Something Happened

No, this is not about the Joseph Heller novel. Although I did read it once upon a time, I don't remember anything about it. Which, in and of itself, is my review of it.

This is about yesterday. Yesterday was a Thursday which I believe is the worst day of the week. But something good happened which proves the vagaries of life. I used aplomb in a sentence for the first time ever.

Now that may not seem like much of anything special to you. And maybe it just doesn't take much for me to have a good Thursday. But it was exciting for me.

Everyone has multiple vocabularies. We have our reading vocabularies, writing vocabularies, speaking vocabularies, and subsets like work vocabularies and children's vocabularies. Yesterday's use of aplomb was exciting as I took it from my reading vocabulary, added it to my writing vocabulary, and then added it my speaking vocabulary. Kind of a triple play.

Now that may not still seem like much of anything special to you. But you need to know that I am a poor speller, poorest of the poor. Yesterday as I'm writing I snatch aplomb (It's meaning) out of my reading vocabulary deck and try to slam it down into my writing list. I couldn't spell it. In place of the pl I kept trying a b. It wasn't in my speaking vocabulary so I wasn't pronouncing it out correctly. I probably spent a half hour searching out that correct spelling before putting aplomb on hold and moving on with the story.

Last night I was talking with my middle daughter, who can spell, and asked her how to spell the word. Well, as I wasn't pronouncing it correctly, she couldn't spell it correctly. But that conversation put me back in the hunt.

I skimmed through synonyms looking for it. Words like witty, pithy, reassured, and smooth. Finally I looked at savoir-faire which led me to poised and then, eureka, aplomb.

All told I spent at least an hour actively chasing that word. And when I wasn't chasing it I was thinking about chasing it.

So I learned two things yesterday: how to spell aplomb and that I liked http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ the best of all the online dictionaries.

George W. Parker

The Pipe

“Read The Pipe.”

I don't remember what I was doing the other day (not uncommon) but “Read The Pipe.” was my response to it.

The Pipe is Chapter XXX from Herman Melville's Moby Dick. It took me a few days to get around to pulling out my copy of Moby Dick and re-reading that section. But the need to do so was never out of my mind that entire time.

I was surprised to find it located in the first quarter of the book as I think of the last quarter as holding all the best parts of the story. It is a short section of about 275 words. I'll quote part of it here to help pad out my word count.

“Some moments passed, during which the thick vapor came from his mouth in quick and constant puffs, which blew back again into his face. "How now," he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube, "this smoking no longer soothes. Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with me if thy charm be gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring- aye, and ignorantly smoking to windward all the while; to windward, and with such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale, my final jets were the strongest and fullest of trouble. What business have I with this pipe? This thing that is meant for sereneness, to send up mild white vapors among mild white hairs, not among torn iron-grey locks like mine. I'll smoke no more-"

He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in the waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced the planks.”

Ahab had sought and received solace from his pipe for probably his entire life. Now he discovered it had merely become a habit, not a movement of his own volition. Only conscience Ahab decides what Ahab does. He does not admit to or submit to any other orders.

I doubt that anything as powerful as that was going through my mind when the need to re-read The Pipe jumped into my head. If anything I was probably wishing I had something to smoke. But I did find it interesting that the need didn't go away until the deed was done.

George W. Parker