Sailors of the Secret Ark

Marie-Madeleine Fourcade is recruiting anti-Nazi compatriots for a spy network to feed information to the English after the Germans invaded France. One of Fourcade’s lieutenants encourages a prospect by “describ[ing] her in glowing terms, saying she had ‘the memory of an elephant, the cleverness of a fox, the guile of a serpent, the perseverance of a mole, and the fierceness of a panther.’”

That’s quite a package. Perhaps it influenced Fourcade’s decision to assign animal code names to everyone in The Alliance. Or it was the other way around? 

In any case another name was given to the spy network when the Germans captured and interrogated one of its members. The prisoner does not or is unable to reveal the real names of the leaders, only offering up “Aigle (Eagle) and Herisson (Hedgehog).” (Marie-Madeleine Fourcade was Hedgehog. A man was Eagle. That may seem sexist, but Fourcade had starry eyes for Eagle, I think.) How many more animal names did they get out of their prisoners before “the Germans began referring to the group as Noah’s Ark”?

Noah’s Ark — an ironic appellation? The animals on the ark were being saved from a disaster overtaking the entire world. If there were a Noah in this metaphor he wasn’t Adolph Hitler.

source:

Madame Fourcade’s Secret War: the daring young woman who led France’s largest spy network against Hitler

by Lynne Olson

2019. Random House, New York

word of the day: autochthonous

word: autochthonous 

context: 

“as long as the States continue to absorb and be dominated by the poetry of the Old World, and remain unsupplied with autochthonous song, to express, vitalize and give color to and define their material and political success, and minister to them distinctively, so long will they stop short of first-class Nationality and remain defective.”

definition (Merriam-Webster):

 

1: INDIGENOUS, NATIVE

an autochthonous people

autochthonous plants

2: formed or originating in the place where found

autochthonous rock

an autochthonous infection

*

You really need to know the meaning of today’s word in order to understand Walt Whitman’s assertion. The context is enough to figure it out, but it is helpful to have a dictionary pin it down. Merriam-Webster gives the etymology too:

auto-, meaning "self," and chthōn, meaning "earth."

That’s from the Greek. The first use of autochthonous appears here: “English literary critic William Taylor [wrote] in 1805: ‘The English have this great predilection for autochthonous bread and butter’ (rather than French bread, one might safely presume).”

There's more autochthonous song in America than in Whitman's time. But are Americans less "defective"? It's nice to think so. 

source:

The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of Walt Whitman

edited by James E. Miller Jr

1959. Riverside Editions / Houghton Mifflin, Boston

word of the day: supererogation

word: supererogation

In his search for the source of Walt Whitman’s oracular verse Gary Schmidgall believes he has found in it opera. Whitman was a big opera queen! Schmidgall makes a good case — it’s certainly fun to read. The opera singer who had the greatest impact was an Italian named Marietta Alboni. Schmidgall quotes Whitman rhapsodizing over Alboni many times, even decades after her year in America. But Schmidgall also provides plenty of contemporary critical praise by other authors, from the dignified — “power, strength, and volume” — to the sensuous — “bubbling, gurgling, gushing” — to this bon mot combining the audience’s experience of the pre-air-conditioned summer theater of New York and the joyous reaction to the diva, “Men dissolved in rapture and perspiration simultaneously.”

Context for today’s word:

“‘The fame of this great artist is so thoroughly established in this City, and her performances so equal in their perfection,’ wrote Curtis in the Tribune, ‘that criticism has become almost a work of supererogation.’”

definition (Merriam-Webster): the act of performing more than is required by duty, obligation, or need

source: 

Walt Whitman: a gay life

by Gary Schmidgall

1997. A William Abrahams Book, Dutton/Penguin Putnam, New York

“the perimesencephalic cistern is effaced”

After Joan Didion’s husband died suddenly, she gave permission for an autopsy.  What she quotes in her memoir is a paragraph of medical jargon, much of which I don’t know. It seems the man died of a massive stroke. As I read the autopsy, I appreciate the words without knowing their definitions. 

