Quo signo nata es?

A wonderfully funny little guide from the BBC site on Handy Latin Phrases.

These are not traditional Latin sayings, but Latin translations of modern catchphrases and such. The page breaks down the categories as such:

Useful Sayings
Bumper Stickers and Vanity Plates
Advanced Quotations
Names and Titles

An example under Useful Sayings:

Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?

Which is: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Under Names and Titles:

Zona crepusculi -- purported to be Latin for "The Twilight Zone."

Hehe.

Delicate Dudes

A little etymology of "dude" from this CNN article, Dude -- professor studies 'dude' - Dec 8, 2004:

Historically, dude originally meant "old rags" -- a "dudesman" was a scarecrow. In the late 1800s, a "dude" was akin to a "dandy," a meticulously dressed man, especially out West. It became "cool" in the 1930s and 1940s, according to Kiesling. Dude began its rise in the teenage lexicon with the 1981 movie "Fast Times at Ridgemont High."

Hmm. So, this made me wonder about dude ranches. I've seen enough old movies where some ranch hands will be obviously snickering at the "dudes" vacationing out west and trying on the cowboy life for a fortnight. But I didn't think "dude" meant "dandy," per se, from that.

So, I looked up "dude ranch" online and found dude ranches defined and even more etymology on dude here: The Mavens' Word of the Day

My Novel - Bottled Air

A novel of mine, BOTTLED AIR, is now available for sale on CafePress.

For a few years now, I've had three of my older novels in PDF form available online. They're accessible (for free) by sending me a request. However, I do realize that it is annoying to read a long work online, especially a novel, and some people have told me they wanted to read one of the novels, but they weren't keen on having to do so on a computer screen.

But now, through CafePress.com, I am able to make those three novels available for sale as regular printed books. I am still going to offer them for free in their PDF form as I have in the past, but now I also can offer an alternative for those who'd rather pay a little bit for a real book they can have in their hands.

The other two novels aren't available yet in printed book form, but will be soon. (Descriptions of all three novels can be found here.)

Addendum

An addendum to the previous entry. Part of the lexicon of new Latin words is here on the Vatican's site.

Oh, some of these are too, too good.

I think Melusine should make a point of memorizing a few for her upcoming trip to Italy next month.

We like to supply Melusine with phrases for her European jaunts. I recall some years ago when she went to France, the Marquis and I taught her just two phrases for her trip. And those were: "frappez-moi" (spank me) and "où est la bibliothèque?" (where's the library?).

NunSexMonkRock

From an article in the Telegraph UK:

"The Vatican has helpfully produced a new lexicon of modern words in Latin, providing translations for such non-classical terms as playboy, hot pants, nightclub and Merlot."

...and further down in the article:

"The Latinitas Foundation is an academic institution founded in 1976 by Pope Paul VI with the intention of preserving and evolving the Latin language. It publishes a quarterly review in Latin and a Latin dictionary that runs to 780 pages."

The article mentions a few examples of these new words, including "punkianae catervae assecla" -- which is "punk" in the new Latin.

Almost begs the question: how many punkianae catervae assecla can dance on the edge of a razor blade anyway?

____

Speaking of the Pope, the Vatican, and words, I'm suddenly reminded of a story from some months ago about a petition sent to the Pope. So, now I can't help wondering if the Vatican ever did get back to France on their 5th deadly sin reclassification query.

_____

Ah, the contemplative life, eh?

"Feisty"

An article on "Words that book reviewers and publishers love too much."

Interesting Eponym

Saw what I thought was a great eponym in an article Doctor Who and the Fandom of Fear in Reason. The author refers to something as "a Phildickian tale."

I don't know whether this eponym is in common usage when referring to things reminiscent of Philip K. Dick's works or not. Could be. But it was the first time I'd ever seen it, and I just really liked it for some reason.

Bathycolpian

Bathycolpian is a delightful unusual word that appeared on the delightful Spizzerinctum Page. Spizzerinctum says it means "deep-bosomed." And notes this: (Brief origin: fr. Greek bathos, deep + colpos, breast. OED.)

It's derived from bathos??? Oh, my. Oh, yes bathos. A trifling little fact that I know will especially amuse my co-editors for animated as well as other old reasons that'd be pretty bathetic of me to explain.

Although I make such cryptic allusions merely hoping that maybe dredging up old word whore in-jokes will inspire Kallisti to tell the story about the kitchen utensils again. Which isn't a bathetic story at all, but a truly bathycolpian one.

