Words you didn't know, wish you had, but probably won't know again...

One of the constants in my life has been feast/famine, which is rudely inconsistent. I didn't have a job for most of the fall, which meant I had much more time to write, which really was all I could afford to do. Then I applied to grad schools, left for Canada, came back from Canada, left a day later for Denver/Boulder, flew back, had a week to sort out my life, and then started my day job. And it's not even February yet.

I'm not complaining. I like being busy. I'm wildly productive when I'm busy; so not only do I get things done, but it means that I feel calmer, more confident, and much less lonely. Hey - I love my laptop, but I do love actual human interaction every now and then.

Canada was beautiful, Denver/Boulder was inspiring (I met with Shakespeare geeks AND saw how tea gets made at the Celestial Seasoning plant!), and I haven't heard from grad schools yet - which is a good thing; they send the rejection letters out first. And my day job! My day job is awesome. I'm creating/running/implementing a 6th grade Drama program at an under-achieving Middle School. RIGHT?!

So my insane life aside, one of the many themes of the conference in Boulder surrounded the sad fact that the vocabulary in the English language is shrinking. Observe:

William Shakespeare knew an estimated 25,000+ words.*
A few generations ago, the English speaking world knew about 18-20,000 words.
My generation is sitting pretty with about 11-13,000 words.
The children currently going through school are projected to know 7-8,000 words by the time they graduate high school.

* - keep in mind, Shakespeare created thousands of words, but for the sake of depressing statistics, let's say those are not included in his original 25,000+.

With the understanding that the previous statistics I can in no way justify through any kind of acceptable means, those are some really depressing numbers, no? Kind of makes me want to add a "word of the day" app to my non-existent smart phone.

Now, my ex-girlfriend, perhaps in a premonition of the discussions to come, bought me a desk calendar for Christmas. But not just ANY desk calendar my friends.  She bought me .............wait for it....................

a FORGOTTEN ENGLISH DAILY WORD CALENDAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And let me tell you, it's just as awesome as it sounds. Here are some examples of this modern miracle:

Nizzle - You thought it was a word created by Snoop Dogg, didn't you? Hizzle, my nizzles! Nizzle actually means: To be slightly intoxicated, to be the worse for liquor; to be unsteady; usually in past participle [nizzled].  (Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1898-1905)

Beats the Dutch - Something extraordinary; "That beats the Dutch, and the Dutch beats the Devil" is the superlative. (James Maitland's American Slang Dictionary, 1891)

Sport Ivory - If someone smiled, he sported ivory. (Morris Marples, University Slang, 1950)

Jugulator - Sounds like a Marvel Comic Villain, eh? Or perhaps what Jack the Ripper's imaginary friends called him. A Jugulator is actually a cutthroat or murderer. (William Whitney's Century Dictionary, 1889)

Googer - No, not Google's puny baby brother. It's actually a synonym for The Devil. (Walter Sleat's Specimens of English Dialects, Westmoreland, 1879)

Death Hunter - An undertaker, one who furnishes the necessary articles for funerals. Sounds kind of bad ass to me; dare I say it - Lord of the Rings-esque. (Francis Grose's Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796)

Tree-Geese - A name given to barnacles, from their supposed metamorphosis [into geese]. I swear to you, I'm not making this up! (Robert Nare's Glossary [of] the Works of English Authors, 1859)

Gone to Texas - An American expression for one who has decamped, leaving debts behind. It was, and is, no unusual thing for a man to display this notice - perhaps only the initials G.T.T. on his door for the callers after he has absconded. Does that explain anything at all about the years from 2000-2008?? (Trench Johnson's Phases and Names: Their Origins and Meanings, 1906)

Toozle - To pull about, especially applied to any rough dalliance with a female. Perhaps after some Nizzle, for shizzle! (John Brockett's Glossary of North Country Words, 1825)

Bag of Nails - American thieves' cant. Confusion; topsy-turvydom; from "bacchanals." (John Farmer's Slang and its Analogues, 1890)

Scurryfunge - a hasty tidying of the house between the time you see a neighbor and the time she knocks on the door. See?? Some of these actually come in handy; I scurryfunge all the time! (John Gould's Maine Lingo: Boiled Owls, Billdads, and Wazzats, 1975)

Stick with me kids, and you too will become a bona fide nerd. As the year progresses, I'm sure these words will continues to find their way onto my page. Bonus points if you send me some rare words of your own ...

