As a parent of a three-year old daughter, I'm constantly besieged with
questions. While on an after-dinner walk, the enquiry comes up,
"Where's the sun gone?"
"He's sleeping."
"Why?"
"Because his mommy put him to bed."
"Why?"
"Because he has to go to pre-school tomorrow."
"Why?"
"Because he likes playing with his friends and teachers."
"Why?"
...
A few more whys later, I'm ready to confess ignorance. Such a small
question -- Why? -- yet so hard to answer. Fortunately, the whats are
easier to tackle. As it happens, the English language has a word for
almost everything around: from the ball on the top of a flagpole (truck),
to the spot on a die or a domino (pip), to the little circle that comes
out of a punched paper (we all know it by now). This week we'll look
at some more words that answer, "What is this called?"
why? why? why?
I wonder if children that age are more interested in the causes of individual things, or in the principle of causality per se. Their endless repetition might be the active cultivation of a new potential of cognizance. "Why?," has logic, leading to "because," a logic paralleling events linked by cause and effect. Her incessant 'whying' may be the nascence of positivistic grammar.
"What makes the sun so bright, Dad?"
"Ehh! - Sorry, I don't rightly know, son"
"How far away is it, exactly, Dad?"
"Well! - I'm not too sure, son - it's a long way!"
"How long would it take to put out the fires up there, Dad?"
"Ohh! I've not the faintest idea, son."
"Dad?"
"Yes, son?"
"Do you mind me asking all these questions?"
"Good Lord, no! If you don't ask, you'll never learn anything, my son!"
As it happens, the English language has a word for almost everything around…
The delight is always s to discover: a thing is called you'd never thought twice need be. "Newel," names one such you've probably court' or kissed and bent--and kissed--across; and more than love lights burning. Or even, stars. Or rump-rutched, a boy's bottom of the long and taboo'd slide. Or pondered, as a two-year-old, its cage of painted spindles. How many times have you watched Jimmy Stewart pull the newel post cap (and there's another not-there name) while you prepared to ball all over. Again.
All of us use truck parts indirectly, and few could call them what they are. But these other things, bound up in ritual of every day so tightly, objects so without need of direct effort: a space in language with near the grace of best of words. "Newel" is, to my ear, beautiful, and I remember how delighted I was when I first learned it. Almost more beautiful is: how falling rays illuminate the emptiness when name manifests as need of name itself, in the event of some thisveryword's first utterance. A moment in the stream of language, full with all the poignancy of innocence lost.
The description of a newel post in Today's Word says it was of plain pine. The one in the house where I was born was of mahogany, and had elaborately carved leaves on vines, and was capped by a large turned bowl in which calling cards could be deposited.
"Finial", although seemingly associated more often with its "lamp shade nut" function, is one of my favorite words to pronounce... like a triplet, it rolls off the tongue... and it has just reminded me of a another triplet "Lydia", Groucho's "whatchmacallit" (stretching to keep with the thread)
.
Is "newel post" redundant? Seems to me that that is the more common usage.
wwh, I would have liked to have seen that house. Sounds wonderfully Baroque.
Is "newel post" redundant? Seems to me that that is the more common usage.
Could newel post refer strictly to the post at the base of the stairs while newel could be either it, or the support beneath them?
I came across an interesting little word yesterday while looking up an entirely different one:
prick·et n.
A small point or spike for holding a candle upright.
A candlestick having such a spike.
A buck in its second year, before the antlers branch.
[Middle English priket, diminutive of prik, prick, prick.]
From M-W and Atomica. If you look this word up on Atomica, you can see a nifty little illustration of a pricket (the second definition).
FWIW
About 2 w or 3 weeks ago there was an audio essay by a Washington Post writer, on NPR, I believe his name is Joel Achenbach, about this "linguistic inexactitude" that more and more people are experiencing. He calls it the 'thing, thing' where instead of finding the exact word for an object, we use the word "thing" so often either because we have become lazy or we truly do not know the names of many quite not-common objects.
chronist
Rapunzel<<<<
I came across an interesting little word yesterday while looking up an entirely different one:
prick·et n.
A small point or spike for holding a candle upright.
A candlestick having such a spike
I just have to add this your post. I saw this by happenstance while also looking up another word:
Bobeche
a slightly cupped ring placed over the socket of a candleholder to catch the drippings of a candle
FWIW, who knows, if we keep this on, we might yet be able to name all the parts of a candleholder before the year is over!
chronist
In that English is packed with generic nouns to describe the things we cannot truly name (whatsit, thingamajig, thingamabob, doohickey, whatchamacallit, gadget)I would come down on the side of simply not knowing the proper name of every object we encounter during the day.
On the other hand, in that this phenomenon is more likely to occur during an actual conversation (as opposed to appearing in print), sometimes it's disruptive to the flow of the conversation to pause and try to come up with the proper word when circumlocution and context serve to illustrate one's point.
Welcome aBoard, elee. Disruptive to conversations--you are so right! I absolutely hate it when people give me these
big pauses in mid-sentence, whether they're doing it for effect, or genuinely can't remember. I just wanna say,
"Out with it already!". But--confess I do it myself! Partly because of distractions, and mostly because my mouth can't keep up with my thoughts. All too often, when I'm speaking, my mind is in one or two other places, causing me to lose concentration on what I'm saying. I know I drive my children crazy when I begin, "and, um...".
