2006-04-25 - 3:14 p.m.
Today, after cleaning apartments with industrial strength cleaners, toilets with muriatic adic. After finding some abandoned prescription drugs left in the bathroom, popping a couple I've suddenly caught the muse. I've also caught something rather unexpected, a case of the sharts. So after soiling myself during a depressed word history jaunt, I've come to think that being stuck on the long, complicated history of hearse, might have been a portent, or it could have just been an upset stomach. What do I know? Far as I'm concerned electricty and the radio are magical devices.
Three cheers for Hearse.
Started in the ancient languages of Souther Italy. Derived from the Oscan term hirpus which meant wolf. Hirpus led to the Latin hirpex, the name of a triangular harrow used for tilling soil and alluding to the sharp teeth of a wolf. In Medieval Latin the term was hercia and in Old French, herce. The name came to be applied to the triangular device that held candles at Church services. Middle English speakers used term slightly so that it became the candle holding device could be used over coffins as well. Then it was stretched into being the platform that held the coffin. Now of course it means the vehicle that transports them. When actors are brushing up for the big debut, they might think they are brushing up with their mortality but literally rehearse means to go over again with a harrow.
Cheers to Muse
Alludes to the distracted loof of an animal, most likely a dog sniffing the air. Muse was an Old French word for snout.
Cheers to Easel
Dutch ezel means ass. Italian word for easel is cavelleto which means "little horse." The idea is that the easel is this beast of burden, carrying a load.
Cheers to Bidet
A french word that means "small pony" Idea was that you were sort of in position to go for a trot but instead, get a well deserved splash to the old unmentionables.
Beverly
I work with two Bevs. Old English beofor for beaver and leah is I think Old French maybe for Meadow. (She's a meadow for the beavers.
Melissa and Deborah
I "knew" a Melissa once in Reno, she was quite expansive and I've always enjoyed being introduced to Deborah's b/c then I can say "Da Bra." Always unexcited when they chop it to Deb, but perhaps it's appropriate for them to prefer to be called Debbie. Melissa is greek for honeybee, marmalade and mellifluous are words with honey stories to tell as well. Deborah is Hebrew for "bee."
I've always enjoyed reading about the evolution of words, it can become an obsession, a way to make the world strange again, private recognition of the irony and vitality in the most mundane of events. Like the character Johnny in "Naked" "whatever else you can say about me, I'm not fucking bored."
