GRAPPLING FOR JUST THE RIGHT WORD

As a story-teller - whether writing a column, teaching a class, composing a verse, or sparring with friendly conversationalists - I am always challenged by the pleasurable task of finding the better (or best) word to describe a particular thought, object, place or idea. It is not unusual for me to spend a week of days pondering the best title for an article I have already virtually (or actually) completed., even though I know my editors might change it anyway. For example the title for this effort: I could have said SEARCHING (FOR JUST THE RIGHT WORD). That choice would have been adequate; sufficient. But not wonderful. Grapple is an old French verb dating back to the 1520s meaning to seize and hold fast. Even in today's word- market it connotes a determined, maybe even an especially mindful hunt for the strongest and best.. It also tells the reader - almost parenthetically -  that success in the search may not always take place - but is worth the effort. Understanding language and the availability to the user of a range of nuanced words made even more notable when borrowed from another tongue brings added delight to the reader AND to the writer. Mark Twain noted that using just the right word was often the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. Only he could have grasped and articulated the point so well.

            There are many reasons why I love my native tongue, especially what H.L. Mencken defined as American English. While the practitioners of most well-established languages of the world have been protective in keeping their proud vocabularies and grammars unsullied by foreignisms, Americans - from the beginning - have been welcoming -- in fact even celebratory -- in their acceptance of the practice of embracing borrowed words, and even inventing new ones where necessary. During the colonial years our English cousins referred to this openness as the acceptance of barbarisms, and all these centuries later we are still at it.

            As a young boy I delighted in learning that the native-American word for a Connecticut  brook I was much given to wading in was Noromeocknawhyosunatankshunk, which in the Algonquian language meant "clear flowing waters from the faraway hills which gleam brightly in the afternoon sun while traveling over many stones".  In Alaska's far north there is an old Inuit village called Shaktulik. To begin with that word merely referred to the shape of the coastal geometry there. (Stretched out place.) Over time though, it took on a different meaning altogether: "A place where if you are going there you will begin to ask yourself 'I wonder if I will ever get there!' " Similarly the Eskimo people of the sub-arctic have nearly a hundred synonyms for the word snow, but nary a one for forest fire, while no other word could paint a sound-picture for a wind storm in the Pacific Northwest quite like Williwaw!  And what about the resident of a far northern Eskimo village who keeps stepping out doors to check on the possibility that someone (anyone) may be coming? He(she) would be an iktsuarppok, of course. On the other hand the Finnish have a word which tells us just how far a reindeer can travel before needing a rest: Poronkusema; which turns out to be 17.5 kilometers.

            Loan words from the German seem to occupy a most-favored-nation status for American lexicographers. What would we do without classics like doppelgänger, schadenfreude and wunderkind? And I find one with a peculiar currency in warmduschershare which literally paints a picture of a person who intentionally avoids both hot and cold showers, preferring not to wander too far from the self-allotted and non-controversial "box" we often cower within rather than make a dangerous decision. By the way, the Dutch have a wonderful long word which means sytuisvogelpolitiek (ostrich politics): Voting the same way as last time and expecting a different outcome. (Ostrich with head in sand.)

            I better finish this before I become guilty of sesquipedalianism.