This Week in Word of the Day – 6/30/2013
asyndeton \uh-SIN-di-ton\, noun:
1. Rhetoric. the omission of conjunctions, as in “He has provided the poor with jobs, with opportunity, with self-respect.”
2. Library Science. the omission of cross references, especially from a catalog.
In year 23 of the Great Bug War, General Pershing’s verve for combat against the giant race of cockroaches was clearly waning. Where he once delivered sweeping and beautifully composed speeches to raise the spirits of his weary troops, his use of asyndetons eventually devolved into something more akin to bullet points.
On that final day, before the commander of the Western Front finally decided to retire the diminished hero, General Pershing’s speech to over 4000 fighting men and women was simply:
“Bugs.
Kill.
Double tap.
Courage.
Wash your hands.”
dilly \DIL-ee\, noun:
Informal. something or someone regarded as remarkable, unusual, etc.: a dilly of a movie.
“That boy had himself a dilly of a game, I tell you what. Ruined everything. I put nine large on us to cover the spread, but our kids couldn’t lay a mitt on that bastard, just dancing around like a headless chicken. Swear to Jesus I saw him run right through a pile of two D-backs, two linebackers, a corner, and Larry – that tubby sonova bitch that ain’t missed a tackle since he squirted out of his mama. It was like our boys were playing London Bridges or some bullshit.”
“You got the money?”
“Hell no! Do I look like I got the money? I was sure we were gonna take that game, I was sure of it. Why didn’t someone tell me they had a monkey ringer in the backfield.”
“You know I don’t like it when you talk like that.”
“Like what? ‘Monkey’? I didn’t mean it like that, brother. You know I ain’t got nothing against you people. I just meant, shit, I don’t know. I’m just upset. They gonna come empty out my chest cavity with a double barrel, just like they did to my daddy.”
“Pack your shit and get out of the county, then. My sister lives in Mississippi, she could let you hole up with her.”
“Nah, I’ve had a good enough run. This was my last play. I’m busted, so I’m pushing away from the table for good, you feel me?”
“You sure as hell know I don’t like to hear you talk like that. I ain’t gonna stand for you rolling over like a Junebug. Let me make some calls, we’ll get it sorted out.”
“Man, I didn’t come over here for your help, I just came to say goodbye. I don’t want you…”
“Shut your damn mouth, sit your ass on my recliner and have yourself a beer. I’m tired of your cracker ass moping around every since Linda left. We gettin’ you up on your feet and back in the fight today, you hear me?”
“You know I don’t like it when you call me ‘cracker’.”
“Yeah, then why you smiling?”
“Shit, its just gas, brother.”
snood \snood\, noun:
1. a netlike hat or part of a hat or fabric that holds or covers the back of a woman’s hair.
2. a headband for the hair.
3. the distinctive headband formerly worn by young unmarried women in Scotland and northern England.
4. the pendulous skin over the beak of a turkey.
The Angry Woman settled the lace snood over her singed hair, using a shattered mirror to neatly tuck a few rogue strands back into place.
She straightened her dress and checked her makeup. She must look her best for the mob screaming outside the church doors, held at bay by her sporadic rifle fire out the stained glass windows. She estimated that she’d thinned their numbers by three with bullets, but by at least forty through fear.
That wasn’t the extent of The Angry Woman’s rampage that night. Her death count was nearing 60, spread across all corners of the metropolis. This accursed city deserved her fury, needed her fury. She was the wildfire that swept away the overgrowth where the rodents hid and waited to feed off of the weak and infirm.
Her mistake was targeting the pastor. She saw that now. He was as deserving as any of the other scoundrels, but the city turned on her because they just didn’t understand. She couldn’t make them understand.
Smoke was tumbling out from the pastor’s office and filling the sanctuary. The Angry Woman lifted her silk handkerchief to her mouth and pinched her nostrils to keep out the smell of their roasting flesh.