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Linguistics are SO gay...

I'm a bit of a word junkie. My career is all about words - the connection, the physicality, the movement, the meaning, the biology - and how to use them. My dad said, "He's a cowboy and a braggadocio!" last night, in reference to the guy at Office Depot attempting to fix my sister's insanely sick computer. I probably spent at least 20 minutes trying to think of circumstances and perfect moments in which to say "braggadocio!" This is my idea of fun.

Anyway, in case you're living in a cave at the bottom of Loch Ness, and didn't read about it *everywhere* - California has re-opened the door for gay marriage. Hooray! And while everyone's (like my glittering generalizations?) talking about the legal, political, and religious ramifications, what we're not talking about - are words.

A few years ago, the word "marriage" was all anyone could talk about. The (mostly) Conservative standpoint being that "unions" or "partnerships" were okay for homosexual couples, but not "marriage." Marriage, just as a word, it was argued, is sacred to the joining of one man and one woman. Fun Fact: The history of marriages covers all manner of business deals, including swapping a (virgin) woman for chattel, land, money, birthright, etc. etc. That doesn't sound holy and sacred to me. That sounds like a bargaining agreement.

But there's an issue, says the Left, with "Domestic Partnership" and "Civil Unions." Now we're going back to different drinking fountains and bathrooms - the separate-but-equal lie. This is one of my favorite videos dealing with this issue:



"I want to commitment ceremony you..." Kind of says it all, no?

The pro-Prop 8 people and their likes have been denying words to the GLBT community as a way to keep us separate ... different ... remaining in the "other" category, because if we're something "other," then we're not like everyone else - "human," or "normal."  And what about other touchy words? "Wife, husband, mother, step-mother, father, step-father" - words for family? How do they fit in?

My uncle sent me this wonderful letter that addresses this question. This is why the words matter. This is why the myth of separate-but-equal won't cut it as we move forward, and why it's *never* going to cut it for any minority. When Liz and I get married, I will have a wife. I will have a sister and brother-in-law, I will have a mother and father-in-law. And she'll have that too (and more, because I have a pretty big clan). And we'll be family. Words have power.

From the Daily Dish article by Andrew Sullivan:

A reader writes:

I found this piece of yours very moving, and I want to add to the conversation on gay marriage my perspective as a child raised by a gay couple (a "homogenate" as I call us, for short) in the U.S. in the 1980s.

If I had been born in the '90s or the '00s in the right state instead of the '80s, perhaps my biological mother and her lover, Mollie, could have had a civil union. That would have made their relationship simpler from a legal standpoint, for sure. But still, what would I have told my friends who came over after school and asked innocently: "Why does that woman live with you?"

Would I have felt better telling them that she is my mom's "domestic partners" instead of the usual routine: blushing, averting my eyes and blurting out "She's my mom's friend" or "Uhh ... she just lives with us" before frantically changing the topic.

Even if I was a pedantic 9-year-old willing to explain to my friends what a civil union is and how it is the legal equivalent to the (first or second) marriage of my friends' parents, that still doesn't address the fundamental problem in my opinion: Mollie could be my mom's friend, my mom's domestic partner, my mom's lover -- but she could never be myanything. She could never be my stepmother.

Family names are generic things -- mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and all their step-incarnations. It is the possessive that creates intimacy and a sense of family. And while our family would have had the same strains as any step-family even in the best of circumstances, I have no doubt that she and I would be closer today if I had grown up calling her and thinking of her as "mine" in some sense -- even when I was angry with her, or I missed my father, or, yes, when I wished that she was just gone and my family was normal.

Let me add something that I experienced as well. My in-laws have always been supportive and loving and tolerant. They accepted me at Christmas and other occasions and were glad their son had found a partner. But it was not until we told them that we were "engaged" that something suddenly clicked. They finally had a way to understand us and our love because they had the linguistic architecture to make sense of it. I was going to be their son-in-law! With those words. I became family - not Aaron's friend, or roommate or boyfriend or lover or what-have-you. But his husband. And thereby their family as well.

There was and is something about these words - engaged, married, husband - even though they may contain a mountain of different experiences, that made us a family. I think conservatives should favor the unification and mutual love and support of families. And that means they must by definition favor the mutual love and support of the gay people in them.

This is not about creating something new. It is about making a home for people who have been here all the time for centuries. It is about making the human family whole.

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"It is about making the human family whole." 

Why would anyone want to stop that??

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