Hissing and Other Territorial Noises

A post from Instapundit comments on this blurb from Editor & Publisher:

Blah, blah, Blogs: Probably the most hyped online development in 2003 (along with growth in site registration), but will these self-important online journals actually change the way newspapers do journalism on the Web?

I'm always amused when this topic comes up. I'm amused by how the established press reacts to the blog phenomenon and by the reactions of bloggers to whatever the established press says about blogs.

It all sounds a bit familiar to me, you see.

Back in the 80s when desktop publishing was the "hot" technology and made it easier for independent and underground publishers to produce their 'zines and newsletters, I remember seeing articles in magazines and newspapers from the established press (and especially from the publishing industry trade media) that were as dismissive and as snobby about those independent and underground publications as this little blurb from Editor & Publisher is about blogs. When they weren't being dismissive about how desktop publishing could be and was being used by the "unanointed," so to speak, they were being alarmist instead and accusing the new technology in various degrees of having the potential to foster some horrendous collapse of the whole of written English language and literature.

***

Arguing against the legitimacy of any upstart phenomenon is nothing new. The old guard is always sniffing the butt of anything new that deigns to enter its territory and hissing at it in the hopes, I guess, of making sure it knows without a doubt just who's Alpha cat or maybe just in the hopes that the upstart whippersnapper will just go away altogether .

Pardon my metaphor -- we just got a new kitten a couple of weeks ago and the inevitable interactions between my older cat and the new one have been perhaps too prevalent of a backdrop to my life as of late.

But it is, in essence, all just a territorial dispute between new and old -- whether they be ideas, people, processes, cats, or something else -- and just a differing perspective between the established and the not. The established will lash out when they think they are threatened -- either by decrying the encroachment into their establishment or by dismissing the encroachers as beneath their notice. That's what my older cat, Alecto, has been doing for the past couple of weeks all right, but I've noticed that whether she's hissing at the kitten or avoiding him completely by hiding far away from him from her high perch up in this storage loft we have in one room, she's highly aware of him at all times and has become obsessed with watching him constantly.

The cats, at least, will sort it out eventually.

***

My household cat dramas aside, there's an historical example from 18th century France that I can't help but bring up while pondering this particular subject. One of the early after-effects of the Enlightenment was an influx of young writers flocking into Paris, inspired by the great philosophes (Voltaire etal.) and eager to devote themselves to a writing life. However, a great many of them found that the literary world of the philosophes had become a privileged establishment of its own and this establishment did not exactly welcome these new aspiring authors with open arms. It wasn't long before there was a surplus of young starving unnoticed writer types toiling away in Parisian garrets (in fact, it was really here where that whole starving writer toiling in a garret romantic myth really started).

Voltaire, who one would think would have been a bit more sympathetic, was annoyed by them. He made fun of what he thought of as "dilettantes" and their "addiction to poverty and failure" and said they couldn't write or they would have been noticed.

But Voltaire was old and cranky by that time in his life when he uttered these sorts of things. In his earlier days, he had been the upstart fighting against the establishment of his time, which had been more than just a dismissive literary elite as Voltaire's main adversaries in his early days were an aristocracy and a Church that had absolute control over who could publish at all and what could be published. They had the power to outlaw what they objected to and even to outlaw criticism of their objections, which is of course far more egregious than a literary old guard merely rejecting and saying unflattering things about newer writers or different styles of thought and prose. At least, the newer writers had the freedom and luxury of getting to bitch about the old guard's elitism in retaliation. Which they did. Quite vociferously and in print yet -- as this bitching gave rise, in part, to a sudden proliferation of new independently published and self-published pamphlets and broadsheets.

Sound a bit familiar? It is quite an old cycle, isn't it? And as inevitable as my cats going through their little period of adjustment.

* * *

Amused as I was at Instapundit's post about Editor & Publisher's comment about blogs, I was actually more intrigued by the updates he includes in his post pointing to a few other bloggers' observations about his post. I was especially intrigued by his quote from Trudy Schuett and I followed the link over to her blog WOLves: "For writers who promote their works" to read her whole post.

As she points out in this post:

After all, many bloggers now have a readership equal to or exceeding that of a small-town newspaper. What's different here is that the blog's readership is scattered all over the world. While the Yuma Daily Sun informs their local hard-copy circulation of roughly 25,000 of general events, I'm informing about the same number of people globally on highly-focused subject matter, with my four blogs. We're not actually in competition, because our readership/frequency isn't the same.

