Blooming Twig Books

ves·tige

noun

a trace of something that is disappearing or no longer exists

The current definition of ‘vestige’ stems from Latin ‘vestigium’ meaning footprint or trace and from 17th century French ‘vestige’ meaning a mark, trace, or sign.

The biological definition, used to describe an non-functioning body part that was once functional in an evolutionary ancestor, is still common today. However ‘vestige’ is mainly used in its figurative sense to describe the trace of something that has since vanished.

Though the usage of ‘vestige’ has been on a relatively steady decline since the mid-19th century, one can still find it used in works of literature, poetry, and even news sources, often relating to the loss of the last vestige of landmarks, historic sites, and well-known companies.

“The last vestige of the Rockhill Theater quietly disappears.”—pitch.com

“Happy, indeed, and sweet our pain, / However torn, however tost, / If, like the rose, our hearts retain / Some vestige of the heaven we've lost.”—‘The Progress Of The Rose’ by Denis Florence MacCarthy

“Through this cowardly act of yours, the last vestige of your power over me is gone.”—‘The Seats Of The Mighty, Complete’ by Gilbert Parker

“The earth without a vestige; Fate decrees It shall be otherwise, and I submit.”—‘The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White’ by Henry Kirke White

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=vestige

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vestige

san·guine

saNGɡwən

adjective

optimistic or positive, especially in an apparently bad or difficult situation

Circa 1500, according to Hippocratic theory, it was believed that temperament and health were physically caused and affected by having an excess amount of (or lacking) any of the body’s four humors: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood.

This theory spread throughout Greek, Persian, and Roman systems and was the most commonly held theory in Europe up until the modern medical research in the 1800s.

The four humors were associated with not only health and temperament, but also with seasons, natural elements, and organs. Yellow bile was associated with summer, fire, the liver, and being ambitious, leader-like, and easily angered. Black bile was associated with autumn, earth, the spleen, and being melancholic, despondent, quiet, and serious. Phlegm, associated with winter, water, and the brain, was thought to make one calm, thoughtful, and patient. Lastly, blood, associated with spring, air, and the heart, was thought to make one carefree, playful, hopeful and courageous.

So, stemming from 12th century Latin and Old French origins meaning ‘blood-red,’ ‘of blood,’ or ‘bloodthirsty,’ ‘sanguine’ was used to describe someone who had an excess amount of blood, making them excessively cheerful and optimistic, with a hopeful “complexion,” especially in difficult situations.

Though steadily on the decline in its common usage since 1800, ‘sanguine’ is still seen today in literature, poetry, and even the occasional news article.

“Never, I am sure; your ingenuous smile, your laughing eyes, are the index to a happy and a sanguine heart.”—’Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete’ by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

“She was not sanguine enough to hope for a miracle; and surely only a miracle could change Phoebe's sullen and morbid nature.”—‘Uncle Max’ by Rosa Nouchette Carey

“And this must needs chafe the nerves of those whose eyes are always turned toward the sanguine future.”—‘My New Curate’ by P.A. Sheehan

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=sanguine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism

http://www.20000-surnames.com/etymology_dictionary_S/origin_of_the_word_sanguine.htm

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sanguine

quan·da·ry

noun 

a state of not knowing what to decide; a state of difficulty or perplexity; a state of uncertainty, hesitation or puzzlement; a pickle; a predicament 

As if in an attempt to embody its definition to the fullest, “quandary” is quite a perplexity in and of itself. The word has no known origin, only guesses that it accidentally stems from Latin and Middle English as a dialectical corruption (i.e. from ‘wandreth’: evil, plight, peril, adversity, difficulty or from ‘quando’: at what time?). 

Though it stems from unknown origins, ‘quandary’ dates as far back as the 1570s and has peaked in usage in today’s language. It is used across several forms of writing, including news, poetry, and literature. 

“In despair at the quandary, but still clinging to her faith, she fell back on the unanswerable fact of feminine intuition.”—’The Free Range’ by Francis William Sullivan 

“I have more than once observed to Lady Catherine that her charming daughter seemed born to be a duchess, and that the most elevated rank, instead of giving her consequence, would be adorned by her. These are the kind of little things which please her ladyship, and it is a sort of attention which I conceive myself peculiarly bound to pay.”

