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Word of the Week: Protest

8/26/2014

protest

\ˈprō-ˌtest\

My mind has been rolling on a double track. There’s the day-to-day where nothing much seems out of place. And there’s the part of me watching Ferguson in a stew of helpless anger.

There is much to protest. When a teenager walking down the street in the middle of the day can be shot dead. Again. When the apologists shake their heads and say, well there must have been a good reason for it. Again. When the police force denies accountability and casts forth a smokescreen of innuendo: he was a suspect, he may have been on drugs, he had it coming. Again. When the we wearily embark on another investigation that will mostly likely decree that the killing of this young black person was justified. Again.

A protest is a formal pledge or public declaration. It comes by way of Old French from the Latin protestari, which means to declare or swear publicly. It’s related to testari (to testify), which in turn derives from testis, or “witness.”

"Ferguson, Day 4, Photo 26" by Loavesofbread. Licensed under Creative Commons via Wikimedia Commons

Protest. Testify. Witness. Ferguson is protest in the purest sense of the word: people stepping out into the street. The signs, the shouts, the hands upraised, saying: “This. This is my truth. This is my life. It matters. Listen.”
I sympathize with those who long to throw a bottle, smash a window, curse an armored cop. This is my truth. My life. It matters. Listen.

"Ferguson Day 6, Picture 12" by Loavesofbread. Licensed under Creative Commons via Wikimedia Commons.

The machinery rolls out to shut it down—in the streets, the talking heads, the trolls. Again. Get back. Disperse. Get inside. Stop talking. You are an unreliable witness. Again.

My own truth, my own life, is insulated from so much of the grief and the rage and the pain. I have the hideous luxury, most of the time, of being able to look away. So in the last two weeks I have been trying hard to see. To bear witness. To listen.

And when I do look back to my everyday life I try to hold on to the double vision. My witness: I have access to employment, to health care, to housing, to capital, to social power. Bank managers lend me money. People usually assume I am telling the truth. I have never been stopped by the police except once, doing 80 in a 55 zone. He gave me a ticket and told me to slow down.

I am called to witness. I am called to be useful.

At night, I go running down a dark street. An officer passing in a patrol car raises his hand in a casual wave.

I protest.

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Word of the Week: Rapture

8/18/2014

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rapture

\ˈrap-chər\

I often see divers when I am out swimming. Usually my first clue is a wodge of bubbles swirling up from the depths below me—perhaps a glint of metal, a lamp beam, or the flash of reflective tape as they lumber slowly about. Every now and then, though, I will catch a glimpse of a sleek human shape slipping silently through the kelp forest. No air tanks, no bulky gear—just fins and a stray bubble or two. Free divers. They look like mer-people, occasionally sparing me an upward glance as I churn my way across the glittering margin between the deeps and the air above.

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Free diving is done without breathing apparatus. Mostly these divers stay near the surface, exploring the kelp for a minute or two, then surfacing for air. The most extreme form of the sport, though, is another thing entirely. It’s also called “competitive apnea” and that’s pretty much what it is: the diver submerges for as long, or as far, or as deep as s/he can on a single breath. Sometimes for minutes at a time. Down to where it’s dark and dangerous. Just the thought of it scares the hell out of me.

So I had to take a deep breath (as it were) when I watched the new short Narcose. This 12-minute film is a real-time depiction of a dive made by world apnea champion Guillaume Néry (really there is such a thing! he has a medal!) in which he dons a monofin, dives 125 meters straight down, and then returns to the surface. It’s amazing enough that he can hold his breath while swimming for five minutes and not die. And the shots of him descending and ascending are extraordinarily beautiful. But the heart of the film is the visions Néry experiences on the way, which are based on his own accounts and are reproduced in eerie and loving detail.

It turns out divers at great depths can have vivid hallucinations, as the nitrogen in their body tissues interferes with their brains in ways still not entirely understood. The result is euphoria, exhilaration, time distortion, confusion, and (eventually) unconsciousness and death. Afflicted divers drift and play in the water until their air runs out.

I learned about the phenomenon as a kid, in my many hours spent riveted to The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. I loved everything about that show: the ocean creatures, the ship Calypso, the Zodiac rafts, Cousteau in his red watch cap squinting out over the waves—and especially his gravelly accented voice-overs. His invocation of “ze RAHP-tuure of ze DEEP” was the most terrifyingly enticing thing I’d ever heard.

Rapture of the deep!

Leave it to a Frenchman to come up with such a poetic and evocative phrase. Left to ourselves, we practical Americans would no doubt persist in calling it “nitrogen narcosis.” (Or worse, the “Martini effect”—so called because someone likened the sensation to drinking one martini for every 50 ft of depth beyond the initial 100—a phrase that evokes nothing more exalted than getting sloshed at an ad-man’s lunch.)

Rapture, though! Rapture can mean ecstasy, joy that sets us outside ourselves. But it also means being snatched up, transported, carried off. There is a lot of violence to the word: it comes from the Latin raptus, which means to tear up or carry away, to abduct—the word that also gives us “rape.” It’s related to modern English “raptor,” meaning a hawk or predatory bird—something that stoops down from above, talons outstretched.

