Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

September 06, 2010

Word of the Day

paranymph
\PAIR-uh-nimf\

DEFINITION

noun
1
: a friend going with a bridegroom to fetch home the bride in ancient Greece; also : the bridesmaid conducting the bride to the bridegroom
2
a : best man b : bridesmaid

FELIX’S EXAMPLE

John Alden famously agreed to be paranymph for Miles Standish, approaching Priscilla Mullens with an offer of marriage from his friend, only to be accepted on his own behalf by Standish’s intended.

DID YOU KNOW?

“Paranymph” resulted from the marriage of the Greek prefix “para-” and the Greek word for bride, “nymphē.” The prefix “para-” can mean “beside” or “alongside of,” as is apparent in the word “parallel,” from the Greek word “parallēlos,” a union of “para-” and the word “allēnōn,” meaning “of one another.” At one time, the word “paranymph” also was used for a person who solicits or speaks for another — that is, an advocate — but that sense is now very rare.

Word of the Day

… courtesy of Merriam Webster, with slight modifications by me:

September 05, 2010

Word of the Day

Sisyphean
\sis-uh-FEE-un\

DEFINITION

adjective
: of, relating to, or suggestive of the labors of Sisyphus; specifically : requiring continual and often ineffective effort

FELIX’S EXAMPLE

Where satisfying a person who revels in dissatisfaction is the task, the labor is Sisyphean, and the result will assuredly be failure.

DID YOU KNOW?

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king who annoyed the gods with his trickery. As a consequence, he was condemned for eternity to roll a huge rock up a long, steep hill in the underworld, only to watch it roll back down. The story of Sisyphus is often told in conjunction with that of Tantalus, who was condemned to stand beneath fruit-laden boughs, up to his chin in water. Whenever he bent his head to drink, the water receded, and whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches moved beyond his grasp. Thus to “tantalize” is to tease or torment by offering something desirable but keeping it out of reach — and something “Sisyphean” (or “Sisyphian,” pronounced \sih-SIFF-ee-un\) demands unending, thankless, and ultimately unsuccessful efforts.

Great-Grandmother Dance

“Dance” was the name by which her grandchildren and great-grandchildren called my Great-grandmother Rose Jones Lancaster Love.  Dance was the only great-grandparent I recall knowing, I was sixteen when she died. She had married young, nobody knew exactly how young, for the exact year she was born she never revealed. A tiny, stooped little lady who was kind, but nonetheless formidable.

Rose Jones Lancaster Love

She gave us the run of her house when we visited, exacting proper behavior and  requiring picking up after ourselves before we left. The only picture I have of Dance appears here, from perhaps the mid-nineteen forties. Well into her old age she could do embroidery, needle work and made cozies of thread for the cocktail glasses which were brought out for the adults on every visit. I have been told by my parents that one drink was all they got from Dance, but it was invariably robust to the point of lasting throughout dinner.

Dance had no toys for children in her house, but she did have a large poker set complete with several sets of cards, and many poker chips. We busied ourselves with building card houses, stacking chips like trees or bushes grouped around the pasteboard constructions.

When the houses collapsed, we built them again, or played made-up games of cards. Occasionally we might forget ourselves and throw chips at each other, but one piercing look from Dance’s keen and unclouded eyes brought us up short.

The clean-up process was quite educational, as it happened, since the decks of cards had to be grouped into complete decks by suit and color, including the pattern on the backs, which were different for each deck.

Dinner was always formal, sit down with the children at the main table. We were always interested in the buzzer concealed beneath the carpet by Dance’s chair, ready to be pressed to summon Gussie, the cook, from the kitchen with the different courses. We never quite dared to press this buzzer ourselves, though. I don’t think my grandchildren would be similarly deterred.

Dance grew up in the piney woods of southeastern Georgia, near Folkston, close to the Florida line, just to the east of the Okefenokee Swamp. I never knew this until much later in life. Odd to find it out, as the comic strip Pogo was one of my favorites, and I am sure discussions on the comics would have been interesting, although not so much to Dance. Her family had a turpentine business, tapping pine trees for sap, distilling it into turpentine and selling it to various customers. Dance was visiting a school friend in Chattanooga when she met George Dent Lancaster, and in due course married him. Her first child, Marshall, was born in 1898. My grandmother Phyllis was born in 1901. When it came time to record her birth for her tombstone, her second husband, Walter Love and my grandmother computed her likely birth year as 1878. That would have made Dance 83 when she died in 1961. A good old age for someone born in the South under Reconstruction, in depressed times.

George’s story is more detailed, and more lively. I will get to my Great-grandfather in another post.

Generations

Moving through the third childhood of my family, starting with my own, then my children, now my grandchildren, I watched a softball game last night. Our granddaughter played a kindergarten level game with other little girls, some even smaller than she, some bigger. She was serious about her game. Her father was the same. I was not, in my time, but did show up. Apart from being unable throw, catch, bat or run well, I was a natural. Now I benefit from the enthusiasm of both my granddaughter, and my son before her.

Wedding Blues

In 1952 my Aunt Barbie was married. The family gathered in Arlington, VA, some of  us staying in a rambling old house my grandparents had rented for the summer. My grandfather was stationed in Washington pending the Army sending him to Korea. The summer was very hot, even in June, as were the summers throughout the early ’50s. The street in front of the house, where the busses stopped, had pavement that had softened in the heat so much that ridges of asphalt had hilled up against the curb. Under the deep eaves of the house, shaded by tall trees and windowed with crank out casements, however, breezes gave relief.

None of us had met my future uncle Tommy before arriving in Arlington. Tommy was staying in the house, tucked away in a bedroom on the third floor. We arrived early in the morning, having stopped overnight on the road in a convenient motel, my parents exhausted from loading up three children and driving almost six hundred miles the day before. Uncle Tommy-to-be came downstairs to greet us in his bathrobe. We all liked him immediately, such a gentle and affectionate man. My Aunt Barbie beamed and clutched her fiancé’s arm. She was my godmother as well as my aunt, and had given me a big hug and kiss, which at the age of eight I bore as well as possible, loving her for loving me.

In fact, I was ambivalent about my aunt getting married and moving out of my grandparents’ house. She would no longer be there when we visited my Nana and Boozle, but off somewhere with her husband. They would be married. At eight, changes of this magnitude were disturbing. I remember sitting beside her in an upstairs porch that night, opened casement windows admitting breezes from under the eaves murmurous with pigeons. She was dressed to go out with my future uncle, perfumed, made up, harnessed with mysterious undergarments which I could feel under her pleated and starched blouse as I nestled next to her. I thought to myself that soon such moments would be gone. Things would change. Welcome to life, I might have said to myself, but reflection is not natural to boys who are only eight. To girls, perhaps. But not to me that hot night.

Things worked out, as they do, and visiting my Aunt Barbie was even better once she and Uncle Tommy were married, adding another layer of comfort to my extended family. I love them both in  ways that an eight-year-old boy could not have understood. Life does that for you, every seeming loss is often a blessing for the years ahead.