word of the day: exordium

Miss Bianca, one of the mouse heroes of The Rescuers, is now Madame Chairwoman of The Prisoners’ Aid Society. From this position Miss Bianca is proposing a prisoner to rescue. Usually the mission of the Prisoners’ Aid Society is to comfort the forlorn incarcerated, but in this case it’s a child and Miss Bianca believes the mice can effect a real escape. 

‘The child’s name,’ [Miss Bianca] proceeded, ‘is Patience. A pretty one, is it not? — reminding us also of that virtue which I’m sure every mother present, especially those with bold sons, needs to employ twenty times a day! Patience has no mother, however, nor father, nor indeed any relative in the world; and she is only eight years old.’

This touching exordium was not without effect. All mice have such large families themselves, and are so used to counting aunts and uncles by the score, and first cousins by the hundred, they can imagine nothing worse than having no relations at all.

definition (Merriam-Webster): a beginning or introduction especially to a discourse or composition

Margery Sharp is obviously not working with a restricted vocabulary. Though the writing can be cozy and a bit cute, Sharp never dumbs down for her young readers. I read some of the Rescuers series as a kid. I didn’t know “exordium” then, any more than I know it now. But I wasn’t one to pull out the dictionary for every unfamiliar word. Typically I got enough from context to keep going. After all, there was a story to keep up with. In the quoted passage “exordium” could have been a blank, i.e., “This touching _____ was not without effect,” yet the reader could figure out roughly what the missing word means. 

This touching speech was not without effect. This touching series of words … This touching description … 

This experience of the interchangeability of words may be a reason I don’t think one should get too anxious about whether one has found the perfect word. There are many ways to say a thing. 

source:

Miss Bianca

by Margery Sharp

1962. Little, Brown, & Co., Boston MA