Fiction Daily

FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING

One of the scariest moments for me as a journalist wasn’t when a sheriff found me hiding behind his door listening in on an interrogation (coercion, I might add), but rather on the days when the robotic out-of-town consultants declared, Change is the new journalism, so get used to it.

They had no idea what change meant to a page editor trying to make deadline … the utter fear it evoked to hear the words, new pagination system, how nightmarish their systems were for the people expected to use them. There was a certain arrogance, too, in their pronouncements, for those of us who entered journalism to give a voice to the voiceless and other lofty ideals. They seemed to say, Abandon ideals, ye who enter here … you are now our technology minions.

That period of my life ended almost 15 years ago, and today, as a self-employed writer, I find my attitude toward new technology is quite different. No longer imposed from on high, new tech and upgrades are my choice. Granted, I have to learn all about them in order to install and program routers, printers, operating systems and programs, but that also takes the fear of the unknown away. I have to master technology; I have no choice.

And so, we arrive at today’s topic for Figuratively Speaking: CHANGE. New computers, new iPods, new cars, new priorities … new president … new millennium … lately, we’re surrounded by it.

What a surprise to find that this intimidating word has humble origins: Change comes from the French changer, from the late Latin cambire which means barter. (If you’ve traveled abroad, you recognize the word cambio from the money-changing counters.)

So in the beginning, the dread word change merely referred to exchanging one thing for another. It was of quite modest roots, probably of Celtic origin, which was the day’s equivalent to hip-hop culture.

When we change, then, we give up something and get something else. That’s the short version. Yet the word implies much more. There’s Turning over a new leaf, starting from scratch, convert, revolt, make a quantum leap.

Probably the best term I’ve found today for change is perestroika. We heard this term a lot in the 1980s and I thought it was some kind of Russian five-year plan.

That’s sort of true — perestroika means restructuring the political and economic system. In Russian, the word means literally “restructuring.”

Wouldn’t it be great to claim this word for everyday use? My eating habits have been terrible lately, so perestroika is in order. Or, Honey, we need perestroika for these cabinets since they’re in disarray. Excuse me, but do you have perestroika for a dollar?

Then again, I’ve always loved anything Russian. I don’t see perestroika for that anytime soon.

FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING

We all know that when you go somewhere, you take a journey.

What’s less known is that word’s relationship to a day’s work. Journey comes from the Old French journee, a word that refers to the course of a day, a day’s travel or a day’s work. That word derives from the Latin word diurnum, or “daily portion.”

A journeyman is someone with a skill, who works for another person. It comes from journey, in the sense of “a day’s work,” combined with “man” — so named because the journeyman was no longer bound by indentures but was paid for the day. He was able to decide where he worked … and to keep his wages … and in that sense, he was free.

Some synonyms expert, artist, craftsman, artisan and everything from Renaissance man, illuminati and genius to handyman and technician.

I’ve written before about what it means to be a self-employed writer. Not a lot of security … and I’ve learned not to look too far down the road, to sock my earnings into savings and don’t spend any more than I have to, and enjoy the scaled-down pleasures of hiking over plane trips to exotic islands.

Yet in the 13 years I’ve worked for myself, I have come to appreciate the idea of being a journeyman (journeygal? journeyperson?). I have worked plenty of nights and weekends, even once stayed up all night to write a script for someone on short notice.

Yet though I’m meeting someone’s requirements or requests, I do so by my own choice. Maybe it’s fear of letting someone down … maybe it’s my inner sense of perfection … I just don’t like failure.

The trick is applying these standards to my own personal writing. That’s harder to do. While it’s one thing to work for someone else, with the promise of a day’s pay for a day’s work … when writing a novel, there’s no promise … no pay, at least not for years … and no one setting a deadline.

FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING

CAPTIVE and CAPTIVATE

Today I’m addressing a couple of words that live in a sort of free and lawless place when it comes to usage.

They are words which, oddly enough, refer to states where there is no freedom. And I’m afraid that even without rules, they are nevertheless most often used … wrongly.

Captive as a noun refers to a prisoner or animal that is confined, usually against their will. In the cardboard box, the little girl held the turtle as a captive until her mother made her release it into the woods.

Captive is also an adjective … and here’s where the fireworks begin.

Captive refers to someone or thing that has been captured … and therefore is a captive. The captive finch refused to sing. (By the way, no need to use a redundant phrase like “captive prisoner.” A captive is a prisoner.)

Yet, there are times when we want to say that someone was so charmed or delighted, that it was as if they were held prisoner. This is what you call a captive audience.

The aria so spellbound the crowd that for the rest of the performance, the soprano sang to a captive audience.

Now, too often I’ll hear this usage: Since members of the board have to be at the meeting, you’ll have a captive audience. Or, the play was a requirement for graduation, so it was a captive audience.

WRONG.

Usage for “captive audience” and other phrases like it should refer to a group of people who seem to be held against their will because of the quality of the show.

