Attempted Wordsmithery from Possible to Plausible, Devastatingly

The source of the issue is important, more or less, otherwise I’d be in no particular rush to get this out.

impossible -- impassable

Some of you will be familiar with the circumstances:

Professor Hill’s 1-L Civil Procedure class at Ohio Northern University was discussing two United States Supreme Court decisions this past Friday, Bell Atlantic v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal (names are great, aren’t they?), which, broadly, together, awkwardly, redefine what a plaintiff must accomplish, and to what degree, in filing his complaint under requirement of Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.  I think.  The issue in the cases—you know, for context’s sake, for those of you not taking Hill’s CivPro course—and here also, though more narrowly, is the Court’s requirement that the facts alleged in a Plaintiff’s complaint, and in order to be capable of surviving a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss (duh, right?), be not merely possible, but plausible (judgment upon the veracity of the facts comes later).  How this surprisingly problematic distinction—possible v. plausible—plays out in the case went, temporarily, out the window, when Professor Hill abruptly wheeled and burst, “Joseph!”  (that’s my name) and pointed, “You prize yourself a wordsmith, correct?  A master of the English language?” (and you should hear the man, dripping with sarcasm).

Now, see, this is what I’m guessing happened—and which I ruefully foresaw the night before:  The reading assignment for class that day was massive.  I was slogging through the black morass (or the Serbonian bog) of the exhausting text, and, for some reason, beat down as I was, Justice Steven’s own wordsmithery in Iqbal (e.g. “facial plausibility” and the shattering idea that “general” is a flexible term) was rubbing me the wrong way, and I posted my opprobrium on Facebook.  Probably, that was a bad idea, being, as I am, "friends" with Hill.

Anyway, back in class, I denied Hill’s allegation, but he persisted and demanded of me a “devastating” examination of the differences between possible and plausible, and he threw in a couple of alleged synonyms, conceivable and probable.  Well, if I’m something less than a wordsmith now as I sit typing in the quiet of my kitchen, then I, upon my proverbial feet in a law school classroom and with the leering Hill staring me down, am smaller still.

Be that as it may, I don’t—or I try not to—let slip away a good lexical challenge.

Possible versus plausible versus (because the class added these for good measure) probable and conceivable is not so complicated or, despite the two versuses (versi?? (no, can’t be – the plural “i” is for Greek-derived “-us” nouns…) – sorry), so convoluted, and, believe it or not, it really doesn’t come down to some complicated etymological investigation.  What it comes down to is communication, which, last I checked, and no matter what the study of statute interpretation may indicate, is the whole effing point of Words in the first place.

Speaking of statute interpretation (rather than statutory interpretation, as statutes on the subject of interpretation are another matter entirely), and since we’re dealing with, generally, interpretation, we’ll do here what they do there: start with the face.

On Its Face

Superficially, the comparison is simple, and not even deceptively so, especially as a later court clarifies it so roundly and succinctly (Justices Posner, Wood, and Tinder's In Re. Text Messaging): “Probability runs the gamut from a zero likelihood to a certainty.  What is impossible has a zero likelihood of occurring and what is plausible has a moderately high likelihood of occurring.” 

Generally, if the face of the thing has got a nice complexion, well, then, that’s enough and we leave it alone.  But not here today!  And really, seriously, I think the court in Text Messaging was a bit deceived by its own skillful application of some decent, though technically inaccurate, understated cosmetics.

The problem is that—you’re going to hate this—the court, like all the rest of us, is using words; and, well, to adapt a Stevensian construction, a word after all is a general thing.  Any word can mean pretty much whatever we want it to, right?  I mean, c’mon, how many of us curse from time to time (or all the time)?  How flexible are those?  Short of getting into the definition (whatever a definition is, really) of “possible” and its etymology, or that of "plausible" or the other two, think for a second whether you, on one hand, consistently distinguish one from the others or, on the other hand, use them entirely interchangeably.  While the latter is not impossible (or even entirely incorrect) and the prior not particularly likely (so nerdy!), you, Reader, most likely land right alongside me somewhere along the vast stretch between the extremes.  More than just that, I would be willing to bet that Stevens and the other justices are guilty of as much fuzzy-word-use even within the texts of their own opinions, and that’s where we run into trouble:  How do you clearly distinguish two words in one context when those same words regularly mean the exact same thing elsewhere?

After the Cold Cream

It’s pretty clear what the honorable authors intended when they required an elevation from “possible” to “plausible,” or required that a plaintiff cross the threshold between them, from the first toward the second, that the facts alleged in the complaint are something more than merely possible.  Right?  Possible being sort of the broadest, the most all-inclusive, of the four?  But where we find that we have to go after a clear distinction between otherwise related—or commonly-understood-to-be—or at least comparable, words, as we indeed do, shouldn’t we assume that the authors intended the most precise definitions possible … er, plausible?  Conceivable??  (And does probable even fit there?  Hmm.  Probably not, really.)

Because here’s what the authors are doing by putting possible and plausible together, sequentially, as they have: they intend that one is hierarchically distinguishable from the other, plausible somehow superior to possible.  It’s the nature of that relationship that we’ve got to pin down, assuming the authors have a firm grasp on exactly what they want to say by using these two particular, and not at all improbable words, and that their efforts are rooted in good, sound English.

