

Today is my 56th birthday, and I can think of very few things (ok, I can think of one or two!) I would rather be doing today than writing on words. I am delighted that the "freerice.com" website has decided to "update" itself and make its words more challenging, also. Now it has words that reach difficulty level 60, which should be enough for almost anyone, at least until the words are mastered. To that end, I am writing several essays on the newer words, mostly from levels 55-60, that are on the site. As is almost always the case with words, once you get to know them you are brought into the most interesting worlds, worlds which actually could lead to a new life orientation. But that is one reason to write about words and teach about them whenever I can; I never know whether a young person, or not-so-young person, will be so struck by a word that their lives will never be the same.

A Word Journey

My list of words to note from the new free rice words is, of course, particular to me, but I think that many of these could be useful to you, too. And, I have to emphasize, along the way to discovering these words, I found many others, which entertained, instructed and made me wonder... Let me give you one example of how words lead me to wander, by looking at the rare word branle. Actually, this word can also be written bransle, brawl, or brantle. In briefest words, it is a 16th century French dance. This web site discusses it a bit. The Century says that it is "the generic name of all dances in which one or two dancers lead all the others, who repeat all that the first have done, as the grandpere and the cotillion." I am not so interested in the steps of the branle, pronounced "BRON l" or "BRAWL", but the word led me two other places.

First, it led me to the only extant source describing the steps--Orchesography by Thoinot Arbeau (1515-1595). I hadn't run into the word orchesography, and so I learned it meant "the description or notation of dance movements and positions by means of diagrams." Indeed, in Arbeau's work are wood-cuts and diagrams showing how various dances (branle, pavane, galliard, tourdion) are to be danced. One other thing about Arbeau. His name, actually, was Jehan Tabourot (he was a Catholic priest), and Thoinot Arbeau is an "anagrammatic pen name" of Tabourot. That means, you just mix up the letters of his real name and come up with Thoinot Arbeau. Why would one write in such a way? Was this common in the 16th century, etc. etc.? Oh, by the way, the orchesis in orchesography means "dancing." This helps us understand the common English word orchestra, which is, literally, the area in front of the stage in ancient Greek theater where the chorus performed and danced. We now talk about the musicians being "in the pit" in the front of the stage. Well, this isn't the place to talk about the evolution of Greek and Roman theater, but I can see how someone might want to "get it all straight" and devote his/her life to the issue now...

But, second, the really interesting thing I discovered on the way to learning about the branle/brantle was when I saw a cut in the Century on the nearby word branks. A branks, derived probably from a Gaelic word meaning "an instrument of punishment or a halter," was "an instrument formerly used in parts of England and Scotland for correcting scolding women; a scolding-bridle." And, there you have a picture of it, a sort of orthodontic headgear but instead of having things that attach to the teeth, one has a tongue depressor, which would keep the "scold" from speaking. I wonder why it was just used for women. I wonder how widespread its use was. I wonder if it was generally accepted, and when it was accepted. This web site not only has pictures of three "torture devices" from the 15th-19th centuries (the branks, chastity belt, and the pear), but it suggests that the branks was primarily in use in the 17th-18th centuries.

Conclusion

Just think--I only got to one "freerice.com" word in this essay, but it provided the occasion to learn about a leading sourcebook of Renaissance Dance and a humiliating means of punishment in the early modern world. From here we could go into other forms of repression/torture, and perhaps try to understand the chastity belt, for example, or the pear. But I want to close this essay by a "freerice.com" word in this list which illustrates "Long's Rule" about words--that every word is trivially simple to someone. The word is saluki. Many people, probably, have never heard of this large, lightly built hound, whose name comes from Saluk--a town in the Yemen. But even the slowest and greenest freshman that attends Southern Illinois University in Carbondale knows the word, because it is their mascot. Just as everyone who went to U MD knows what a "terrapin" is, or those attending University of South Carolina know what "gamecocks" are, or U of VT students know what a "catamount" is (and, by the way, I suppose UC Santa Cruz students know what a "banana slug" is, too), so the word saluki is trivially easy, to someone. Make yourself that someone for whom every word is trivially easy..

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