Friday Vocabulary

1. nastic — (biology) (of plant movement) caused by external stimulus which does not determine direction of response

A strong flick of the finger against the leaf of a mimosa plant creates a strong nastic response, with the leaf quickly and visibly folding up in a striking example of thigmonasty.

 

2. snug — (nautical) to lash down or stow away, as in preparation for a storm

Once we had snugged down the canvas our duty was merely one of almost interminable waiting.

 

3. javelina — collared peccary

During the hot summer days the javelina rests in the shade, hunting and seeking water only at night.

 

4. marchpane — marzipan

The children loved the tarts, biscuits, and marchpane laid out on the holiday buffet, but a small glass of sweet wine sufficed for me.

 

5. silage — ensilage, preservation of undried green fodder in a silo or pit

In a rainy climate, alfalfa may also be preserved as silage.

 

6. parthenic — virgin

She had the parthenic virtue of absolute certainty in the accuracy of her judgments.

 

7. trapezium — irregular quadrilateral, four-sided plane rectilinear figure not a parallelogram

It was Tommaso who first noticed that the cross-section of the chamber was actually a trapezium rather than a rectangle, after which we quickly found Lindley’s hidden vault.

 

8. oxer — horse jumping obstacle with two rails set in various formations; cattle guard consisting of hedge with guardrail

After you clear the water obstacle you’ll have only the ascending oxer to jump before you make the goal posts.

 

9. corbel — (architecture) bracket of stone or brick jutting from wall to support weight above

Though not specifically decorative, the cathedral’s many corbels contend with the grotesque gargoyles for richness of architectural imagination.

 

10. tarpaulin — sailor

Yes, sailors are a superstitious lot, my friend, save for your English tarpaulin who believes only in his daily tot of rum and who only fears its withdrawal.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(slang)

gee-gee — horse

He was taking the train to Florida because the gee-gees were running at Hialeah.

Lexicographer’s Dozen

1. Desterham — Turkish minister of finance (variant of defterdar, apparently only used by Voltaire in his story Zadig)

The case was brought before the Grand Desterham, who had both parties beaten soundly with knouts so that both would know the majesty of Babylonian justice.

 

2. bizzie — (British slang) policeman or policewoman; (pl.) the police (also busy or bizzard)

No matter what sort of get-up he wore, you could tell right away he was just a bizzie out of uniform—something about the way he carried himself, I guess.

 

3. totipotent — (biology) capable of becoming anything (said of cells able to become any type of cell in an embryo)

Perhaps the first grade teacher faces a class full of totipotent human beings, but those opportunities are long gone by the time those students reach high school.

 

4. hard lines — (British slang) adversity, bad luck

“Hard lines Pete,” he said as they watched the golf ball stop almost at the very lip of the cup.

 

5. psychomanteum — darkened room with angled mirror reflecting darkness, intended for communion with the dead

Lily had never forsaken her widow’s weeds, which spoke to her laudable devotion to Chester, but when she rigged up the rear parlor as a psychomanteum we realized that we had to intervene.

 

6. feringhee — (Indian and Asian slang, usu. derogatory) foreigner, European, white person

Almost the entire village came out to watch the feringhee struggle to impose his will upon the recalcitrant bactrian camel.

 

7. yataghan — Ottoman doubly curved saber

Had it not been for his keen eye and sure trigger finger, I would have perished beneath the sharp edge of an Albanian yataghan twenty years ago.

 

8. munted — (British slang) drunk; (Australian slang) intoxicated; severely damaged; disgusting

At this rate the world economy will be munted for years to come.

 

9. misandry — hatred of men

After her self-realization, Paul was never allowed to stay overnight in his family home because of his mother’s misandry.

 

10. allopathy — treatment of disease by producing effects opposite to the disease’s symptoms; derogatory term for traditional medicine

An almost religious distrust of allopathy led him to reject any and all substances branded as ‘chemicals’, and perhaps his gluten-free diet was merely an extension of this philosophy.