So on to etymology.  (Fear not, I’ll keep it tame—and not at all because you can’t handle it, but because who in their right mind (well, save me) would want to?)

Under Its Skin

By way of introduction, let me say a quick word about dictionaries (apart from admitting that they are some of my very best and oldest friends).  Actually, you know what, forget it.  Just read this here, if you're so inclined, and let’s move on with the important stuff.

Definitions first (and there’s that word again, definition):

Possible:              From Latin “that can be done,” which comes from a simpler word, ever Latin, for “be able,” as in potentem, for, you guessed it, power (as in omnipotent, impotent).  So when Oxford says, Possible (in its current, most general usage): “that may or can exist, be done, or happen,” there’s an implicit element, or facility, of power.  (Isn’t that cool?)

Plausible:            Oxford’s definitions here seem a little improbable at first, because certainly no common modern usage alludes to a connection with “applause” (yeah, as in a bunch of people clapping their hands), whose actual definition, via Latin, of course, is indeed exactly clapping, tied up directly with, believe it or not, “explode.”  Seriously.  That’s only mildly different from Google’s “define:” feature, which gives “1. (of an argument or statement) Seeming reasonable or probable; 2. (of a person) Skilled at producing persuasive arguments, esp. ones intended to deceive.”

Conceivable:      Take off the “able,” and what are you left with?  Conceive, right?  Which means that the word “conceivable” is somehow connected to what happened that infamous, very first, earliest iteration of your terrestrial existence when you were no more than two joined-up little gametes in your mother's womb.  Conceive = “to take in and hold,” which takes a more figurative approach when you pair it with, “that can be conceived, imagined, or thought of; imaginable, supposable.”

Probable:            Probable’s actual definition is the most straight-forward and, I think, the most fundamentally different from what its more typical usage is (again, by Google: “likely to be the case or to happen”), like what Posner said in Text Messaging.  Interestingly (for me, anyway), “probable” is directly related to “to prove,” and its long-standing definition is “1. Capable of bring proved; demonstrably provable (now rare); 2. Such as to approve or commend itself to the mind; worthy of acceptance or belief….”

Note:  A dictionary’s job is to accurately reflect the usage of words from a same-language population.  This creates, as you might imagine, an interesting relationship in description and proscription for dictionary-to-language users.  When it comes down to it—and, to wit, every dictionary has a panel of experts who determine which words get added to their tome each year—dictionaries are your servants, not your masters.  We the people decide by our speech and writing what goes into them and what gets ousted.  It’s the Oxford English Dictionary, and my personal nerdy favorite, whose goal it is to collect in one place (if you can call seventeen million volumes one place) all the usages of every word ever spoken or written by those who claim the English language as their own.

So how do we justify these surprisingly divergent definitions—or sources of definitions—with each other and the Justices’ “intent”?  I have no idea.  I think it comes most likely, and easily, down to this, and which should bring us full circle.  As in, yes, right back to where we started.  (Isn’t language great?  (Feels a bit like interpreting statutes.))

Deconstruction and Semiotic Shift

Sounds imposing, doesn’t it.  I'll say it again: Isn’t language great?

These two, well, things, are two of my very favorites as they apply to the general sphere of language and literature.  My intent, initially, was to get into this big thing about pulling stuff apart, even more than I already have, by referencing everyone from Eco to Derrida and quoting court cases and whatever else, but that would be even more self-serving than a blog—any blog, but this one probably more than most—is already.  So, like with the etymology, we’ll truncate:

I said earlier, and seemingly obtusely, the whole point of words is to communicate.  Bearing that in mind, follow me along this rhetorical progression:

·        A person has something to say—an idea emerges.

·        At this point of the thought’s inception, it is nonverbal; it is merely a newly-made, spatial connection between previously acquired, engendered, or obtained ideas.

·        With the intent to communicate that idea, the mind—sometimes subconsciously, sometimes consciously—assigns it a word or words that the person draws from his knowledge and experience—his schema.

·        The person speaks or writes the words.

·        The words travel across the distance between speaker and listener (or writer to reader).

·        The receiver, taking in those words and tapping into his own schema, translates (interprets? know the difference??) those words down to spatial, relativistic ideas for storage and application.

We all do this all the time.  We don’t think about it.  The point is that, as any two minds are never entirely alike, the idea received from the communication will never be identical to the idea conceived and sent out.  Sort of like it’s impossible for a person from one culture to ever fully understand a person from another culture, particularly if there’s a language barrier.

So we need some universal means of accurate interpretation, for efficiently getting ideas from one mind over to the next and with as little margin of error as possible.  (In rough application, this is a form of Eco’s metalanguage.)  Well, we’ve got one of those.  Any guesses?  Yep.  It’s called a dictionary: a standardized reference of both common and archaic usage of every word ever spoken or written in the English language.

