M is for Mutiny. And Merriam-Webster.

 

Here’s a relatively new delight in my life: Any and every time I type the letter “m” into the Internet search bar on my computer screen, “Merriam-Webster.com” appears. Instantaneously.

(I know what you’re thinking: That delights you? That? To which I respond: Yes. That. And I realize it’s a relatively small thing on the epically large scale of Potential Delights, but I think it’s a good practice to recognize them all. Don’t you?)

The voluntary appearance of “Merriam-Webster.com” in my Internet search bar seems to be a new thing, but perhaps I’m only just now noticing it. In any event, it is wonderful for many reasons, some of which are as follows:

I immediately think of my sister.
I immediately think of words.
I remember that there are websites in the world devoted to words, not least of which is Merriam-Webster.com.
I am reminded that oodles of people enjoy words and are interested in them, a fact which has given rise to the alluded to (and directly named) websites.
I recall–no matter what I am currently doing–that I have many, many times required the Most Excellent Services of Merriam-Webster.com, which makes me think of writing and what I get to do when I am working, and I am filled to the gills with gratitude.

So, yes, typing “m” into my Internet search bar–even when I am looking up something so pedestrian as “money” (not that I’ve done that) or “monterey jack” has become–if only momentarily–a delightful experience.

Often as not, though, I’m using Merriam-Webster on my phone. Sitting in the library for hours on end, typing away on my novel, I avoided opening the entire Merriam-Webster website (word-distractions galore!) and instead kept the app open on my phone.

That’s right. You read that correctly. There’s a Merriam-Webster app.

(Go! Quick! Run! Hie you to your phone and download it! Worlds and worlds of word-wisdom at your fingertips!)

I made use of it this very morning, in fact. Bill, Will and I were sitting together, enjoying our morning coffee, and somehow (I forget how) the word “mutiny” entered the conversation.

“Mutiny,” said Bill. “Now there’s a weird verb.”

Indeed, I thought. What an odd verb! It sounds very much like a noun to me.

We had been sitting together for the better part of a half-hour at this juncture, and I am pleased to be able (honestly) to say that not a one of us had, as yet, made use of our phones (well, except Bill, who’d had to answer a business call). But of course, immediately Will looked the word up, and the very first part of the definition gave its part of speech away: “rebellion.”

That there’s a noun. It’s an act, which is, in its way, a thing. Which makes it a noun.

But this was inadequate for me, because I knew that Bill was right. Is right. “Mutiny” is also a verb.

I wanted clarity on this, and it was the Merriam-Webster app to the rescue.

Here’s what happened. I began typing in “mutiny” at the prompt, and Merriam-Webster (always so willing help) began offering me options. And “mutiny” was the not the first, but rather a word that looked familiar but that was not, in fact, what I was looking for but which was, in truth, what I wanted.

“Mutine.”

Suspicious, I selected it. And here we are:

mu-tine   \’myu-ten\  verb   instransitive verb  obsolete: rebel, mutiny

Origin: Middle French (se) mutiner.

First use: 1555

So. “Mutiny” was not the original noun but rather a French word. A verb.

“Boy,” I said to Bill and Will, “I bet that drove somebody crazy.” And they both laughed at me because they knew that, had I been around when the noun “mutiny” began to be used as a verb, I would have been the one trying to correct everybody.

“No, no!” I would have shouted, hanging from the ship’s rigging, say, or clinging to a deck-rail, “It’s not mutiny! That’s a noun! You mean mutine! MUTINE!” Trying to make myself and my correct French pronunciation heard over the roar of the waves and the clamor of pirates. Or sailors. Or whatever mutinous lot you’re envisioning here.

It’s a tired yet familiar position for me, less fraught than the one I’ve sketched above, but fraught nonetheless.

My resident position, when teaching, as Defender of the Common Tongue: “No. It’s not ‘verse,’ as in ‘Athens verse Sparta.’ It’s ‘versus.’ ‘VERSUS.'”

My unspoken, secondary job when mothering, as Corrector of all Grammatical Failings: “No. It’s not ‘laying on the couch.’ It’s ‘lying.’ ‘LYING.’”

My decidedly ruffled impotence, sitting in the church auditorium or reading posts on Facebook, as Would You Please Just Listen to Yourselves Authoritarian: “No. It’s not ‘everyone that.’ It’s ‘everyone who. EVERYONE WHO.'”

I exhaust myself. And everyone else, I fear. All for the love of language.

Ah, but Merriam-Webster, once again, to the rescue. Because the dictionary understands. It gets it. In its relentless and inexhaustible efforts to catalog, inventory, and update the uses and meanings of words (and the words themselves), they are quick to track the changes–the inevitable alterations–undergone by the living language that is English.*

Which is why (did you see it?) in the definition above, they will tell you how a word is currently used. Sometimes, when the use is old-fashioned, they will label it “archaic.” And sometimes, as in “mutine,” the word is labeled downright “obsolete.”

See? Merriam-Webster is So Incredibly Helpful.

It’s fools like myself, dictionary in hand and clinging nonetheless to a water-washed deck-railing, who insist on things like “versus.”

Still–and despite the occasional (and so necessary) correction I receive at their hands–Merriam-Webster.com is sweet companionship. If possible, and this is evident based on their time-commitment alone, they love language even more than I do.

I love to be reminded of this. And I am reminded, every single time I enter “m” at my search bar prompt. Thank you, Merriam-Webster.

 

 

*It is this practice, among others, which–to my mind–distinguishes Merriam-Webster as better than their often-praised peer, the Oxford English Dictionary. The Merriam-Webster dictionary is consistently researched and re-researched, edited and updated. This is not true of Oxford. Sorry, but there you are.