Image by Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK; via Wikimedia Commons

Rapture is not simple happiness. In fact, it's not happiness at all. It swoops down and seizes us, carries us someplace we do not recognize, where we may be transformed, or torn to pieces and devoured. That’s scary stuff—stuff I usually prefer not to consider as I splash along the surface of my life.

Except in the last two weeks, three people I know have died very suddenly. I seem to be spending a fair bit of time going to memorial services where we all stand around shaking our heads: “Well I guess he didn’t suffer….” “I saw her last week at the planning meeting.” “God, I’m going to miss him.” They are gone, just like that—leaving only a few widening ripples on the surface. What was it like for them, diving so quickly into not-knowing? Did they see it coming? Could they snatch one last deep breath?

I am no diver. The weight of the water above, the ache in my lungs, the pressure in my ears: the thought of going deliberately into that makes me panicky. I prefer the bright surface of sun and foam and water and air.

And yet, rapture of the deep! It swoops down, talons outstretched, in a blaze of brilliant light. Sharp teeth arcing up from the blue-black shadows below.

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Word of the Week: Badger

8/11/2014

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badger

\ˈba-jər\

Those who have followed this blog for any length of time may have noticed that my children appear here not under their real names but as “Arwulf” and “Grimbert.”

I have discussed the origin of Arwulf’s name elsewhere, but my husband pointed out recently that I have yet to say anything about Grimbert. People are probably wondering, he said, seeing as how Grimbert the badger is much less well known than his companions Reynard the fox and Chanticleer the rooster.

Being a persistent fella, a couple days later he emailed me a raft of links to French folktales involving Grimbert—perhaps I could set the record straight? And write about badgers? Say, maybe “badger” could be a word of the week? Because if I hadn’t done the word of the week yet, “badger” would be a good choice. “Hector” is also a good word. But “badger” is better. If I hadn’t yet written a word of the week, I should really consider “badger”…

All right, already! I set out in dogged pursuit. And as so often happens I found that the burrow leads someplace rather unexpected.

The word “badger” in English originally did not refer to the animal: instead it meant a peddler or trader who sells grain. This might have been a person with a bag, or possibly a person with a badge (for example a license that allows the bearer to sell goods in a given marketplace). This activity was not always entirely ethical. Here’s the first entry in the OED, from the Statutes of Ireland in 1467:

Diuersez aulters persouns appellez Baggeres ount vsez de aller a vne marchee & ount achatez..frument & blee a vne price et puis apres ount prisez lez ditz g[r]aynes a vne aulter marchee & illeosqes lez ount vendeuz pluis chierement par ii d. ou iii d. en vne Boshelle...

I am not sure why this is in Franglish, but here’s the gist: various persons called “Baggeres” would go to a market and buy wheat (frument), then afterwards take this grain to another market and sell it for 2 or 3 shillings more per bushel.

As a result of their (shall we say) entrepreneurial enthusiasm, these mercantile badgers inspired a fair bit of hostility. They are frequently referred to as hucksters or swindlers. In 1592, the preacher William Cupper described them as an actual plague:

Vserers, also brokers, badgers and hucksters, and such like locusts that eat vp the poore and cause the markets to be inhaunced should bee bridled to the ende the poore may haue things better cheape. (cited in James Davis’ Medieval Market Morality: Life, Law and Ethics in the English Marketplace 1200-1500)

Local authorities shared the view that keeping grain prices low helps the poor, but probably with a more practical rationale: expensive bread is a good recipe for civil unrest. Many laws were passed prohibiting the sale of grain anywhere but in approved and regulated markets—in part so that taxes could be properly assessed and paid, but also to keep a tighter lid on speculation—to “bridle the badgers,” as it were.

Making the leap from the locust-like trader of grain to the burrowing quadruped requires another form of speculation. While it is tempting to say that the animal was named for the peddler because it is similarly tenacious and combative, this is (alas) unlikely. The OED says that the name for the animal more likely derives from “badge” or “blaze” – a reference to the white stripes on a badger’s head. Others say that “badger” comes from the French “bêcheur” or “digger.”

Whatever you call them, they are pretty cool creatures. They are closely related to weasels and otters and they live in burrows (called “setts”) that are often quite extensive and can be hundreds of years old. Mostly nocturnal, they eat rodents, eggs, fruit, grubs, small rabbits, bulbs, and whatever else they can find. And they are also reported to be quite clean: unlike many other underground creatures, badgers will not shit in their burrows, and instead use communal latrines outside.

Badgers travel under many different names, including “dasse,” “brock” and “bauson.” (Image by Killianwoods (Template:University Observer) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

But as Everett reminds us, “badgering” is central to the badger experience. It can mean “haggling” or “driving a hard bargain” (another nod to the unbridled grain sellers). More commonly, though, to badger means to hound, harass, or nag. Experts agree that this derives from the practice of badger-baiting, but exactly how depends on whose side you are on.