Here’s what it all comes down to.  Whatever the heck it was that the Court was intending when it said that possible had to be elevated to plausible doesn’t really matter, because we know that they knew—because not only is it the nature of Supreme Court decisions, but because the writers think they're really that awesome—that their words would be highly scrutinized.  And how do we scrutinize words?  With a freaking dictionary!  If the Court didn’t know we would use dictionaries to ascertain the value and heft of their words, well, then they were on constructive notice that we would.  So with them knowing we would use a dictionary (and the very best one available, which, subjectively (and what else matters at this point), is without question the Oxford English Dictionary), and would use it to find the most basic, most rudimentary and essentially applicable, usage of the word, they knew—at least, yes, constructively—and they therefore must have also, equally, so intended, that “plausible” means exactly what the dictionary says it does: “with an appearance of truth or trustworthiness” such as to merit “applause,” which is certainly an elevation of possible, which has merely the power to become such.

Sheesh, almost like they knew what they were talking about….

What this also does is entirely eliminate any possible, at the least, but especially plausible, use of probable (Posner, Wood, and Tinder's short-sight).  To be probable, a thing must be provable, and if the thing is provable at the stage of the complaint filing, then what the heck is the freaking point of having a trial at all?

Oh, wait, isn’t that what Stevens tried to do with Iqbal?

Sunday Poetry XLII -- Never the Same Twice :: Lisel Mueller

“  When I am asked

    how I began writing poems,

    I talk about the indifference of nature.  ”

Alone, these words are fantastic.  Right?  Brilliant.  Sure.  Genius?  …

(See?  I’ve got this thing with “genius,” going back, as far as I can tell, to the day I learned my dad prayed that none of his kids would be one.  (Dad:  prayer answered.)  I guess I bring it up again because there seems to be this indelible connection between the definition—at least in practice—of genius and that of art—art being, or any work thereof, as difficult to define as genius is to identify or, maybe more so, explain.)

…  But it’s the rest of the poem that brings this thing really around to make a glorious connection I didn’t anticipate.  Perhaps it’s this convergence—or the millions just like it that happen all over the world all the time—that drew me in and bubbled up that word—“genius”—again from its little locker back there.

Here’s the poem:

When I am Asked

by Lisel Mueller – Pulitzer Prize winner, 1996

When I am asked

how I began writing poems,

I talk about the indifference of nature.

It was soon after my mother died,

a brilliant June day,

everything blooming.

I sat on a gray stone bench

in a lovingly planted garden,

but the day lilies were as deaf

as the ears of drunken sleepers

and the roses curved inward.

Nothing was black or unbroken

and not a leaf fell

and the sun blared endless commercials

for summer holidays.

I sat on a gray stone bench

ringed with the ingenue faces

of pink and white impatiens

and placed my grief

in the mouth of language,

the only thing that would grieve with me.

It’s those last three lines, right? —that metaphysical power of words—particularly for those who know how, even a little, to really use them?

So I picked out the book, Mueller’s Alive Together, just an hour or so ago from a box of my books I picked out from a mountain of them out in my garage.  (I think this is the benefit of having sold all my bookshelves: I can’t just pick out all the same old books because I have no idea where they are.)  This is another of the books I inherited back at the Saginaw Arts and Sciences Academy from my predecessor.  Unlike the others, this one is full of that teacher's annotations.  Normally, this would bother me, particularly as I’m generally so averse to writing in books that it took me three-quarters of a semester before I started highlighting my law books.

Anyway, by way of the poem above, the experience of reading by way of another reader’s reading, and an interesting thing I heard at church this morning—remarkably apropos—I think I’m a step closer to understanding the confluence of genius in art (if nowhere else).

Hugh Nibley, a once religious studies and linguistics professor at Brigham Young University, was the source of the quotation that caught my attention.  I don’t have the quotation in front of me, nor have I found it online, but here’s the gist of it:  That scripture isn’t the words before us, penned by the prophets, but the experience of reading those words.

That’s pretty big, particularly religiously—well, if you’re one who happens to read scripture, anyway—but nearly as much so for the reader of literature, the viewer of art, and, most approachably, the listener of music.  When I’m trying to pin down why it is I think a certain work, or a certain artist, is genius, it usually begins with not the substance of the art itself, but the ineffable experience that blooms or emerges or ka-pows right there in that intangible space somewhere between my senses and the work.  Even afterward, trying to rationalize it, trying to objectify it, remove that emotional response, I can never separate myself from that initial experience, which brings me to the next of the poems from Mueller:

