Ks Are Wild

Such an ugly word for the beauty it can describe; especially the beauty that can be seen on a daily basis around Corvallis and the Willamette Valley in general.

bucolic

Translations: Etymology: From bucolicusLatin, bÅcolicus < Ancient Greek (polytonic, ) (boukolikos) “rustic, pastoral; meter used by pastoral poets” < (polytonic, ) (boukolos) “cowherd” < (polytonic, á) (bous) “cow” + (polytonic, -) (-colos) “keeper, tender” + (polytonic, -) (-icos) “-ic”.

PASTORAL

Main Entry:

¹pas·to·ral

Pronunciation:

\ˈpas-t(ə-)rəl\

Function:

adjective

Etymology:

Middle English, from Latin pastoralis, from pastor herdsman

Date:

15th century

1 a (1): of, relating to, or composed of shepherds or herdsmen (2): devoted to or based on livestock raising b: of or relating to the countryside : not urban <a pastoral setting> c: portraying or expressive of the life of shepherds or country people especially in an idealized and conventionalized manner <pastoral poetry> d: pleasingly peaceful and innocent : idyllic2 a: of or relating to spiritual care or guidance especially of a congregation b: of or relating to the pastor of a church

— pas·to·ral·ly \-t(ə-)rə-lē\ adverb

— pas·to·ral·ness noun

agrestic, Arcadian, bucolic, country, georgic (literary) idyllic, rural, rustic, simple

Every day that I drive to and from Kosette’s environmental, place-based school in Corvallis, I practically have pinch to remind myself that I am indeed awake and not dreaming.  It is just gorgeous in Oregon and my area of the Willamette Valley.  No matter how rushed or grumpy I might be, I ALWAYS thank my lucky stars to be living in such a beautiful place.  But my daily commute forces a gradual wake-up, almost meditative, so that I’m centered and focused by the time I reach my destination.  I imagine that this was exactly was some Asian companies had in mind here in America when they purposefully designed their parking lots a great distance from their office buildings to force their employees to walk more.  And in so doing, they stroll through lovely landscaping and gradually their minds release their home problems and transition into their work personas.  I don’t remember where I heard or read that exactly, but it made an impression on me enough to retain it to use in my blog at least a decade later.  I think they really have something there.  The time of my commute and the pleasant smells (save for my tooting son in the backseat) of grass, rain, and coffee, and the lovely pastoral scenes through which I drive recalls imagery from bucolic imagery from Jane Austen films.  We’re about to enter into that electric green time of year when all the young, tender grass shoots (remember, this is the grass seed capitol of the nation, therefore, there is a ton round these here parts) go from looking like bad green hair plugs to a lush carpet.  I find myself listing synonyms and making up analogies to describe the multitude of different greens you can see here all the time.  It’s as if “green” would be Corvallisonians equivalent for our moss and leaves and grass to Alaskan’s 100 words describing snow.  By the way, that’s an urban legend.  I looked it up.  I love how NPR has a commitment to – dang – how did they put it – our “verdant” world?.  But here are some other words for the color: vert, verdant, viridian.  V words are the best.  Well L words are really good too; like Lascivious.  But these  are cool synonyms for green when using it in the young/new/blooming adjective sense: bosky, budding, burgeoning, callow, developing, flourishing, foliate, fresh, grassy, growing, half-formed, immature, infant, juvenile, leafy, lush, maturing, pliable, puerile, pullulating, raw, recent, sprouting, supple, tender, undecayed, undried, unfledged, ungrown, unripe, unseasoned, verdant, verduous, youthful

Just writing it makes me shake my head at my traffic ridden, frenzied, hurry-up-and-wait, smog-laden, gamble of should we take the freeway or go surface streets?, grumpy, surliness that was my morning commute in LA.  10 miles or so that would take at least 20 minutes.  (Everything’s 20 mins. away when you live in the valle, even if you’re just 5-10 miles away.)  Oy, it gives me a headache just thinking about it.  Thank the stars, I live here now.  My lucky stars.

Best Fracking Easter Egg Dye Job Ever award goes to Kham!

The Kids had fun too.

