I got this fascinating one from...

Christiane Amanpour's talk with Historian Simon Schama:

......civil war of culture which is so ennervating......

Never thought about the clashes of the various cultures as a civil war....but it can be just as deadly...

This I got from Oprah's newsletter...

The 'Thought for Today Newsletter'

It's a wonderful word and extremely meaningful...

Emotional pirate

Someone who leaves you feeling emotionally looted...

On Dignity...

and who better to talk about Dignity than Maya Angelou...

Dignity—the word itself—has come to mean different things to different people, as many words do. It doesn't just mean always being stiff and composed. It means a belief in oneself, that one is worthy of the best. Dignity means that what I have to say is important, and I will say it when it's important for me to say it. Dignity really means that I deserve the best treatment I can receive. And that I have the responsibility to give the best treatment I can to other people.

From Kurt Vonnegut...

Homes fall apart, schools can fall apart, usually for childish reasons, and what have you got?

A space wanderer named___

And so, in effect, we are all space wanderers.....

What a wonderful concept!!! We are all space wanderers...

From a book...

I read, and re-read, and re-re-read...

The Bridges of Madison County

The use of imagery is fantastic in this book...and so lyrical...

Here's one:

.......she could smell rivers and woodsmoke, could hear steaming trains chuffing out of winter stations in ling-ago nighttimes, could see travellers in black robes moving steadily along frozen rivers and through summer meadows, beating their way toward the end of things.

And about Robert Kincaid, Francesca says, 'I've always thought of him as a leopardlike creature who rode in on the tail of a comet.'

Love...

 has so many meanings and comes in so many avatars. I believe Maya Angelou (my role model and fave writer) give the best definition of love ever:

"I use the word love, no meaning sentimentality, but a condition so strong that it may be that which holds the stars in their heavenly positions and that which causes the blood to flow orderly in our veins."

Semantics...

A word that has been bothering me for some time now, simply because it can cause huge misunderstandings.

Today I finally decided to check it out.

Semantics appears in linguistics and logic, and is basically concerned with meaning. So we have--

Lexical semantics which deals with the study of meaning and is concerned with the analysis of the meanings of words, changes in meaning and in the principles that govern the relationship between sentences or words and their meanings

and

Logical semantics which is the study of interpretations of a formal theory, that is, a study of principles that determine the truth or falsehood of sentences in the theory, or of references of its terms, signs, or symbols; and matters such as presupposition and implication.

Point to remember: Be careful with words - they too have a life!!

Two beautifully evocative phrases...

from Robin Rice's http://bewhoyouare.com/be-who-you-are-with-robin-rice/the-barn-dance

The story is titled The Barn Dance

Talking about a phenomenally gifted violin player who was torn between playing what was in her soul, 'wishing that the smallest bit of her own special laughter and her own little tears could find expression,' on her grandfather's fiddle, and  being part of an orchestra that offered audiences beautiful music but to which she could never give the music in her soul. And she says as the years went by in this struggle between her soul music and orchestral music, 'her sorrow caused her blood to feel as though it moved through her veins as thick as pulled taffy.' 


And the second is the words Rice uses to describe and old woman's eyes - they were 'like sapphires drenched in light.'

I got this word...

from the OED Online Word of the Day

ego-surf

It means to search on the Internet for mentions of one's own name or the name of one's business, website, etc.

Jug Suraiya...

uses this unique word - 'factoid' to mean a manufactured fact

in:

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/jugglebandhi/entry/parlay_voo_france

Powerful words...

to describe a feeling of grief...or deep hurt or wound to the soul...

'The silent storm-swept barrenness...'

 ~  Howard Thurman in "Meditations of the Heart"

Chew over this...

from Olivia Goldsmith's 'Marrying Mom'...

Marital osmosis

Isn't it evocative? and thought provoking?

Again from Khaled Hosseini...

Talking to his mother whom he is seeing after ages.....after getting over the initial shock of seeing his mother aged, and with not much more time left, Dr Markos Varvaris says he worries about her. Her reply is characteristic of her: 'No need to. I can take care of myself all right.'

'But for how long,' asks he.

'As long as I can,' she says, and he comes back with, 'And when you can't, then what?'

----------------------I love the answer she gives. Here it is:

'It's a funny thing, Markos, but people mostly have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really what guides them is what they're afraid of. What they don't want.'

--------------------Powerful words by a woman who knows how she wants to live her life out...

From Khaled Hosseini's...

And the Mountains Echoed...

He uses these words so beautifully to show both the passing of time, and the simple everyday tasks that we tend to take for granted, but which added up are a tribute to our lives...

