October Word 5

Posted on by Dawnrigger

Today’s timed act of typing

October 5. Malady

There’s a problem with malady, and it’s that I have to process the word before I can write about the meaning of it, Words dance, now and then. I’m not diagnosed dyslexic, but…words don’t always behave well. Malady NEVER looks right. There’s something wrong about it. There’s some amusement value there, no? Malady suffers from a malady? Anyway, I’ve misspelled it three times.  But I don’t misspell “misspell.” Go figure. Nothing wrong with my spelling. And now I’ve nearly run out of time and I didn’t even get to complain about malady being a mealymouthed, fainthearted kind of a word for describing being sick…and now Im’ wondering about the origin of the word mealymouthed and I’ve run out of time.

October Word 4

Posted on by Dawnrigger

The month’s latest random act of typing (See the first post in the series for explanation)

October 4. Butcher

Here’s a bloody one, eh? Butcher. Slaughter. Carve, flense, cut, slice, render. A word for gore and guts and oddly affecting noises, slippery, salty, hunks and gobbets of flesh (and isn’t gobbets a great word all on its own?) Butchering is a cold, practical word for attending to the debris of a dead creature but somehow it’s also about making something dead too? Butchery is about taking something to pieces, clinically, to make use of all its parts, cataloging, putting each chunk and bone, cartilage and organ to use.It’s one of those interesting nouns that’s also a verb.  A butcher is one who butchers. The act defines the actor. If you butcher something, you are a butcher. But is that bad? I don’t know. Context matters, I think, as usual.

October Word 3

Posted on by Dawnrigger

The month’s latest random act of typing (See the first post in the series for explanation)

October 3. Fruitful

Ooo, ew. It’s all BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY! MAKE BABIES, WIMMINS. Okay, no. let’s not do that picture. Let’s see. Fruit. Full. Full of fruit. Like a farmstand. Or one of those centerpieces that only come out for Thanksgiving, the so-very-American embarrassment festival of consumption the not celebration so much as the shamelessness of overindulgence. Fruitful as too much fruit, as it were.  I suppose fruitfulness is also about increase and growth, having enough to resow from what’s been harvested from what’s sown, with a sense of nurture and effort, and passing along to the future. So…maybe not bad after all.

Stay tuned or tune out, there will be more.