Mr. Collins, ‘Pride and Prejudice’

Perhaps the most shameless sycophant in all of literature is Mr. Collins, fawning devotee of Lady Catherine in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Beyond simply flattering her at every opportunity, he rehearses his adulation, “suggesting and arranging such little elegant compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions,” and reminisces about clever ways he has praised her in the past, as seen in the quotation above. Mr. Collins' sycophancy is exuberant and earnest to the point of being almost charming. Almost. Even if some of his admiration for Lady Catherine might be real, his devotion to her also gives him a cushy position as pastor to the parish on her estate. Her favor towards him also gives him a pompous pride that makes him almost as annoying to the reader as he is to Elizabeth Bennet.

“Sycophant” has an odd etymology: the Latin sȳcophanta comes from the Greek σῡκοϕάντης, literally “fig-shower.” Some claim the word first denoted “an informer against the unlawful exportation of figs,” others, that the term “had an obscene implication” (The ‘Oxford English Dictionary’ is modestly silent as to what this implication might have been). For many centuries the word retained its denotations of an informer, tattle-tale, or slanderer, until the 1500s, when it began to become more associated with flattery. The two meanings, however, are not necessarily incompatible. Think of Iago, Shakespeare's unctuous flatterer, who deceives Othello by leveling false accusations against Cassio and Desdemona.

But even if Mr. Collins is a sweet guy compared to Iago, in the end nobody likes a sycophant. Just take a look its first twenty synonyms in the Power Thesaurus: toady, parasite, flatterer, fawner, yes-man, flunkey, hanger-on, adulator, lackey, bootlicker, crawler, lickspittle, courtier, flunky, truckler, follower, leech, apple-polisher, groveler, and jackal.

So, do you want to gain a comfortable position, but also want to lose everybody's respect? If so, try becoming a sycophant.

Sources:

The Oxford English Dictionary Online (oed.com)

Jane Austen, ‘Pride and Prejudice’ (text available at pemberly.com)

https://www.powerthesaurus.org/sycophant

“The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse,” from ‘Aesop’s Fables,’ is the tale of two mice. When the city mouse calls on his town mouse cousin, he eschews the humble meal he receives there. The city mouse then invites his cousin to the city, offering him all the lavish meals and refinement of the city. Their banquet, however, is interrupted by the appearance of several dogs who chase the mice away. Rattled, the country mouse goes home, preferring his humble life to the crazy bustle and dangers of the city.

Most of us can empathize with one of these mice—we either long for the excitement of big cities, or for the comforts of rural life. The longing city folk have towards the countryside, the idealization we make of the rural, is strongly expressed in bucolic poetry.

The word ‘bucolic,’ meaning “relating to the pleasantries of the country” comes from the Latin ‘bucolicus,’ meaning “rustic, pastoral,” which in turn is derived from the Greek ‘βουκόλος’/‘boukolos,’ or “cowherd” (‘βοῦς’/‘bous,’ meaning “cow” and ‘κολος’/‘kolos,’ meaning “keeper”).

The trend of bucolic poetry began in the third century BCE with Greek poet, Theocritus. Adapting Theocritus’ poetic style, the Latin poet, Virgil, wrote ‘The Eclogues’ or ‘The Bucolics’ (42-39 BCE).  An ‘eclogue’ is a “draft” or “selection.” Virgil’s ‘Eclogues’ is a series of ten poems written in hexameter about shepherds and mythologized rural settings. These poems comprise one of Virgil’s three major works (the others being ‘The Aeneid’ and ‘The Georgics’). It is thought that Virgil composed these poems in response to losing his family land. The Emperor Augustus appropriated land away from many of his citizens in order to compensate soldiers who fought during the Battle of Philippi. Virgil was one such civilian; his love and longing for his parcel of land comes through in the beauty of his pastoral poetry.