It is used in the sense of “captivate,” which means to attract and hold the interest and attention of, to charm. (I won’t belabor the point or bore you with sentences about captivating beauties and their ilk.)

So if you find yourself tied up in a cage, you are captive. But if your captor happens to sing like Caruso, you may find yourself a captive, captivated, captive.

FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING

Opening my beloved Roget’s International Thesaurus 6th edition this morning, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. All week I’ve looked forward to the moment when I could look up a word that came to mind as I was avoiding something, probably a deadline.

LOLLYGAG.

What a word! As a child, how often did I hear it! You need to get dressed and go! Stop lollygagging!

That word came to represent the Promised Land, where I could amble around dreaming, without a commitment, free to explore the world. I imagine my parents and teachers saw it differently … trying to figure out how to get their slowpoke daughter moving

Lollygag is an informal term that means to spend time aimlessly. It is of unknown origin from the 19th century.

Mr. Roget has some other terms to describe wandering around without a purpose. Shuffle, stagger, totter, toddle, saunter, stroll, amble.

My favorites are dawdle, tarry, dally. If I had to choose, my top choice would be mosey.

Why rush, when you can mosey? Actually, this term originally meant “to go away quickly.” Now, it is an intransitive verb that means to walk or move in a leisurely manner. (An intransitive verb — What a joy to find one!)

For the British, it came also be a noun meaning a leisurely walk or drive.

Now I’m not advocating laziness, procrastination or cultivation of boredom. “An idle mind is the Devil’s workshop,” they say, and I’m inclined to agree.

Yet these words of lingering conjure a life lived in the moment … dreaming of projects, good works, stories to write … hiking with your own thoughts, observing trees, moss and wildflowers, thinking about what a gift we have with each breath.

It also evokes intention in every act, even when there’s a deadline.

Of course, there are times when we have to get a move on, and it’s no good to dilly-dally. Yet even punctuality can be mindful, as the Buddhists might say. Moving without haste and with compassionate intent.

Image by Heavy Petal

FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING

All week it seems I’ve constantly had something to do next … meetings, phone interviews, bills, dogs to walk.

Because traditionally it’s hard for me to get anywhere on time, I usually feel anxious when I have an appointment.

As I was washing the dishes rapidly before leaving … that’s one of the reasons for being late; the house should be neat before I shut the door … a childhood memory came clearly to mind of a phrase my mother used all the time.

I was in a swivet.

Can this be a real word? I wondered. Or is it just a cooked-up family expression?

Real, it is. And it may be a word that was brand-new in my grandmother’s time, meaning that my mom may have been a second-generation user of the word.

Swivet means a fluster or panic. The origin is unknown, but believed to be late 19th-century. That means my great-grandfather would have been among the first to hear it used, possibly with my grandmother, who laid it on my mom, who used it with me.

Now you might say, why be in a swivet, when you can be in a tizzy?

A tizzy has a slightly different sense of being in a state of nervous excitement; there is a sense of looking forward to something.

An older word you ask? Not at all. Tizzy came into use in the 1930s. You can just imagine the first stars of the silver screen causing people to feel in a tizzy every time a new movie came out.

Speaking of movies, leaving the house was always a production when I was little. We lived several miles outside of town, in the country as we used to say. Going to the mall or downtown required getting things ready … shutting up the house … getting into the car (a big event for us) … and pulling away for our adventure. So mom had lots of expressions to refer to leaving.

One of them I thought was our own … in fact is shared … and it goes like this: Leaving like a terd of hurdles. That dear mixed-up phrase is more common than you’d think.

The real expression goes like this … to leave like a herd of turtles … the image is clear … And they’re off! but apparently the play on words is lots of families’ private joke.

Today, no appointments, thank goodness, but lots of deadlines, so I won’t have to leave the house at an appointed time. I can sit here in my own kind of swivet trying to finish my articles before they’re due.

Yesterday driving home with unexpected relief after a stressful appointment in Chapel Hill (nice people, stressful circumstances), Greg and I had time to let off steam and laugh about things.

At one point he goes, Here’s something that really gets my gourd.

You see Greg has a talent for confounding figures of speech, twisting and mixing them into almost expressions that are still recognizable, but somehow not right. And you can’t figure out why. I’ve heard it called malaphorism, but not sure that’s a real word.

Since we were driving, I did not have a dictionary on me and was forced to sit there and whine, Honey, are you sure that’s right? That doesn’t sound right to me. But I couldn’t think of what it was supposed to be.

Now, armed with my trusty Oxford English Dictionary, I can at last settle the matter.

My husband, I’m afraid, was a little out of his gourd, what with the long drive and stressful situation yesterday when he was trying to express himself.

Out of your gourd means to be out of your mind, or crazy. It also refers to being under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

What he meant to say, I believe, was Do you want to know what gets my goat?

I have no idea why we refer to this beleaguered ruminant to express irritation, but that’s the common usage. To get your goat means it gets on your last nerve.