Although her post was a reply in reference to the relationships between traditional journalism and blogs, I thought it was also relevant to some of the peculiar perceptions I've noticed over the years from the literary world. I've been a small 'zine publisher/editor since the mid-80s (both online and in pre-Web days, on low-budget print 'zines) Also, my own writing (mostly fiction and poetry) has been published from time to time in small 'zines and other weird little places since the late 70s (when I was in my teens). I have a healthy list of publication credits from obscure and little magazines that most people have never heard of (unless they tend to be pretty familiar with the little and literary magazine world, that is.)

I know from 'zines I've worked on, without a doubt, how much larger and diverse an audience the online 'zines can draw in comparison with the old paper versions. Yet, I've always found it difficult to try to translate web traffic stats into something intelligible to people who are immersed in the traditional literary world those rare times I am in a situation where I'm supposed to tout my alleged accomplishments and credits (which I've always hated having to do, but like having to have a decent resume for finding work, sometimes it is loathsomely necessary). A lot of people in the more established and traditional pockets of the literary world still seem skeptical about online publications, although that seems like it has been changing slowly in more recent years.

Anyway, I was pleased to discover the WOLves blog from Instapundit's link to her. I looked through a few of the other entries on her WOLves blog and was intrigued by her perspective on some of the issues she addresses that I know I'll be perusing her blog some more in future.

Male vs. Female Writing

Interesting little program called The Gender Genie that tests a piece of writing to calculate if it was written by a male or a female (according to criteria worked up from researchers from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and Bar-Ilan University in Israel). (link via Instapundit)

Just out of curiosity, I entered my own writing in it -- a sample of my fiction, my non-fiction, and a blog entry. All three samples were "diagnosed" as having been written by a male. (By the way, for those who don't happen to know, I'm female.)

Amused me.

Winter's Last Dregs

St Paul Arts & Press, a fine arts journal (and more), just published a little stream-of-bar-consciousness piece I recently wrote called Winter's Last Dregs in a Cup.

The piece is a little tidbit I wrote while just in New Orleans.

Muck vs. Grime

I can hear Laszlo from the other room screaming at the TV. There's this commercial that's apparently been making him insane lately.

I hear him yell: "You can't degrease 'muck'! You degrease grime -- and then you're left with muck."

He says that this is how the two are actually defined: muck is not greasy. Grime is.

So, he yells at the commercial about it. It's good to have a hobby.

Grisettes

These two excerpts are about the search for a word some seem to think is badly needed these days. I segue in the discussions into raving about the French word "grisette."

Although I define "grisette" casually in these excerpts, I've since done a bit more formal research on the word and I added an addendum/correction to what I said in these excerpts regarding the word afterwards -- as I wasn't entirely accurate, it seems.

________

Excerpt from an email thread between an old friend of mine (May 2001)
5/01

Her: Passing note - I think it's really pathetic that we don't have any word better than "fuck buddy" in English to describe this perfectly good relationship. Perhaps we should send out a call to all our friends for other language research?

Me: I agree. It's a dreadful term. But there isn't anything else, really, that quite fits the bill. All words that have been used to describe social/sexual intercourse dynamics seem to get tainted with people's baggage and there's always someone who can come up with a plausible reason why any suggested term is objectionable -- it becomes a charged term that it gets scrutinized for a host of ills and has to survive someone finding it too cute, too vulgar, too offensive, culturally insenstive, politically incorrect, trite, flippant, meaningless, intimidating, unseemly, grandiose, and/or shallow -- etc. It ain't got a chance having to please all the people with all their different caveats (both towards the word and towards the interaction, I think).

In doing the French research, though, I did happen upon a term -- grisette -- which I particularly liked and could be offered up in certain circles! It was a term in vogue with the 19th-century artists (ya know, the poet-pig ones I do so adore but who did tend to go on stupidly about Woman being the ideal while often treating women on the temporal plane rather disgracefully ..... syphilitic logic there for some of them, I guess .....). Grisettes were essentially groupies of the time -- women who hung out with the artists and in the cafes and often slept with them, lived off of them. Camp followers of the arts. They had some overlap with prostitutes, but for the most part they weren't in business and were socially akin to rockstar groupies.

But the best part is -- grisette these days means pastry! (I'm not sure whether it meant that first or came to mean that later -- must check on that ....)

Pass the croissant, please.

________

Excerpted email (from (July 2001). This bit is an odd request I got in email from one of our regular readers who writes me occasionally:

When you and your word whores get together, if you haven't already, find me a word for a "misteress." I'm the married one. He's not. So what does one call a male misteress?

