Flatteredific

One woman's accusation is another man's flattery. Yes, I stood accused yesterday. And make no mistake about it, the disdainful tone of voice, the arms akimbo, the fists clenched squarely on the hips, even the eyebrow action all spelled nothing but a-c-c-u-s-a-t-i-o-n when she said, "You've read the dictionary, haven't you?" "Well," I mumbled in true humility (the humility of one not caught in nefariousness--that would be humiliation--but one who feels flattered but knows he's not perfect, that he could feel flattereder), "I skipped around a bit."

This all stemmed from being disappointed that a so-called baseball dictionary didn't include the wonderful word "donnybrook" (a free-for-all or brawl). There was doubt written all over her from the get go about the currency/legitimacy/existence of the word, so when I resorted to hauling out a "standard" dictionary to prove my point, I was greeted with "hunh"--not the genuinely intrigued, well-now-I-just-learned-something-I-hadn't-hitherto-known-before hunhs, but a more exasperated, fine-I'll-let-you-have-this-one-but-that-doesn't-mean-you're-still-not-quite-the-pill-in-my-book hunh. Which all led to me erupting a few minutes later with, "You want a really good word? A word most people have never heard of, let alone use?" (Of course these questions were rhetorical, as if anyone would answer them in the negative, so I didn't wait for her to reply). "'Hoyden'--a high-spirited, boisterous, or saucy woman." "What the--" was her rather, well, hoydenish (and only then did I realize the appropriateness of gifting this, yes, rather boisterous woman with such a splendid word) retort. The look she gave me screamed you're a huckster (which, incidentally is right across the page from hoyden in my dictionary), but her look changed soon enough when I whipped out the dictionary again and showed her "hoyden" in all its obscure but legitimate glory. That's when the downright accusation/flattery took place. Guilty/accepted.

Case in point (or maybe just a self-serving diversion to make this long post even longer): The other day I felt the urge to look up the word "torpor." Yes I already knew the word means "a state of inactivity or insensibility; lethargy, apathy," but the stickler in me (a close acquaintance who goes by the name of Leonard) wanted to be sure (okay, I'm borderline nuts, as if anyone could pronounce it any other way) of the word's correct pronunciation (let me make this clear right now, although those r's made me a tad skittish and I wanted to be sure, I am NOT one of those pronunciation commandos who go around pedantically correcting people's mispronunciations of words ["the word is pronounced zo-ology, not zoo-ology, unless, of course, you live in a zoo!" he said rather nabobily], although I still get a kick, years later, out of the for-all-intents-and-purposes-quite-learned person who in public once pronounced the exquisite word "gibberish" as gib-ber-ish rather than jib-ber-ish [though maybe that was the person's point--gibberish to the nth degree is not just jib-ber-ish but downright gib-ber-ish]; and oh, why not, we're already quagmired in parentheses, how about the fuss over the pronunciation of the word "forte" [something in which one excels]: for years everybody went with for-tay, but lately more people are going--a bit peevishly, in my view--with the one syllable fort; technically the word comes from the French and should be pronounced fort, but the Italian musical term forte [for-tay] meaning "in a loud, forceful manner" [Pierre corrected forte my mispronunciation of the word forte], has kind of been mixed up in it all and most people seem to say for-tay, as in "correct pronunciation of obscure words is one of my many fortes"; most arbiters of these kinds of things [we all have crosses to bear] accept this Italian usurpation of the French [commendable choosing of sides there!] and acknowledge the legitimacy of for-tay along with fort [which all makes sense to these ears; somehow one's strong points sound much cooler when they're for-tays rather than mere forts, which if we had a day or two might be kind of ironic; although wouldn't for-tay sound cooler, if maybe not as manly, for the word that--unimaginative military types--means "a fortified place"? "Whatcha building with all those couch cushions there, Billy?" "It's my super neato for-tay, sir!"; although in strict military terms, I guess the word might be a bit effete [rhymes with defeat, so there]: "No one will be able to penetrate our well-fortified for-tay, will they Maurice [pick either Morris or Mor-eece, whichever makes the joke funny/ier]?"). (And of course, I think it's clear that my mere picking up the dictionary and making the effort to look up "torpor" simply to confirm its correct pronunciation [let alone all the divergent thoughts such action provoked and the subsequent ramifications of the act, of which this post is the {hopefully} ultimate], prove that at the time I most definitely was not in any way in a state of torpor.)

