How are they your words? I suppose they’re not really, except you keep coming back for them, every Friday. You know you love it. Don’t front.

But really, they’re our words. Your love of words is just one of the things I love about you.

So, our words this week are:

• Deliquescent
• Plangent

Deliquescent means, essentially, like it’s melting. To deliquesce is to become liquid by absorbing moisture from the air or to become fluid in the process of maturing– like what happens to a plum you leave in the bottom of the fridge for six months. Plangent means ringing, as in a bell, especially plaintively. Its root is in the Latin word for lament.

Both words are entirely new to me this week, and that was pretty exciting. And since I have to cut this short, I’m-a send you on a wild goose chase. I read these words within 20 pages of one another in the same book. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to either a) guess what book this is or b) tell me two new words to you that you found within 20 pages of the same book.

Also, no going to Honu Girl for the book, since I spent most of the week chattering at her about it.

Hooray for words, y’all! And this week, they’re guaranteed operetta free.

Yetro: 1) Adj: “so uncool it will never be retro”; 2) Noun: an uncritical exaltation of the future, looking forward toward unfound authenticity.

I admit, I was unaware of the second definition until I googled the word to see what else was out there, hoping that I had glommed on to some genuine lexpionage—that is, I espied this word before anyone else, or at least anyone else that doesn’t read Gizmodo on a regular basis. Come to find that the Encyclopedia Spuria has an entire entry devoted to Yetro and Yetrology. Yet the difference between the definitions is profound, akin to cleave‘s two equal and opposite meanings, though not as perfect.

Having studied them for upwards of ten whole minutes now, I think that the second definition is more apt. The first implies that it’s the inherent right of every gizmo or gadget (and by extension, everything else ever) to eventually transcend its purpose and usefulness to become retro, which entails a fetishization of the mores of its origin, including a nostalgic gloss of its culture and morality. One cannot determine yetro for an item of the moment, just as one can not determine which items are destined to become retro. So let’s strike the first definition and think of a better word for this phenomenon.

The second is a great way of encapsulating the impetus of Retrofuturism. I don’t think it’s synonymous with Retrofuturism, as that seems to be a movement in art and media, whereas Yetro can be that, as well as more. How should this version of yetro be any different from the vaguely threatening cockeyed-optimism of the simple minded? Not sure yet, really, except that most people, simple or not, have little to no sense of optimism about the future on a larger-than-personal sense. I get the idea that most people out there believe we’re all going to kill each other with carbon dioxide and dirty bombs. I prefer to think we’ll eventually wave to each other as we zoom around on our jet packs, going to and fro, and looking forward to returning to homes that have been shined and polished by friendly robots who would never pop out our eyes while we sleep. Friendly, helpful robots—they’re so yetro.

Mayhem: Willfully maiming or crippling a person; wanton destruction; a state of violent disorder or riotous confusion; havoc.

Obviously this isn’t a new word, but I wrote it down because I wanted to know its exact meaning and etymology. It’s orthographically unchanged from Middle English, and before that it was Anglo-Norman “mayhem,” from Old French “mahaigne” (verb form: mahaignier) and before that, Vulgar Latin “mahanare.” Nothing particularly remarkable there, except that sources note the Vulgate word itself was probably of Germanic origin, which is interesting—a Germanic word that went through the process of Romanization and evolution to become a different Germanic word.

It’s also part of a larger set of words I’ve been thinking of lately that are becoming overused and thus their meanings diluted. I had a professor in college who insisted no one use the word “terrified” unless we really meant terrified—that is filled with intense, overmastering fear, so afraid you were almost unable to act. She held that we were overusing the word and thus, diminishing its proscriptive meaning. I completely agree with her, but I constantly catch myself using hyperbole to tell more exciting, engaging stories and in this way, further diminishing other unique, useful words. Have I used the word “mayhem” lately? Absolutely. Has there been any actual mayhem in my life? Nope.

I’m concerned now that I am contributing to the diminishment of the richest vocabulary in the history of human speech.¹ At the same time, I think it’s worthwhile to introduce lesser-known or –used words in approximate contexts to make sure they don’t fall out of use completely until they’re only used in the first chapters of Yetro novels to help people who don’t want to think tell what time period they’re supposed to be reading about.²

¹ English will totally corner you in an alley, rough you up, and collect any of your lexicon that it wants. And then it will help you up and you’ll both chant “USA! USA! USA!” And you’ll be happy about it. And by “you” I mean, “some other language.”
² See antimacassar.