“There is moderate to marked midbrain compression and the perimesencephalic cistern is effaced.”

The last four words of that especially.

“A thin posterior falcine and left tentorial subdural hematomas are noted. A small parenchymal bleed, likely contusional, is noted in the right inferolateral frontal lobe. The cerebellar tonsils are at the level of the foramen magnum.”

I don’t know whether you want your cerebellar tonsils to be at the level of your foramen magnum, but if it were generally to be esteemed, it would probably not be noted in an autopsy. 

I don’t know how many of these words I am mispronouncing, but I enjoy rolling them around in my mouth and trying out different emphases. 

Years ago I wrote a series of poems using words for their sounds rather than their meanings. Since the English writing system is variably phonetic, I used existing words rather than inventing any. I wanted readers to know how to pronounce them. When finished I flipped open a dictionary at random looking for a word I did not know but liked the look of. I would use it as a title. You can’t group together words without their having meaning, as words are meaning objects and they gain more meanings depending on their company. Thus the poems I’d written by ear could be seen to have meaning, meaning imputed to them. After I used the unknown words I often learned their meanings so the titles would suggest more readings for the poems. 

source:

The Year of Magical Thinking

by Joan Didion

2005. Vintage / Penguin Random House, New York

clothes Arabs wear

I'm reading Zeyn Joukhadar's essay about singing opera and she describes a staging of Rossini’s Aureliano in Palmira. When she gets to the costumes I run up against vocabulary unfamiliar to me:

“Fagioli wears a thobe with an agal and white ghutra; Aleida dons a white abaya with gold embroidery and bell sleeves.”

Thawb or thobe (Arabic: ثَوْب lit. 'dress' or 'garment') is an Arab dress for the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula, also called dishdashah, and kandurah, kandoora or gandurah in varieties of Arabic. A long-sleeved ankle-length traditional robe, it is mainly worn by men in the Arabian Peninsula, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, North Africa, and some countries in East and West Africa, with regional variations in name and style.

An agal (Arabic: عِقَال; also spelled iqal, egal, or igal) is an Arab men's clothing accessory. It is a black cord, worn doubled, used to keep a ghutrah (or keffiyeh) in place on the wearer's head.^[1] It is traditionally made of goat hair.^[2]

The ghutrah (غُترَة), keffiyeh or kufiyyeh (Arabic: كُوفِيَّة, romanized: kūfiyyah, lit. 'coif'),^[1] also known in Arabic as a shemagh (شُمَاغ šumāġ), or ḥaṭṭah (حَطَّة), is a traditional headdress worn by men from parts of the Middle East. It is fashioned from a square scarf, and is usually made of cotton.^[2] The keffiyeh is commonly found in arid regions, as it provides protection from sunburn, dust, and sand. An agal is often used by Arabs to keep it in place.

The abaya (colloquially and more commonly, Arabic: عباية ʿabāyah, especially in Literary Arabic: عباءة ʿabā'ah; plural عبايات ʿabāyāt, عباءات ʿabā'āt), sometimes also called an aba, is a simple, loose over-garment, essentially a robe-like dress, worn by some women in the Muslim world including most of the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of the Horn of Africa.^[1] Traditional abayas are usually black and may either be a large square of fabric draped from the shoulders or head or a long kaftan. The abaya covers the whole body except the head (sometimes), feet, and hands.

OK. I’ve seen these garments in pictures and movies, but I never knew their specific names. Each seems to have more than one name, in fact. 

All the definitions are from Wikipedia, and there are pictures at the links. 

source:

“Catching the Light: reclaiming opera as a trans Arab” by Zeyn Joukhadar

This Arab Is Queer: an anthology by LGBTQ+ Arab writers

edited by Elias Jahshan

2022. Saqi Books, London UK

Wherefore art thou Rosenberg?

The idea that many people coming in from Europe in the early 20th century changed their names at Ellis Island -- or had their names changed for them by immigration — is a persistent one. Immigrants’ names were supposedly switched out for names that could be more easily spelled by Americans or that obscured their ethnicity (or Jewishness). 

