rapprochement, rasorial, gallinaceous, raspberry, reap, strickle

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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 ).