A Farewell, A Welcome

               After the lunar landings

Good-bye pale cold inconstant

tease, you never existed

therefore we had to invent you

               Good-bye crooked little man

               huntress who sleeps alone

               dear pastor, shepherd of the stars

               who tucked us in               Good-bye

Good riddance phony prop

con man moon

who tap-danced with June

to the tender surrender

of love from above

Good-bye decanter of magic liquids

fortuneteller par excellence

seduce  incubus medicine man

exiles’ sanity       love’s sealed lips

womb that nourished the monstrous child

and the sweet ripe grain Good-bye

               We trade you in as we traded

               the evil eye for the virus

               the rose seat of affections

               for the indispensbile pump

we say good-bye as we said good-bye

to angels in nightgowns                 to Grandfather God

Good-bye forever Edam and Gorgonzola

cantaloupe in the sky

night watchman, one-eyed loner

wolves nevertheless

Aae programmed to howl             Good-bye

               forbidden lover good-bye

               sleepwalkers will wander

               with outstretched arms for no reason

               while you continue routinely

               to husband the seal, prevail

               in the fix of infant strabismus

good-bye ripe ovum        women will spill their blood

in spite of you now          lunatics wave good-bye

accepting despair by another name

Welcome new world to the brave old words

peace    Hope     Justice

truth Everylasting             welcome

ash-colored playground of children

happy in air bags

never to touch is never to miss it

Scarface hellow we’ve got you covered

welcome untouchable     outlaw

with an alias in every country

salvos and roses               you are home

our footprints stamp you mortal

***

I was going to put up one more of her poems (this one inspired by Martin Gardner, no less!), but I think I’ll leave it here.  

INVISIBLE CITIES XXVIII -- Cities and Signs: OLIVIA

London

OLIVIA: It makes sense that Olivia, the city, is a wealthy city, as olives are historically a symbol, not mention evidence, of wealth.

The opening sentence continues to emphasize the deconstrivist motif of the entire book (and, again, such an Umberto-Eco, at least as far as this blog is concerned, kind of motif it is), that words [or signs] and the things they represent are not necessarily the same thing--they occupy different spaces--though, as Polo tells the emperor, there is a connection between the two.

1. Is there a theme or plot-device (as it were) tying together each of the chapters?  If so, what's going on in chapter 4?
2. Does Olivia exist?
3. "If there really were an Olivia of mullioned windows and peacocks, ... it would be a wretched, black, fly-ridden hole....": why?  The literalist in me wants to say that, well, there must be a natural hierarchy supporting any wealthy city, that below the luscious green apex with its mansions and gold filigree and white peacocks, must be churning away a massive mechanism of industry with all its accompanying soot and slag.  I don't know if this is what Calvino's getting at.  Is he being less literal, more figurative?
4. And I just can't wrap my brain around the last sentence.  The abstraction is too much for me.  What do you make of it?

INVISIBLE CITIES VII -- Cities and Signs: TAMARA

Two things I'm wondering right now as I sit to put together my thoughts and questions for Tamara: [1] do all the cities' names have an applicable significance--are they the framework, like a poem's title, for understanding the contents; and [2] did Calvino work from some sort of map, and we're just not getting all the directions?  I'd love to be able to follow the geography and paths of Marco Polo's travels.

1. The name Tamara is fairly mundane compared to those of the previous cities.  Dominantly Russian and Hebrew, it has connections (particularly via its masculine counterpart--typical) to "palm tree" and "spice," yet this prosaic etymology seems superficially still to fit.  The stuff here is, ostensibly, pretty simple.  The type of this city is "Signs," an oft-used label of deconstructionists (think Barthes and Derrida) for what a word is in relationship to what it represents (for example, the word "computer" is the sign for the machine I'm currently holding on my lap).  But in the opening paragraph, Calvino shifts that use of "Signs"--and this brings us again, tangentially at least, to Eco--to the more general issue of signs across systems, called semiotics.   Calvino's examples are the paw print for the tiger, a marsh for a water course, and the hibiscus for Spring.  So what is Tamara a sign for?  (Or is this a non-issue as we're not even to the city yet?  Personally, I don't think so.  I think it's just a warm-up--an anticipation on the part of the traveler.  You?)
2. These signs, however, in the city seem, at least nearly always, to be metonymous or synecdochical for--related to--whatever they represent.  The deconstructionists would claim, I think obtusely, that it doesn't make any difference what the sign is.  Why not a paw print for Spring or scales for the barracks?  So what about the lions, towers, dolphins, and stars?
3. There's a system of signs--or maybe hierarchy:  scissors for the tailor, the silk for the wealthy, the custom clothing for social status (inelegant examples--sorry).  Where does the ladder end?
4. "Your gaze scans the streets as if they were written pages."
5. "And while you believe you are visiting Tamara...":  Every city so far has not been what it at first appears to be, and this gives each city--I'm not quite sure how to say it--almost a sense of non-being.  Tamara, for example, isn't really a city but just a book of signs telling you what to think and see and feel.  Though I hate to use this example, it's really just a matrix (yeah, like the movie) upon which something or someone populates the illusion.  Of course, what's the difference between this and the "real" thing?
6. Examine the format of the vignette: it starts with a gradual increase in the frequency of signs until within the, I guess, city limits it's dense and heavily layered, and then at the end, as we leave, the mass of signs decreases, lessens, though the traveler's eye (our eye) keeps looking for signs--out of habit, desperation, or because that's just how the human mind works?

