repand, Oaxaca Journals, Panderus, Troilus and Cressida, O'Horten

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glennlouisfeole@gmail.com

 Other blogs: artbyglennfeole.blogspot.com
sweetsilentsessions.blogspot.com (essays on Shakespeare)

repand (Latin re- again, pandas bent)   [re pand’] adjective, having a slightly undulating margin.   

     I love the subtle, almost intimate distinctions of definitions.  This adjective is a biological term, botanical actually. and gently recalls the beauty of my favorite Oliver Sack’s book, Oaxaca Journal, in which he traveled to Mexico with the New York Fern Society.   I have seen graceful illustrations of repand leaves with a ‘gentle’ undulation of the margins, as opposed to the more vigorous, seaworthy ‘undulate’ margins of other leaves.  Even more boisterous are the serrated leaves, the Nordic Vikings of foliage.  I myself am a repand pisces.  

     As a pediatrician, just today I saw a gentle young Latino girl who proudly showed me a large red rash that I noted had a repand edge…although I didn’t know it was a repand rash at the time.   As an artist and poet, I often appreciate the gracefulness of the presentations of illnesses despite their obvious pathos, ala the surgeon Richard Seltzer.’s essays.   I collect some strikingly beautiful medically related poetry and will try to quote them later for you.

    Some thoughts on repand and the concept of being ‘bent’  into a curving edge.   Its seems to be a fit philosophical and poetic metaphor. 

  I took a break from thinking about this surprising word tonight and started to read my very last Shakespeare play, Troilus and Cressida.  At my age, with the passage of time, each milestone is bitter sweet, tinged with ‘sweet sorrow,’ (Romeo and Juliet), intimation of my having been bent from my original state of grace.  I actually ambivalently am excited and simultaneously dread the reading of the last paragraph after reading every word of Shakespeare.  In any case, in the play, Cressida’s Uncle is Pandarus…an ironic coincidence with the similar “pand” element.  Perhaps there is a similar etymology here, as Pandarus bends his niece’s affections towards a romantic relationship with Troilus.  As he thinks of his role in encouraging this couple to get together, he says, “Let all pitiful goers-between be called to the world’s end after my name: call them all panders.” 3.3.202-204.  

    And speaking of ‘bent,’ my favorite movie director and producer is the Norwegian Bent Hamer (of “O’Horten,” my favorite movie).   I will have to look up a Norewegian dictionary of etymology.  

    Pandemonium, pandemic…all with the root “pan” as opposed to “pend.”       Panda?  A Nepalese derivation. 

     I do love the connotation of life’s gentle ‘bending’ of our soul, of our character.  As a wise soul who helped hurricane survivors was quoted recently, ‘If we don’t know our weaknesses, we would never know our strengths.”  Biblically, I am trying to ‘honor my gray hairs.’  No hat for me.  Give me the ancient oak tree with its crooked branches and intriguing bifurcating bark as opposed to the young sapling.  

        

renaissance, nascent, Shakespeare, journals in Seattle

readingthedictionaryztoa.blogspot.com
glennlouisfeole@gmail.com

 Other blogs:
artbyglennfeole.blogspot.com
sweetsilentsessions.blogspot.com (essays on Shakespeare)

renaissance (Latin  re - again, nasci to be born) a period in Europe from the 1300’s to the 1600’s, beginning in Italy.  It bridged the period from Medieval times to modern times and saw the rejuvenation of humanistic pursuits; a flourishing of the arts and literature.  Literally a ‘re-birth.”’ 

     Similary, nascent means a rebirth, a re-emerging. 

    I am reading all of Shakespeare now and am in mourning that I have come to my last play;  Shakespeare wrote in the late 1500’s and into the beginning of the 1600’s…a renaissance of literature and also my own personal renaissance/re-birth of my passion for literature.   Who among us is not striving for a renaissance of our spirit, our heart, our intellect?  

     For me, my sojourns during travels nominally to pediatric conferences culminates in days and nights of walking the cities and gardens of Portland, Seattle and San Francisco with a book and 

a journal in my backpack, in search of that spark that re-ignites my soul.  

refrigerate, Frigga, frigorific, refulgent, regisseur, remorse, Inspector Morse, A. E. Houseman

readingthedictionaryztoa.blogspot.com
glennlouisfeole@gmail.com

Other blogs:
artbyglennfeole.blogspot.com
sweetsilentsessions.blogspot.com (essays on Shakespeare)

refrigerate (Latin, frigor cold) 

     This leads to the word frigorific, causing cold, chilling

     Note that the Norse goddess Frigga is, ironically, the goddess of marital love.  I had mentioned previously that a marriage therefore could be Frigorific (cold, unemotional) or “Frigga-rific.”  

refulgent (Latin, fulgere to shine)  brilliant, radiant, a resplendent quality of radiance.  

