Dr. Metablog

Can We Hope for a Locative Renaissance?

Here on Walnut Street, we're trying to make more and better use of locatives -- words that have long been underemployed and undervalued. We think that the language (and therefore the world) would be richer and more commodious if others would join with us in this endeavor. But we're not evangelizing, heck no! We honor and respect each and every person's private and personal linguistic choices, locatively-speaking. 

Nor do we refer to the common adverbial locatives, such as homeward, downtown, underground, or nearby.  The locatives that we wish to revive and reinvigorate are the neglected -- even forsaken -- classics of locativity.

Everyone uses the locative where -- the point upon which you metaphorically stand --  but how many of us remember to employ the excellent and useful "to" form, whither, or the "from" form, whence.  It's true that whither and whence sound a trifle obsolescent, but with frequent use the flexible ear will soon accommodate. One might be tempted to say "wither goest thou" or "whence com'st thou", but with a little effort, "whither do you come" and "whence do you go" will sound perfectly natural, I'm sure.

Similarly, we regularly use the word here, but by golly we have slighted hither (to here) and hence (from here).

Equally neglectful is the abandonment of thither and thence ("to there" and "from there"). Extraordinary useful words, relegated thoughtlessly to the rear of the locative line.

And then of course, there's yon, yond and yonder, all related varieties of  "there -- at a distance," but somewhat further away. Shakespeare, as one would expect, is a most skillful deployer of yons. From Hamlet: "But look, the morn in russet mantle clad/ Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill."  From Julius Caesar. "Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;/ He thinks too much; such men are dangerous."  From Romeo and Juliet. "What lady's that/ Which doth enrich the hand of yonder knight?"

A yonnish locative that is not endangered and continues to thrive is the word beyond. Shakespeare's most remarkable and I daresay most beautiful use of "beyond" occurs in Cymbeline, when Innogen learns that her exiled lover Posthumus Leonatus has returned to England. She is impatient to meet him at Milford Haven; Innogen's speech that begins with the plaintive cry, "O, for a horse with wings" includes the most transcendent barrier-busting locative in the entire history of the English language. Her longing to see her lover is, she claims, "beyond beyond." A superlative locative, beyond anyone's imagination but Will's.  

Outdoor Gear Shops

Although I regularly walk our many nearby scenic mountain trails, I'm not a genuinely "outdoorsy" person. I don't ski, or snowboard, and I certainly don't rock climb. No climbing at all if I can help it. At this time, I have no plans to "summit" anything. My camping days are long over; no more sleeping outside even in a fancy modern tent. So I'm not the target of the two dozen outdoor gear shops that are within neighborly distance of my well-heated home and welcoming mattress.

 

These "gear" stores are ubiquitous; a guy can hardly take a few steps on the semi-famous Boulder Mall without stumbling into one or another. Perhaps you think that I exaggerate? Let's look at the facts. Right within a block or two there's Red Fox Outdoor Equipment ("crafted for adventure"); HIMALI ("apparel that stands up to the highest and harshest conditions on Planet Earth"; Teton; Black Diamond ("designed for epic outdoor adventures"); Stio ("built for Alpine pursuits"), Burton (snowboards, boots, outerwear); Mount Inspiration Apparel; The North Face; Eddie Bauer; Arc'teryx ("weatherproof footwear and apparel"); Fjäälraven (a Swedish outpost); Amundsen (Norwegian); Moosejaw ("funky fun-loving climbing gear"); Epic Mountain Gear; MontBell; Backcountry ("gear up for fresh powder"); REI; Neptune Mountaineering; Helly Hansen; Patagonia; Nomad ("a mountain lifestyle retailer"); Cotopaxi ("sustainably-designed outdoor gear"); Volcom "skating & snowboarding-inspired apparel"); Norrøna Concept Store (outdoor apparel plus espresso bar); Christy Sports; Rapha "world's finest cycling clothing"). In addition, there are also several second hand -- sometimes called "previously owned" -- outdoor gear shops.

 

Who buys all this stuff? Boulder doesn't contain enough bravers-of-the-elements to support so many enterprises. Perhaps it's the tourists. It's also been theorized that most of the gear business is internet-driven and that the various manufacturers like to boast a brick-and-mortar business in prestigious Boulder. I wouldn't know; I'm perpetually gearless.

 

Should a slug-a-bed like myself feel indolent and guilty in the presence of such passionate mountaineering energy?  Maybe a little, but mostly I'm amused by what seems to me conspicuous equipment consumption. Life is not about "gear." 

 

Question: does our Mall have more outdoor gear shops than it does marijuana outlets?  Or coffee shops? A census is warranted. 

 

What would the Boulder Mall look like if I myself were the target audience. Well, it just so happens that many years ago I designed a mall of me. You can look it up.