Kim XVIII -- chapter 12: TO SEE ONESELF IN A CLEFT STICK

"The Wheel of Things"

1. Were somebody else writing this book, I'd be less inclined to think there's nothing to what I'm about mention, but, as it's digging me, here it is: what do you make of the use of a serial number, essentially, as designation for and in place of a name for the young spy Kim saves?  Does the lack of name alter our perspective of the character?  Why not have Kim--and this would not, I think, be out of his character--press the young man for his rightful name and thence use it?
2. "...by the curse of the Queen's stone ... and by an assortment of Gods with wholly new names."  (haha)
3. new word (as always, new, anyway, for me): ruck: n. a crease or wrinkle (as in fabric, cloth), or crowd of people; v. to compress into untidy folds.  Off-hand, I wonder if this word might apply to the waves and bowing of very old panes of glass.
4. Potential for a complication!  Will Kipling take advantage of the opportunity he's created for himself?  It seems to me that the misjudgment by the Lama on Kim early in the chapter could open up a conflict.  Will this have lasting effect on Kim or the relationship between him and [one of] his [many, though this the first] master[s]?
5. Kim, as Friend to all the World, lives in more than world.  In particular, of course, is his duel citizenship to that of the Sahibs and of the Lama.  What do you make then of the Lama's words, "No matter what thy wisdom learned among Sahibs, when we come to my River thou wilt be freed from all illusion," inasmuch as it may indicate a required choice, and therefor abandonment of one World for another, of Kim, especially as it was the Lama who essentially paid for Kim's tuition to the Sahib's world?
6. "Let us get to the yolk of the egg":  What is this chapter even about?
7. On racism (this time brought up by Kim's discussion with Huree Babu): I'm feeling the need to defend, at least for the moment, and maybe by some personal tendency toward devil's advocacy, against accusations of Kipling's racism.  Can it be racist to indicate, and often as dominant label, race and caste if this too is the manner by which individuals of the story--time and place--identify themselves?  Would it have been even possible for Kipling to avoid the potentially racist labels (and why would he, as there was little cultural reason for him to do so)?
8. On finger-snapping (an aside): There are, obviously, I think, two or three general applications of the finger-snap (aside from musical), that is [1] the "darn-it", [2] the "hurry-up" or otherwise indication of velocity, and [3] the less-common-to-US impatience, irritation, or disagreement (that of finger-snapping under another's nose, for example).  The first two, and their derivatives, I've seen and used most of my finger-snapping life.  The third, however, I've only observed in connection to British and other European cultures, until my son (6-years-old) mentioned an observation of his from a student in his kindergarten class: a girl, of apparently long-term family residency in the USA, snaps her fingers under the nose of anyone she disagrees with when she corrects that person.  Thoughts or other applicable experiences?
9. "There is no hurry for Hurree" (haha).
10. "He believed that the dung of a black horse, mixed with sulphur, and carried in a snake-skin, was a sound remedy for cholera; but the symbolism interested him far more than the science."
11. How often Kipling appears to fully narrate the unimportant or disinteresting while glossing over the stuff I think I'd actually enjoy reading!
12. What does the Lama require of Kim in return for the latter's paid tuition for his three-year sahib's education?

INVISIBLE CITIES -- Opposites (and an announcement)

I am reading Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino, very slowly.  And intentionally so: it is meant and it demands to be savored.  If you read anything here at The Wall, be advised, this is our next book, once we're done with Kipling's Kim; you may want to secure a copy.  (And unlike Kim, I will have read this before its public blog-reading, and since I already know that it's absolutely brilliant, there will be none of this eggshell-walking, fingernail-biting over the book's worth.)  While reading a couple cities' worth sitting out my son's Karate class today, I was struck--just shy of literally, actually--by (well, simultaneously) this passage (it does, unfortunately, pale somewhat out of context):

A sibyl, questioned about Marozia’s fate, said, “I see two cities: one of the rat, one of the swallow.”

…

I have come back to Marozia after many years: for some time the sibyl’s prophecy is considered to have come true; the old century is dead and buried, the new is at its climax.  The city has surely changed, and perhaps for the better.  But the wings I have seen moving about are those of suspicious umbrellas under which heavy eyelids are lowered; there are people who believe they are flying, but it is already an achievement if they can get off the ground flapping their batlike overcoats.

The way the book comes together, as well as the overall construction of this particular city, renders the rat and the sparrow opposites, yet, simultaneously, twins--a yin and yang.  Out of context, does the comparison still work?  The question, "What is the opposite of rat?" is groaningly alike to those old, irritating (though, admittedly, often quite funny) Netflix quiz-show radio ads--you know, "Was Abraham Lincoln too honest?"  But look at it: yeah, a pretty direct comparison works.  A sparrow really is pretty much the parallel opposite of the rat.


Thoughts?

bonus simile from the same city: something evanescent, "as transparent as a dragonfly."