     I think that I like this word because it includes “resplendent” in the definition.  

regisseur (French)  \rah gee sour’\  a director responsible for a theatrical performance, such as a ballet.  

     How many of us have the opportunity to use this word?  The emotional power and beauty of “the ballet” is unmatched.  I have witnessed and experienced this…to the point of being speechless and overwhelmed.  

remorse (Latin re- + mordere to bite)  gnawing distress from a sense of guilt

    Never has an etymology hit the nail on the head as this one does.  Even if you haven’t read MacBeth, the experience of this ‘gnawing’ sensation is universal.  I love the PBS series “Inspector Morse” and one of my favorite episodes was the finale, The Remorseful Day.  Morse quotes a beautiful poem titled “The Remorseful Day” by A. E. Houseman, with its exquisite images and emotions.  Colin Dexter, as mentioned in his obituary, was planning on writing a biography of this poet, his favorite, but someone had written it just previously.  

reduviid, hemptera, pterygoid, cicadas, shellac, lac bug, Flintstone vitamins

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glennlouisfeole@gmail.com

reduviid  (Latin reduvia  fragment, or hangnail)  \ri dyu’ vee id\  a large family of insects that are blood sucking hemipterous insects comprising the assassin bugs.

     This definition is worthy of a John Le Care novel.  I’m not sure how we go from hangnail or fragment to the reduviids.  (Actually it is part of the anatomy of the abdomen.)  This family of insects, hemiptera, includes 50,000 to 80,000 species…and I wonder what budding young Darwins,  or graduate students in entymology, categorized all these species.  

    So…hemiptera (Latin, ptera wing) \hem ip’tera\   These insects have two pairs of wings and also mouth parts for sucking fluids.  The ‘wing’ denotation is for part of the anatomy of 'fragments' attached to their abdomen.  The mouth parts are not a pleasant thought but, as consolation, this family of insects includes the poetic cicadas without which childhood memories of summer would be incomplete.  

     Also, these insects give us shellac and the dye cochineal or carmine. 

     In medicine, there are several words that use ptera (the ‘p’ being silent), such as the pterygoid bone of the skull near the sphenoid sinus.  It is a beautiful butterfly shaped bone that is ‘wing shaped.’

     Cicadas were first mentioned over 2,000 years ago in Homer’s Illiad.  (I have just reread The Odyssey and The Illiad but I don’t recall the cicadas playing a big part.)

   

     Here is a word journey: reduviid, hemipterous, lac bug, Southeast Asian word for 100,000, shellac, Flintstone vitamins…

    Reduviid’s also have something to do with children’s vitamins…   I was looking at the label of Flintstone vitamins at work and was surprised that one of the ingredients was shellac.  A varnish in a child's vitamins?  Unknown to me is the fact that shellac is a product of insects: the lac bug which is a reduviid.  These bugs suck the sap from the bark of a tree and excrete a shellac precursor.  The bark is scraped off and heated in canvas tubes over a fire, the liquid shellac dripping out.  It takes about 300,000 bugs to produce 2.2 lbs of shellac.  The Southeastern Asian word for 100,000 is “lac.”  The word shellac derives from French for ‘shell’ and ‘lac,” laque en ecailles (lac in thin pieces).  

     Shellac as been used for over 3,000 years…for example, on valuable pieces of furniture and precious dowry items and as a paint or varnish.  In the 1920’s and 30’s, most records were made of shellac until the invention of vinyl in 1949.  It is used on fine violas and pianos as well.

    Lastly, since shellac is edible, it is used as a glaze on pills (Flintstone Vitamins) and sweets (Jelly Bellys). 

recalcitrant, calcaneus, recherche, redolent

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glennlouisfeole@gmail.com

recalcitrant (Latin calx heel) not responsive to treatment; obstinate, resistant 

    I like this word because of the etymology involving ‘heel’ - to kick back, dig one’s heels in.  The heel bone of the foot is the calcaneus. 