Old Age Home/ Retirement Community/ Senior Living Center

We were invited for dinner at the place to which a number of my "senior" friends have retreated. The experience was cordial and civilized, but somehow troubling. I know one thing: I don't want to wind up there. I'm staying put as long as I possibly can.  

Too many old folks. I want to live where there are people of all ages and varieties. Babies and toddlers and tweens and teen-agers and young adults. More activity, fewer canes and walkers.

The place, though handsome and well-appointed, seemed to me to be inhospitable. Supervisors at every door. We had to check in at a fancy kiosk where some sort of electronic device took our official data and printed out a visitor badge, which I pocketed. It felt much too "policed."

The dining room was hushed and mannerly. The food was institutional-plus, but nevertheless institutional. I much prefer my own cooking; I've made a fetish of self-sufficiency all these years and I'd like to continue so. I like to stir my own pot.

The apartments are splendid, but the long narrow corridors between apartments are oppressive. Too reminiscent of hospitals. Or jails.

My principal objection: friends who have moved there become subsumed into the society of the place. They participate in the home's "activities." It's good and healthy for them, I suppose, but my friends become lost to me. Swallowed in a kindly maw. It's scary, to those of us who don't want to be swallowed.

I'll stay here on Walnut Street as long as I can. As in the traditional resolve, I plan to leave "feet-first."  But we shall see.

Words of My Life: Boot

Is there another common English word that exhibits such varied meanings as "boot?" Or one that has shown such continual transformation during my years on the planet?

Like much of my early vocabulary, "boot" entered my life through the medium of radio baseball . In my mind's ear, I can hear the voice of Red Barber announcing that "umpire Babe Pinelli has just given the boot to Leo Durocher."  "Given the boot" does not make the claim that Durocher was presented with footwear; it means that he was kicked out of the game as if with a metaphorically-booted foot.

Nor was it only obstreperous managers who were "booted." "There's a two-hopper to third, but Cox boots it" -- meaning that he bobbled it, even though the ball never touched his foot. In baseball, curiously, you can boot a ball with your hand, which is, logically speaking, as nonsensical as gloving it with your foot. 

As everyone knows, a boot primarily protects the area from the shin down to the toes. But there's a second common meaning to "boot": "something extra," as in the phrase "to boot." "He's a great pitcher -- and a good hitter to boot." The shoe-ish meaning comes through old French from a Germanic source; the profit or use or something-extra meaning derives from an unrelated OE (Old English) word; moreover, in latter stages of its development "boot" has also been influenced by its phonological neighbors booty, and, I suspect, butt. 

In order to gain some historical perspective, let us consider the ways in which Shakespeare makes use of the word boot. "To boot" meaning "in addition" is employed frequently, as, for example, when Henry IV swears "by my scepter and my soul to boot," or when Macduff says to Malcolm that "I would not be the villain that thou think'st/ For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp/ And the rich east to boot." A less familiar use occurs in The Winter's Tale, when Hermione, accused of adultery, concedes that  "it shall scarce boot me/ To say 'not guilty.'" Her "boot" means that it will not be to her advantage or profit to assert her innocence. This signification can shade over into gain or even into a coin itself, as for example when Camillo passes money to Autolycus, saying,"hold thee, there's some boot." Contemplating his gain, Autolycus muses, "What an exchange had this been without boot! What a boot is here with this exchange." Just as boot is gain, so bootless means without gain or helpless, as when Henry V explains that he will be powerless to restrain a rampage: "We may as bootless spend our vain command/ Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil." Shakespeare gets some punning mileage out of the multiple meanings of "boot." Glendower boasts that "[T]hree times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head/ Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye/ And sandy-bottom'd Severn have I sent him/ Bootless home and weather-beaten back. "Bootless" means helpless; but sardonic Hotspur, never noted for an sophisticated sense of humor, cannot resist the obvious: "Home without boots. And in foul weather too."

So a boot can be a shoe, an advantage, an addition, a reward, a help. But look what's happened to the poor helpless word in more recent times. "Boot Hill" is a cowboy frontier cemetery.  Across the waters, a "boot" is the trunk of an automobile. The infamous "Denver boot" is a wheel clamp that immobilizes a vehicle. In the army, a boot is a recruit or rookie: "boot camp."

But then, along came the computer, where one "boots" or restarts one's machine. This use, I'm told, originated with the phrase, to "pull oneself up by one's own bootstraps" -- i.e. do something difficult at one's own initiative, just as a computer starts itself. There's also the warmboot, which sounds little too much like the old torture device, the Spanish boot and which can also be called a softboot (but not by me).  