Two words from literature today, which relate to one another and similarly descriptive meanings. How is J.K. Rowling connected to Voltaire? Thusly:

Mugwump: Derived from the name given to those Republicans who refused to support their candidate James G. Blaine, in the 1884 presidential election. Grover Cleveland won the election, though not by an excessive amount. After that, it came to mean any person who was unable to make up his or her mind, especially in politics. The American Heritage dictionary gives the primary definition as anyone who acts independently or remains neutral, especially in politics, which has an entirely different, much more positive connotation than being unable to make up your mind. It’s derived from the Algonquian word “mugquomp,” meaning “great man” or “war leader.” Very strange how the results of the administration post election spun the word to a negative connotation (can’t choose) and then culture change over time is returning it to its original meaning– someone who holds himself apart from party politics.

And how did I come across mugwumpery this week? I was reading about Albus Dumbledore‘s titles: Order of Merlin, First Class, and Grand Sorcerer; Founder and Secret Keeper, Order of the Phoenix (OP6); Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards; Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. I was curious to see if mugwump had an arcane or occult etymology and what do you know, it doesn’t. Put another tick in the Not Going to Hell for Harry Potter column. I think the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards has the job of staying above the fray. And when you consider that the current fray in the wizarding world is eugenics, that’s a serious hover.

Panglossian: characterized by extreme optimism, especially in the face of hardship. When I encountered it this week, I knew what this word meant, and from whence it was derived. But I was so tickled to see it used and used correctly that I wanted to see what else I could learn about it. It’s from the character Pangloss in Candide by Voltaire, who is nothing if not extremely optimistic even in the most dire of circumstances. The name “Pangloss” comes from the Greek panglossia, meaning garrulousness or wordiness. Pan = all; Gloss = tongue / language. It’s interesting to note that Pangloss is Voltaire’s very successful skewer of Gottfried Leibniz. If it weren’t for Voltaire, when somebody asked you who invented Calculus, you’d say, “Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, simultaneously and independently. We use Newton’s proofs and Leibniz’s notation.” But because of Voltaire’s wildly popular novel, what you know of Leibniz comes from the magnificent Baroque Cycle by Mr. Neal Stephenson, which has gone a long way toward rehabilitating the whole farrago.

In the Operetta Candide, Pangloss provides much of the exposition, but more than that, provides the hilarity. He earns his name in the first song, “The Best of All Possible Worlds” by teaching the “children” (Candide, Cunegonde, Maximillian, and Paquette) their lessons for the day, beginning, “Let us review lesson eleven, paragraph two, axiom seven: Once one dismisses the rest of all possible worlds, one finds that this is the best of all possible worlds.” It’s the theme of the entire novel. Later, though, is the shining example of it– between the songs “Auto Da Fe” and “You Were Dead You Know,” Pangloss has more or less returned from the dead, extremely syphilitic, to be run through the public contrition of the heretic (an auto da fe) and then hanged. He tells the crowd, “You can’t hang me! I’m too sick to die!” And the crowd asks, “Whadda ya mean, sick?” And Pangloss tells the story of contracting syphilis:

O my darling Paquette
She is haunting me yet
With a dear souvenir
I shall never forget.
‘Twas a gift that she got
From a seafaring Scot
He received, he believed
In Shallot.

and on and on in this cute little alternating rhyme scheme over the top of pizzicato viola, about the Swiss, ladies in Paris, a man from Japan, a moor from Iran, a young English Lord, a Milano Soprano, several other characters and a very far-ranging wasp.

Thus he happened to pass
Through Westphalia. Alas,
Where he met with Paquette
And she drank from his glass.
I was pleased as can be
When it came back to me;
Makes us all just a small family.*

So here’s Pangloss, dying of syphilis and willing to believe the chambermaid’s completely irrational tale of how she came to be so stricken because he liked her and he was getting some action. And when they finally determine that he is, in fact, guilty of heresy and should be hanged, Pangloss’s last words are, “God in His wisdom, made it possible to invent the rope!”

Is Pangloss a mugwump? Certainly. When life is that good, there’s no reason to take sides about anything. Is Dumbledore panglossian? Not as much, but he’d like you to think he is.

* I can sing the entire song from memory. “Candide” also taught me how to conjugate Latin verbs. Pangloss sings, “‘Tis war makes equal, as it were, the noble and the commoner. Thus war improves relations. Now onto conjugations. Amo. Amas! Amat!! Amamus!!!”
** Anybody wants any of these songs via mp3, just let me know and they’re yours.