“If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent”*…
Resistentialism: The seemingly spiteful behavior shown by inanimate objects
Spermologer: A picker-up of trivia, of current news, a gossip monger, what we would today call a columnist
In keeping with yesterday’s lexicological theme, These (and 16 other) “Obsolete Words That Never Should Have Gone Out of Style.” See also: the book, The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten by Jeffrey Kacirk, and the blog, Obsolete Word of The Day.
[TotH to EWW]
*If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the spoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in the darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the center of the silent Word.
Oh my people, what have I done unto thee.
Where shall the word be found, where shall the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence”
― from “Ash Wednesday,” T.S. Eliot
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As we wax nostalgic, we might send thoughtfully-worded birthday greetings to Pete Hamill; he was born on this date in 1935. A lover of comic books and art, Hamill went to art school and became a graphic artist after a period of drifting and living in Mexico. In 1960, he landed a job at the New York Post, which turned into a writing job and a regular, widely-read column. He subsequently wrote (and edited) for the New York Daily News, the Village Voice, and New York Newsday, and contributed articles to magazines like New York, The New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy, and Rolling Stone. He covered wars, national issues of race and class, and sports (he even wrote the liner notes for Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks); but his central theme was life in “The City.” His memoir A Drinking Life (1995) describes his lifelong relationships with both alcohol and Brooklyn; in addition to that and to his non-fiction works and journalism collections, Hamill has written 10 novels and two books of short stories.
