Carnivores eat meat. Herbivores consume plants. Verbivores devour words. I am such a creature. My whole life I have feasted on words — ogled their appetizing shapes, colors, and textures; swished them around in my mouth; lingered over their many tastes; and felt their juices run down my chin. During my adventures as a fly-by-the-roof-of-the-mouth -friendly wizard of idiom, I have met thousands of other wordaholics, logolepts, and verbivores — folks who also eat their words.
What is there about words that makes a language person love them so? The answers are probably as varied as the number of verbivores themselves. There are as many reasons to love words as there are people who love them. How do we love thee, language? Let us count the ways.
Some word people of etymological persuasion are intrigued by the birth and life of words and phrases. They love the fact that when a candidate for office went to the Forum in ancient Roman times, he wore a bleached white toga to symbolize his humility, purity of motive, and candor. The original Latin root, “candidatus”, meant “one who wears white,” from the belief that white was the color of purity and probity. The Latin verb “candere” “to shine, to glow,” parents the English words “candid,” “candor,” “candle,” and “incandescent.”
While many fabrics and garments are colored or printed after they are woven, wool is sometimes dyed before it is ever woven or made into cloth. The color of that wool is through-and-through and impossible to remove completely. So when we say someone is a “dyed-in-the-wool” conservative, liberal, environmentalist, animal-rights er, Padres fan, etc., we mean that their beliefs are steadfast and permanent.
Still another denomination of verbivores, logologists see words as collections of letters to be juggled, shuffled, and flipped. Pattern seekers like me fantasize about a biologist who maintains raccoon habitats: “a raccoon nook keeper” — six consecutive sets of double letters. They also dream of another biologist who studies the liquid inside chickadee eggs. They call this scientist a “chickadee egg goo-ologist” — and into the world are born three consecutive clusters of triple letters!
Then there are the grammarians, who enjoy trying to transmute the briar patch of pronoun cases, subject-verb agreement, sequence of tenses, and the indicative and subjunctive moods into a manageable garden of delight. Such devotees of correct usage often explore the nuances of confusing word pairs — “lay” vs. “lie” (“lay” means ”to put”; “lie” means “to repose”), and“podium” vs. “lectern” (you stand on a podium; you stand behind a lectern).
Other wordaholics experience the joy of lex by prowling the lunatic fringes of language. These recreational word players ponder why we drive in a parkway and park in a driveway and our nose can run and our feet can smell.
Finally, there are the legions of pundits, punheads, and pun pals who tell of the Buddhist who said to the hot dog vendor, “Make me one with everything.” That same Buddhist never took Novocain when he had his teeth drilled because he wished to transcend dental medication. These pun-up girls and pun gents become even bigger hot dogs when they tell about Charlemagne, who mustered his Franks and set out with great relish to assault and pepper the Saracens, but he couldn’t catch up. (Frankly, I never sausage a pun. It’s the wurst!)
I am heels over head in love with language. When I say “heels over head,” rather than “head over heels,” I am not two letters short of a complete alphabet or a syllable short of a coherent statement. “Head over heels” is the normal position. It’s the way we do everything. I don’t know about you, but when I flip over something, my heels are over my head.
When I say “language,” I mean by and large that glorious, uproarious, notorious, victorious, outrageous, courageous, contagious, stupendous, tremendous, end-over-endous adventure we call the English language. That’s because in matters verbal, I am unabashedly lexist. Just as many would say the Italians do food well and the French do style and fashion well, I believe we English speakers and writers do language well. One might say we do it lexicellently.
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On Thursday, Dec. 12, starting at 10 a.m., at Rancho Bernardo Oasis, and on Monday, Dec. 16, starting at 1:30 p.m., at Remington I in Rancho Bernardo, I’ll be presenting my Christmas humor show.On Saturday, Dec. 14, starting at 11 a.m., at the Coronado Public Library, I’ll be performing “A Feast of Words.”
Please send your questions and comments about language to [email protected] website: verbivore.com