Towering above the sanctuary, the stained glass Jesus with his flock of disciples gazed down on her. She avoided His judging eyes, just as short sighted as the others. Forgiveness was for the weak.
Jesus’s face shattered as a canister plunged into the sanctuary. Once it clattered down onto a pew, it burst into white smoke. Tear gas. Her time was running out.
Yet, she was not done. There was one last act left for her. The Angry Woman had a final, grand surprise for this wretched city and they would fear her, forever. In fact, by sunrise, they would believe her to be a god. A fierce, vengeful god.
lese majesty \LEZ MAJ-uh-stee, LEEZ-\, noun:
1. Law. a. a crime, especially high treason, committed against the sovereign power. b. an offense that violates the dignity of a ruler.
2. an attack on any custom, institution, belief, etc., held sacred or revered by numbers of people: Her speech against Mother’s Day was criticized as lese majesty.
Josephine understood that death stood before her. She waited patiently for it as the King’s Intelligence Officers combed the airport in search of her.
She waited because there was nowhere left to run.
Josephine was lured to Central Africa by the money. A waning fashion model did quite well in royal circles as an accessory to lush palaces. She attended parties, acquitted herself with grace, spoke intelligently on politics, but carefully when concerning the King.
Of course, she saw corruption and injustice. She was prepared for that, but when she was whisked away by freedom fighters while strolling the markets, she was shown the true extent of the King’s terror.
She’d heard the joke about his obsessive updates on the country’s maps and attributed it to a personality quirk.
In reality, the maps were constantly reworked to camouflage entire villages that were being wiped out by government forces. Once suspected of harboring traitors to the crown, a village was liquidated and whoever was left alive was sold to human traffickers.
She was not born in this country, but now felt “of this country”, as she said in a satellite interview arranged with the BBC. The tense, but poised ten minute exchange was a beautiful and bold lese majesty, the spark for a global outrage redirecting interest to the long suffering region.
But it was also Josephine’s death sentence.
The freedom fighters tried to move her from village to village, keeping her below the eye line of government troops, but too many suffered for showing her charity. Trying to escape through the international airport using doctored identification papers was essentially surrendering herself. Josephine knew this, but also knew the power of martyrdom.
So, she waited, handbag clutched nervously in her fingers, head dipped so the brim of her hat hid her perfect bone structure.
Then she felt his presence, towering over her. She could not look up in fear that she would faint or, worse, weep.
“Passport,” he grunted.
She unlatched her bag and, as calmly as she could manage, lifted the passport out and handed it to the official.
And with it, went all hope of survival.
mickle \MIK-uhl\, adjective:
Archaic. great; large; much.
“Woe to the heathens that shelter the damned, the sinful dens of the corrupt and immoral. Onto to their tainted flesh, The Lord will curse them with mickle plagues, some will torture them to their graves, other will require uncomfortable visits to the apothecary where they will describe, in hushed tones, blemishes that are probably nothing, but it would be awesome if an ointment could be rendered that might clear them away before their spouses witness their naked forms and questions arise.
There will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth as the agents of lust wear awkward undergarments complying with fussy blue laws that never really look good on anyone, no matter how bedazzled. And what is up with latex on the nipples? What difference could that possibly make?
A distance of Lot’s beard must be maintained between these agents and all who enter the accursed den, even though $20 is a lot of money to watch some girl just wiggle around a few feet away for three minutes and twenty-two seconds. And they will mourn and stamp their feet to no avail once the wench delivers their tab, which is, like, four times more than they expected even though they were just drinking lame domestic beers all night. There was that round of Rumplemintz, but that couldn’t have been that much, right?
‘Just pay it and let’s get out of here,’ the friends will plead, and the damned will because it is now just embarrassing and whose idea was this anyway? Steve? Of course it was. What an asshole.
Amen.”
vilify \VIL-uh-fahy\, verb:
1. to speak ill of; defame; slander.