KIM XIV -- chapter 8: Meantime a Place by the Fire

1. Churel: The overlapping of folkloric creatures / ghosts / monster / characters across cultures is fascinating.  The churel reminds me of La Llorona and the diviners from L'Inferno.  Of course, folklore derives itself from the human needs of its inventors and propagators, and no matter the culture, little differs among the peoples of world.  Right?  Anyway:  Inasmuch as the churel is a woman who died in childbirth, is there any symbolic connection that you can, well, divine, from/to the text?
2. Seeing the substantial role that Mahbub Ali yet plays, I haven't given up on the notion that perhaps he is the Red Bull after all, and that the Red Bull on the Green Field of Kimball's father's old regiment is ancillary, at least for Kim's coming-of-age.  Interesting, however, and especially from our current perspective from within the story where Kim is yet to commit to any one particular way of life, that not only is the beard dyed (within the context of the story) but also that (meta-story) the Red Bull regiment is an invention of Kipling's.  Thoughts?
3. "They were unfriends of mine."
4. "Very foolish it is to use the wrong word to a stranger; for though the heart may be clean of offence, how is the stranger to know that? He is more like to search truth with a dagger."  Akin to (off the top of my head, though a common enough theme) Ender's Game and its Buggers versus Humans: "If the other fellow can't tell you his story, you can never be sure he isn't trying to kill you."   This, of course, is a perfectly apt theme (potentially, anyway -- though, of course, we'll see...) for Kim as there are so many cultures and the issue of communication between them is at point, else Kim would certainly not be Friend to all the World.
5. And so, building from the previous: "Thou art beyond question an unbeliever, and therefore thou wilt be damned. So says my Law—or I think it does. But thou art also my Little Friend of all the World, and I love thee. So says my heart."
6. Forgetting the final section, evaluate this chapter [1] as compared to those we've read so far and [2] as a story--a short story--unto itself, isolated from the rest of the book.

KIM XIII -- chapter 7: The Bureau of General Misinformation

Through the Gates of Learning

1. Clearly a bildungsroman; Kim finally asks himself, and by extension the reader, the pertinent question himself, and, perhaps, opens a door for finally drawing up some shape from the elements of the story: "I go from one place to another as it might be a kick-ball. It is my kismet. No man can escape his kismet. But I am to pray to Bibi Miriam and I am a Sahib"—he looked at his boots ruefully. "No; I am Kim. This is the great world, and I am only Kim. Who is Kim?"
2. "He considered his own identity, a thing he had never done before."  How, though more significantly, why, has Kim made it this far through his life without considering his identity and abilities?  What is he likely to discover?
3. Who is Colonel Creighton?
4. "There is no sin so great as ignorance."
5. Any intention here: that as Kim and the Lama part ways for, perhaps, quite a long time, "the gates of learning" shut?  Is this a commentary on the education that will become available to Kim now that he enters the school yet leaves the Lama?  Would he have been better served, educationally-speaking, to skip school and find the river?
6. new word (for me): scrupulosity -- I would have left it, less succinctly and certainly more sibilantly, at scrupulousness.  (Along similar lines, since when is the past participle of to thrive, throve?)
7. Is Kim likely to be brainwashed while at school?  Might he go from Gryffindor to Death Eater, from the White City to Barad-dur?  Will he who was once a native, be able to command like all the rest of his racist sahib classmates?
8. "Men are like horses. At certain times they need salt, and if that salt is not in the mangers they will lick it up from the earth."

WHAT RHYMES WITH ORANGE?

Nothing (and this doesn't count), right?  Oxford says no, anyway.  And they're the authorities, right?

Maybe not.

Try this out (say it out loud if you need to): what sound does the letter R make?  Based on everything you know about consonants and vowels, wouldn't you call "rrrr" a vowel?  After all, it acts just like a vowel.  Doubt me?  Compare the relative positioning your mouth assumes for R against A, E, I, O, or U.  Bearing this in mind, as well as the subtle dialectical shifting of the "schwa" (especially that of my 3-year-old, which, in this case, more closely resembles the "soft" I; and what, really, defines the "perfect" (referring again to the Oxford from above) pronunciation of any vowel, vowels being, after all, the first phonemes to change in any living language?), I have now found a word, in English, that rhymes with ORANGE, at least if we presume that in order to rhyme with orange, the final consonant, as well as the previous two vowel sounds, must echo precisely that of the next word, then ...

(drum roll) 

... the word SYRINGE rhymes with ORANGE.

a "jocular coinage"

So Wiktionary describes the utterly ridiculous, perfectly worthless word brought to me by an excited 7th grade science student today.


floccinaucinihilipilification: A jocular coinage, apparently by students at Eton, combining a number of roughly synonymous Latin stems. Latin flocci, from floccus, a wisp or piece of wool + nauci, from naucum, a trifle + nihili, from the Latin pronoun, nihil ("nothing") + pili, from pilus, a hair, something insignificant (all therefore having the sense of "pettiness" or "nothing") + -fication. "Flocci non facio" was a Latin expression of indifference, literally "I do not make a straw of...".


If you still need the definition, here it is, according, again, to Wiktionary: "The act or habit of describing or regarding something as unimportant," which makes me really hope that this word was invented, tongue-in-cheek, simply to invent a big, ridiculous, gratuitously and simultaneously self-referential and worthless word, which, as it turns out, is one letter longer than the only slightly less ridiculous antidisestablishmentarianism (which Blogger, by the way, recognizes as a perfectly "real" and correctly-spelled word).


The thing that bothers me is that this word is recognized by dictionaries (not many, as it turns out, but one's more than enough)!  Dictionaries are supposed to recognize words that are in use.  As far as I can tell, the only usage of this word is not for any sort of communication but merely as a vehicle for the title of world's longest "non-technical" word.  Thankfully, and just so for the blessed sake of the great English language, whose development and evolution I'm generally in favor of, Oxford makes its usage (and only by ignominious association with its by-one-letter-shorter compatriot) simply, and with perfectly little "ink," known here.