We have one disc left of Season 3 of Battlestar Gallactica.  After this, I think there’s an offshoot disc called Razor, then Season 4, and then the final 5th season (which just ended the series a few weeks ago).  We’ve been watching them pretty obsessively, watching at least one a night.  Kham and I make plot predictions all the time, and I love that we’re wrong a lot.  It’s not the typical American canned formulaic series.

Kellen sees the picture on the disc face in the machine and is dying to watch it with us.  Of course, we’re not letting him.  However, Kham has shown them the old Cylon machines in YouTube clips.  Our obsession has trickled down to our kids now as they are playacting running and hiding from the Cylons.

Kellen, I’ve noticed, is becoming more imaginative in his play.  Thank God.  Because that’s been pretty much Kosette’s sole territory thus far.  I was beginning to think he was so engineering minded that he was completely devoid of a creative play side to his nature.  But HE’S the one who started that and dive bombed behind the couch.  He also saw Kham take something out of the oven with my green oven mitt and said that he looked like a Sleestak (lizard men from Land of the Lost).  As you can see below, he was spot on with that observation:

The last episode on Disc 5 of Season 3 Battlestar Gallactica was entitled “Maelstrom”.  I thought it meant turbulent storm at sea but I wasn’t positive, plus I wondered as to the origin of the word, because you just know it isn’t English.  Turns out it’s Dutch.  I thought it a fitting title for the episode because the Battlestar “ship” goes through some times of figurative upheaval.  But after researching it, I appreciated the preciseness of the title for the episode’s goings ons – both figuratively and literally.

Somebody else was curious as to the entymology too, Charles Hodgeson.  I’ll make the most pertinent parts BOLD.  He wrote:

“I checked the New York Times to see how people were using the word “maelstrom.”

To be honest I needed to check the spelling first.

• There was a story on the war in Iraq and the maelstrom in Bagdad;
• another about a family crises maelstrom; and
• one on a maelstrom in public education.

These match with one of the definitions given in the New Oxford American Dictionary that says the word has a figurative sense of a scene or state of confused and violent movement or upheaval.  According to Urbandictionary maelstrom is also a Kickass band and according to Wikipedia it’s more than one role playing game as well as several pieces of music.

But the root of the word, as hinted by the spelling, isn’t English, it seems to be Dutch.

And in fact there is a place, not in Holland, where this word—if not comes from—at least is associated with.  On the coast of Norway there is an island called “Moskenisoy” and nearby the combination of submarine rock formations and tidal currents set up a whirlpool that gurgles and sucks in a rather frightening manner if you happen to be in a boat nearby.   To sailors 500 years ago it was frightening enough that rumour got around.

Here is what seems to be the first quote in English:

There is between the said Rost Islands, and Lofoote, a whirle poole, called Malestrand, which..maketh such a terrible noise, that it shaketh the rings in the doores of the inhabitants houses of the said Islands, ten miles of

The story went that this whirlpool could suck any ship down and grind it to splinters.

The Dutch root words for maelstrom are maalen meaning to grind and whirl—which is also related to our word “meal” as in “corn meal”; and stroom  which is a stream or current.

The New Oxford American Dictionary says the word denotes a mythical whirlpool, but I’m thinking that by mythical here they mean it doesn’t really rattle the doorknobs ten miles away or grind all ships to matchsticks.”

(SPOILER ALERT: Cara Thrace goes down a stormy whirlpool in space, after dreaming about the symbol and doodling it throughout her life.)

This, and other words were researched by him and published at this site, along with free podcasts available for download.  http://podictionary.com/?p=238

Putter….Tootle…I enjoy these words.  They are fun to say and effectively convey the inconsequentiality of your activities.

I frequently “putter around the house or garden.”   And today I watched Kellen “tootle” around the cul-de-sac on his bike.  At this rate he’ll have his training wheels off long before Kosette.

I was curious about these odd words and thought I’d look up their etymology.  Here’s one website I use to research such things in case you get the hankering to look up stuff yourself:  http://www.etymonline.com/

Putter:

As in to “”keep busy in a rather useless way,”  is an 1877 alteration of potter.

POTTER used in the sense of to “occupy oneself in a trifling way” is first recorded in 1740.

Tootle:

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Origin: 1810–20; toot ¹ + -le

Related forms: tootler, noun