daven and doven and datura and dandiacal and dalasi and damar and daikon and daidzein

Well, not so fast. I desperately wanted to get onto the D's today, and I will make it, but I had to stop and tell you about one more "C" word first. It is the simple word "Cyprian." "The Cyprian" is Aphrodite, the Greek Goddess of love. According to Hesiod she was born out of the froth of the sea near Cyprus, and that island always held her dear. Her worship and temple were there; so identified was she with the island that all one had to do was say "The Cyprian" and everyone knew that Aprodite was meant. As early as 1627 the OED attests the following usage: "By all the vows which lovers offer at The Cyprian goddess' altars." How beautiful and quaint. The goddess of love--simply known as the Cyprian.

But someone always comes along to ruin something beautiful, whether it is by slashing a Van Gogh or defacing public property. And so it happened here, too. The OED informs us that by the 18th and 19th centuries the word had taken on the meaning of "licentious" or "lewd," such as the words from 1782: "A Damsel of the Cyprian class" or, from the Victorian era, "The Cyprian patrol which occupies our streets in force every night." The most powerful and beautiful force in the world, love, had become transformed into a group of people (prostitutes) who were the subject of police sweeps in the mid-19th century. The Collegiate, the official dictionary of the Bee, only gives the definition "prostitute" for cyprian. How sad.

Then, there is an additional irony that caps it all. It happens that one of the more illustrious third century Latin Church fathers from North Africa was a man named Cyprian of Carthage. In a time when the there was bickering within, as pope and antipope vied for authority, and bickering without, as groups such as the Donatists and Novatians were flourishing, Cyprian penned a work on the doctrine of the church (technically knows as ecclesiology--De Unitate Ecclesiae) which is still cited today by theologians. Thus, the English language had to come up with a word to describe Cyprian and his beliefs. By the late 17th century the word "Cyprianic" had developed and it meant "of, pertaining to, or characteristic of St. Cyprian." And then, there are the fish, known as cyprinoids or cyprinids, innocently swimming around under the sea. I wonder if they know the history of the word. Maybe that is why they never come to the surface.

Thankfully no one knows what I have just described. So, we can just go blissfully on in America, watching Reality TV and never realizing the rich history of Cyprian.

Finally, the "D's"

Let's just go through the list. A dabchick is a grebe or loon, and a dace is, oops, a cyprinid fish (carp). Something daedal is intricate. The word comes from Daedalus, the designer of the Labyrinth and, sadly, the wings of his son Icarus, who flew too close to the son and plunged into the sea when the wax on the wings melted. Then there is daguerreotype, with the silent "e" in the middle, a stumbling block for spellers ever since the modern Bee was invented. Daidzein appears in the Collegiate but not in the OED, and it means "an isoflavone (don't look at me!) found chielfy in legumes and especially in soybeans." A daikon is a white radish of Japan and a daiquiri, well, you don't need me to describe this drink. Damar is a resin but since I saw that it could also be spelled dammar, it won't be on the test. Well, I learned it already. Darn. Too late now.

My it seems we are going Asian. A damson is a plum from an Asian tree but, returning to fish, a danio is a zebra fish. Guess what? Yep, you got it. It is also a cyprinid. I think I need a list of all the cyprinids. Then I would like to study a picture book of all of them. Then I would like to go to an aquarium where someone can point them out to me. Simple pleasures--that is all I really ask out of life. Sigh. Some more words. Dandiacal was invented in 1831 to relate to or suggest a dandy. Dandy, meaning a man who gives "exaggerated attention to personal appearance" [is that a "metrosexual" in 2005?] had emerged about 1/2 century previously but it was Carlyle, in Sartor Resartus, who coined the term "dandiacal." Then one has danseur, a male ballet dancer, some of whom were probably dandies, and dapsone, an agent used to treat leprosy. A dasheen is a taro, a large-leaved tropical Asian plant, and dashi is fishbroth. A dassie is a hyrax (a small ungulate--which means it has hooves-- animal of Africa) and datura is a poisonous herb. Make sure if you are eating something, therefore, you eat daube, a stew of braised meat, rather than the datura.

However, if you recite Jewish prayers you daven, the Yiddish word for pray. It isn't in the OED and it appears either as daven or doven in the Collegiate, so I guess I learned another useless word. And, then, my problem is that I have such a good memory that I won't be able to foget it. Just think. I am accumulating all this worthless information, and it must be forcing out useful information from however many RAMs my brain can hold. No wonder I haven't ever been able to hold a job. Just too much useless knowledge clogging the brain.

Conclusion

Well, I really need to stop for the day. Other things call. But I do so with a wonderful, and all too rare, feeling of humility. All of these words reflect worlds, and most of these worlds are ones which I haven't built, whose cities I haven't seen, whose languages I don't know and whose peoples I don't really understand. Maybe an old Armenian friend, who was fluent in 10 languages and had studied ancient and modern religion and history with eagerness, was right when he told me that the best thing we can do in life is just get a 'glimpse' of things which we will have eternity to enjoy. He may not be too wrong.

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