Yet there is counter evidence, says Sara Lipton. "A fine scholarly book [A Rosenberg by Any Other Name: a history of Jewish name changing in America by Kirsten Fermaglich] … definitively proved that no names were changed at Ellis; they were changed by legal petition [by the immigrants themselves] between 1920 and 1960.” Nevertheless, Lipton also notes, “many [contemporary Jews] indignantly insist[] that their own family names were indeed changed at Ellis Island.”

“My own father openly told his children that he changed his name because of anti-Semitism,” says Lipton, clearly skeptical of those claiming the changes were imposed. “I doubt he was alone in being so forthright.” Those who changed names, then, wanted to be less a target for the haters. But wouldn’t it be particularly humiliating to change your name for this reason? Where’s your pride in your heritage? Would it make a difference if you felt little connection to the name you were leaving behind? That would make abandoning it easier, wouldn’t it?

“[I]t is worth noting that the names Jews surrendered … were of relatively recent origin. Eastern and Central European Jews only assumed surnames in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when Austrian, Prussian, and Russian laws required them to do so. … [N]ames like Rosenberg, Greenberg, and Lefkowitz were surely not essential links to [honored forefathers]. Isn’t it possible that Jews fleeing persecution and pogroms might have felt little attachment to names imposed by the very governments that had persecuted them, derived from towns and landscapes from which they fled? That they might bear the name Rose no less proudly than Rosenberg?”

By the way, in reference to the Shakespeare-derived title of this post, “wherefore” doesn’t mean “where” but rather “why.” Thus the title post could be rewritten, “Why are you called Rosenberg?”

source: 

“The Jewish Authenticity Trap” by Sara Lipton

The New York Review of Books, November 24, 2022, v.LXIX n.18

word of the day: swink

word of the day: swink

context:

Swink how we may, evenings or early morn, 

Our garden crops bring only a bare return.

— lines from a poem by Fan Ch’eng-ta, translated by Gerald Bullett

definition (Collins): labor; toil

While one unfamiliar with the word can figure out a working definition from the context, I do wonder about translators who use such unfamiliar terms in the destination language. 

source:

Anthology of Chinese Literature: from early times to the fourteenth century

edited by Cyril Birch

1965. Grove Press, New York

word of the day: floccinaucinihilipilification

word of the day: floccinaucinihilipilification

context: 

Ferdinand and Isabela [ruled that Columbus] could not be allowed to retain the monopoly of transatlantic navigation. Apparently, though not explicitly in any surviving document, they decided that he had broken his contract by failing to deliver his promises. They added a dextrous piece of floccinaucinihilipilification. Columbus had forfeited his right of monopoly on the coast discovered on his third voyage because ill health had prevented him from landing and taking possession in person.

definition (Cambridge Dictionary): the act of considering something to be not at all important or useful. It's an 18th-century coinage that combines four Latin prefixes meaning "nothing."

While it’s a fun word — one I’ve never seen used before — I don’t quite see how its meaning is appropriate in the context of the quote. It seems to me the Spanish crown decided Columbus failed to do something important. Presumably the crown was looking for an excuse to undo Columbus’ rights-by-discovery, and they found one. Perhaps it is Felipe Fernandez-Armesto  (the author I’m quoting) who considers the technicality to be elevated from its prior floccinaucinihilipilification. 

source: Amerigo: the man who gave his name to America

by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

2007. Random House, New York

Think how?

Alexander Chee took a writing class at Wesleyan from Annie Dillard. In an essay describing his experience Chee lays out a lot of Dillard’s precepts on how to write well. 

In this passage Dillard is pushing her students to go back over their writing with one particular feature in mind:

Have you used the right verbs? Is that the precise verb for that precise thing? Remember that adverbs are a sign that you’ve used the wrong verb. Verbs control when something is happening in the mind of the reader. Think carefully.

Wait. What just happened? 

The last two words in the original text are a bit hidden. The whole written out goes: “Think carefully — when did this happen in relation to that? And is that how you’ve described it?”