If something gets your last goat, you could say it really galls you. Gall means impudent behavior … coming from the bile-filled organ we affectionately call the gallbladder.

Used as a verb, it is transitive, and means to irritate or even give rise to a sore on the skin, such as when a bridle abrades a horse’s coat.

Of course it it were me chomping at the bit, it would probably get my goat. But that’s a horse of a different color.

FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING

Earlier this week, my husband called my attention to what he said was a mistake in an AP-staff newspaper story. He is a photographer, but when it comes to line editing, he’s a master in the tedious matter of spotting tiny mistakes in text.

“It says here ‘The Gators wrested the party title from West Virginia University,’” he calls to me from the kitchen.

Meanwhile I am breaking out with an enormous grin of pure joy.

The “mistake” in fact was a sparkling example of exceptional writing. Writers delight in nothing so much as a well-crafted phrase … though we’re usually a jealous, catty bunch, I understand the hardships of writing on deadline and take boundless pleasure when a peer in the press nails the perfect verb.

Such is the case with “wrest.” The word means to forcibly pull something from a person’s grasp, or to take something from someone after considerable effort or difficulty. It comes from the Old English work wraestan, to twist or tighten … and not surprisingly, with all those hard consonants, it has a Germanic origin related to the Danish vrist, related to wrist.

There was even a tool known as a wrest used to tune a harp or piano.

The AP writer managed a private joke with his fine use of the word wrest: You can imagine the effort it took to claim the party-school title, no doubt a moment of Olympic attainment.

In the course of wrestling with the term wrest, I realized there are several related words. If you wrench, you exert a violent twisting or pulling … say you’re trying to wrench out of a pitch before the salesperson corners you into signing. We also use wrenches to threaten said salespeople if they won’t leave us alone.

Wrench and wrestle come from the same Old English origin as wrest.

If you find yourself duped into the deal, you could say you’re a wretch … or a poor wretch, as we like to say. That is, an unhappy or unfortunate person. Oddly enough, this word comes from the Old English wrecca, a banished person, from the German Recke, warrior or hero.

That’s not surprising. There is no one so unfortunate as a hero, lonely in a way few of us can understand, because unable to share struggles, sacrifices and accomplishments with us mere mortals.

INORDINATE

This week, I found myself reading some historical information about Fort Macon, N.C., a marvelous open place at the tip of the Bogue Banks island at Atlantic Beach.

I’ve been visiting the site since childhood, and even today, make the trip whenever I’m on the coast. Fort Macon is the most highly visited state park in North Carolina — you might think a fort would be boring, but just beyond, in about 12 feet of water, lies Blackbeard’s ship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge. What’s more, the fort has beaches, open spaces, hidden passageways and is a wonderland for kids.

But reading about the fort, I came across this line

As a result of congressional economizing, it was garrisoned in 1834-36, 1842-44 and 1848-49, but more often it was occupied by a single ordnance sergeant acting as caretaker.

Ordnance is a noun referring to mounted guns, military weapons, ammunition and equipment used in connection with them. It’s also a branch of the armed forces.

It has no “i” as you might expect — but is a variant of the more familiar ordinance, which is a piece of legislation enacted by a municipal authority. We have city ordinances against open burning, weedy yards, loud music. (Guess cities aren’t powerful enough for full-blown laws.)

Ordinance derives from the Middle English ordenance, from the Latin ordinare, to put in order. That meaning also gives us ordain.

We also have the word ordonnance, which is the systematic or orderly arrangement of parts, especially in art and architecture. That word is not surprisingly also derived from the French. (I can imagine trying to use this word in conversation, with that French nasal twang. No one would be listening, just laughing as I uttered oar…donn…awnce.)

From the Latin ordinare we also have ordinate, which in math means to place in order on the x- and y-axis.

That’s an extraordinary talent, indeed.

FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING

In honor of summer’s crest in the days ahead, today Figuratively Speaking sweats it out.

As a girl my mom barred certain words from my language — she required me to say “smells bad” instead of “stink,” for instance.

Among the banned words was “sweat.” So if I ever got worked up as a child, I perspired.

Her prejudice says a lot about the difference between these two terms. You can see those differences in their origins, as well.

Perspire has a delightful French air to it — and belongs in the dignified word family that includes “inspire.”

Perspire derives from the Latin spirare, or “breathe.” From there, it goes through the 17th-century words “perspirer” from the Latin “per” (through) plus “spirare” (breathe). There is a sense of breath coming through.

Now then, we have sweat. As is so often the case, words with a coarser sense come from our good German and Dutch friends. Not sure why that’s the case — maybe it’s because their words have a more guttural, gruff tonality.

Sweat comes from the old English word swat, which comes from the German swaetan, related to the Dutch zweet and German Schweiss. There is an Indo-European root back there somewhere … sudor.

Nothing about that word evokes the lofty act of breathing, as does perspire. And, really why not use that word instead? Perspire captures what it means to be human: to live by the results of our work.

Or, as some may say, By the sweat of our brow.