Bucolic poetry reappeared in sixteenth century England, with Alexander Barclay’s ‘Eclogues’ (1515) and Edmund Spenser’s ‘Shepheardes Calendar’ (1579), which provided twelve eclogues, describing the life of a shepherd during each month of the year. A pastoral, bucolic poem typically describes rural life to a city dweller. As such, it tends to idealize the country into the life city-dwellers do not have, many times doing a disservice to the difficulty of country life. The tradition of anti-pastoral poetry exposes pastoral poetry for its over-idealization of the countryside and unfaithful portrayal of the hardships of shepherds and country-dwellers.

In eighteenth century England, bucolic poetry truly gained traction as a popular style, probably as a reaction to the contemporaneous Industrial Revolution. Londoners craved a simpler time and life. The love for the countryside has not subsided over the centuries. Modern writers, particularly American Transcendentalists, have also produced bucolic works, including Thoreau’s ‘Walden,’ and Emerson’s “Walking.”

‘The Canterbury Tales’ was banned for several centuries in England and has been widely challenged in Europe for most of its publication due to the story’s foul and obscene language, sexually explicit content, and its criticism of the Catholic Church. Chaucer’s tale has been banned for many years in Europe, but recently most of the censorships and challenges have taken place in the United States. Since colonials first landed on American soil, ‘The Canterbury Tales’ has been heavily censored. The novel has been banned as recently as 1995, where it was removed from a senior college prep course at a Eureka, Illinois high school for its sexually explicit content, as parents labeled the prominent piece of literature “inappropriate for students.”

So, why does ‘The Canterbury Tales’ matter? Why should it be read, instead of banned? What could we learn about crude fart jokes written in the 1300s? Well, ‘The Canterbury Tales’ allows us to read and understand the social, political, and religious critiques of the fourteenth century. Because behind all the crudeness, Chaucer is critiquing the times he lived in. He is illustrating the foolishness of this era through his exaggerated characters and tales. ‘The Canterbury Tales’ is an important piece of literature not only for its foolishness, but also because ‘The Canterbury Tales’ tell it like it is and doesn’t gloss anything over.

While many of us have read ‘The Canterbury Tales’ as an assigned reading, there are just as many who have not because of the book has been censored, challenged, and banned all around the world. While the crude tone of this story was the reason behind why my senior English class loved ‘The Canterbury Tales,’ it was reading about a time so very different from ours that made us fall in love with it.

Source:

Christmas is just around the corner, and you are looking forward to hosting some holiday party with your family. You scavenge through cookbooks for the most appetizing recipes, secure the most perfect venue, and make a run for Christmas decorations. When the details of the plan are hashed out, you excitedly dispatch messages to your family members. But perhaps your eager anticipation isn’t quite shared; their responses are simply “Cool” or “Okay.” You start to wonder if the idea was even a good one. Their laconic replies hint at no signs of delight with which you planned the party.

'Laconic' is an adjective defined as “using few words; concise.” The word originates from the Greek word ‘lakon,’ which referred to the people of Lakonia. The Lakonians, who lived in Southern Greece near Sparta, were famous for their terseness in language. Their pith came especially handy when Philip of Macedon declared, “If I enter Laconia, I will raze Sparta to the ground.” The people of Laconia replied, with a simple “If.” Their tauntingly laconic answer certainly would not have advanced Philip of Macedon’s ambitions for conquest.

I do not pride myself for my often circuitous way of saying things, and I certainly aspire for laconic speech and the wit that it is able to convey. Perhaps I am afraid that only a few words might not be able to capture all of what I want to say. It seems rarely possible to capture enthusiasm, apology, and other complexities of emotion in such brevity of language.

Through the feverish haze, what was real and what was not blended together in violent disarray. Shadows flickered across the walls and lights flashed, casting ghoulish figures against the white walls of the living room. I deliriously wondered whether I was awake or dreaming as I took in the increasingly phantasmagorical sights. Yes, I realized, it was absolutely a terrible idea to watch this horror film on my large-screen television while at home with the flu and a high fever.

Phantasmagorical is the adjectival form of the noun phantasmagoria. A phantasmagoria initially referred specifically to a popular eighteenth and nineteenth-century form of theater entertainment, where ghostly apparitions are formed using a ‘magic lantern.’ The ‘magic lantern’ (an early form of a projector) projected terrifying images, like skeletons, ghosts, and demons onto walls, smoke, or screens. This form of theater was invented by a Belgian physicist in the late eighteenth century and was incredibly popular throughout the nineteenth century, with an 1801 phantasmagoria production becoming a smash hit in London’s Lyceum Theatre. The popularity of this form of theater in turn popularized the word.

