Fraught with Terror

The English language is a wonder, a treasure, evidence there really is that of God in every person.

Noah Webster tried to distill it, maybe even codify it.  Despite his efforts, and those of his wife Merriam, and thousands of schoolmarms and -parps, it belongs to no one and everyone. 

The French revere their language, and rightfully so. It is a beautiful thing, as the word “beautiful” (built by the English atop the French chassis “beau”) so aptly exemplifies, with its strings of vowels.  As does the word “chassis”, stolen intact by the English, with its extraneous letters serving no purpose other than beautification. 

The French enact their reverence by subjecting their language to the protective regulation of the Academie Francaise — a name that would look even more decorative if I included the accent marks and the squiggly thing that goes under a soft “c.”   The Acadamie guards the borders of the language. It fought a decades-long battle to steer the French away from parking their cars. It wanted them to stationner their cars instead.  But the French are not moutons.  They fought their Academie — no, that’s too strong.  They selectively ignored their Academie, and brazenly park their cars now.  It’s just so much simpler.  

No one guards the borders of English.  Our cars have chassis, and no one bats an eye.  No one insists they should have “infrastructures” instead, possibly because “infrastructure” is entirely composed of other immigrant words.  Why would we get snooty all of a sudden, and reject a simpler, clearer (tied to the infrastructures of vehicles) word just because it was born abroad?

Which is why I think the current contretemps about cultural appropriation will recede in due course, hopefully leaving behind several layers of improved sensitivity to other cultures, but taking with it any shame in learning from them.  How inappropriate to decry cultural appropriation in a language whose very sinews are constantly being appropriated from other languages!   

But the democratic genius in English goes well beyond borrowing freely from our neighbors.  We also make up stuff with abandon.  In English I can make up the term “schoolparps” to fit the needs of maybe 10 other readers,  confident that I will be neither condemned nor misunderstood.  English speakers are constantly making up and repeating neologisms — which was one itself, comprising two imported words, one from Latin and one from Greek.  I am sure “schoolparps” slipped  into your brains while barely causing any of you to bat an eye.

And I bet your eyes, if they did bat, still did not remind you of what Juan Marichal did to John Roseboro, because your English-trained brains knew to store the different meeting in different files, and only to bring the two bats up as one word when you first saw the name “Juan Marichal.” 

Which brings us to  Jamie’s second comment to yesterday’ post, which went as follows:

“The path to greatness is fraught with terror, no matter what hindsight might have erased from memory…”

I have no idea what Jamie is talking about here.  I don’t know if this means I’ve never trodden the path to greatness, or have forgotten all about it. But it seems to me the pivotal word is “terror.”  Maybe our league is a path fraught with terror. 

Don’t be alarmed.  “Terror” is one of those quintessential (from “quint”, meaning “five”, and “essential” meaning essential, which put together means “about five times more essential than average”)  English words with fantastically flexible meanings borrowed from everywhere.  It lies at the root of all these words:

Terror:    Intense, acute fear..

Terrify:   Induce intense, acute fear, generally referring to a single instance or episode.

Terrible:   1. Inducing intense, acute fear, in case you need an  archaic alternative to terrifying.    2. Defiant or unruly, as in the terrible twos.    3. Awful – not in the sense of “awe-inspiring” or “full of awe”,  but in the sense of really bad, dog stinking pickle bad. “He’s a terrible teaser.”     4.  Awful, in the sense of “awe-inspiring.”  “He’s a terrible tease.”

Terrorize:  To induce an enduring sense of intense fear in another, generally referring to a pattern of behavior over time.

Terrorist:  One who terrifies or terrorizes on purpose, classically by committing violence on one person or group of people to induce fear in other people.

Terrorism:   What terrorists do.  It’s terrible.

Terrific:    1.  Huge, awful (in the sense of “awe-inspiring”) (archaic).   2.  Great, wonderfully good, as an antonym to terrible/awful/bad. If something could be dog stinking pickle good, it would be terrific.

Terry:   1.  A man’s name, as in Terry Porter, Terry Pratchett, or Terry Pendleton — or even Terry Turner, the Cleveland franchise all-time leader in games played, who retired 101 years ago.    2. A woman’s name, like Terry Gross (NPR radio “Fresh Air” host).     3.  Any kind of person’s last name, like Mark and Missy Terry, or Bill and Ralph Terry.

Terrier:   1.  More terry.  A person named Terry Terry would be terrier than Mark, Missy, Bill, or Ralph.     2.  A  dog bred to guard its owners by terrorizing intruders and other vermin.  Or to be a lap dog.

So now let’s turn our attention to Monday’s results, and the terrors lying await therein.