Wordplay: Sealing my destiny, word by word
Suzette was keen to unpack karma. Was the word a pure Buddhist notion, or did the dictionary have other incarnations? Pushed for time I let the question gather dust in the inbox. Life was too short to answer every word query.
Not that I'm a malicious soul. Nor am I lazy. (With any luck, given all the word queries I've kindly answered over the journey, I'm due to return to earth as a sea-eagle, preferably on the south coast somewhere.) But I can't escape the truth; when inquiries flood the server, I answer the easier ones first.
Hypocrite, say, is no relation to Hippocrates, the father of medicine. I'd sent that response back to Les Pick in two minutes flat. How's that for good karma? Hypocrite, I'd explained, links to hypokrites in Greek, an actor, a masked performer. While Hippocrates owes his name to the live export of African herbivores.
Then there was Bronwyn, distracted by vowels. Was facetious the only word to own all five in alphabetical order? No, I replied promptly. You can also add abstemious, as well as arsenious (of arsenic compounds), while the list of non-alphabetic supervocalics (as these words are termed) extends beyond 1400, including dialogue, vexatious, tambourine and supervocalic.
Next in line was Paul Goddard, a bloke bewitched by desire lines. Nothing to do with erotic fiction. Instead of blue, think green: the sprawling lawns of parks and campus where years of passing feet have carved their own thoroughfare. Desire lines are democratic tangents, as I replied to Paul. Short-cuts in the main, the lines prove our species' contempt for official pathways, especially when there's an easier, more scenic, tack to take.
Much like karma, I suspect. There's the right way of doing something versus the lazy time-saving way. Obedience versus expedience, and my track record isn't bad. Now and then I stray – who doesn't? Occasionally I vote the wrong way with my feet, but my services to the inquisitive public are paramount. I hold such word-nerd duties sacred – unless I'm busy. Or a question seems too difficult.
Carol Harth was after a word identifying those stories we relay from parent to child, ad infinitum. "A friend's daughter is telling personal stories to her daughter that her mother told her. I'd call it family history, but my friend feels sure that's a better word."
In less than a week I replied with four suggestions: folklore, lore, canon or ana. This last curio is typically employed as a suffix, such as Australiana, or Victoriana, yet the same unit can stand independently. Ana in fact means a collection of stories and reminiscences by or about a particular person. Again we draw on Greek where ana means of each, or apiece.
Sheila Elliott wished to know why extras in stage-plays murmur rhubarb-rhubarb and not any other rhizomes. (It's all about the swallowed plosives, Sheila.) And Phil Gomez wondered why extraordinary doesn't mean very, very ordinary. (It's extra as in beyond, Phil, not more. Think extracurricular.) Surely by now you can vouch for my sacrifices made to verbal enlightenment, every week a pro-bono caseload whittled down by love and diligence and philanthropy. Except if I'm flat out. Or the question is spoiling for a thesis.
So Suzette, I'm sorry, and I'm not being facetious. I'll get around to your karma conundrum in this lifetime. Can you cope with knowing the word has five nuances, from fate to mood to Buddhist comeuppance? Karma is Sanskrit for deed, and soon Suzette I'll do just that, promise. If only to confirm my cosmic reservation for that aerie in Merimbula.
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