Wednesday's for Kids XVII -- A IS FOR ANYTHING, ESPECIALLY SCARRY

Alphabet books are a dime a dozen--at least if you can find the crappy ones in the remainder bins at the back of your local Barnes and Noble or thrift store.  Sure, there are some really good ones out there, and I don't devalue their ability to assist an otherwise stubborn toddler's interest in learning the alphabet, but why let someone else do what your kids can already do better?  My favorite alphabet book isn't really an alphabet book at all, but a word book, the Best Word Book Ever in fact (whose vain title reminds a little of Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and whose content is, in its own sphere, equally staggeringly genius), by Richard Scarry, which I grew up with, examined weekly and carefully as a kid sitting in church (at least until I outgrew that particular kids' luxury), and attempted multiple times over the years to replicate.  At once the best kids' dictionary ever and just plain flippin' fun to look at.

I recommend, highly, Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever, not to mention anything else done by the man.

While I don't--or can't, really--recommend any one particular "A Is For..." alphabet book, at least not one that's published, as I mentioned before and if you're dealing with kids, make your own!  Way more fun, the kids get more out of it, and it's something they'll be proud to show off, hang on their wall, and mail to Grandma and Grandpa.  I'm one of my own, in fact and appropriate for the blog, that will be titled, "A Is for Author."  Geeky?  Geeky.  Yes!  And fun!

Jane Eyre XXXVI -- chapter 35: GRILLED ALIVE

oldindianphotos.blogspot.com

1. Is St. John indeed punishing Jane?  She believes he incurs no guilt for what he is or, in this case, isn't doing.  What do you think?  --Or is Jane just reading her own impressions into the situation because she feels guilty for scorning him?
2. St. John's obstinacy, in the form of his intentional misunderstanding of Jane, is baffling.  Is his interest in marrying Jane exactly as simple as he pretends?  Or is it even really obstinacy?
3. "It remains for me, then, to remember you in my prayers; and to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not indeed become a castaway. I had thought I recognized in you one of the chosen.  But God sees not as man sees: His will be done."  By this very declaration, does not St. John believe himself to "see" as God sees, thereby alluding to an inhuman godliness in and of himself?  In context of the story, has God called Jane to the ministry, or has St. John; is there a difference here?
4. "grilled alive in Calcutta" -- I'm surprised how early this shows up in literature.  (etymology of "grill")

*

POST #200 -- Google CAPTCHA

Here is a list of the last 103 words Google has asked me to enter to verify that I am human, before permitting my comment to be submitted to a blog.  Despite being computer generated, there's a spectacular appearance of humanity in many of these "words."  I would love to know--and have explained to me--the algorithm Google uses to generate these.

aboge | acid | andatina | antio | asestell | bacyc | biblers | blist | boxiythi | bracki | ceogra | chencifo | chroi | chtdol | culcon | cylemb | darynte | deimens | depotie | diarip | distnes | dozyg | draputio | duntonce | enlessab | ennelljq | ention | exonsa | flaticut | fraters | gaspere | grans | hordn | imeter | inchaits | inect | inemi | ingerwo | ingsphyp | joedub | joscract | knessive | latedhe | lizesmin | loger | lorapt | lorotcr | malkwa | matho | mialmles | micing | micitunh | mistrani | mistsia | mixidion | monatiza | nesses | ogeofles | ougue | paccateu | parmoy | patestid | patici | pation | pento | pierp | prearyt | pripsyfx | proil | proscu | prsti | quidit | rasenh | ratere | remop | rewsp | rorize | sative | scocca | seches | sesseste | skarrem | smsto | soffl | somic | staipe | staledia | steshu | stterse | supplos | telde | tents | thietang | toundb | trochark | trysili | uncoil | undireg | ungly | untlitai | verva | wreate | zyzafil

My 3 favorites:  flaticut, joedub, and ungly; Yours?

Jane Eyre XXXV -- chapter 34: KISS ME NOW, MISSIONARY'S WIFE

From Jane Eyre:


"She pushed me toward him. I thought Diana very provoking, and felt uncomfortably confused; and while I was thus thinking and feeling, St. John bent his head; his Greek face was brought to a level with mine, his eyes questioned my eyes piercingly—he kissed me. There are no such things as marble kisses, or ice kisses, or I should say my ecclesiastical cousin's salute belonged to one of these classes; but there may be experiment kisses, and his was an experiment kiss. When given, he viewed me to learn the result; it was not striking: I am sure I did not blush; perhaps I might have turned a little pale, for I felt as if this kiss were a seal affixed to my fetters. He never omitted the ceremony afterward, and the gravity and quiescence with which I underwent it seemed to invest it for him with a certain charm."

