Mead's Online Guide to Using Insults and Escaping While Your Victim Consults a Dictionary

Certain words emerge to represent personalities that serve as fixtures in the community. Scapegoats and sin-eaters bear the guilt for everyone else's trangressions; the gossipmonger collects the tawdry activities of the neighborhood and serializes them; the voyeur enjoys the thrill of watching private moments through a windowpane.

Come to think of it, none of these are positive, are they?

Today's entry is no exception, I'm afraid: it covers one of my favorite words, "curmudgeon." A curmudgeon is defined by dictionary.com as "a bad-tempered, difficult, cantankerous person."

Though the origin is unknown, I'm casting my vote with Walter William Skeat (1835 - 1912), author of several tracts on the English language. He maintained that curmudgeon is a combination of the English word "cur" (a mongrel dog, especially a worthless or unfriendly one) and one of two Lowland Scottish words: "mudgeon" (grimace) or "murgeon" (to mock; to grumble).

Strangely, in modern English dictionaries "murgeon" instead refers to grimace, whereas "mudgeon" isn't listed. "Ker" is also used in a variety of words as a prefix for greater emphasis in onomateopoeic words liked "kerplunk."* I do hope Sherlock Holmes can shed some light on this mystery.

Either way, the word literally translates to "an unfriendly, grimacing/grumbling mongrel dog." Better use this one sparingly, folks.**

Literary curmudgeons include A Christmas Carol's Ebenezer Scrooge, the Harry Potter series's Severus Snape, and To Kill a Mockingbird's morphine-addicted Mrs. Dubose.
Dr. Gregory House of the namesake show has also been labeled as such.

The curmudgeon who comes to my mind is the movie Steel Magnolias's Ousier Boudreaux (as if that it's pronounced "wheezer" isn't clue enough), the laughingstock of her friends with a kinder heart than she tends to show (farthest left in picture).

As literature and movies demonstrate, people are rarely curmudgeons for the sake of being curmudgeonly. Regret, pain or disillusionment gnaws at their roots, souring their moods. But Scrooge's heart thaws when faced with his own mortality, Mrs. Dubose sends a single white camelia to the Finch children as thanks for reading to her, and Ouiser's love for children shows in the smile she gives her friend's son.***

I don't know about House, because I don't watch "House," and if you need a reason why I don't watch "House," you're staring at it.

I suppose that makes me a curmudgeon, too?

I prefer to use the term "selectively cranky."



Information purloined from dictionary.com, the Oxford University Press Blog, and The Mavens' Word of the Day; image purloined from The International Movie Database



* - such as our word's comic-book cousin, KERBLUDGEON!
** - limit usage to your ancient in-laws who never really liked you, and who run about as fast as you can walk
*** - before he bursts into tears

When the saints go marching in

Do you ever have the wish that life was more like a play, or a video game, or a musical - someplace where a higher power can swoop in from above and rectify all of your problems?

Well, NOW YOU CAN - sorry, couldn't resist the temptation. I blame infomercials.

In any case, this blog will cover a literary device for which all literature buffs have the utmost contempt: the deus ex machina.

The Latin phrase (literally, God from the machine) is a translation from the original Greek, where it referred to the mechane, a device in ancient Greek theatre used to lower the actors playing the gods as if they were descending from Mt. Olympus. The gods functioned in the play as a means of resolving the plot or rescuing the protagonist from a particularly sticky situation, like some archaic Staples easy button.*
Let's not forget that divine intervention, however, doesn't lend a play any more substance.

Even ancient Greeks were critical of the mechane; in his play Thesmophoriazusae (Women Celebrating the Thesmophorae, the Thesmophorae being an annual fertility celebration held in honor of fertility goddess Demeter), Aristophanes makes fun of Euripides for overusing the convention. In the play, Euripides swoops in on the mechane in attempt to save his kinsman from harm when he is discovered spying for him at the females-only rite.**

Today, the deus ex machina refers to a device abhorred by every self-respecting literary buff - a tidy, but improbable and ultimately unsatisfying resolution.

My first encounter with the concept was a reading of Moliére's Tartuffe, or the Hypocrite (title character at right), where King Louis XIV sends an officer in the nick of time to arrest the impostor Tartuffe, to restore the house Tartuffe had swindled and blackmailed out of the family, and to announce the wedding of the play's young lovers - all the space of a few lines.

The convention is not something that disappeared with time and can today generally be chalked up to the laziness of the author. Modern versions include cavalry riding over the hill to the rescue, the villain's sudden death from cardiac arrest or - the particular brew of "God from the machine" that I love to hate - the protagonist waking to find it was all a bad dream.***

We call them cheat codes in video games for a reason.