 

11. viga — large wooden beam used in adobe construction

The shadows of the vigas jutting out from the roof made it difficult to discern the rodent hiding alongside the pathway to the door.

 

12. orante — (also orans or orant) prayerful posture, in which one stands with hands held out to the side with the palms up, while the elbows are held close to the body

Though the gesture was discarded when prayerful handholding became the vogue, more and more we see the orante posture returned to the modern Christian church, especially among members too weak or too tired to keep their arms over their heads for hours and hours.

Monday Book Report: The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories

The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories, by Horacio Quiroga

To master the short story is to possess the ability to tersely describe the critical moment, the veritable crux of events, ideas, and emotions—and to capture that moment so that readers can contemplate and appreciate the revealed profundity in these smallest of prose packages. Hector Quiroga—a South American author well-known to those who know such things, and less than anonymous to the rest of us—was just such a master craftsman, creating jewels of narration which still scintillate today, even in translation. His deceptively simple stories defy easy categorization, for all that he is usually described as an heir of Edgar Allan Poe and as a progenitor of so-called ‘magic realism’. [Full disclosure: I am not a fan of most ‘magic realism’, though I have found it compelling in small doses (which may explain my love for Quiroga, I suppose). To confess in full, I only managed to make it through fifty years of solitude.] But Quiroga’s stories speak quite forcefully for themselves, and will amply reward the reader who picks up these polished gems from the shelf to peruse them at her leisure.

As mentioned above, Quiroga is most often associated (by English language readers, at least) with Edgar Allan Poe, and the Uruguayan-born author even explicitly referenced the putative creator of the detective story as a model in the first of his “Ten Rules for the Perfect Storyteller”. But to my mind—though both Poe and Quiroga evince a fascination with death and dying—a more apt comparison would be with Ambrose Bierce. Both the North and the South American writer penned lucid, succinct sentences and stories of power; both were masters of precision, concision, and incision. But in addition to complete command of language, both Bierce and Quiroga had another possession of inestimable value for a writer, actual experience. While Poe might maunder about with tales of madness and menace (and, to be fair, mental aberration is an actual experience), Bierce could write with conviction about war and battles, having lived the warrior’s life during the Civil War. Horacio Quiroga, similarly, wrote with love and understanding about the jungle of the Rio de la Plata Basin, a wild land he knew intimately, spending over half of his life in the Misiones province of Argentina. The Paraná appears in several of the dozen stories in the collection hereinunder reviewed, and some three quarters of the selected stories take place in the jungle or that limbic verge where ‘civilized’ man tries to wreak his will upon nature.

I. Cree en un maestro —Poe, Maupassant, Kipling, Chejov— como en Dios mismo.

Quiroga’s first rule for storytellers

Most of these stories are short, very short. In the selected dozen, the longest tale is a fantasy of a congress of snakes gathered against a common enemy: man. “Anaconda” runs only thirty-three pages, and this extended fable still manages to stay true to snakes, and the tragic end caused a pang sharper than the proverbial serpent’s tooth. The title story, “The Decapitated Chicken”, is a gruesomely creepy tale of perverted parental desire, where the fantastic elements blend seamlessly with the anxiety of every bad parent everywhere. (And of course, we must all be bad parents, as is apparent from merely glancing around at the world today.) The opening story, “The Feather Pillow”, manages in merely four pages to biopsy the tumor of diseased relationships, though of course the patient dies.

Though the elements of fantasy are present in most if not all of these tales—”Sunstroke”, for example, is told entirely from the perspective of the five dogs living on the ranch Mister Jones hews from the jungle—such elements serve only to make the stories more true. Indeed, one of the striking tropes used by Quiroga is to undercut his own fantastic accounts by revealing the sheer banality of much real life, as in “In the Middle of the Night”, where a bourgeois couple recount an act of the most noble heroism (or is it heroinism?). Similarly, “The Incense Tree Roof” demonstrates how even our boldest adventures can wither under the regard of an uncaring audience. And unlike Poe, almost none of these stories leave the reader befuddled. Instead, a sharp scission is made in the reader’s mind, and we are left in awe of both Quiroga’s craft and his deep understanding of the human race and our folly.

