Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

(Iris Apfel: portrait from Pinterest) Nonagenarian is the word of today's random selection (from the Latin nonageni - ninety each.) Spoken aloud ( say nonna-j'n- air ian) it has a lively, almost flirtatious feel. Which is how one would wish to be, in one's tenth decade of living. My How To Be Old Wish List includes: I will wear mostly sequined dresses and Wellington boots I will sunbathe nude in a fragrant garden I will swim in wild water I will walk and meditate and, after some kindly thought to the matter, tell the blunt truth always. More people are living longer and staying lively, it seems; this study is fairly typical: Lively Nineties Trend : reassuring for those of us who relish the idea of being old and delightfully sparky, of concentrating eccentricities and allowing Buddha-nature full bloom. But: uh oh: there's a but! 'While the study suggests people are living better after 90, they have to make it to their 10th decade first, ...

Once upon a time, that time being approximately 1915, there were two little aerodromes in a big, scary world. In between them ran a teeny road, called Plough Lane, a hark back to even older times. When the aerodromes linked into one Croydon Airport, the lane was still open to public traffic: halted by a man with a red flag if a plane was due. Somewhere in the 1920s a gate was installed: times were getting less quaint, more pragmatic. Croydon was the main London Airport and a pioneer of air traffic control. It is not exactly clear (from first Google search) when Frederick Stanley Mockford (1897 - 1962) became the senior radio officer, nor exactly what event prompted nor what particular date it happened but it does seem reasonable that he was asked to think of a word that would convey an emergency situation, easily understood by all pilots and ground staff. It is likewise reasonable and feasible, since much of the early days air traffic was between Croydon and Le Bourget Airpo...

This week's dictionary is my dear old friend, the Heinemann English, which I received as a study aid in the year 1981. After Skeat's 1894 this seems rather modern, but Skeat has only been on my shelf for 10 years or so: Heinemann has 33 years of shared history. I can't remember when it lost the front cover. One day I will do some binding repairs, and I will keep it organic because I might take this one to my grave. And the first word it gives me is light-hearted adjective : while outside the sun is shining, the birds in full voice, the air has a feeling in it, a vibrant buzz, like someone has tapped the side of a cosmic crystal with a spoon of heavenly metal. Light-hearted has a Word Family ; light-heartedly , adverb , light-heartedness , noun ; such a lovely concept. Sun floods the moor tops: I have an urge to wander out to Feather Tor today, floating some floral print on a fine breeze. Back from the walk I will buy an ice cream from the little van, sit in t...

Painting: Marc Chagall: The Birthday Reverend Skeat, etymologist, sometimes undermines the feeling that one has for a word; 'a salute with the lips' is sweet, but 'A kiss is a gust or taste, or something choice' is not so poetic. It is not his intention to bring us poetry here, only the historic journey. Kiss being a word that happens close, that puts two figures into one personal sphere, to think of it dispassionately seems inappropriate. The journey of language is bound up with the human journey: the historic spread of this tribe and that: the individual stumble and stride. The need to communicate, for practical terms of trade, for spiritual terms of connection, is a sort of fundamentalism that allows an open mind. Etymology, a word that travels from the Greek expressions; true, account, to speak ; is a study in connection; the connective spheres between languages; words on lips exchanged, not unlike the press of a kiss. The earth as viewed fr...

Jaguar (picture from Flickr.com) Jagua from the Guarani language: a term used for tygers and dogs , according to the history written by Francisco Javier Clavigero. A world in which tigers and dogs are interchangeable is interesting, yes. But first I choose to look at the instant prejudice I detect in myself regarding a history of South America written by a non-South American in the year…? The dictionary I am working from this week is an 1894 edition, the Hist. of Mexico referred to most likely current to that, but that is the translation, so the original would be earlier, but I am not smart with numbers and these thoughts do not make for remarkable sentences, so I look online. Francisco was born in Mexico, it seems, of Spanish parents, September 9, 1731. His place of birth gives better credentials than expected, and furthermore: 'Clavijero's biographer, Juan Luis Maneiro, wrote:  'From the time of his boyhood, he had occasion to deal intimately with the indi...

Illustrious , my random word selection presents. A word with French and Latin roots; this proffers no surprise. But to be termed 'a badly coined word' that props up the eyebrows. What snobbery of etymology is this? It is a dispute over the origin of -lustris, which is traceable to lustrum , to wash, or from the base luc- meaning light. The later option admitted as the more likely. But a blend of both creates an alloy that cannot detract. An image of bathing in light.

This random word selection is proving to be a great deal of spontaneous fun. Amusing that the spontaneity is a lure when I rarely plan a post ever at all! It must be something fundamental to my blogging experience. And my life: that has a vague plan too. Living in a temperate climate of course one can always blame the weather. Travels down, cloud to ground: This word from the Greek, 'A round pebble,' Rolls through Northern climes Into my language from the Anglo Saxon: 'Hagal:' a word to grunt When the sky spits ice. Descriptive truth of that guttural utterance Plain as a cold weathered rock.