In other news, a student's recent twist on the motorcycle made the list of search results, though I can't say any implications of divinity in its machinery look promising. And if the deus in question is the driver of the motorcycle, doesn't labeling a human "God" defy and defeat the purpose of godhood anyway?



Information purloined from The Phrase Finder, Statemaster.com; image purloined from idlemindproductions.com



* - "and Hephaestus heard the pleas of the bureaucrats, and paper clips rained from the heavens"
** - Subtext: crashing a goddess's charity function might kill you
*** - or a bad trip, if you fell down a rabbit hole

Puddle, puddle, po-puddle, banana-fana-fo-fuddle, me-my-mo-______

More blog entries forthcoming. Really need to get back on schedule with this thing.

Today's entry is on a versatile word applicable in the realms of the culinary, the artistic and the quotidian, or everyday - which, if improperly used, could do just what this word means: muddle.

The root of muddle is the Middle Dutch verb "moddelen," meaning "to muddy." Soil, besmirch, dirt-encrust - yes, these all are correct - but muddle's commonest meanings are "to mix up or confuse in a bungling manner" and "to mentally confuse."

My first encounter with the word came from playing a video game, Harvest Moon 64. I romanced the rancher girl on the game and, when she fell in love with the hat-clad studmuffin protagonist, the fiery redhead said:

"I like you. Does that muddle things up?"

My character said "no," to which she responded, "Well, then what are you waiting for?"

He went in the for the kiss and she promptly slapped him, saying, "Not that, stupid! The blue feather," the feather being the game's version of a wedding ring. I was left to ponder this exchange, and to discover my newfound word. See, video games aren't useless. They teach you vocabulary!*

Type "muddle" into an ad-sponsored dictionary and you'll get mojito recipes on the side. That's because muddling also refers to crushing or mashing ingredients into one another, a technique used in cooking and bartending. The process makes use of a spoon or, if you have one, a muddler (a rod with a flattened end) to crush the ingredients. The infamous mint julep requires a bartender to muddle mint and sugar inside the serving glass.

Image from Wikipedia

Too many mint juleps might muddle you - muddle also means "to confuse or stupefy with, or as if with, an intoxicating drink."**

If you check American online news with frequency, you might have noticed every politician, journalist and economic analyst using the phrase "muddle through." Though used about subjects ranging from U.S. policy in Afghanistan to the banking crises, the meaning is the same: "to achieve a certain degree of success but without much skill, polish, experience, or direction."

To just plain muddle is "to behave, proceed or think in a confused or aimless fashion, or with an air of improvisation."

Which, if either, is fitting, I'll leave for you to decide.

Psst! Here's a recipe for "The Genuine Cuban Mojito," courtesy of The Bodeguita del Medio in Cuba:

Ingredients

2 tsp sugar
Juice from 1/2 lime
2 mint sprigs
2 parts sparkling water
1 part rum
4 ice cubes

Add the ingredients to a glass, preferably a cylindrical one, in the order above, reserving the rum. Muddle in the glass. Add the rum, followed by the ice cubes. Enjoy!


Information purloined from dictionary.com; image purloined from Wikipedia



* - and that even if you're a self-made man who saves a farm from the brink of extinction and who courts his lady with all the propriety and gentility she is due, you will still be a thoughtless cad
** - in Soviet Russia, drinks muddle YOU!

The incantation continues...

Sorry for not posting - again - on my regularly scheduled days. I drove down to Maitland (near Orlando, for those for whom the name rings no bell), Fla., for the Fourth of July. My parents' house had no Internet access and my parents enlisted my help in Independence Day preparations. I'll write compensatory posts sometime this week.

Something you all might find interesting:

My girlfriend and I attempted to make a piña colada pancake last Wednesday. The recipe we used was for an oven pancake, meaning that the chef puts the pancake, pan and all, into the oven to cook it. As I was putting in the pan, I told myself that it would be hot when we finished it. Nonetheless, when my beloved removed it from the oven, she remarked on its appearance, and so I moseyed over, and with a reckless, "Really? Let me see," grabbed the scalding pan.

The resultant burn hurt so badly that I had to sit at home with my hand in ice water during my Political Science class. Once I looked at my hand, however, I noticed that the burn skipped over the lifeline.

When people seeing the burn-mark ask me about it, I say, "I guess it means I have a charmed life."

Hence, my blog entry.

The saying "a charmed life" comes again from our beloved playwright, William Shakespeare, in his infamous play Macbeth. The phrase occurs in line 16 of the play when Macbeth, complacent in the Weird Sisters' prediction that he shall not die at the hand of anyone born of a woman, taunts his opponent, Macduff (lines 12-17):

MACBETH

Thou losest labour:
As easy mayst thou the intrenchant* air
With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed:
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
I bear a charmed life, which must not yield,
To one of woman born.