The long string of rituals that make up a lifetime.

The two words...

one must strive never to use...

HURRY UP

I have not been able to trace...

where I got this from....all I remember is that these words painted such a charming picture...I got lost in the picture, and clicked 'exit' by mistake.

I was studying about the Amish - a group of people whose lifestyle fascinates me. As I looked over the titles of their books, one caught my eye and I read the few lines that were on the page.

A very young couple was standing on a bridge leaning over the railings and looking at the water below. The girl had taken off her bonnet (Amish girls wear a kind of bonnet). She was swinging it by its ribbons when the bonnet slipped out of her hands and fell into the river. Her boyfriend offers to jump in and rescue it for she would need it when she went back home.

The words that captivated me come next -

The girl tells her boyfriend to let the bonnet be. 'Why should we deprive it of the adventures it is sure to have as it floats along the river....' (these are my words as I remember them...)

Can you just picture that??? What a beautiful thought.....what a gorgeous picture.....

A wonderful expression...

from today's Harold's Planet...

'Zenulated acceptance'!!!!!

It so wonderfully encapsulates the feeling when one is up against a zillion things one has to do which one feels are totally unnecessary.....

While what you would really like to do is to give everything a big kick, you know you can't.....you also know that it is only in acceptance that there is peace.....

The conflict can only be resolved by 'Zenulated acceptance' - which makes eminent sense to those of us who swear by Zen.....

Sheer imagery...

From 'Great Irish Short Stories', edited and introduced by Vivian Mercier

This description of a fireplace, is so evocative...

'The fire was of peat which had recently been put down, and from between the turf, the ruddy blaze was shooting out in those little tongues and gusts of sober light which throw around the rural hearth one of those charms which make up the felicity of domestic life.'

Wonder what it is about a fireplace that is so charming....for one, the word 'hearth' is often used as a substitute. Of all the meanings that the Oxford dictionary gives, I think I'll go with this one, where the word hearth is 'used as a symbol of one's home'....

A fireplace always brings back lovely memories----in Jabalpur where every winter there'd be a fire in the hearth.....and in Lovedale, where we would burn Eucalyptus wood and the room would be redolent with the soothing smell of Eucalyptus.

From Tahir Shah's...

In Arabian Nights...

Talking about how his father used to take them into the magic land of fairy tales...His father would rub his hand over his dark moustache, and down over his chin, and...

"...use the words that were the bridge into another world: 'Once upon a time . . .'"

What magic just reading these words...

Came across this...

in today's Business Standard:

the word pass-outs has been used for graduates...

As I read in one of the many sites on editing, cutting down too heavily on words can actually change the meaning, or as in the example above, coin some word which does not sound good at all...

An important analysis of kinds of books...

"There are good books, indifferent books, and bad books. Amongst the good bookss, some are honest, inspiring, moving, propehtic, and improving. But in my language there is another category: there are Ah! Books. Ah! Books are those which induce a fundamental change in the reader's condciousness. THey widen his sensibility in such a way that he is able to look upon familiar things as though he is seeing and understanding them for the first time. Ah! Books are galvanic. They touch the nerve-centre of the whole being so that the reader receives an almost palpable physical shock. A tremor of excited perception ripples through the person."

This is the description given by religious broadcaster and theologian Vernon Sproxton for 'Mister God, This Is Anna' by Sydney Hopkins under the pseudonym "Fynn"

The magical use of words...

I was trying to use a maxim on victory and defeat, and just couldn't find one that encapsulated what I wanted to express. So, went to Google, and got these....

Be gracious in defeat and magnanimous in victory

Be gracious in defeat and generous in victory

Strive to be humble in victory and gracious in defeat ~ Boots Williams

In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity ~ Winston Churchill

.....to be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory ~ Douglas MacArthur

Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory ~ Arthur Ashe

Talking about words that entice...

and the search for a word that would express all that you want to say...

Check this out:

I doubt you work in a kerfuffle-free milieu, and hornswoggling may occur betimes

Kerfuffle - a disturbance

Hornswoggling - a hoax, or to hoax

Wonderfully powerful...

thought-provoking words...

From Bertrand Russell:

In a mechanistic civilization, there is grave danger of a crude utilitarianism, which sacrifices the whole aesthetic side of life to what is called 'efficiency.'

and I particularly vibed with this--

'intellectual culture without emotional atrophy'

I think the words conjure up the images so well...

From...

Barack Obama's 'Dreams from My Father...

Words that conjure up a personality:
'I was intrigued by old Frank.................................with................. the hint of hard-earned knowledge behind the hooded eyes.'

And,

'Pop culture was color-coded........an arcade of images...'