2. Obsolete. to make vile.
It was always easier to be vilified by her peers, to remain the dark, distant outsider rather than play the games that bought the favor of friends. Courtney’s caustic personality was carefully honed since her first days in elementary school. Jimmy Adams pushed her down and broke her crayons while the teacher ignored her pleas for help. Ever since, Courtney’s bubble of isolation spread out around her, using ruthless insults and malevolent glares to back the world away.
School was lonely. Layered in black clothes, oceans of eyeliner artfully smeared, combat boots laced tight, scars proudly displayed on her wrists, gliding from class to class like a shadow.
Middle school passed. High school passed. She finished top of her class and the school was forced to let her speak at graduation. She walked to the microphone and silently glared at her classmates for five minutes, then walked out of the building without receiving her diploma.
Her resistance to life continued into adulthood. Though she hated humanity, she refused to be a shut away. She attended concerts, art shows, public readings, but never spoke to a soul, just existed like the community’s dark secret that refused to stay hidden.
The loneliness caught up with her and she found a soul close enough to her own to share a bed with him for six months before he lost his patience and left.
She discovered she was pregnant just a week before he abandoned her. He would never know.
She was terrified, but strong. She delivered the baby without fanfare. No one visited her in the hospital, no one arranged a baby shower. Exhausted as she limped into her apartment, she clung to the child as if the happiness she’d denied for so long finally escaped the heavy shroud and now stared up at her with pale green eyes and plump cheeks.
She smiled like a fool while hidden away in the little apartment, but never outside its door.
At two years old, the child proved to be an extrovert, befriending other children effortlessly, assuming their acceptance and receiving it without fail.
Another young mother sat next to Courtney to strike up a conversation, perhaps arrange a play date. Courtney’s instinct was to ignore the woman, perhaps scare her away with a cruel snark about the woman’s bottom-heavy figure, but Courtney took a moment to watch their children laugh. They were playing tag, racing around the playground, competing at human contact, winning, losing, but engaging without fear.
She did not want this life, but she wanted it for her child, so she forced a smile and attempted small talk for the first time in two decades of a sheltered and angry life.
scrum \skruhm\, noun:
1. a Rugby play in which, typically, three members of each team line up opposite one another with a group of two and a group of three players behind them, making an eight-person, three-two-three formation on each side; the ball is then rolled between the opposing front lines, the players of which stand with arms around a teammate’s waist, meeting the opponent shoulder to shoulder, and attempt to kick the ball backward to a teammate.
2. British. a place or situation of confusion and racket; hubbub.
verb:
1. to engage in a scrum.
Following the first gunshot, a violent scrum ensued as the theater patrons either scrambled for the door or joined the brawl. Henry’s father pulled the boy away from the heart of the mob and toward the exit.
More gunfire blasting, intensified by the enclosed theater, ringing in Henry’s ears. Henry became aware of the bodies around him, moving and jostling like waves crashing into a rocky cliff.
“There’s too many, the door’s blocked!” a panicked voice called.
“Move back, I cannot breathe!” another voice answered.
Henry’s father lifted the boy above the crowd.
“I have a child!” he yelled. Behind him, the screen was glowing, reflecting the flames consuming the theater seating.
“Please, push him through!”
Hands clutched onto Henry as he was held above the pile. He was awkwardly passed from one to another. Henry saw the bodies wedged into the door. A woman gazed upwards, blood pooled in her eyes, dripping from the edges.
Henry dropped through a small opening, rolling over the bodies and onto the carpeted hallway. He stood and screamed into the theater, pleading for his father. He could only see terrified strangers pressed against the wall of death, desperate to push through.
Henry was pulled away just as the flames took over the pile and began to crawl across the ceiling into the hall.
He escaped, true, but a part of him was still trapped in that theater and every time he slid on the firefighter helmet and raced out into London to answer a call, he intended to save that little boy, at long last.
