Words and Definitions
I am an avid fan of Scrabble and have a fleeting interest in etymology – here are some of the words that have caught my attention over the years.
- anemoia – having the feeling of nostalgia about something not personally experienced or before your time. I personally experience anemoia with my vinyl collection which I started in my early forties but when I was first buying physical music, I was buying CDs in the 90s. Philosophase has done a video on the topic.
- erudite – Having great knowledge or learning
- quixotic – extremely idealistic; unrealistic and impractical
- verisimilitude- the appearance of being true or real
- ephemeral – lasting for a very short time
- paeidolia – see faces in patterns
- vicepherous – vehement outcry
- panegyric – public speech or text in praise of someone/thing
- pathos – a quality that evokes pity or sadness
- rhetoric – the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing
- pejorative – expressing contempt or disapproval
- anthropomorphic – having human characteristics
- catasta – platform for exhibiting slaves for sale
- enshittification – the process where online platforms, initially designed to be user-friendly and beneficial, gradually degrade in quality as they prioritize profit-making over user experience
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The Lamb, William Blake
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice!
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, W.B. Yeats
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Caged Bird, Maya Angelou
A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
Vogon Poetry, Douglas Adams
Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes,
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts
With my blurglecruncheon, see if I don’t!”
“Bleem miserable venchit! Bleem
forever mestinglish asunder frapt.
Gashee morphousite,
thou expungiest quoopisk!
Fripping lyshus wimbgunts,
awhilst moongrovenly kormzibs.
Gerond withoutitude form into formless bloit,
why not then? Moose.
There is a World, Estelle White
There is a world where people come and go
about their ways and never care to know
that every step they take is placed on roads
Made out of men who had to carry loads too hard to bear.
Chorus: That world’s not ours! That’s what we always say.
We’ll build a new one but some other day!
When will we wake from comfort and from ease,
and strive together to create a world of love and peace.
There is a world where people walk alone,
And have around them men with hearts of stone,
Who would not spare one second of their day,
Or spend their breath in order just to say:
“Your pain is mine.”
There is a world where brothers cannot meet
With one another, where the tramp of feet
Bring men of ice, men who would force apart
Friends of all races having but one heart,
A heart of love.
I have a fondness for this hymn that we sand, from Hymns Old and New 1989, in primary school. There is more information on Estelle White and a biography.