Wordcatcher (18 page)

A humungous, mostly carnivorous, occasionally herbivorous, now extinct reptile of the Mesozoic Era.
Coined, in 1841, by Richard Owen, from the Greek
deinos
, terrible, and
sauros
, lizard. No ordinary neologism, but a dramatic coining that was minted shortly after Darwin’s radical publication of the
Descent of Man
. Together, the discoveries of fossils and human origins were arguments marshaled against the contemporary belief that the world was only 6,000 years old. Bishop Ussher, of Dublin, pinned the time down to the precise day and hour: January 1, 4004 BCE at 9 A.M. In its own way that historical fact underscores Emerson’s definition of language as “fossil poetr y.” In defense of science, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote, “
Dinosaur
should be a term of praise, not opprobrium.
Dinosaurs
reigned for more than 100 million years and died through no fault of their own.
Homo sapiens
is nowhere near a million years old, and has limited prospects, entirely self-imposed, for extended geological longevity.” Figuratively, a
dinosaur
suggests something or someone terribly outdated. Companion words include
saurian
, lizardlike,
and the ever-popular
lounge-lizard
, a ladies’ man or a bar slut who slinks around bars chatting up rich women or men with come-on lines a million years out of date.

An olive branch to your lover or spouse.
This raspy but funny-sounding word is Old German for “dragon fodder,” or “food for the dragon.” According to
The Concise Oxford Dictionary, dragon
derives from the Latin
draconem
, and the earlier Greek
drakon
, serpent, and
derkomai
, to see, which Skeat says reflects its “supposedly sharp sight.” If the reader dares to edge up close enough to feel the breath of this beastly word, you’ll learn that it refers to a timorous peace offering, a guilt gift, to an angry spouse or doubting lover. Think of a box of chocolates, red roses, a diamond ring. The word suggests that we starve the beast of lust, feed the dragon of
love
. For the temptations are never-ending, as suggested in that “sparkler of a word,” as Novobatsky and Shea call the old gems,
gandermooner
, a man who takes more than a
gander
at other women during the
moon
or month after his wife gives birth. Companion words include
draconian
, strict in discipline, and
dragoon
, a mounted soldier who bore a standard festooned with a
dragon
.

A city slicker who vacations on a Western ranch; a flamboyant dresser; an informal greeting, as in “Hey, dude.”
For centuries a
dude
was a dandy, a swell, a fastidious aesthete, according to
Thorndike-Barnhart
. For such a
hip
expression, its origins and definition have tended to be so hopelessly opaque in traditional dictionaries that some have simply surrendered, as the OED does in its attribution of O.O.O., “of obscure origin.” By far the most compelling definition comes from Daniel Cassidy, who devotes an entire chapter in
How the Irish Invented Slang
to the Irish root
dúd
, a foolish looking fellow, a dolt, a numbskull, an eavesdropper, and later, Irish-American street slang for young swells on a spree in the bohemian circles of the concert halls, saloons, and theaters in late-19th-century New York. He cites a clipping from the
Brooklyn Eagle
in 1883: “A new word has been coined,
d-u-d-e.
… Nobody knows where it came from, but it sprung into popularity in the last two weeks and now ever ybody’s using it.” Thus, what began as a
dud
in Ireland, a dolt, a clown, a rubbernecker, came to America with the immigrants, evolving into the Irish-American
dude
. How cool is that—117 years ago everybody was saying “
dude
.” By the 1950s,
dudes
are “suave cats” hitting the bongos, which evokes an episode of
Dobie Gillis
on the old Philco. But as Bill Cosby says, I told you those stories to tell you this one. In 2004, I came home one night to several messages from a guy who claimed to be “the Dude.” I felt a Cheshire Cat grin crawl across my face when I looked up
his website. His real name was Jeff Dowd, the inspiration for “the Dude” in the Coen Brothers’
The Big Lebowski
. As played by Jeff Bridges, “the Dude” is the love child of a hundred years of
dude
lore, a hippie slacker trapped in a Chandleresque detective story. The plot is baroque, the banter raunchy, and the humor as subtle as a machine gun. What holds it together is a word
—abide
, as in “the Dude abides.” To
abide
is to endure, outlast, continue, hold out, wait, prepare for; from
a
, to, and
bide
, dwell. Thus, a
dude
lives according to his or her own
dudeness
, which is a philosophy, a credo, a way to conduct yourself, a way to keep it together, stay cool, outlast everyone else who gives in, a way to stand by your friends, man, while the whole world changes around you.

The blood surge, the vital force, the source of all impassioned art.
When passion pales as an expression,
duende
is a fierce alternative to sentimental notions of inspiration. The Gypsies gave us this word for “little folk,” or “the blood of the earth,” from the Spanish
duen de casa
, master of the house.
Duende
eludes ordinary definitions, such as the pallid “power to attract via personal charm,” according to one usually reliable dictionary. Instead,
duende
is a lapidary word, with more levels than Troy. Traditionally,
duende
was simply a “playful hobgoblin,” a prankster spirit. To comprehend it, you need to turn to a poet like Federico García Lorca,
who knew of an older, deeper aspect of the word in his native Andalusia: a power that could be found in the “deep songs” of certain poets, on the dance floors of flamenco dancers, the cries from truly gifted guitar players, and the flourishes of toreros; from artists who possessed—or were possessed by—
duende
. More than virtuosity, different from inspiration,
duende
, Lorca believed, couldn’t be developed; it needed to be wrestled to the ground, subdued, then absorbed. For Lorca, art, poetry, music, playwriting were a quest for the truth of life, not entertainment; it was irrational, earthbound, and profoundly aware of death, down in the “bitter root.” “The
duende
,” he wrote in
Deep Song
, “is a momentary burst of inspiration, the blush of all that is truly alive, all that the performer is creating at a certain moment.” Later, plumbing the depths of
duende
, he wrote that it is “the mystery, the roots that probe through the mire that we all know, and do not understand, but which furnishes us with whatever is sustaining in art.”

Duende (Lorca in Havana)

A fool, a backward thinker
. “Introduced by Aquinas’ disciples in ridicule of disciples of John Duns Scotus, from Dunce, Berwickshire, supporter of old theology vs new theology, opponents of progress.” A contemptuous word, named after the controversial Scottish philosopher John Duns Scotus, who was widely read in the Middle Ages, then widely reviled in the Renaissance. His influence led to a veritable war of words between the old learning of the
Dunsmen, Dunses,
or
Dunces,
and the new scholasticism. As usual, Dr. Johnson had a thing or two to say about them: “It was worthwhile being a
dunce
then [in the days of Swift and Pope]. Ah, sir, hadst thou lived in those days! It is not worth while being a dunce now, when there are no wits.” Companion words include
dunce’s cap
, as worn by Alfalfa in
The Little Rascals
, whose punishment for his antics was to sit in the corner of the one-room schoolhouse with the
traditionally conical hat of shame plopped on his pointy little head. A
dunce’s corner
is the place where bad kids, like Dennis the Menace, are banished. The clever website that is also named
Dunce’s Corner
includes this witticism: “Oh, you play chess, huh? That’s sort of like checkers, right?”