From The Princess Bride:

"There have been five great kisses since 1642 B.C., when Saul and Delilah Korn's inadvertent discovery swept across Western Civilization. (Before then couples hooked thumbs.) And the precise rating of kisses is a terribly difficult thing, often leading to great controversy, because although everyone agrees with the formula of affection times purity times intensity times duration, no one has ever been completely satisfied with how much weight each element should receive. But on any system, there are five that everyone agrees deserve full marks. Well, this one left them all behind."

1.     I've wondered about St. John's name.  It makes sense, in a trivial kind of way, that this obstinate and ambitious missionary be sainted by his author, but there's another potential connection.  He and Jane are indeed very similar persons, perhaps because of blood, and certainly by Bronte's design.  Take the long a of Saint and consonants of John and, well, you've got Jane.  Are these two meant to be one, one completing the other not just in body and spirit but in very name?

2.     Is St. John's desire for Jane to wed him strictly practical?  Similarly, is there any practicality that would prevent Jane from marrying him?

3.     "I will throw all on the altar—heart, vitals, the entire victim."  I am interested by the use of the word "victim" here: "late 15c., 'living creature killed and offered as a sacrifice to a deity or supernatural power,' from L. victima 'person or animal killed as a sacrifice.' Perhaps distantly connected to O.E. wig 'idol,' Goth. weihs 'holy,' Ger. weihen 'consecrate' (cf. Weihnachten "Christmas") on notion of 'a consecrated animal.' Sense of 'person who is hurt, tortured, or killed by another' is first recorded 1650s; meaning 'person oppressed by some power or situation' is from 1718. Weaker sense of 'person taken advantage of' is recorded from 1781" (thanks www.etymonline.com).  In Bronte's context, it is more than just this, however, augmented as it is by the subsequent quotation: "I am ready to go to India, if I may go free."

4.     While the similarities are limited, there is a taste here of W. Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil in this chapter.

5.     "...do not forget that if you reject it, it is not me you deny, but God."

6.     "Looked to river, looked to hill": clearly, Bronte was a big Scott fan.  HERE

*

Sunday Poetry XIII -- THE LONGEST WORD, whose poetic value is debatable

According to my falling-apart, 1946 edition of Ripley's Believe it or Not, the longest word in the English language is this:

orniscopytheobibliopsychocrystarroscioaerogenethliometeoroaustrohieroanthropoichthyopyrosiderochpnomyoalectryoophiobotanopegohydrorhabdocrithoaleuroalphitohalomolybdoclerobeioaxinocoscinodactyliogeolithopessopsephocatoptrotephraoneirochiroonychodactyloarithstichooxogeloscogastrogyrocerobletonocenoscapulinaniac*

According to Mr. Ripley:

"The long word of 310 letters was used as a means of demonstrating: 1.  The extent to which even the English language is capable of forming enormous word monsters, and, 2.  The whole field of superstitious divinatory practices which are as old as humanity.


"The literal translation of the long word is 'A deluded human who practices divination or forecasting by means of phenomena, interpretation of acts or other manifestations related to the following animate or inanimate objects and appearances: birds, oracles, Bible, ghosts, crystal gazing, shadows, air appearances, birth, stars, meteors, winds, sacrificial appearances, entrails of humans and fishes, fire, red-hot irons, altar smoke, mice, grain picking by rooster, snakes, herbs, fountains, water, wands, dough, meal, barley, salt, lead, dice, arrows, hatchet balance, sieve, ring suspension, random dots, precious stones, pebbles, pebble heaps, mirrors, ash writing, dreams, palmistry, nail rays, finger rings, numbers, book passages, name letterings, laughing manners, ventriloquism, circle walking, wax, susceptibility to hidden springs, wine, and shoulder blades.'


"Various monastic authors of the Middle Ages writing on the subject of human superstition have actually used such a long word with a slightly varying sequence of items."

***

Wikipedia disagrees: here.

While my contemporary edition of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable has a nicely assembled discussion on the subject of long words, the online 1898 edition is yet informative (here).

However, longestwordinenglish.wordpress.com, pretty much wipes out Mr. Ripley's claim, though it's claim as a "real" word is more dubious that Ripley's.  Of course if we can just jam together a bunch of Latin roots and call it a word, why not a bunch of English bits and pieces?  Is there a difference?

And really, what's the point?  I mean, aside from the utter fun factor!  If a "word" is never going to be used aside from the moment of its conception, then what is it really?

***

* Somehow (go figure) there are 311 letters in my transcription of the word.  Not that I'm particularly worried about it.  longestwords.wordpress.com seems to agree with me (here).

*

An Issue of Semantics -- 8th Grade Science

I did not write this test question:

12)  Which of these best describes how energy spreads from an energy-producing source?
     a. 1 dementionally like dominoes falling in a line
     b. 1 dementionally like a boulder rolling down a hill, going faster and faster
     c. 2 dementionally like rings of water coming from a rock dropped in water
     d. 3 dementionally like layers of an onion from the center going out

(sic, like, really sic)

a yellow onion

Disregarding other potentially discussion-worthy issues of syntax, imagine for a moment that this amazing misspelling ("dementionally") were intentional, and, perhaps, a portmanteaux (think Humpty Dumpty's discussion on "Jabberwocky," or other words like gerrymander, spork, Brangelina), what would it mean?