You’d think, if the adverb was meant as a joke, it would stand on its own, not be tidied behind two concluding questions. But, hey, I laughed.

source:

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: essays

by Alexander Chee

2018. Mariner Books / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York

word of the day: fonds

word of the day: fonds

context: 

“We cannot save the whole world, so we save that part of it we assess as essential. The process of appraisal usually encompasses multiple fonds or subfonds, so we are always creating a collection of records, even if that collection consists of records from the same central fonds. In a manuscripts environment, this is even more so the case, yet the collection we create out of various manuscript collections functions best when the records have conceptual connections between them.”

definition (Dictionary of Archives Terminology): the entire body of records of an organization, family, or individual that have been created and accumulated as the result of an organic process reflecting the functions of the creator

I knew Geof Huth as a poet, but he is also a professional archivist for New York City courts. Having now read The Anarchivist, Huth’s essays on archival theory, I have a better idea of what he does in his day job. Archives are storage facilities for records, but archivists like Huth want their mess of data to be useful, so they do their best to clean them up and keep them organized so researchers, writers, journalists aren’t just faced with dusty boxes and catawampus piles and mouse-chewed bundles. 

This was the first time I encountered an archivist term of art: fonds. When seeking a definition you have to make sure you include the “s” at the end, otherwise you wander down trails wholly unrelated. An archivist could be fond of his fonds, I suppose, but fondness and fondsness do not seem to be related. 

One of the examples given for a fonds at Wikipedia: “the writings of a poet that were never published”

I have serious fonds, it seems. 

source:

The Anarchivist: history, memory, and archives

by Geof Huth 

2020. AC Books, New York

word of the day: meed

word of the day: meed

This passage in Hawthorne’s Blithedale Romance has narrator Miles Coverdale congratulating himself on his skills as an observer, a passionate, yet disinterested observer. 

context: “Of all possible observers, methought a woman like Zenobia and a man like Hollingsworth should have selected me. And, now, when the event has long been past, I retain the same opinion of my fitness for the office. True, I might have condemned them. Had I been judge, as well as witness, my sentence might have been stern as that of destiny itself. But, still, no trait of original nobility of character, no struggle against temptation, — no iron necessity of will, on the one hand, nor extenuating circumstance to be derived from passion and despair, on the other, — no remorse that might coexist with error, even if powerless to prevent it, — no proud repentance that should claim retribution as a meed, — would go unappreciated. True, again, I might give my full assent to the punishment which was sure to follow. But it would be given mournfully , and with undiminished love. And, after all was finished, I would come, as if to gather up the white ashes of those who had perished at the stake, and to tell the world — the wrong being now atoned for — how much had perished there which it had never yet known how to praise.”

definition (Collins): a merited recompense or reward

Quite a performance, that passage. Perhaps, in a sense, it is an apology. I did your story justice, he seems to be telling his protagonists, even if you didn’t come out looking very good. 

source: 

The Blithedale Romance

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

1852. 1960, Dell Publishing, New York

word of the day: sillabub

word of the day: sillabub

Miles Coverdale, the poet narrator of Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance, has moved away from Blithedale, a utopian rural community of which Coverdale was a founder. He was only taking a break, he thought, to check out civilization again. Once back in town, though, he feels more in tune with it than he ever was with the farm. 

context: “I had never before experienced a mood that so robbed the actual world of its solidity. It nevertheless involved a charm, on which — a devoted epicure of my own emotion — I resolved to pause, and enjoy the moral sillabub until quite dissolved away. Whatever had been my taste for solitude and natural scenery, yet the thick, foggy, stifled element of cities, the entangled life of many men together, sordid as it was, and empty of the beautiful, took quite as strenuous a hold upon my mind. I felt as if there could never be enough of it.”

definition (dictionary.com): 1. a drink of milk or cream sweetened, flavored, and mixed with wine or cider. 2. a dessert of beaten cream that is thickened with gelatin, sweetened, and flavored with wine or liquor. [also spelled syllabub]

source: 

The Blithedale Romance

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

1852. 1960, Dell Publishing, New York