{"id":516,"date":"2011-06-04T12:42:14","date_gmt":"2011-06-04T16:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=516"},"modified":"2011-06-04T12:52:38","modified_gmt":"2011-06-04T16:52:38","slug":"epeleolatry-and-the-worship-of-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/06\/epeleolatry-and-the-worship-of-words.html","title":{"rendered":"epeleolatry (and the worship of words) ~"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"\"<\/a>I confess. I\u2019m a total word nerd. I was that kid you hated in 4th<\/sup> grade, who begged for spelling words, and won the spelling bee, and had her nose in a book so often that even my grandmother \u2013 an old teacher \u2013 yelled at me: Girl! Get your nose out of that book! I didn\u2019t invite you to read all weekend!<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

This past semester I learned a new word: \u2018squeg.\u2019 It means to \u2018oscillate between max and zero, as in an electronic current.\u2019 But the student who brought the word to class (we have Daily Word in class \u2013 words we love, don\u2019t know, want to share\u2026) thought it meant the apogee of a conversation. When I heard her definition, I thought: hmmm\u2026 who knew conversations had apogees?<\/em><\/p>\n

Still, it\u2019s a new word, however discordant it sounds. It\u2019s hard to make melody from a \u2018q\u2019. I used to love the word queer<\/em>, until it began to be used to beat up friends. I liked the way the mouth purses to make the qu<\/em> dipthong, and then almost smiles to make the ee<\/em>. It\u2019s noticing (and caring about) things like this that confirm my complete word nerdiness.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

All of this makes me quite odd, if you think about it. Because I find squeg <\/em>an unlikeable word. How can you like or dislike a word, you ask? A sentence \u2013 that\u2019s different. It may be poorly written, unclear, etc. We all remember THOSE classes :). But an orphan word? Unattached to parents subject and predicate? Naked of modifiers? Ungendered in its lack of pronouns? What\u2019s to hate about that??<\/p>\n

I give you\u2026 music. There is no music in \u2018squeg.\u2019 It even lacks the onomatopoiea\u00a0 of \u2018squelch.\u2019 Or the whispery finality of \u2018squish.\u2019 It\u2019s the \u2018g.\u2019 The whole word becomes guttural. And for word nerds? That\u2019s enough.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>Except actually, according to the Venn diagram , I’m a word \u2018geek\u2019: if you\u2019re obsessed w\/ words (guilty :)), and reasonably intelligent (debatable), then you\u2019re a word geek. No rhyme, unfortunately, but accurate\u2026 Which should be worth at least as much as rhyme, even if it doesn\u2019t sound as good\u2026<\/p>\n

So are you asking what this has to do w\/ Beginner\u2019s Heart? All the small things we love make us who and what we are. I heard the poet Carolyn Forch\u00e9<\/a> speak recently, and she called our little, everyday decisions the \u2018rucksack of our aesthetic.\u2019 We become them, these tiny habits. Perhaps even more than what we think<\/em> matters, what matters are the infinite & infinitely small day-to-day choices we make. Our quotidian existence \ud83d\ude42 (another great<\/em> word!) Like collecting words\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> The worship of words.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I confess. I\u2019m a total word nerd. I was that kid you hated in 4th grade, who begged for spelling words, and won the spelling bee, and had her nose in a book so often that even my grandmother \u2013 an old teacher \u2013 yelled at me: Girl! Get your nose out of that book!…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17,22,58],"tags":[11,60,59],"class_list":["post-516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britton-gildersleeve","category-buddhism","category-poetry","category-writing","tag-beginners-heart","tag-epeleoloatry","tag-words"],"yoast_head":"\nepeleolatry (and the worship of words) ~ - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I confess. I\u2019m a total word nerd. 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