of words and men
The menfolk arose early this morning, yanking up stiff jeans, tucking, belting and sniffing loudly. They are off to make a living while we girls are left behind in our drowsy beds, agog with sugar-plum thoughts.
I arose before the mist was off the morning, but not early enough to entirely greet the murky sun. I drank searing coffee from a holiday mug and ate two unfrosted sugar cookies. I read the liner notes of a borrowed CD: A Child's Christmas in Wales (read by Dylan Thomas). I listened to it with a printed copy and yellow highlighter in hand, in order to mark my favorite parts. The paper was soggy and shot through with yellow ink by the time Mr. Thomas wrapped things up.
I admire his strident disregard for sticking to dictionaried words, and with that in mind, I threw one in this very sentence. If "word-smithing" is a profession like wheel-smithing or cobbling, then sign me up for an apprenticeship. In order to learn to cook from Great Aunt Elsie, one can't be stymied by the indefinable, such as "smidgen" or "handful" or "schlump" (the latter being a family-word which means one wet gulp, and it is actually written in her donut recipe). If to smith means to form by heating or pounding, then sweat of the brow and frustration at the keyboard is truly in order. Who knows how easy it was for writers like Thomas to slap-dash his talent onto the ivory page? He probably took a pinch of this and a schlump of that and called it a day. We call it masterpiece.
This fine Christmas-y morn, I am inspired by the indefinable gift of Dylan Thomas. He was a no-account alcoholic that died ignobly at the hand of his own undoing. He was a scoundrel and not to be trusted, for sure. But he was a wordsmith of the highest and most admiringest kind, and I'm not one to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I arose before the mist was off the morning, but not early enough to entirely greet the murky sun. I drank searing coffee from a holiday mug and ate two unfrosted sugar cookies. I read the liner notes of a borrowed CD: A Child's Christmas in Wales (read by Dylan Thomas). I listened to it with a printed copy and yellow highlighter in hand, in order to mark my favorite parts. The paper was soggy and shot through with yellow ink by the time Mr. Thomas wrapped things up.
I admire his strident disregard for sticking to dictionaried words, and with that in mind, I threw one in this very sentence. If "word-smithing" is a profession like wheel-smithing or cobbling, then sign me up for an apprenticeship. In order to learn to cook from Great Aunt Elsie, one can't be stymied by the indefinable, such as "smidgen" or "handful" or "schlump" (the latter being a family-word which means one wet gulp, and it is actually written in her donut recipe). If to smith means to form by heating or pounding, then sweat of the brow and frustration at the keyboard is truly in order. Who knows how easy it was for writers like Thomas to slap-dash his talent onto the ivory page? He probably took a pinch of this and a schlump of that and called it a day. We call it masterpiece.
This fine Christmas-y morn, I am inspired by the indefinable gift of Dylan Thomas. He was a no-account alcoholic that died ignobly at the hand of his own undoing. He was a scoundrel and not to be trusted, for sure. But he was a wordsmith of the highest and most admiringest kind, and I'm not one to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
posted by thisrequiresthought at 9:31 AM
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