This volume appeared as one of The Texas Pan American Series of books published by the University of Texas at Austin; some readers may have first encountered Borges in the same series, through their translations of Dreamtigers or Other Inquisitions. The stories seem excellently translated by Margaret Sayers Peden—as far as this ignorant cracker redneck who can barely speak English (and thus cannot compare with the Spanish) can tell. The illustrations by Ed Lindlof are very nicely done, and are a positive accompaniment to the lucid prose. The biggest drawback of the entire book is the flaccid introduction by one George D. Schade, who obviously had some standing in academe (he translates two of the other volumes referenced on the back cover of The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories), but whose opening two paragraphs almost compelled me to put the book aside, due to the mostly useless and padded prose devoted to Horacio Quiroga. Perhaps Mr. Schade was being paid by the word, perhaps he’d forgotten that the paper was due today, but there’s really no excuse for sentences such as “Quiroga stands apart from the bulk of his contemporaries in Spanish American literature and head and shoulders above most of them.” Or for “Certain thematic designs run through Quiroga’s life and also through his stories.” Fortunately, after the introduction, almost every other sentence exhibits perfection and pithy power. Plus, the stories are almost all very short, so you really can’t lose. Please do yourself a favor and check out The Decapitated Chicken and Other Stories, even if you skip the introduction.

Friday Vocabulary

1. bolus — overlarge pill; round soft mass, esp. of chewed food

What it cost him to swallow this enormous bolus of shame and degradation I hope never to learn.

 

2. chyme — quasi-fluid mass of food acted upon by gastric processes and passed into the small intestine

The presence of chyme in the intestine is of limited use in determining time of death, as antemortem factors may hasten or retard the digestive process.

 

3. chyle — milky fats-containing fluid formed in the small intestine from chyme

Since it is produced in the small intestine from the digestion of fatty foods, there is no such thing as “honey chyle“.

 

4. leat — open watercourse dug to provide water for mill or mine, etc.

The Roman invaders made many hydraulic mines, and the leats they constructed to wash away the surface soil can still be seen in Wales and western England.

 

5. rigadoon — lively two person dance with jumping steps popular in 17th and 18th c. France and England; music for such dance

They cavorted around the kitchen in an impromptu rigadoon of such charm and energy that Mama smiled and forgot to be indignant.

 

6. minatory — threatening, menacing

The oleaginous lawyer only sneered at my protestations and repeated in his minatory monotone the details of my cousin Ernie’s cease and desist order.

 

7. Gamsbart — traditional hat decoration of German and Austrian alps made from chamois hair

Though the Garmsbart is now only another fashion choice for consumers, it once was a hunting trophy adorning the Alpine hats of those canny enough to fell the elusive chamois among the steep crags those speedy goats call home.

 

8. exuviate — to shed or cast off, to molt

I have exuviated that repulsive little man as if I were Peter Gabriel.

 

9. snuggery — (British) cozy or comfortable room, esp. of small size

My gift of Laphroaig garnered me an invitation into his warm snuggery at the rear of the house, where Jason bid me sit down while he poured us both a tumbler.

 

10. diapason — full harmonious sound; one of several organ stops

In spite of everything that happened after, I will always treasure the memory of those days in church, my own reedy voice joining with my grandfather’s deep baritone, as the mighty diapason of the revivalists’ uplifted voices lifted my spirit as well, swept away in the massed choral moment.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(medieval military accoutrement)

goat’s-foot lever — characteristically shaped lever used to quickly hook the string and span a crossbow

Medieval crossbowmen using a goat’s-foot lever could maintain a withering rate of fire.

