|k| clippings: 2015-02-27 — logic, the beginning of wisdom

WORK

“All I really want to know is how other people are making it through life---where do they put their body, hour by hour and how do they cope inside of it?”

—Miranda July
—from It Chooses You

WORD(S)

sgrìob /skree-UP/. noun. According to Robert Archibald Armstrong’s A Gaelic Dictionary, this so-called untranslateable means “an itching of the lip, superstitiously supposed to precede a feast or a kiss from a favorite.” Thus sgrìob poige (before a kiss) and sgrìob dibhe or sgrìob drama (before a dram).

“…the Gaelic speakers of Scotland, not to be outdone, have a word for the itchiness that overcomes the upper lip just before taking a sip of whisky. (Wouldn’t they just?) It’s sgriob.” (Bill Bryson, from The Mother Tongue)

"[Allan Brown writes:] ‘You might think, for example, that the word sgriob is just a bad hand at Scrabble; it’s actually the Gaelic word describing the tingle of anticipation felt in the upper lip before drinking whisky. The fact that Gaelic has a six-letter word for this while English has a twelve-word phrase reveals a lot about Gaelic ways and priorities.’

No it doesn’t. It reveals nothing. I happen to know a one-syllable word (turd) for a piece of excrement shaped by its expulsion from the anal sphincter, but that doesn’t reveal a lot about my ways and priorities. It is a completely meaningless and useless random factoid about the lexicon of the language I happened to grow up speaking. That lexicon also contains scrum, buttercup, ogre, bong, and thorium. If you try to form an impression of my ways and priorities from such things you’re a moron." (Geoffrey K. Pullum, from Language Log)

WEB

1. Weird words: Diagram’s oddest book titles of the year 2015 – in pictures.

2. “When we read annotations, voices speak from the margins that would otherwise be silent.” → Readers Make Their Mark: Annotated Books at the New York Society Library looks like a fascinating exhibit. If you can’t see it in person (or even if you can), there are many rich links about marginalia and annotation in the story and in this piece about the exhibit from the New York Review of Books.

3. A happy story of a cache of letters lost and found…just in time. → Surprising discovery jogs woman’s fading memory.

4. Indulge your ears with some performances from the late jazz great (on trumpet and flugelhorn) Clark Terry → ►“Satin Doll” (The Clark Terry Quartet, 1985) | ►Clark Terry: The Greatest Flugelhorn Ever | ►“Donna Lee” (featuring Joe Pass). Bonus: the trailer for Keep on Keeping’ On, a new documentary I really want to see about Terry and his friendship with the young, blind, aspiring jazz pianist Justin Kauflin.

5. Earlier today, actor and photographer Leonard Nimoy—best known as Spock from the original Star Trek television series—died. May his spirit live long and prosper.

REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES

• Reader B. proposes: “With regards to there being a word for when your muse disturbs your sleep schedule, I got to thinking about lucubrations. It’s not an exact fit, particularly by definition, which is intense study and writing, but the etymology means to work by lamplight, to work at night.”

• A different Reader B says: “meraki–obviously the true source of the word america (as used prior to the twentieth century)”

• Reader T. asks: “Well Anne Hall seems pretty much on target to me! What exactly do you disagree with? I am curious because of how you said it.” — I was thinking specifically of her disdain for ‘Chaucer and…’ courses, curriculum that explicitly highlights contemporary culture and issues as a frame for engaging with literature."

• Readers D. and G. spotted a problem in the last issue: The Feb. 25 newsletter entry about George Harrison has the line: “You don’t have to listen to me when you can listen to your ears: xxx.” There should have been links where the “xxx” is…in fact, the whole newsletter I sent out was a slightly incomplete, totally un-proofed version. Sorry about that!

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