Obsolete - who says words are no longer useful?

If you love words, you may be like me and particularly relish uncommon old words. Words that have fallen out of use, that sound extravagant and fanciful to the contemporary ear; words the dictionary still includes but describes as 'obsolete'. 

All Grandiloquent images from 
Grandiloquent Word of the Day

If you share this love, you will enjoy the site Grandiloquent Word of the Day by Jason Travis Ott who shares his work widely on social media.  

Ott's artwork, his Victorian-era characters, and funny quotes make the words come alive again for a minute. But the words are really not alive, they are obsolete. If they are not used, they are dead. 

Were they grieved on their way to obsolescence? Did someone, at some time, say to themselves (or their barber), "Oh, why don't we hear the word 'palpebrous' anymore? It's such a handy word, so why has it fallen out of use?" I know I just did (to self, not barber). 

Well, yes, they are obsolete, I rarely know any of the Grandiloquent words. But who decided they were no longer useful? How did they fall out of use? Were they perhaps pushed? 

So she didn't

So much advice about writing urges routine, persistence and 'turning up'. No advice says what to do when the rest of life takes over, other than getting up at 4am to make more time to write. If that's what it takes, it makes you wonder if you really are a writer.

Lately, I've had to concentrate on sleeping when I can, especially at 4am. So, not much writing, but I believe I can. 

Bonus for you: you can also rest!

Source

Nervous - not writing

So, I'm feeling a bit nervous right now. Probably from #2 and #3, but not from #1 unfortunately. About that I'm feeling torn. 

But there are times in life when you can't do what you most want to do.

Source

Language - falling off the bars

Source

By now, you can no doubt tell a bit about what I like from the topics I write about.

I love words. I relish language. I eat metaphors for breakfast. And I believe you can never have enough cartoons.

So, instead of the regular post, I bring you a state of Wordly Explorations - with words, language, metaphor and cartoon.

This toon by SMCB is one of my favourites. It says everything I've tried to say in my thousands of words, ridiculously long posts and endless series. Only considerably more nimbly and gracefully, which is appropriate given the content of the cartoon.

As SMBC says, 'Language is like gymnastics' (simile, sure, not metaphor, but good enough when you're pressed for time) works for the conflicting prescriptivist, descriptivist and pragmatist perspectives. That's a simile doing overtime!

Language is like gymnastics. There are rules and standards and those who fail to follow them should be chastised.

Language is like gymnastics! There are lots of forms and none is preferable to any other.

Language is like gymnastic. There isn't a best gymnastics, but most of you are really, really shitty at gymnastics.

I agree with all that, but today I have a different take. Let's call it the language 'performativist' perspective.

Language is like gymnastics. There's performance anxiety; there's pain and sometimes injury in the process of nailing the 'position' you are working on. 

It's hard to focus on your goal on the parallel bars, when you can't even get to the gym due to everything else happening in your life. The coach yells at you about discipline and dedication, but gymnastics is not the only thing in your life. It's not dedication you lack, but days with more than 24 hours!

Sometimes, despite trying your best, you just lose your grip, miss the bar, and you don't get a post written. 

Source: Laura Sweet

Your eyes go wide, you feel fear as you realise what is about to happen, then you fall down hard on your backside.

You get up, and things are still okay.

And you take another run up and hope you'll get it next time.

Research - in praise of the prefix 're-'

Along with widespread distrust in authority, experts and professionals, we see the very common suggestion (or sometimes taunt) online to ‘do your own research’.

I know several people who have 'done their own research' - spending three or four years of their lives working extremely hard on a specific question to earn a PhD. Having watched just how difficult it is, and how they had to put the rest of their life on hold, I don't really want to 'do my own research'.

So, why is it so commonly suggested? And why is it so often accompanied by poor spelling and insults?

Unless… perhaps they don't really mean 'research.'

Tea - with sympathetic adjectives

Tea is the most consumed drink in the world after water.

It's my preferred beverage. Each day, I have about 6 of the estimated 18–20 billion cups of tea consumed around the world. My personal motto is if in doubt, make tea.

From the 1800s, Australians adopted the British penchant for a cup of tea for all occasions and the philosophy that a cup of tea can make things better, at least while you are sipping the steaming brew. (The recent Australian trend to adopt American habits means that coffee has taken over as number one hot beverage, but it sadly lacks any equivalent philosophy. This 2016 poll found the most common drinks in Australia are water, milk, hot coffee, and then tea.)

Tea is so much a part of our days that it turns up in various sayings, and much has been written about how to make tea properly. 

I’ve noticed something else while recently experiencing a series of minor problems escalating to a natural disaster. The adjectives we use to describe a cup of tea hold a secret code for human connection and sympathy.

The @ sign - my symbolic resistance

By guest explorer: Fred Shivvin

Language is dynamic and constantly changing, that is what makes it powerful.

 

But when our language changes - the word meaning, the punctuation, grammar, usage rules, spelling, and more - we often don't like it. Many of us resist many of these changes, and some sticklers never give in.

But for most of us, slowly, gradually, insidiously, the unwelcome changes slip into how we talk and write. The shift happens without our awareness, until one day we find ourselves using the word form, sentence structure, punctuation, etc., that we had resisted in the past.

We don't often recognise our shift to acceptance, we don't remember how long we resisted, we don't often even notice we've stopped fighting language change. And if we do, we might shrug an acknowledgment, and then get on with life and language.

But there's one change I resisted for exactly 27 years and 9 months. Until last week, to be precise.