CREEK ROAD GANG
Your Subtitle text
Thoughts from the Editor:
June 2010
copyright 2010
Last week, I happened upon a youtube video of
former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins doing a reading of his wonderful
poem, “The
Lanyard.” For those not familiar with this poem, in it, Collins
gives a humorous look at some of the balances in the relationship of
mothers and their children, and does so in a quietly powerful way. It’s a
delight, and if you have a few minutes, click on the link, and hear it
for yourself.
In the beginning of the poem, Collins describes some of his process of writing, “ricocheting” from one thing to another, and at one point finding himself in the “L” section of the dictionary.
Ah! The seductive power of the dictionary (which is where I first learned the meaning of the word seductive)! All those words, just waiting for discovery, use, mastery.
When I was a child, my first dictionary was an old Webster’s with a black cover, and oval-shaped finger mark indentations for the letters of the alphabet on its gilt-edged pages. At the time I met that venerable dictionary, it was already quite dog-eared. Actually, it was not mine, but was my mother’s, having been my grandfather’s before that, until he went on to bigger and better dictionaries, at which point he gave this beauty to my mother. It sat on a living room bookshelf, ready to share words at a moment’s notice, and I loved the wealth of possibilities it offered.
Words offer so many possibilities.
In later years, I became an irritating parent who insisted that my children read with a dictionary at hand, and that they look up any unknown or confusing word. No, picking up meaning from context was not good enough for me. I knew quite well the trouble that could cause. As an eleven-year-old, I had humiliated myself, due to a word I had learned from context in family conversation around the dinner table. When someone had been foolish, my father would remark, “What a nelson!” The incredibly foolish were “big nelsons!”
We had moved to a new town that year I was eleven, and I was in a new school, making new friends. As new kids do, I was trying to fit in, and was lucky to meet a friendly, fun, down-to-earth girl who lived just up the street from me. One day, while we were talking over our school day, I pointed out that a classmate had been a real nelson that day.
“What’s a nelson?” my new friend asked.
Surprised that she didn’t know the word, I defined it and gave examples of its appropriate use. That evening over dinner, I told my parents that, strangely enough, although she was a very smart girl, my new friend didn’t know the word “nelson!”
When my father stopped laughing, he explained that it wasn’t a real word, but instead was an expression his family had coined after having known a rather silly person of that name.
I felt so embarrassed that I not only swore off the word “nelson,” but I also waited over forty years to come to clean to my friend. We only recently shared a laugh over what a big nelson I’d been!
Words can do funny things.
In a recent session of the writing class I attend, a heated discussion popped up over the question of the exact meaning of a Yiddish word used in a story. As the writer of that story attempted to give a sense of the word's shades of meaning, others popped in with further questions, suggestions, requests. At last, one of the group reached into her tote bag to retrieve a reference book, and said, “Let me check it!” This helpful, but non-Jewish, writer opened her well-worn paperback Yiddish dictionary, which she routinely carries to class every week. (You never know when you might need a Yiddish dictionary.)
We laughed, but we understood, because we share that love for words.
We hope that you enjoy the word creations our writers have constructed for you, and which we present this month. Explore, try them on, enjoy. Perhaps you’ll even be inspired to check out what’s new and old in a dictionary, leading to some word adventures of your own. Whatever you do, though, watch our for nelsons!
In the beginning of the poem, Collins describes some of his process of writing, “ricocheting” from one thing to another, and at one point finding himself in the “L” section of the dictionary.
Ah! The seductive power of the dictionary (which is where I first learned the meaning of the word seductive)! All those words, just waiting for discovery, use, mastery.
When I was a child, my first dictionary was an old Webster’s with a black cover, and oval-shaped finger mark indentations for the letters of the alphabet on its gilt-edged pages. At the time I met that venerable dictionary, it was already quite dog-eared. Actually, it was not mine, but was my mother’s, having been my grandfather’s before that, until he went on to bigger and better dictionaries, at which point he gave this beauty to my mother. It sat on a living room bookshelf, ready to share words at a moment’s notice, and I loved the wealth of possibilities it offered.
Words offer so many possibilities.
In later years, I became an irritating parent who insisted that my children read with a dictionary at hand, and that they look up any unknown or confusing word. No, picking up meaning from context was not good enough for me. I knew quite well the trouble that could cause. As an eleven-year-old, I had humiliated myself, due to a word I had learned from context in family conversation around the dinner table. When someone had been foolish, my father would remark, “What a nelson!” The incredibly foolish were “big nelsons!”
We had moved to a new town that year I was eleven, and I was in a new school, making new friends. As new kids do, I was trying to fit in, and was lucky to meet a friendly, fun, down-to-earth girl who lived just up the street from me. One day, while we were talking over our school day, I pointed out that a classmate had been a real nelson that day.
“What’s a nelson?” my new friend asked.
Surprised that she didn’t know the word, I defined it and gave examples of its appropriate use. That evening over dinner, I told my parents that, strangely enough, although she was a very smart girl, my new friend didn’t know the word “nelson!”
When my father stopped laughing, he explained that it wasn’t a real word, but instead was an expression his family had coined after having known a rather silly person of that name.
I felt so embarrassed that I not only swore off the word “nelson,” but I also waited over forty years to come to clean to my friend. We only recently shared a laugh over what a big nelson I’d been!
Words can do funny things.
In a recent session of the writing class I attend, a heated discussion popped up over the question of the exact meaning of a Yiddish word used in a story. As the writer of that story attempted to give a sense of the word's shades of meaning, others popped in with further questions, suggestions, requests. At last, one of the group reached into her tote bag to retrieve a reference book, and said, “Let me check it!” This helpful, but non-Jewish, writer opened her well-worn paperback Yiddish dictionary, which she routinely carries to class every week. (You never know when you might need a Yiddish dictionary.)
We laughed, but we understood, because we share that love for words.
We hope that you enjoy the word creations our writers have constructed for you, and which we present this month. Explore, try them on, enjoy. Perhaps you’ll even be inspired to check out what’s new and old in a dictionary, leading to some word adventures of your own. Whatever you do, though, watch our for nelsons!
~ Kate Lydon