Friday Vocabulary

1. saveloy — highly seasoned dried sausage, usually bright red

Though the white tablecloth and perfectly unctuous staff were more suited to coq au vin, my dining companion demanded two orders of saveloys and chips which were brought almost immediately to our table, perhaps procured from the fish and chips shop in the row behind the fancy restaurant.

 

2. tirewoman — lady’s maid, woman who assists with another’s toilet

I regarded in my mirror the effect of the rich brocade draped over my sole remaining farthingale while my tirewoman finished goffering my ruff.

 

3. lugsail — asymmetrical four-cornered sail obliquely hung upon a yard

We rigged a rudimentary lugsail for our patchwork raft, which allowed us to use most of what remained of the torn mainsail from the wreck.

 

4. synectic — (of a cause) immediately producing an effect, direct

Uncle Ralph was a firm believer in corporal punishment, though the first time he applied the belt to me I conceived a synectic hatred of both him and his oppressive household.

 

5. wantwit — someone lacking wit or sense

No matter how I tried, I could not make that wantwit of a blacksmith’s apprentice understand that we wished him to remove the three remaining horseshoes from my mount.

 

6. teredo — wood boring “shipworm” (actually a mollusk)

Though rare, the attack of the teredo could quickly doom a seagoing vessel, and even the dikes of Holland were once threatened by this quick-boring termite of the sea.

 

7. rostral — adorned with the beaks of galleys; of the prows of ships; of a rostrum or speaker’s platform

The Bahamian diver will find little remaining from this wreck, with only the flared bow still discernible as part of a manmade construction, the sea-grasses clinging to their rostral habitat upon the ocean’s floor.

obstreperous — clamorous; unruly

The somberly clad minister raised his hands and pled the crowd to disperse, but the obstreperous mob redoubled its shouting, angrily calling for me and my companions to be given to them for rude justice.

 

8. gonif — (Yiddish slang) dishonest or disreputable person, crook, rascal

“He’s got a trade, so why doesn’t he settle down, get married, I mean, he’s a fine electrician, not like his gonif brother who only learned how to break windows in parked cars.”

 

9. fulsome — offensive to good taste; loathsome; excessive; (obsolete) abundant, full

Pete could not decide which was more disturbing: the fulsome language of the biography which seemed more appropriate to a modern Hollywood PR flack, or the two dozen typos and grammatical errors which plagued the short obituary.

 

10. appositive — (grammar) word or phrase used in apposition

After many rounds of appeals the courts held that the appositive “Courtney’s father” following directly after the plaintiff’s name was not restrictive enough to prevent enforcement of the contract simply because the plaintiff discovered through DNA testing that he had no genetic paternity of the aforementioned Courtney.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(obsolete slang)

flash house — brothel

They finally done for Tom Richards in a Salty Lane flash house while he was regaling the local talent with lies about his noble parentage.

Friday Vocabulary

1. vinegarroon — large whipscorpion found in Mexico and the southern United States, with a nasty, though nonvenomous, sting

At first I thought the vinegarroon was another myth created by my dad to embellish his tales, like the two-by-two cactus, and then I saw one, though my mind still disbelieved, saying, “Oh, hell no!”

 

2. celadon — pale willow-green

In addition to her beloved pink, Pat Nixon was quite enamored of celadon for her fashions and decorations.

 

3. pediment — triangular part atop the front of a Grecian style building, often supported by columns

Someone had decorated each figure in the bas-relief of the Last Supper within the temple’s pediment, placing little Santa hats upon each (earlier) saint.

 

4. acuity — sharpness, keenness

Though the pain should not be acute, perhaps it seems so to one of your mental focus and acuity, exacerbated by your predisposition to distraction and aggravation.

 

5. cothon — protected artificial harbor used in ancient Phoenicia

Admiral Hlamircar surveyed the full docks of the military cothon and was pleased by the fine display of well-fitted galleys and ships, though he knew many of these brave vessels would soon be damaged, burned, or sunk.

 

6. enfleurage — method of perfume extraction through transfer of scent into fats or oils

Fragrances were captured through enfleurage by the ancient Egyptians or even still earlier in Mesopotamia.

