Wordcatcher (15 page)

An overused, meaningless expression.
Originally a printer’s term, from the French
clicher
, to stereotype, inspired by the sound
cliquer
, to click. The imitative sound is heard,
The American Heritage Dictionary
says, “when the matrix is dropped into molten metal to make a stereotype plate.” The stereotype block that reproduced the same word or image over and over led to the expression “stereotyped speech,” a word or phrase repeated time and time again, as if from a single engraving plate. Piranesi’s enormously popular engravings of the ruins of Rome come to mind because they were struck so often they darkened until their details were smudged and imperceptible, not unlike a word that can’t be seen or understood anymore because it’s been repeated
ad nauseam
. In 1946, George Orwell described his bottom line for
cliché
-busting: “Never use a
metaphor
, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.” On the other hand, Jack Kerouac playfully reminds us, in his novel
Big Sur
, “
Clichés
are truisms and all truisms are true.” Thus, at the end of the day it boggles the mind that we’re still between a rock and a hard place when it comes to using incredibly unique words that are dead as a doornail.

Scarcely visible summer clouds
. Coined by Conrad Aiken, exercising his poetic license, which should inspire the rest of us to use our own while cricking our head to
contemplate
the marvels of the clouds once in a while.
Clouderpuff
is as subtly
sonicky
as it is dulcetly descriptive. Can we call them “sound-alikes”? It’s a little less showy than
onomatopoeia
. Ironically, this is one etymology that isn’t cloudy; it’s origins call for clear skies.
Cloud
derives from the Middle English
clud
, a mass of vapors, which happens to be the same word as the Anglo-Saxon
clud
, a round mass, mass of rock, hill, from the Teutonic root
kleu
, to stick together.
The American Heritage Dictionary
points out that until the 12th century
cloud
and
sky
were essentially the same word in English, presumably because the skies were so often cloudy even seven centuries ago. These two seemingly unrelated words eventually gave us
clew,
and
clod.
If you look up
cloud
, so to speak, you’ll see the poetic classifications that weren’t officially decided upon until Luke Howard, an 18th-century amateur meteorologist in London, named the three basic families: cirrus, cumulus, and stratus. The mirror image for the melodic
clouderpuff
could be
blunderhead
, coined by essayist Verlyn Klinkenborg. In autumn 1870 the English poet-priest Gerard Manley Hopkins saw a flotilla of clouds and described them in his inimitable way: “One great stack in particular over Pendle was knoppled all over in fine snowy tufts and penciled with bloom-shadow.”

A close friend
. In the Old World wayward travelers were so respected that if one knocked on your door and asked for food and shelter, you were bound by tradition to help. The Old Testament and Greek myths exhorted everyone to treat a stranger well because he or she could be an angel or a god in disguise. The custom evolved that once you invited a stranger inside your home and broke bread with them you were expected to treat them well; to harm them was considered an act of treachery, a breaking of millennia-old rules of hospitality. The custom of breaking bread in the spirit of friendship is present to this day in the intimacy of the word
companion
, which derives from the Latin
com
, together, plus
panis
, bread, and by extension, “someone to share bread with.” Thus, a
companion
is a friend with whom you break bread, a bread-brother or sister. Likewise, the marvelous phrase
boon companion
, which adds the yeasty
boon
, meaning “benefit, good
fortune
, or timely blessing,” and is related to the Scottish
bonnie
, by way of the Latin
bonus
, good.
Boon
reappears in
bon vivant
, one fond of good living. Taken together,
boon companions
are jolly friends such as Robin Hood and his Merry Men, or Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas and theirs. As the English proverb has it, “Be kind to your friends; if it weren’t for them, you would be a total stranger.”

The act of thinking deeply, observing attentively.
The ancients described it as the urge to consider “the signature of all things.” The word comes down to us from the 13th-century Latin
contemplationem
, the act of looking at, and
contemplari
, to observe. From
con
, with, and
templum
, an open space, originally an open space reserved for observation of
augurs
. Figuratively speaking, whenever we are thoughtful, deeply considering life’s perennial questions, we have stepped inside a temple, where we consider the signs within the sacred precinct. Traditionally, this was marked off with a line drawn in the ground by the augur, and was later demarcated with stones, gates, and doors. The earliest temples were where augurs read the signs;
temple
later entered English as the site for religious activities or musings of priests, ministers, and rabbis. In this
holy
place, from Old English
haelan
, to heal, and PIE
kailo
, whole, uninjured, the pilgrim believes he or she is closer to the gods. The Latin
profanum
—
pro
, before,
fanum
, the temple—provides an image of the
profane
person hovering outside the threshold or even being banished from the House of Holies. Closely related is
fanatic
, Latin
fanaticus
, one who is inspired by the gods to the point of frenzy, transported with “temple madness.” Of course, this has devolved to
fan
, one who has an obsessive, near-religious relationship with a celebrity or a team. Taken too far, the affection can be
sacrilegious
, Latin for “picking up and carrying off sacred things.” Of such matters, we can say
of ecologist Rachel Carson that she believed it was
sacrilegious
not to ponder the sacred wonders of nature. “It is a wholesome and necessary thing,” she wrote, “for us to turn again to the earth and in
contemplation
of her beauties to know of wonder and humility.”

Contemplate

An exchange of words, thoughts, and friendship. Conversation
is communication by way of dialogue. Its origins are a walk through history, reaching back to 1352 with the Latin
conversatio
, literally “to turn around with,” from
com
, with, and
vertar
e, which also gave us
versus
. Slowly, this was adapted by the French to
converser
, to live or deal with—figuratively, a way in which people conduct themselves. By 1580, we can see a classic painted word beginning to appear: two or more people walking and
talking
together, which is the very heart of
conversing
. By the 16th century,
conversation
was a euphemism for “sexual intercourse,” presaging the expression
criminal conversation
, which became a legal term for adultery by the late 18th century. Companion words include c
onversant,
familiar with,
reversation,
switching directions in talk, and
tergiversation,
the evasion of the truth in
conversation
. The euphonious
eutrapely
was Aristotle’s word for someone “pleasant in
conversation
.” His teacher’s teacher, Socrates, often invited to dinner a man named Deipnoso, “a wise and witty
conversationalist
,” which gave us the word
deipnosophist
. Conversely,
deipnophobia
is the
fear
of dinner parties. The cross-dressing Scottish poet and traveler William Sharpe’s middle name was “Conversation.” According to Boswell, Dr. Johnson loved “the sport of
conversation
.” Companion words include
persefleur
, a banterer,
persiflage
, light conversation,
subtilist
, a subtle conversationalist,
causeur
, a talkative person. And from the great Canadian
essayist Alberto Manquel, a reminder that in Turkish
muhabbet
means both “
conversation
” and “
love
.”