Some "D's" for from the Dictionary...

I have decided that I need to devote the final week before the National Senior Spelling Bee to focusing on words from the Collegiate, even though I would just as soon let my mind wander far beyond that. Twenty words I need to know beginning with "d" are: danio, dapsone, daunomycin, dealated, dictyosome, dictyostele, diene, dichasium, dieldrin, dibenzofuran, duroc, durbar, durian, douroucouli, domaine, doxycylcine, dracunculiasis, drogue, dumortierite and dysprosium. I guess I would have known how to spell many of these, but I want to focus on the things themselves, and let the words enter into my life and experience. Let's see how far we can get through this list today.

Danio

Upon looking up this word, which is defined as "any of various small brightly colored Asian cyprinind (that means from the family Cyprinidae) fishes," I did what any normal person would do. I looked for pictures. Danio is a genus of fish, the most popular and interesting-looking of which is the zebra fish. Here is a picture. But you enter into a doorway, and you may never get back into the hall. Why? Well, the zebra fish (also written zebrafish) used to be called the Brachydanio rerio, but a vote taken at the 1993 Zebrafish Meeting renamed it as Danio rerio. Don't you just wish you could have been there at the meeting? I wonder if it was held at the same time as the American Clivia Society meeting or any of the thousands of other societies that protect things, from bromeliads to preachers. There is even a zebrafish book--appropriately known as The Zebrafish Book (2000). Guess what? You can obtain it from the Zebrafish International Resource Center which is, drum roll, just down the street from me in Eugene, Oregon. I have lived all these years in Oregon, and I didn't know it. I feel like Jacob of old--surely God was in this place and I knew it not! How chagrined he must have felt. As do i!

Dapsone

This first word doesn't bode well for rapid learning, does it? Well, let's move on to dapsone, defined as an antimicrobial agent used esp. to treat leprosy and a chronic form of dermatitis. We can take things one step further when we realize that it is used in combination with rifampicin and clofazimine in a multi-drug therapy program for treating the disease. The latter doesn't appear in the Collegiate, but the former does (under the word rifampin). I don't know the chemistry or history of this, but I do know that Nobel prize winner Gerhard Domagk made a breakthrough in 1932 with the discovery of the antibacterial prontosil red (not in the Collegiate). Further investigation into active chemicals led to the discovery of both dapsone and the antibacterial sulfonamides. Well--one of my vows a while back was to write essays on all the Nobel Prize winners in various fields, to understand what they have contributed to our lives. But that will have to wait for a while.

More Words--Daunomycin and Dealated

This doesn't happen often, but I had a strong reaction to the next word--daunomycin. It is listed as a synonym of daunorubicin. It is defined as an antibiotic that is nitrogenous glycoside which is used especially in the treatment of leukemia. Ho-hum, I thought. Another drug to treat cancers. Then, I read on in this article to learn that it treats acute myeloid leukemia and acute lymphocytic leukemia. If I am not mistaken, the former disease took my father's life in 1981. The first use of the word appeared in 1963, and by the 1980s the "anthracycline antibiotic" daunorubicin was a widely used anticancer drug. I wish I could say more, but I dare not pause much longer on this.

Dealated is another word not appearing in the OED, but it means "divested of wings" and is used of "postnuptial adults of insects (as ants) that drop their wings after a nuptial flight." Actually the Oregon state motto, adopted in 1987, is "Alis Volat Propriis," which can be translated as "She flies with her own wings." Alis is in the ablative case, but the nominative of the word is ala. Therefore to take away the wing is "de-ala" and a creature with wing taken away has been "de-ala-ted." Sort of like deaerated means to "take the air or gas from..."

But, guess what? There is a story that should be told about the Oregon motto. The first time it was adopted was in 1854, but it was replaced by the sleep-inducing "The Union" in 1957, only to revert to "She Fliest with her Own Wings" in 1987. The 1987 Oregon Legislature had this to say about the motto:

"Whereas the spring of 1843 found the Oregon Country politically unorganized and its inhabitants in disagreement over whether their future lay beneath the wing of Britain or that of the United States; and

Whereas on the second day of May in that year of 1843, the settlers of the Oregon Country gathered at the settlement of Champoeg and voted, by division of those present, to form a provisional government dependent upon neither Britain nor the United States, but dependent only upon the inherent political authority of its own people..."

So, the 1854 Territorial Legislature (Oregon became a Territory in 1849) adopted the Latin phrase "Alis Volat Propriis" to suggest the proud independence of the inhabitants of this state. Well, things have changed, haven't they? No state is really independent anymore, but it does add a chapter to the "mythology" of Oregon's past to have such a motto. It means that we Oregonians never would rather have flown on our own than under anyone else's banner. Can we say that in the intervening 150+ years Oregon has been dealated? At least we would have taken the word away from the scientists, which is always a good thing to do.

Finishing Up--Dibenzofuran

Dibenzofuran is a "highly toxic chemical compound...used in chemical synthesis and as an insecticide and is a hazardous pollutant when chlorinated." It is a white crystal-like solid that is created from the production of coal tar. It is made from coal tar and has been found in coke dust, grate ash, fly ash, and flame soot. Just the places you want to hang around, right?

Well, we can't end the essay on dibenzofuran, so let's go with dictyosome and dictyostele. Dictyosome (pronounced DIK te oh sohme) is defined simply as the "Golgi apparatus in plants." I see I could get over my head very quickly here, so I will define the Gogli apparatus simply as an organelle found in typical eukaryotic cells. It received its name from the Italian physician Camillo Golgi, who identified it in 1898. If I got into the function and purpose of the apparatus, I would be here too long (and I would need to do a lot more work in cell biology!). So, let's close with something even more difficult--a dictyostele. In some ferns and dicotyledons, it is a stele which is "so interrupted by leaf-gaps as to resemble a network of strands." I am going to punt on this one, too, saving some knowledge for another day.

I see I still have about 13 words to go from my list. Diligence in getting the job done sometimes gives way to my curiosity to know more.

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