The “badgerer” could refer to the humans and dogs harrying the cornered animal—badger baiting was a popular sport through the early 20th century. In fact the Dachshund was bred as a badger hunter (the German “dachs” means “badger”). It's a little hard to imagine your average wiener dog taking on a desperate 30-pound creature equipped with sharp teeth and long claws, but there it is. The Brits started trying to ban badger baiting as early as 1835, though it stubbornly persists under the table even now.

On the other hand, it may be the badger itself that does the badgering. The animal is by nature peaceable but will fight fiercely when provoked. Some say that when it fights it will bite until its teeth meet and then hang on until its adversary gives up. (Ferrets and weasels are known to do this too—see, for instance the famous Annie Dillard essay, “Living Like Weasels,” which in turn inspired a Laurie Anderson song I like very much.)

This seems to jibe with the character of Grimbert. While Reynard is clever and unscrupulous, and Chanticleer is vainglorious and thin-skinned, Grimbert is honest, diligent, and very stubborn.

And it’s not just a “get out of my face and don’t bother me” kind of stubborn. At one point in the story, Reynard gets in hot water with the other animals and asks his nephew Grimbert to hear his confession. (I don’t know how a fox ends up uncle to a badger. It is a mystery.) Grimbert does so and grants absolution, only to see Reynard leap right back into sin at the sight of the next henhouse. You’d think he’d give up, but a few episodes later, the exact same thing happens again. Reynard asks Grimbert to shrive him of a lengthy catalogue of sins (including theft, adultery, and murder), Grimbert agrees, and again as soon as he is absolved Reynard goes right back to his old ways.

The author presumably wanted us to laugh at the folly of a priest who keeps on absolving sinners even when they have no intention of changing their ways. But I can’t help but admire Grimbert’s tenacity: all evidence to the contrary, he cannot let go of the possibility that maybe—just maybe—this time his uncle can be brought to the good. Faced with usury, swindling, or wanton cruelty, the badger keeps the faith. He keeps that shit out of the burrow.

He bites down hard and does not let go.

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Word of the Week: Susurrus

8/4/2014

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susurrus

\su̇-ˈsər-əs\

It is August, the pinnacle of summer, and this week’s word is full of summer associations. A friend ran across it in a novel she was reading and was delighted to find a word she did not know—an especially rare pleasure for highly-literate types. “Encountering a new word,” she told me, “is like finding a gem, or a perfectly ripe fruit.”

It’s also to my ear an exceptionally beautiful word, both in its sound and its sense. A susurrus is “a whispering murmur.” It is the sound of a breeze passing through a forest; of hushed conversations at the other end of a reading room; of lizards scuttling through dry leaves on a hot afternoon. It’s a drowsy, peaceful word.

English lifted this one wholesale from the Latin word for “humming or murmuring.” It seems to derive from a Sanskrit root svárati (meaning sounds or resounds) that has engendered a flock of cognates across many languages: there’s Greek syrinx (Σύριγξ) "reed flute," Old Church Slavonic svirati "to whistle," Lithuanian surmo "pipe, shawm," German schwirren "to buzz," and the Old English swearm, or "swarm."

As a kid I spent many of my school vacations with my grandparents in the mountains of western North Carolina, where they went each year to escape the infernal summers of Chapel Hill. The cottage they rented was made of chestnut boards marked with the twisting runnels left by burrowing insects in the trees. There was a big front room filled with rough-hewn oak furniture and perhaps a deer’s head mounted above the fireplace. There was a shabby and somewhat unreliable kitchen, a couple of bedrooms for grownups, and a big attic where whatever grandchildren were in residence slept on beds with metal springs and faded coverlets made of tufted mauve chenille. Fifty miles from Asheville, and at least 10 miles from the nearest town with a coffee shop and a supermarket, there was not much to do, which was very much the point. We kids swam in the river. We stitched ill-fitting doll dresses and cut our fingers whittling homemade propeller toys. We went on walks with our grandmother, who brandished her walking stick at snakes and (to our lasting mortification) swiped fresh sweet corn from other people’s fields.

Next to the porch grew a giant yew bush, eight feet across. A child squirming through the outer branches could rest hidden inside, in a resinous dappled cave almost big enough to stand up in. I spent endless afternoons here, equipped with a couple of peaches and the battered house copy of The Adventures of Robin Hood (a great 1930s edition that I have not seen since: the covers were frayed and some of the pages loose but it had full-color illustrations and a wonderful pseudo-Old-English style). It was very quiet. There was the whisper of a scythe as the farmer next door brought in the buckwheat. The mail truck rolled by on the distant road. A tinny fizz as my grandfather tried to catch the afternoon news on his portable radio.

The leaves moved against the sky. A few black ants came to investigate my peach pits.

I know I came out eventually. I know there was supper and cousins and card games and fireflies. But I don’t remember that part right now. I remember the rustle of piney needles under my bare legs. The faint ripple of talk drifting out the kitchen window. The wide drift of an afternoon with nothing to do but watch the trees. A perfectly ripe piece of fruit.

Susurrus.

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Word of the Week: Protest

Word of the Week: Rapture

Word of the Week: Badger

Word of the Week: Susurrus

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