More Vivid Verbs II
Bill Long 5/14/08
"Leftovers" from This Essay
Though five more verbs were left to go (gride, spae, knurl, perflate and impetrate), I have already discussed gride, and I want to add popple, ruckle and fley to the list.
1. Let's begin with popple. It means to "flow in a tumbling manner," as water from a spring or over a pebbly surface; to "bubble up; to ripple." It can even mean to "bob" on the surface of the water. You bobble something on land, if you are trying to juggle or catch it; but things popple in water. From the Times (London) in 2003: "Vegetation trails, loops and entwines, while water plashes and popples." Whereas one meaning of plash is to fasten things together or interweave them, the other is to splash or to dash a person or thing with breaking water or other liquid so as to wet. From a 1902 quotation: "The sound of waters dropping, poppling, splashing, trickling." Next time you see a rippling brook, call it a poppling brook. After all, there are 22,000 references to "rippling brook" in a Google search, while only 3 to a "poppling brook." Now, with this essay, there will be more. You, too, can add to the picture.
2. If the poppling brook conjures up placid pictures of dulcet days, ruckle takes us elsewhere. The chief meaning of the verb ruckle is "to make a gurgling or rattling sound; to rattle in the throat." It is the sound made before a person dies. From Scott, in 1824: "The deep ruckling groans of the patient satisfied every one that she was breathing her last." One can also speak of the ruckle of rushing water, to denote a rattling or gurgling noise. But even if you use it in connection with water, a ruckle seems louder and more troubled than a popple.
3. There is a great deal of difference between to flay and to fley. We are interested in the latter, which is related to "fly" and meant, originally, to "put to flight" or "to frighten away." Thus, it also means to "frighten, scare, or terrify." Charlotte Bronte wrote: "Like as they're flayed wi' bogards."
4. Why not move to spae, pronounced "spay"? It is derived from Norwegian or other Scandanavian countries, attested primarily in Scotland means "to foretell, to prophesy." It is used chiefly with a direct object or with "that." So, from 1841: "A Gypsy sibyl...spaed the good fortune to his daughters." Or, from 1863: "Ingimund left Norway because some Finns had spaed that he should settle in Iceland."
5. The Latin verb impetrare means to "obtain by request or exertion, to procure." Its meaning historically has been confined to the fields of theology and Roman Law. So, a parliamentary enactment from 1534 spoke of "the clergy...did impetrate and obteine by auctorite of parliament.." An author in the 17th century could speak of "good workes, which he calles Merits, because they doe impetrate or obtaine a reward." Then, a theological treatise from late in that century says: "That the Price paid by Christ..did fully impetrate, merit and purchase at the Father's hands, the perfect and compleat Redemption of his Elect." I always loved reading old theological treatises when I was in seminary and thereafter, not certainly for the truth of what they mentioned, but I was far more attunded to the interesting Latinate or Greek-formed words that seemed to be so central to their enterprise. I like the ponderousness, for example, of this quotation, and the very systematic and seemingly exhaustive way it argues--impetrate, merit, purchase--as if these were three separate acts of Christ that he perfomed consciously, in a serial fashion, so that he could completely purchase redemption of the Elect. The living Christ has been made into something of an automaton, a person who is devoid of "color" but surely fits our theological categories quite nicely. The word impetrate reminds me of those treatises and my leisurely days of sinking myself deeply into those theological words.
6. Perflate means, simply, to "blow through" or "ventilate" something. Straw or open spaces can be perflated, while balloons and other things, such as arrogant people, are inflated. From 1798: "The canvas should be drawn up every day, the straw well shaken, and perflated by the wind." Or, from 1775: "Distemper could not fail to riot there, if the town were not regularly perflated by the Inbat and land-breezes." The "Inbat" is a breeze from the sea, but I don't know the reason for its name...any help?
7. Let's finish this essay with knur or knurl. A knurl is a "knot; a hard substance; a nodule of stone; a protuberance in the bark of a tree." It can also be a ridge. By extension, it has been associated, in some Scottish writers, with a "stumpy person" or a dwarf. From 1773: "Those small fine blue knobs, that are to be seen round the rim or upper knurl of the coat [of a sea-anemone]."
Thus, we have lots of words now for water that runs over rcks or gurgles in a stream as well as hardened nodules on trees or sticks or people, for that matter. We often think that the key to eloquence and brilliant description rests in our facility with polysyllables. My contention is the opposite--often the shorter word is better, even if it might have to be explained.
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