Me:..... [Regarding] your particular question about finding a word (a label, even!) for what you call a "misteress." Heh! Why do you ask ME when you have come up with a very useable term right there yourself? But I'm glad you did, because that means I got to hear your word and I shall surely share it with pertinent others next time I do get into a word whore discussion about terms for .... uh .... what to call them? .... let's just say, generally, those boys one is messing about with. You are correct in presuming the topic has been broached in the past. Usually drunkenly. We reached no conclusion. All the terms seem to fail on some point.

You could fall back on traditional terms. Lover. Paramour. Lacking, but established terms. The traditional terms for a male lover are so less numerous than for the female, where one has a pick of delightful gradations and nuances to reflect the nature of the particular connection: from courtesan to grisette and the plethora of ways to just say whore, as bonus. Grisette is one I have come to appreciate relatively recently, and I would so like to give it a comeback and place in modern English where it could be applied to either gender. It's an old term popular during the heyday of all the usual French artistes we all know and love and was what they used to call the chicks who were hanging around them and whom they could and did regularly boff. A grisette was, apparently, lower in the art/cafë hierarchy than an official mistress but much higher than a prostitute. When I encountered the term and the history, I immediately thought, "Oh, you mean GROUPIES!" Heh. Best yet, though, is one translation of the term, which is "pastry."

Might it have some correlary to our English slang term of "tart"?

So. I really, really want to to use the anglicized version of this term to refer to those certain types of boys I idly lust after and desire to engage in a stray dalliance of interdeterminate length, but I have a feeling if they find out I'd been calling them "pastries," it would hinder my chances of getting anywhere with them. So. I might have to give up that idea, as sensible as it sounds to ME.

I suggested this term even as an alternative to the sometimes-used term "fuck buddy" in an email conversation I had with a friend a couple of months ago where she said there really ought to be a more elegant term to denote that nuance of a relationship. She was amused by my suggested "pastry," but skeptical as to its practical usage for pretty much the same reason I gave above for giving it up as an idea.

The problem with finding a word to use in the arena of love is that there is also the baggage of denial and desire of the participating parties to consider, and it's far too difficult to define and grapple simultaneously, don't you think? As well as finding that right blend of conveying the nature of the relationship without letting the definition define what transpires in the relationship itself. I prefer to let the terms stay vague rather than adopt a slew of definitions that would describe the stages or ranks of a relationship, in essence providing a progress report by every switch of noun.

During the drunken conversation mentioned above where the subject came up for quite a lengthy discussion, we were saying what we usually called our "paramours" when referring to them to others (although far from ideal, "paramour" could be a contender for general usage, methinks), and I reflected and my mood prompted this remark: "I usually just refer to them as my friend, and as I refer to people I'm not doing as friends, too, it means no one can ever be sure who I'm doing or not doing. And I like that." There is advantage in being enigmatic about dalliances sometimes, but I will grant that other times one wants or needs to point out the distinction. Sometimes, it's even the paramour who DEMANDS the validation of a distinction. "Rank me, rank me in your heart! Where do I stand? What do I mean to you?"

(And, herein, again, is where "pastry" would fail, as at such a confrontational moment of vulnerability, the beloved is not going to want to hear you say that to him.)

______

Addendum/corrections about the word "grisette"

grisette first appeared in the early 18th century and meant cheap, unbleached cloth. (gris literally translates to "gray.") Presumably, because cheap unbleached cloth is what they wore, it came to refer also to a young working-class woman in general, and had sometimes a more shady nuance meaning a working-class woman of "ill repute" (i.e., someone who probably worked part-time as a prostitute.)

And, as I described above, the term grisette did become popular in the latter 19th century as a specific reference to the women who hung around the art/cafë society of the time and consorted with the artists/writers of the time. Grisettes often worked as models for the artists.

A 1913 dictionary entry defines "grisette," however as: "A French girl or young married woman of the lower class; more frequently, a young working woman who is fond of gallantry."

Gallantry?

Grisette is also the name of some species of mushroom.

Is there really a pastry connection to this word? I'm not entirely sure of this now.

I got the "pastry" bit about grisettes from a friend who told me that he'd had pastries called grisettes. In doing a bit of research, I didn't really find enough references to indicate that grisette really means pastry generally, though, and I surmise my friend had some pastries that were simply cleverly named. Or perhaps were made with the type of mushroom called grisettes.

Actually, if anyone can set me straight on the pastry connection (if there is more to that), I'd be grateful.

So, although my original amusement at the pastry connection in regards to this word does seem to have been a tad exaggerated after further research, I still yearn to start a new (or revived) slang by calling dalliances "pastries." Even as impractical and improbable it would well be to try to convince any "pastries" of the idea that:

"No, really, my little cabbage, it's a term of endearment!"