In Shakespeare's day, boot was not always distinguished from "booty" as in the case of the Archbishop of Canterbury's famous bees, which "like soldiers, armed in their stings,/ Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,/ Which pillage they with merry march bring home." Booty as pillage survives to this day, but is, I think, obsolescent. Nowadays, booty is more likely to be used in the phrase "booty call" which means (and here I'm relying on the invaluable Urban Dictionary) a "telephone call made to request a sexual encounter." Who would ever have devised or imagined such an innovation?  Does this booty derive from "shake your booty," meaning to move your butt or bottom in a sexually suggestive way?  Not a meaning known to Shakespeare, or at least, not one memorialized in the surviving records.

 

Other words of my life:  slouch, cishet, yips, ramps, jot and tittle, worship, mucilage. spatchcock, umpire.

Words of my Life: Troll

"Troll" is a word that has strangely metamorphosized in the course of my life. While It once had warm associations; now, not so much.

"Troll" came into my life in the late 1940s at Makamah Beach on the Long Island Sound. My grandmother Sonia taught me how to "troll" for bluefish or sunfish. Here's how you do it. You paddle slowly and let your "shiner" dangle on fishing line a few yards behind the rowboat. "Troll" is very like "trawl." Perhaps they are variants; or perhaps "troll" is a distant descendent of Latin trahere, to drag." Troll is related to "trolley," a device used to drag things from place to place, as a trolley does its passengers. It seems to incorporate the meaning "wander" or "wander into."

From my early interest in northern mythology (a mythology is someone else's religion) I learned that a "troll" is a clumsy ugly monster who hides out under bridges or in cemeteries. Trolls were troublesome, provocative, perhaps even cannibalistic. 

But nowadays, the older meanings of "troll" have been superseded. A 'troll' is now a person who participates in a conversation, usually an internet conversation, with the intention of sowing discord or causing trouble. I am not sure about the origin of this usage, but I would like to guess or hypothesize that it combines the sense of "wandering into" with the malevolence of the Scandanavian figure. A troll is therefore an electronic ogre.

 

Other words of my life: slouch, cishet, yips, ramps, jot and tittle, worship, mucilage. spatchcock, umpire.

Is Safety an Illusion?

Am I just plain nuts to think that I live in a safe and secure world? All the evidence says "perpetual vigilance" and "it can happen here" and "keep a close watch? 

Let's look at the situation. 

Our state has a violent history. In the far past: at Sand Creek in 1864, several hundred Cheyenne and Arapahos were brutally murdered. In 1914, a century or so ago, the Pinkertons, paid by the Rockefellers, killed no-one-knows-how-many miners when they shot randomly into the Ludlow tent colony.  

More recently, killing has become the work not of army or paid professionals but of heavily armed civilians. In 1999 there was the horrible Columbine High School massacre in which twelve were killed and twenty-one wounded. Just thirteen years later came the mass killing inside a Century 16 theater in Aurora, just a few miles south of where I live, in which twelve people were killed and another seventy injured. Then in 2015 there was a shooting a a Planned Parenthood clinic in which three were assassinated and nine others wounded. In March of 2021, just two years ago, in the Table Mesa King Soopers, a "gunman" killed ten -- customers, employees, a police officer. And last year, we had the nightclub shooting in Colorado Springs where five were murdered and twenty-five others wounded.

I didn't happen to be in any of these places, but I might have been. Although I wasn't at the Columbine school, I was at that very moment in a different classroom in Denver; I didn't go to the movies to see the Dark Knight, but I do go to theaters. It wasn't "my" King Soopers that was terrorized, but nevertheless I've bought stuff at that very store many times when I've happened to be in south Boulder; I wasn't at the Colorado springs bar but I've certainly patronized bars. In any one of these cases, It could just as easily have been me shot dead or maimed. I've been one lucky fellow, but people much like me have been so fortunate.

Two days ago, a vicious prank phone call set off a scramble and shelter-in-place warnings at two-block away Boulder High School. BHS is where AGP and our three children spent many a year.  This scare turned out to be a case of "swatting" -- a disgusting new practice in which a nasty sociopath calls an institution to see if he can get a reaction from a SWAT team. Deliberate malice. Such false alarms are not mass killings, but they're still hair-raising, anxiety-provoking, and potentially dangerous events.

It's coming close to home, isn't it.  Luck of the draw, so to speak, that I'm still whole.

When I was a teacher, I was never in real danger but I had some deranged students. I remember once that a particularly odd young lady asked to make an appointment for a conference. Wary of her, I proposed that instead of her coming to my office that we meet in the public cafeteria. l can't remember what she wanted to talk about, but I recall vividly that at one point she asked, "do you think I have a gun in my purse?"  I replied "I don't know whether you do or not, but I do know that this meeting is now over." I stood up and walked away, half convinced that I was about to be shot in the back. But I wasn't. 

It's a violent world; no one has ever been truly safe. But all we can do is go blithely about our business, hoping to be spared.  I shouldn't complain; we're not in a war zone; it's not like Ukraine, where at any moment Russian drones and shells and missiles can drop from the sky.