Wordcatcher (35 page)

A quick sketch; a rapidly done watercolor
. A concise and useful loan word, inspired by the practices of artists like Matisse who made the
pochade
one of their daily rituals. Sitting in his customary seat at a Paris café, Matisse set himself a daily challenge to quickly sketch (from Dutch
schets
, things rapidly done) or paint a few pedestrians in the time it took them to pass by his table. Originally,
pochade
just meant “pocket,” but soon it stood for “a pocket painting,” like the City Lights pocket paperback series, or medieval
vade mecums
, pocket prayer books. The American Society of Portrait Artists defines a
pochade
simply as a “hasty sketch.” More broadly, it is a small painting done quickly on location, either for its own sake or for later reference back in the studio for a large-format work. I first caught up with the word from an old friend, the New York painter John O’Brien, who lived and worked in Paris. He regarded the act of painting as having three acts, a complete dramatic structure, the first act being the
croquis
, a quick sketch by pen or pencil as a reminder of a scene, the second act the
pochade
, which adds color atmosphere, and the third and final act the culmination, the
portrait
or
landscape
, which included the details, faces, gestures, shadowing, and so on. Typically, after an inspired morning of work
en plein air
, outdoors, the artist would retreat to the studio, where he or she placed the sketchpad or canvas on the
easel
, from the Dutch
ezel
, donkey, that old reliable beast of burden that had been used for centuries. .The word has lumbered
on for four centuries, losing the memory of the donkey but retaining the image of the steadfast
easel
.

A good-for-nothing coward
. Its 16th-century roots paint a not so pretty picture. The Middle French
poultron
is a rascal, from Italian
poltrone
, a sluggard, a lazy fellow, and possibly
poltro
, an unbroken colt, and even
poltrare
, to lie in bed. Together, they become
poltroon
, a word that filled a niche in English for a lazy kid who won’t get out of bed, won’t get his hands dirty in the real world, like the colt that hasn’t been broken (initiated) yet. Thus, within a single word we find both a rich etymology and the plot for a melodrama that could be called “A Coward Is Born.” Tangentially, Dr. Johnson passed on the old chestnut that
poltroon
derives from an Italian punishment called
truncato
, which means “thumbs cut off,” based on a practice of cowards who cut off their own thumbs so they didn’t have to serve in combat. Speaking of which,
coward
derives from the Old French
couart
, from
coe
, meaning “tail” (which gave us
coda
), as in the
lion couard
, the “cowardly lion,” illustrated in medieval heraldry as having its tail between its legs. Now, there’s a vividly painted word. Coming full circle, NPR’s Nina Totenberg once said, “Every moment of the fashion industry’s misery is richly deserved by the designers … and magazine
poltroons
who perpetuate this absurd creation.” Companion words include the dubious
chucklehead, jackanapes, craven,
and
dastard
.

A made-up compound word.
Originally, a large suitcase or
travel
trunk that opened into two compartments, from
port,
to carry, and
manteau
, coat; it was cleverly appropriated to describe how two words can also be folded into one. The ingenious Lewis Carroll borrowed this idea, in the spirit of Humpty Dumpty, who said, “There are two meanings packed in one word,” and created a locker full of doubled-up words. As if packing for a very long voyage, Carroll folded together “
fury
”
and “furious” to create
frumious
; “chuckle” and “snort” to form
chortle
, and “gallop” and “harrumph” for the glorious
galumph
. If you look up
portmanteau
, you’ll eventually catch sight of the word
luggage
, which makes me think of the ballplayer Yogi Berra’s assessment after leaving one particularly hospitable hotel: “The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase.” All card-carrying word lovers have their own favorites, such as the lovely
spindrift
, from
spin
and
drift
, to reflect the actual movement of sea spray when it hits rocks on shore or the side of a ship. One of mine is the Appalachian
bodacious
, from
bold
and
audacious
, as in “I’m bodaciously ruin’t.” And who hasn’t smiled as wide as the sea after reading e. e. cummings’s hyphenated
portmanteaus
, “The world is / mud-luscious and / puddle-wonderful.”

Absurd, ludicrous, insane
. A marvel of a word, both literarily and pop culturally. Every time I come across it I can’t help but hear Snaggletooth’s lisping voice in the old Warner Brothers cartoon:
“Pre-pos-ter-ous!”
His mincing pronunciation actually helps us break it down so we can appreciate its surreal meaning even more. It derives from the Latin
prae
, before, and
posterus
, coming after. Something is
preposterous
because it seems “bass-ackwards,” as my Uncle Cy used to say. Skeat says, “hind side before,” which lends an image of an animal walking backward into an onlooker. So something that is preposterous can seem as if it’s already happened and is bound to happen again. To say it another way, if you don’t know whether you’re coming or going, you’re in an
absurd
, or
preposterous
, situation. Herman Melville wrote bitingly, “Of all the
preposterous
assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.” Kurt Vonnegut Jr. wrote, “Any reviewer who expresses rage or loathing for a novel is
preposterous
. He or she is like a person who has put on a full suit of armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.”

A bagel with its knickers in a twist.
Abbots have always had a problem disciplining their monks. Many a monastery has been rent asunder by the sound of snoring friars. Eventually, one abbot, it is said, promised he would bake his somnolent monks a special piece of bread, and shape it in their honor. He called it a
pretiola
, Latin for “praying,” and it was offered to them only if they could stay awake during prayers. His innovation was this: he took some bread strips and folded them across each other to resemble the folded arms of a praying monk. Ever since,
pretzels
have been marketed as a reward, a comfort food, for one good deed or another, such as sitting still in front of a television with a football game on. Competing etymologies come from the German
Prezel
, from Latin
brachitellum
, a baked biscuit in the shape of folded arms, from
bracchiatus
, with arms. It’s not for nothing that a
pretzel
is called a
snack
, which comes from
snatch
, Lowland Scottish for “a sudden snap of the jaws.” In
jazz
,
pretzel
is a nickname for a French horn. Fellow words include
bagel
, a New York invention and delight, heartily described as a “donut with a college education.” The
croissant
was born one night in Vienna in 1656, in honor of the Austrian army’s turning back the hordes under a crescent (
croissant
) moon.

Shape-shifting; capable of change
. After
Proteus
, the sea god, son of Poseidon. Homer writes that after the sack of Troy the Greek general Menelaus and his soldiers meandered across the sea for many years trying in vain to get back to Greece. Finally, they heard tell that the squirmy, shape-shifting
Proteus
held the secret to their reaching home again. They found him
floundering
on a rock off the coast of Africa, but every time they tried to seize him he changed shape, as a chameleon changes colors, from “lion to panther to serpent.” Finally,
Proteus
relented and revealed the necessary sacrifices the woebegone sailors needed to perform for a favorable wind to blow them home again. Ever since, his name has served as a colorful adjective for anything that freely changes shape, from opinions to bodies. A marvelous companion word, worthy of revival, is
shape-smith
, an old term for “body builder.” American computer scientist and futurist Alan Kay grabs hold of the ancient and slippery word and updates it: “The
protean
nature of the computer is such that it can act like a machine or like a language to be shaped and exploited.”