91-102 and collegiate dictionary

I am discovering that the method that words best for me is to go through the Collegiate about 12-13 pages per "session" (with two sessions a day) and then, later on, to write about these pages. These mini-essays will then review some of the words I need to learn and then comb the OED and Century or other unabridgeds for nuggets of insight or interesting other words. I think, therefore, that this is becoming not simply the diary of a speller but of one whose love of spelling flows from a prior logophily.

I just have tons of things to say about these words today, so let's plunge right into them. Let's do bullet points today.

1. Well, let's start with just some words that need to be learned. There is bagasse, plant residue after extraction, and bagnio, derived ultimately from the Latin for "bath" but with a checkered history that mirrors the checkered nature of the bagnio--sometimes a bathhouse, or a prison or a bordello. Then there is a baht, the monetary until of Thailand. There is a great chart on p.802 of the Collegiate, which goes into at least 100 types of currency. It includes baht, as well as the eyrir/aurar Icelandic terms that we met earlier. Baize is a coarse fabric, balalaika a Russian instrument and balas a ruby spinel (mineral). Balbriggan is a knitted cotton fabric named after the Irish town that produced it, while a balmacaan (remember one "c" and two "a's") is named after the Scottish estate near Inverness, and is an overcoat.

2. Speaking of Scottish, I have to get a matter off my chest. This dictionary treats obscure Scottish words as if they are good English words that should be in our dictionary. That is, there are words like bailie, a Scottish magistrate or bailiff in the middle ages, bairn, which is Scottish for child, and once you get to page 126 or so, the dictionary lists TONS of Scottish words, like birl and birse and bittock and blaw. Now, don't get me wrong. I love Scotland. I am even a Presbyterian minister, and you don't get to be one of those unless you know all the Mac's in town. When I was a pastor in a large Presbyterian church in 1988-1989 I even let the Clan MacLeay pipe band into the church to blast the sanctuary with a rousing rendition of, what else (?), "Amazing Grace." I even convened the Portland Highland Games in 1988 with prayer ("God, grant that none of us become caber-skewered"--that type of prayer). But this has simply gone TOO far. Why, for the love of John Knox, who probably was very hard to love, do we have all these worthless Scottish words in the Collegiate? Maybe the editor in chief, Frederick C. Mish, had ancestors who were the "McMishes" but they dropped the "Mc" at Ellis Island to be more accommodating to the culture. I doubt it. I mean, this phenomenon reached the acme of ridiculousness in the 2005 Oregon Bee where one of the words was schottische, which is the German word for Scottish. Apparently it isn't even enough for the editors to have the entire Scottish lexicon in the Collegiate, but they have to find the way that the international community pronounces their name. Why not get the Mayan spelling of Scottish? Or, the Athabascan? But now I am stewing and need to get back to work.

3. But not yet. So, I run into the word ballade, accent on the last syllable, which is defined as "a fixed verse form consisting usu. of three stanzas with recurrent rhymes..."I thought that was a ballad, but a ballad is defined as "a narrative composition in rhythmic verse suitable for singing." Ok, I think I will have to differentiate these by whether the pronouncer puts the stress on the first or last syllable. But this brings up the problem of pronunciation and various spellings of a word. Take the word baksheesh, for example, which the Collegiate defines as "payment (as a tip or bribe) to expedite service." It is spelled baksheesh, and as baksheesh I will learn it.

But I decided to look it up in the Century because I wanted to see if they had a picture of a guy giving a bribe to another guy. Well, it was spelled bakshish. My countenance fell, and then I immediately brightened when I saw that it had an alternate spelling. But what was that alternative spelling? Bakhshish. Not a trace of baksheesh. Sheesh, life isn't supposed to work this way, is it? I think I have a habit of making things more difficult than they really are, but I will train myself only to think of baksheesh from here on out (or, until there is another edition of the Collegiate). The word is especially useful this time of year in the law school, as students ply me with brownies and cookies now that finals time is here.

4. I am totally calm now, and so I will finish with a fun word that isn't in the Collegiate: balaam. The OED capitalizes it, though the Century has it in lower case. Thank God they don't ask about THAT in Cheyenne. Balaam was an obscure Old Testament prophetic figure whose ass actually became more famous than he. His ass spoke in a human voice, and it bequeathed its name to English speech and found its home in the journalistic trade to significy "matter regarding marvelous and incredible events inserted in a newspaper to fill space." I guess, then, that what a present-day newspaper would call "filler," an older one might call "balaam." Asinine (in contrast to anserine?) paragraphs. So, when you pick up your favorite newspaper next time, point out the balaam to a friend. A balaam box is the "editor's depository for worthless matter or rejected writing." Maybe I should get an "In Box" for my desk, and call it a balaam box. Would anyone even have the interest in learning about it?

Well, I still have more to say about these pages, so let's go on to the next essay.