Or, translated for your convenience:

Your attempts are in vain;
It is as easy for you to wound the invincible air as it is for you to wound me.
Swing at the shields/helmets/necks of the vulnerable;
Magic charms protect me, and no one born of a woman shall kill me.

Perhaps Shakespeare was also progenitor of the loophole; Macduff reveals three lines later that C-section babies don't count, and takes Macbeth's smug pate as a trophy. One would think moving forests would be enough to make the man a skeptic.

The true lesson of this play is that no man or woman can escape destiny. The Weird Sisters definitely live up to their name here. Shakespeare knew his mythology, as I'm about to explain. Yes, ladies and gents, a 2-for-1 entry. And it's not even happy hour!**

In Anglo-Saxon mythology, the goddess of Fate, also known as "the Lord of every man," bears the name "Wyrd" - a word also used as a noun to refer to one's fate or destiny itself. Chaucer in Troilus and Criseyde christens Fortune "executrice of wierdes" (executress of destinies; Book III, line 617), and writes in The Legend of Good Women of "The Wirdes, that we clepen [call] Destinee" (Book IX, line 19).

Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1577), however, was Shakespeare's source material for Macbeth. Shakespeare adapted the scene and dialogue of Macbeth and Banquo's first meeting with the Weird Sisters straight from this text, in which they are the Norns, or Sister-Fates, of Norse mythology: Urthr, the Past; Verthandi, the Present; and Skuld, the Future.

We have since demoted the word "weird" to the shame of "fantastic, bizarre" or "suggestive of the supernatural." I don't imagine Lady (or the Ladies) Wyrd are pleased. If we aren't careful, they might call in a favor with their Greek sisters****, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, to gang up on us. Those shears can be vicious, and I don't imagine they're cleaned very often.


Information purloined from The Phrase Finder, Theatre Database and william-shakespeare.info



* - one of Shakespeare's brilliant additions to the English language. If you must split hairs, intrenchant really means "not to be gashed or marked with furrows (or trenches)"
** - unless, by the time you read this entry, it is between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.***
*** - unless, by the time you read this entry, you are in Ireland
**** - from the Mt. Olympus chapter of the Global Fateweaving Vocational Sorority

Eye of newt, toe of frog, and a spoonful of sugar to boot

We're a society obsessed with the curative and the instantaneous. Liquid diets promise Gina she'll shed those Thanksgiving 2006 pounds in days. Herb just can't seem to make it with the ladies - if only he had that new Mustang convertible he keeps seeing advertised on the sidebars of his model train webring at 3 a.m. And where would Adrian be without constant, mobile Internet access on her Blackberry to save her the agonizing three minutes of waiting in line at the bank?

In honor of such "contributions" to the commercial market and the illusion they created, today's entry covers the word "nostrum."

Merriam-Webster.com defines nostrum as "a medicine of secret composition recommended by its preparer but usually without scientific proof of its effectiveness," or more generally, "a usually questionable remedy or scheme." The lack of FDA approval for a myriad of untested products makes the nostrum an omnipresent commodity in the good ol' U.S. of A.

Nostrum is also the neuter form of the Latin word "noster," meaning "our" or "our own" - in this case referring to a remedy brewed from a secret recipe all "our own." Its concoctors keep it under wraps for a reason - it often doesn't work, and the desperate will pay for even the hope of a cure. The word entered the English language to refer specifically to quack remedies peddled on the streets of 17th-century London as a plague cure.

America has a history of nostrums stretching back to British imports before the American Revolution and peaking in the 19th century, when charlatans sold such homemade, brand-named cure-alls as Duffy's Elixir,* Dalby's Carminative and Godfrey's Cordial. Most of these were little better than

Image via Wikipedia

alcohols sweetened with sugar, spices and opiates, and had no real curative effects.

Characteristic of the Manifest Destiny blend of quack remedies in particular is another American tradition - showmanship. Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn features a scene of how such scams sometimes ran - a traveling salesman would blow into town, deliver his spiel with volume and verve, and then a shill, or conman masquerading as a customer, would proclaim the medicine's efficacy. Once the swindler sold his inventory, he and the shill would hit the road before the unwitting townsfolk discovered the scam.

Synonyms for nostrum in common usage include "magic bullet,"** "quack remedy," "catholicon" (another word for cure-all***), "patent medicine," "quick fix," and the ever-popular "snake oil" - which, according to an article by Cynthia Graber of Scientific American, might not be so devoid of benefit after all.****

Working mothers at that time did find a use for nostrums such as Godfrey's Cordial, even if they didn't do what they professed to do. Sweet, opiate-based solutions were so palatable to children that those drugged during working hours in their infancy would self-medicate once they had the motor skills to open the bottle. No childproof caps for Reconstruction America, no sirree.