 

7. indolent — slothful, averse to exertion or work

He thought of himself as an indolent genius, along the lines of Rex Stout or Mycroft Holmes, but we considered him more of a needy loser.

 

8. antipodes — places directly opposite each other upon a globe; exact opposites

Blum’s theory in school had been that two people who strike out on life’s journey in opposite directions will meet once again at life’s antipodes, and as I regarded my quondam classmate through my scratched coke bottle lenses made blurrier by the rotgut served in this belly dancing school cum dive bar which I knew to be only a front for the illegal camel importation schemes of the Ranee Tansiva—herself a former classmate of ours—I thought that he had spoken truer than he thought, those many long-gone years ago.

 

9. obreption — acquirement of a thing through fraud; (law) obtaining (a gift, a dispensation, etc.) by false statement

It is not the archdeacon who has been harmed by your obreption of his privileges, for he has continued humbly in the service of Christ, but rather those in the parish who have been deprived of his succor and example, and who languish uncared for by you; they have truly suffered greatly.

 

10. poke — brim projecting at the front of a bonnet

Popular for a time in 19th Century England, most today will only encounter a poke bonnet if they have interactions with women from the Salvation Army.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. bore — large tidal wave caused either by meeting of two tides or by tidal water rushing into a narrow estuary

Surfing the Pororoca—as the tidal bore formed at the mouth of the Amazon River is known—can be treacherous, not only because of the river’s sometimes dangerous wildlife, but also due to the flotsam carried by the downstream current.

 

2. perforce — of necessity, compulsorily

I held perforce her hand as I aided her across the precarious scree, but I found myself distracted by the warmth of her hand in mine, and almost lost my own footing.

 

3. baldric — belt worn across the breast from shoulder to hip, supporting a sword or bugle, etc.

Le Notre wore a matched pair of heavy flintlock pistols, slung from crossed baldrics so as always to be ready at hand, though to my mind they made him resemble a member of a fife and bugle corps.

 

4. halcyon — calm, quiet, peaceful

He had wisdom enough to set aside funds and provender during those halcyon times between the wars, and so was prepared when the conflict reignited.

 

5. mast — nuts from oak, chestnut, or beech trees, used as food for swine

He found the hog feeding on mast in an oak grove a bit upriver, but dared not enter to secure the animal because the glade was thought to be sacred to the druids.

 

6. truckle bed — low bed on casters for rolling it beneath a fixed bed when not in use

The stained clothes were spread out upon the truckle bed, meaning that it could not be properly stowed out of the way.

 

7. serinette — 18th century mechanical instrument capable of playing programmed tunes through pipes by turning a crank, meant to teach songs to caged birds

The primary difference between a serinette and the common music box is immediately apparent to the listener, as the serinette uses an internal bellows to propel air through small pipes to produce its distinctive tone.

 

8. tatty — shabby, cheap

Hope springs eternal, I suppose, and so once again I found myself kneeling at the back of the record store, poring through box after box of tatty LPs in hopes of finding an overlooked treasure.

 

9. gynandry — hermaphroditism

As often occurs in cases of true gynandry, Pat was infertile.

 

10. lapstrake — (nautical) clinker-built, having a hull with overlapping planks; a vessel built thusly

Thom’s boat was a tidy little lapstrake skiff painted red and grey-blue, built, he told us, by his father before the surgery.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(criminal slang)

loid — to unlock a door by sliding a thin piece of plastic or celluloid between the door and frame, releasing simple spring latches; a device so used

If you’re not going to install a deadbolt at least put on the security chain, although that’s not going to stop random tweeters from loiding their way in here any time you’re out of the apartment.

Friday Vocabulary

1. sudarium — cloth for wiping the face, handkerchief; (specifically) the cloth used by Saint Veronica to wipe the face of Jesus

The true gentleman, of course, sweeps the sweat from his brow using a sudarium and not the sleeve of his tunic.

