Debra Chapoton's Blog - Posts Tagged "satchel"

I tend to spend a couple of minutes a day standing in front of the microwave and I wonder if some stray rays are zapping my brain cells in various ways. I’m forgetting words and people’s names at a disturbing rate. However, I’m also experiencing an increase in childhood memories popping forth when I hear or read words like “burnt sienna”, “meadow” and “bosom”. Strange, huh? But words have certain connotations; writers are quite aware of how a single word can evoke positive or negative responses in a reader’s mind. I was reminded of this last Sunday night as I took a sunset cruise under the Mackinaw Bridge. I teased a good-looking young man carrying a shoulder bag and said that I liked his “man purse” to which he quickly replied that it was a “satchel”. To me satchel brings to mind the bag a pony express rider used or the leather mail sack that the postman carried to our door when I was little. In great literary works of the past a satchel might hold a wax sealed message from a duke, earl or king. Definitely this is a masculine type word while purse is feminine. Why am I going on about satchels? Because since Sunday I’ve read a couple of books and I’ve come across this word three (!) times. Now that I’ve brought this word to your attention, let me know if you hear or read it this week.