     Yesterday, I was reading Harold Bloom on Macbeth (among his favorite three Shakespeare plays) and he was saying that initially Macbeth is recalcitrant in pursuing the murder of King Duncan of Scotland so that he may assume the throne.  His wife, Lady Macbeth, however is eager for him to do this.  Yet, as the play progresses, there is a transposition as Macbeth more actively pursues his campaign of assassination and violence, just as Lady Macbeth’s recalcitrance increases to the point of being overwhelmed by a sense of guilt and remorse.   

recherche (French) \re sher shay’\  exquisite, exotic, refined; also…pretentious

redolent (Latin oler to smell)  exuding fragrance; evocative or suggestive

     The is the same root as olfaction (the sense of smell).  I had forgotten this word but, ironically, this is a very important concept to me.  Emitting fragrance and being emotionally evocative are one and the same for me.  Every few years I return to my alma mater and walk the rustic campus of Princeton with great anticipation and joy.  I silently reminisce (Shakespeare’s beautiful sonnet 30) on my past experiences there when I younger, so naive and hopeful, so eager to experience life.  

     At each venue, the ancient lecture halls, the entrance of Cuyler Hall, my first dormitory with its leaded windows, golden oaked walls and stone fireplace, I inhale the beautiful, evocative, redolent aroma of these physical objects and am transported almost ecstatically forty-five years into the past to times of new friendship, dating, athletics and sincere intellectual pursuit. 

rapprochement, rasorial, gallinaceous, raspberry, reap, strickle

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glennlouisfeole@gmail.com

rapprochement (French re + approcher  to approach) \ra prosh mah’\  to re-establish cordial relations

   

     It is nice to hear the delicate French etymology; to see how ‘approach’ is tucked away in this gentle and rarely apropos word.  

rasorial (Latin rasus scraper) \rah zor’ ee al\  habitually scraping the ground in search of food; i.e.rasorial birds.  

    The intriguing synonym is gallinaceous (Latin gallinus hen, gallus cock)  heavy bodied terrestrial birds (order Galiformes) such as turkeys, grouse, pheasants and fowl.  They are, of course, all rasorial…

raspberry a fun word to spell, at least, as it contains the word ‘rasp,’ perhaps because the small round ‘drupes’ look like a rasp or file.  

     But the main reason I have picked this word is because of the second definition: 'a sound of contempt' made by protruding the tongue between the lips…well, you know…

reap (Old English, a row) to cut with a sickle or scythe, i.e. you reap what you sow, Biblically speaking.  

     I don’t think many of us have reaped anything.  Actually, all of our days are spent reaping what we sow metaphorically and karmically speaking.  However, as to physical reaping, that is another story. I know that I haven’t, at least not intentionally.  

     Actually I take that back.  One of my sons bought a scythe last year to clear overgrown weeds and hay from an acre of rustic land that he had purchased.  I reaped that day…for about half an hour.  It was back breaking work that I soon abandoned, my body completely drenched.    I recall reading an article that correlated the wealth and cultural achievements of a society with the amount of oil and gas that they produced and used.  Now I understand this concept.  

     However, I haven’t whet a scythe before (the word strickle was mentioned previously: strickle: an instrument used to whet a scythe ). 

Rama, Krishna, George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord," rampike, Rankine, Madquorn

Rama (Sanskrit, to stand still, rejoice, be pleased)  Rama is one of the seven avatars (incarnations) of the Hindu God Vishnu.   Krishna is another such avatar.   Rama is one of the central figures in Hinduism and in India’s cultural traditions in general.  

     This word calls back to me the former Beatle George Harrison’s beautiful song “My Sweet Lord.”  

rampike (origin unknown)  an erect dead or broken tree. 

     Another word in that intriguing category, “origin unknown.”  (See introduction for a list in this category.)  To me, these desolate rampikes are as powerful as poetry in their stark, lonely pathos...

Rankine \ran’ kin\  a temperature scale named after a Scottish physicist, using Fahrenheit degrees but in which the freezing point of water is 491 degrees and the boiling point is 671 degrees.

  

    This is a new idea for me; shocking actually.  Different from the minimalist Celsius scale (with it's logical 0 and 100 degrees for freezing and boiling point) and the free-wheeling, American use of Fahrenheit (32 degrees for freezing).  Forget the classic SAT question of how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit.  How about converting to Rankine units?  

 

     William John Madquorn Rankine was a renowned physicist and engineer in Edinburgh specializing in thermodynamics.  More importantly, he was an avid amateur pianist, singer and cello player and played humorous songs.