 

2. Patagonian — of or relating to Patagonia, the southernmost lands of South America in S. Chile and S. Argentina

Here among the Fuegian natives of this dry, barren Patagonian plateau I had every reason to doubt that anyone at all would ever receive my feeble radio calls for assistance.

 

3. russet — homespun cloth of reddish-brown

He pulled his overlarge russet cloak more tightly about him as he sat silently in the darkness.

 

4. tassel — to bloom (said of corn or sugar cane)

The green fields showed brilliant gold spots here and there where the corn had just begun to tassel.

 

5. nobiliary — of or relating to the nobility

Those wishing to restore the ‘good old days’ of titles and hereditary aristocracies usually imagine themselves as the person enjoying nobiliary privileges rather than as the much greater number of oppressed people propping up that rule by the lucky few.

 

6. flummery — mere trifling, empty compliment; dish made from oatmeal or flour boiled with water until thick

“After such an adventure don’t test me with such flummery as that, but let us enjoy the hearty fellowship of true brothers.”

 

7. incurrent — moving into the interior, relating to an inward current

From this and myriad other sources the secrets were transmitted by devious incurrent paths back to the Major’s office at KGB headquarters.

 

8. recalitrate — to ‘kick out’ against something, to resist, to show strong repugnance

Flailing in the saddle he would recalcitrate against his mount, the very idea of riding, and even the entire equine race.

 

9. roadstead — (nautical) somewhat sheltered area near shore where ships may anchor safe from weather

The ships furthest landward were now attempting to get under way and flee the fire ships which had already decimated over half the vessels in the roadstead.

 

10. kittle — ticklish, difficult to deal with

“True, it’s not easy doing business with such kittle folk who think that a deal is always an opportunity to spread their own peculiar gospel.”

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Canadian slang)

screech — homemade strong drink of Newfoundland similar to moonshine, often flavored with rum

No, thank you, but the last time I drank screech I came to in the backseat of a patrol car, freezing my ass off.

Friday Vocabulary

1. horripilate — to have the hairs of one’s skin stand on end, from cold or fear, etc.

I knew, I guess, when I felt her neck hairs horripilate at the mere mention of the doctor’s name.

 

2. chert — flinty quartz rock

You can’t touch the front driveway, but we’re putting in a new surface for a basketball court in the rear, so you can take the chert off our back.

 

3. intransigent — irreconcilable, inflexible, uncompromising

In spite of our neighbor’s intransigent attitude we are going ahead with the project, hoping that it will be easier to apologize than to gain permission.

 

4. extrados — exterior or upper curve of an arch

Though all the surface material had worn away, or—more likely—been stolen, the curves of the extradoses forming the outer shell of the subterranean crypt were intact and entirely visible now that the grasses had died.

 

5. gravamen — most grievous part of an accusation; grievance

Of course most believe that the ‘off-the-books’ campaign funds were intended to persuade the congressmen to introduce legislation favoring the Sweet Times Coal Company, which was the true gravamen of the charges against those representatives.

 

6. ormolu — gold-colored alloy of copper and zinc

It was an era and an area where every home had an ormolu clock upon the mantle with matching candelabra at either end.

 

7. rachitic — of or having rickets

Sadder still than the lorn women or the despairing men were the rachitic children whose bowed legs could have been entirely prevented by small additions to their benighted diet.

 

8. veriest — utmost

In his parti-colored finery he looked to be the veriest dandy of them all, and we found it almost incredible that this was the same sober churchman who had preached hellfire and damnation only hours earlier.

 

9. fulgor — flashing and brilliant light, splendor

Our horses started and we stared, all of us stunned by the refulgent fulgor that flashed from the golden domes in the rising sun’s breathtaking light.

 

10. ferruginous — of the color of rust, reddish brown; containing rust or iron oxides

They had hoped for some tidy sum for the pile of junk left behind in the back yard, but the only thing of interest was a ferruginous cast iron skillet that unfortunately was too rusted to be restored.