Until next time, this is your language investigator signing off. Have a wonderful evening!

Information purloined from merriam-webster.com, medicinenet.com, historyhouse.com and scientificamerican.com



* - featured in the ancient PC game Oregon Trail 2! Ah, nostalgia.
** - Might need to call Consumer Report about that blender
*** - Subtext: Catholicism will cure your ED
**** - I didn't think there was anyone crazy enough to try to catch a snake, flay it, and press the oil from its skin to test it either

Why saints are few and far between

For many, life is a constant struggle between God and the Devil, the polar opposites lobbing people like grenades, launching the shrapnel of good or evil, respectively, into the moral fiber of those caught in the blast.

The language of theology, because of its pertinence to humanity, produces many idioms used on an everyday basis. A phrase rising in popularity (due in no small part to the Reeves-Pacino movie) is "the devil's advocate."

In common usage, a devil's advocate makes a case for an unpopular or opposing viewpoint either to subject it to analysis, or merely for the sake of argument. To play the devil's advocate may brighten a colorless conversation. It can also annoy pigheaded individuals with satisfying efficiency.

The expression's origin stems, of all places, from the Roman Catholic Church. Called God's Advocate (Advocatus Dei in Latin) until 1983, the Devil's Advocate (Advocatus Diaboli) presents the argument against a potential saint's candidacy for beatification (declaration of a dead person as blessed and thereby entitled to special religious honor) or canonization (placement in the canon of recognized saints). The office's formal title is Promoter of the Faith (Promotor Fidei).*

So why would the Church give Catholicism's champion and a spokesperson for God such a dishonorable title? The officeholder's argument against an aspiring saint includes all of the unflattering tidbits about his or her past.*

Pope Sixtus V: "Well, we can't have any Antonio off the street playing saint, now can we?"

While seemingly introduced by Pope Leo X in the early 15th century, Pope Sixtus V formally created the office in 1587. Pope John Paul II's 1979 revision of canonization procedures abolished the office,** in my opinion a bad move. Why do away with an avenue for valuable, logical discussion?

I think devilish advocacy is a wonderful idea - it helps avoid complacency and overconfidence, and challenges people to question the commonly accepted. If you're strong enough in your beliefs, whether they be religious, political or even methodological ("you've got your way, I've got mine"), they will bear the strain of scrutiny.

Finally, I'd like to give some mad props to the Devil. In phraseology, the Devil is a rock star. He's the subject of such common expressions as "give the Devil his due," "speak of the Devil," "between the Devil and the deep blue sea," "devil-may-care" and, my personal favorite, "the Devil can cite scripture for his purpose" (The Merchant of Venice, Act I, Scene 3).

I don't imagine the Devil gets thanked often. Maybe you should try it. He might leave you be, for the time being.


Information purloined from http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Article675.html, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/160216/devils-advocate and http://www.william-shakespeare.info/quotes-quotations-play-merchant-of-venice.htm




* - The Papal Enquirer has him on speed-dial
** - I would do it if I were Pope. Saint Mead has a nice ring to it.***
*** - Could I be the patron saint of alcoholic beverages?

Fickle heart, fidgeting fingers

I figure that since I've been errant in my usual blogging, I'll compensate by posting a few additional blogs this weekend to act in the missing entries' stead. Today's blog covers the word "dithering." Commonly a British word, I first discovered it in one of my favorite novels, Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman:

"Aziraphale was dithering. He'd been dithering for some twelve hours. His nerves, he would have said, were all over the place. He walked around the shop, picking up bits of paper and dropping them again, fiddling with pens. He ought to tell Crowley." (131)

As you might be able to tell, dictionary.reference.com defines dither as "to act irresolutely" or "to vacillate" and, specifically in Northern England, "to tremble with excitement or fear." You are likeliest to dither just before embarking on a daunting but not pressing task, including but not limited to

• meeting your sweetheart's family
• chewing through a fallen branch with a chainsaw
• bungee-jumping from a bridge

Also according to dictionary.reference.com, dither originates from the Middle English word "diddere," meaning "to tremble." Trembling disguised as pseudo-productivity, I might add!* Apparently people have been fidgeting before a fight and slopping their livestock's feeding trough for the third time before their wedding*** since the Middle Ages. Until my next entry today, ladies and germs. Au revoir, and don't fall victim to this aforementioned disease! Information purloined from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dithering and http://rosuto.paheal.net/Books/Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman - Good Omens.pdf * - Scary Stories audiobook + grueling 9 to 5 job = cushy 9 to 5 job *** - and unlike now, both battle and marriage in the Middle Ages were the linchpins of politics, sometimes even with the former fought over the latter!