New Fre Rice Words V--Some Lessons and then Some Words

Three lessons of life derive from words, lessons that are on the "front burner" of my mind as I write today. First, each word is trivially easy to someone, and if you keep that in mind, you will never be intimidated by another word. Rather than thinking or saying, "I'll never be able to learn it (or all those)," your attitude should be, "I have not yet learned them all." They will come to you because they are easy to someone. Because you are smart enough and smarter than most, you can learn all the words. But lest you think that the goal of learning words is just to learn, it really is to maximize your understanding, deepen your experience of life, and, ultimately to provide wisdom and joy in living. Words can help you do that. For example, I ran across the word thuja in a very high level of difficulty list at freerice.com last night. I smiled when I saw it because thuja is just the genus name (properly written Thuja) of the Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata), one of the most common trees in the Pacific NW. One of the four clues said "arborvitae," and common arborvitae are made from cuttings of the Western Red Cedar. Simple, more than simple. Look at each word as a simple gift to you.

Second, since you never know what you really need to know to succeed in life and in your career, you might as well learn as much as you can when you have the time. When I was a professor, both at colleges and in law school, students often asked me at the end of the term what they "needed to know" for the final exam. In order not to make their lives difficult, I usually gave them a list of topics, etc. that we "covered." But, the more I think of it, the more I am convinced that no one really knows what they need to know except in some narrow circumstances where you have to have answers to queries right away. When you have time to think, you have time to learn. And, when you learn new words and other things derived from words, those new insights may make it into your writing or final exam answers. Who is to say that you won't find a perfect illustration for the point you are making from the news for the day, from a line in Paradise Lost, from a work of literature, from a word that opens life to you in a new way? Thus, learn all the words you can, and the worlds they open to you, since you hardly ever know, ahead of time, what you will "need to know" in life.

Third, on the way to learning new words you find yourself being inexorably pulled down new paths that the words or their near neighbors suggest. Recall from last essay, when my search for navew led me to neep which led me to ne exeat regno. Actually, I am not quite finished with that journey. Neep can also lead you to neap, where you can figure out what a neap tide is (an especially weak or low tide). Then, I found my eye wandering down to the bottom of the Century page and the word nefandous/nefand. We know that something nefarious is "wicked in the extreme; heinous." It is derived from Latin words ne (not) and fas (lawful). Synonyms are execrable, flagitious, enormous, villainous, abominable, atrocious, infamous, iniquitous, impious, dreadful, detestable. I am sure that you will find some of these words useful... But, back to nefandous, which also means "impious" or "abominable." The example of its use in the Century is taken from OW Holmes, Sr. "He had been brought very close to that immane and nefandous Burke-and-Hare business which made the blood of civilization run cold in the year 1828." [Now you should figure out what immane means.] Or, if you want a Puritan writer, take Cotton Mather, from his Magnalia Christi Americana: "He likewise belch'd out most nefandous blasphemies against the God of heaven."

A Few Other Words

Lest we finish this essay with few new words, let me intoduce five "quickies": smalto, kami, buddle, pithead and banderilla.

1. The OED has smalto, while the Century only has smalt. Smalt is defined as "common glass tinged of a fine deep blue by the protoxid of cobalt." Derived from "smelt" and "enamel," it gives a blue tint to writing paper, linen, etc. It is also called "enamel-blue" or "royal blue." The OED says it is "colored glass or enamel used for mosaic word, etc,; a small cube or piece of this." Its first appearance was in 1705: "Old Roman Mosaic, compos'd of little Pieces of Clay half vitrify'd, and prepar'd at the Glass-Houses, which the Italians call Smalte." Enamel isn't always "blue," so I am not sure how to get out of this one...

2. Kami is a term taken from Japanese. It is either a title given by the Japanese to daimios and governors or, in Shinto religion, a divinity or god. Tylor, in the arrogantly titled Primitive Culture (a perfect expression of the period in which it was written--1871), could write: "The Japanese...have.. kept up..the religion of their former barbarism. This is the Kami-religion, Spirit-religion." You wonder how a people went from "barbarism" to "modernity" for Professor Tylor...

3. A buddle is a shallow inclined vat in which ore is washed. From an English law in 1531-32: "The saide digger, owner, or wassher, shall make..sufficient hatches and ties in the ende of their buddels and cordes." But the leading dictionary of mining terms in the late 19th century could give it a broader significance: "Buddle (Cornwall), an inclined vat or stationary or revolving platform upon which ore is concentrated by means of running water. Strictly the buddle is a shallow vat..But general usage, particularly on the Pacific slope, makes no distinction." Here is a picture of a buddle, also called a "settling basin," from the book Tools for Mining--surely a classic in the making.

4. I had to include pithead because of its association also with mining. It is the top of a mine shaft; the area or buildings immediately surrounding this. I guess coal is valued "at the pit-head," from this 1794 quotation has: "The annual produce..may be stated at 30,000 tons, valued, at the pit-head, between 6000 l. and 7000 l."

5. Finally, we move from mining to bullfighting with the word banderilla. It is a little dart, ornamented with a banderole, which bull-fighters stick into the neck and shoulders of the bull. Those who do this are called banderilleros. Hemingway invented the verb banderillear to mean "to stick a banderilla into (a bull)." From his 1932 Death in the Afternoon: "Very rarely..a man is able to banderillear properly from both sides." Here is the latest: a bull with a velcro banderilla--something just to get his dander up even more.

This is it for today--my birthday--but I look forward to continuing the march through new Free Rice words until we have learned them all, as well as the worlds to which they point. Thanks for joining me.

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