Satiety

Satiety

Once again, I was in deep thought over my love of words.

Satiety is one of those words. The sound of them as they roll off the tongue. How they came to be, and how young people take them and reshape their meaning and usage, chopping off the ends, or adding new endings. Etymology.
What, exactly, does an etymologist DO?
It's not like there's a big demand for etymologists. You never hear a first grader say, "I'm going to be an etymologist when I grow up."
You never hear a spelling-bee champion say that her goal is to someday be the most famous etymologist in the world. Nope. It just doesn't happen.
What would be the criteria for a bad etymologist? "Oops, John was just demoted for not knowing the root meaning of 'zelaphonous'--and he couldn't even use it properly in a sentence!" Serious head-shaking going on there as the office watches John pack up his Roget's and Webster's volumes.

Despite the shortage of etymologists in the world, 

and the limited economic opportunities to make a living practicing etymological activities, people are still fascinated by words, their evolving meanings and specifically, how they can coin the newest, coolest expressions.
I am so fascinated with words that sound cool just the way they are. Marmalade. Say it slowly. Marmalade. Fascination. Perpendicular. Penelope. Senescence. Reticular. Siobhan. Pontificate. Satiety. And the list goes on and on.
Words that are funny, soft, bumpy or just plain strange. And then there's the process of breaking up the word into its parts: prefixes and suffixes and root word. And diagramming, and spelling and phonetics and morphemes and it's all so lovely.
I want to dance around the room singing "I feel pretty" from West Side Story. Dance with me? We'll dance and spell to our hearts content and after we fall exhausted to the carpet, we'll have a nice cup of tea and talk about words some more. Especially satiety.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Relativity

Relativity Do you have relatives like mine? My perception is that some of the people in my family you probably would label as "unique" just to be kind.  I do, too, but let's face it: sometimes relatives can be embarrassing. You know what? They probably say the same thing about me from time to time, if what my kids say is any indication. There's the relative who thinks they know it all. Got it. Check. There's the relative who really does know it all. Got it. Check. There's the relative who works at trying to sound and act like Barney Fife--you know: the hopeless yokel. Got several of those. Missing teeth and all (except that Barney Fife had all of his teeth. As far as I know). There's the aunt who has to hug too long. I'm still working on that. Relatives exist to bring you joy, pain, humiliation and embarrassment.  They keep you grounded, they make you infuriated. They help you stay humble (not always in the nicest way) and sometimes if ...
Read more

Brevity of Levity

I've always loved rhyming words. Well, mainly poetry. But anything that rhymes catches my ear. Probably yours, too. It's the reason commercial jingles always do so well. I can remember television ads from when I was a child. Not every ad, of course, just the ones with really catchy tunes. But who wants to go around singing, "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should." ? Although most of those jingles have outlived their usefulness, they refuse to be deleted from my memory cells. And do I really need them taking up space? I don't want them taking up space; and I never intend to use them again. But there they are. And there are plenty of new things that I need to learn, to remember, to hold onto.  But there's no space for the new stuff. Actually, according to scientists, there is still plenty of space for the new stuff. So why do I forget things so easily the older I get? By the way, it's not just me--I hear people in their 20's say the ...
Read more

Antlers, Oklahoma

Image
Antlers, Oklahoma "Come visit Antlers, Oklahoma, Deer Capital of the World and home of the annual Deer  Festival the first weekend in October*. See the Kiamichi River and the lovely rolling hills in Pushmataha County."  That's the ad for my ebook that was written in early 2016.  Click here to check it out . I don't like to sound like an advertisement for tourists--but Antlers is my home town and a very friendly place to visit. If you get a chance, you should visit! *Recently, the town has voted to change the date of the annual Deer Festival to the last weekend of each September, beginning in 2018.
Read more