But back to my original point about the joys of dictionary reading. In the few seconds it took me to find torpor in the dictionary, I chuckled thinking about what a great word torporific would be: "Geez that meeting was torporific." "Imagine that! I looked up the word operatic in my thesaurus and the only word there was torporific." "'Ostentatiously torporific' said the critic about my dance interpretation of Mein Kampf." But the joke was on me, because right there in the holy dictionary, after the pronunciation and definition was this: torporific adj. Great minds think alike notwithstanding, this discovery made me curious about ific. At first glance, and one usually doesn't get beyond that, I assumed it was a very positive suffix thing. As in terrific or splendific. I can't be the only one who kind of in some way equates ific with chocolate, right? But then I thought about horrific. If there's such a word as horrific, why not torporific? And then, deeper--wouldn't terrific, ironically, come from terror? Kind of like awful coming from full of awe? Such lexical miscegenation of good and bad--are the Tea Partiers aware of such evil?! I had to get to the bottom of this ific thing (of course if my years of Latin class had been more studious I would have, um, already been at the bottom). No Luddite I, for convenience's sake I took to the World Wide Web (and what happens if, as any devoted Coast To Coast A.M. With George Noory follower knows is imminent, full disclosure of extra terrestrial life becomes reality and we learn that aliens from other worlds/galaxies/universes/dimensions are tapped into life on this Earth and even tapped into our Internet? Might there indeed be a Steve Jobsless future of a Universe Wide Web? Would we have to change all our url's from the ubiquitous, don't-even-mention-it-anymore WWW to UWW?). At (http://www.)dictionary.com/ I learned that that nifty ific tag comes from the Latin fic, "a combining form meaning 'making,' 'producing,' 'causing.'" Fics sense to me. Something that's torporific causes torpor, horrific causes horror. Duh. But the best part, no really, was that in the list of examples, included with honorific, pacific (never thought of that one, did you?) and prolific, was this word--frigorific. Oh, the mind reels and careens. Frigorific (definitely frig-or-if-ic, not fridge-or-if-ic). "That friggin' frigorific meeting was so torporific I feel like hurling myself in the friggin' Pacific." Alas, such action just might be a tad frigorific, because that word (heretofore unknown to and unheard of by me, but ecstatically welcomed like a little lost lamb) means "causing or producing cold." Come wallop me, winter. I'm fortified (or fortayified) like never before: "It's not the snow, it's that frigorific wind." Fortified for the coming political storm, too: "Look, I met the guy. I could never vote for someone with such a frigorific handshake." Fortified for anything, now that I've got this word in my arsenal. "It'll be a frigorific day in Hell when I disown my dictionary." Unfortunately, the word is supposedly now "obsolete." Well, I say, come on 99%, unoccupy frigorific Wall Street and let us all occupy the word frigorific and make it unobsolete.

I love the ific idea. Causing, producing, making. Seems to me there's a motivational fortune to be made with the "From Iffy to Ific: Transform Your Life Now!" slogan.

But anyway, enough's enough. Or is it? Yes I have read and continue to read the dictionary. Got a problem with that? In fact, I'll go so far as to say I vociferously advocate the dictionary as your next Book Club book. The choice is yours. You can either spend ten hours of your life wading through the latest "middle-aged hoyden has donnybrook with frigorific husband, quits her day job to follow her bliss and exploit her forte of crafting natural, environmental-friendly donuts, flirts too terrifically with the decidedly unfrigorific truck driver (OMG!) who delivers her dough, sinks into the abyss of torpor, and is eventually re-awakened to the joys of her unmanque life via Pilates and Rhoda reruns" tome and then spend another two hours discussing all the empathetic epiphanies the book inspired with a dozen of your closest buddies, or you can spend a mere three hours rummaging through and across and up and down and back and forth some ratty under-utilized dictionary, experience epiphanies out the wazoo, truly turn your life from iffy to ific, and have a riotous two hours sharing your discoveries with those same friends. I dare you.

And btw: another great word, drivel (kind of rhymes with civil).