Currently, the term refers less to the actual form of theater and more to the blend of real and imagined images that the phantasmagoria relied upon to delight and terrify its audience. The adjective form of the word can be ‘phantasmagorical,’ ‘phantasmagoric,’ or ‘phantasmagorial’ (the latter being the least-used option of the three). Its adjective form is defined as having a fantastic or deceptive appearance as if something in a dream, or having the appearance of an optical illusion, especially one produced by a magic lantern.

The likely etymology of the word can be traced back to the French word ‘fantasmagorie,’ from the root word ‘fantasme’ (meaning ‘phantasm’) combined with the suffix ‘-agorie’ (likely from the Greek word ‘agora,’ meaning ‘assembly’). This would give the originating French term a literal meaning of “an assembly of phantasms.”

The origin of the word phantasmagorical lends itself well to the current meaning. A feverish, or even drug-addled, mind can easily conjure up all manners of terrifying, dreamlike phantasms.

“Until writing was invented, men lived in acoustic space: boundless, directionless, horizonless, in the dark of the mind, in the world of emotion, by primordial intuition, by terror. Speech is a social chart of this bog. The goose quill put an end to talk. It abolished mystery, it gave architecture and towns; it brought roads and armies, bureaucracy. It was the basic metaphor with which the cycle of civilization began, the step from the dark into the light of the mind. The hand that filled the parchment page built a city. Whence did the wond’rous mystic art arise, Of painting SPEECH, and speaking to the eyes? That we by tracing magic lines are taught, How to embody, and to colour THOUGHT?”         'The Medium is the Massage' by Marshall McLuhan

I was assigned The Medium is the Massage my junior year of college. I was instantly weary of the book after my professor explained McLuhan had originally titled the book, “The Medium is the Message,” but when the printing press somehow turned “Message” into “Massage” McLuhan looked passed the typo and decided to distribute it anyway. I was appalled. I thought this man, this writer, didn’t give a single thought that the title had lost its original meaning. The title had gone from a profound text about media to a book about massages. I began to question his writing before I even opened the book. My reasoning was if McLuhan could care less about the title, how can he give any thought to the words beyond the cover?

But I was assigned this text and quizzes on the readings were as often as class times, so I begrudgingly read The Medium is the Massage. Not only was I completely wrong about McLuhan and his book, but the book had become my favorite to all the other books on my crowded bookshelf. I fell in love with one specific page, page 48. This one page and the perfect grouping of words, sentences, and paragraphs within the page is the reason why The Medium is the Massage is my favorite book.

As a writer and a booklover, I fully believe in the power and magic of writing. For me, writing creates all. It gives meaning to so many thoughts, feelings, actions, and perceptions. Sure, speech may achieve the same meaning, but writing creates a physical entity to spoken words and so much more. Writing makes the intangible tangible forever immortalized by the stroke of the pen.  Speech lives as long as the memory of it does, but writing never dies.

This quote on page 48 is special to me because it articulates almost perfectly the importance and the significance of writing because when writing began, so did civilization. Writing brought us out of the darkness of forgotten words and actions, and it allowed us to learn. Writing is a record of what we once were, or what we once thought, believed, saw, and planned. Writing allows us to look back into the past, whether it is plans and layouts to construct a building a house or old love letters to remember past feelings of love that are no longer felt.

The First Novel I Remember Reading

As a child, my nose was always stuck in a book. I could be anywhere at the dinner table, in the car, or walking down the street, and I would be reading. It got to the point that my mom had to ban books during dinnertime. By the third grade, I was being sent out of class to find reading material in the older classrooms because I had read everything in my classroom library. However, I cannot recall the names or books that I read during that time, just fragments of plots and characters.

In the fourth grade, I didn’t compete in sports during recess; instead I would have reading competitions with Ivan D. and Isaac M. The rules were simple. We would check out a book approved by our reading group and read as fast as we could and then we would take an A.R. Reading Test, which tested us on our reading comprehension of the novel. From there we would factor in our scores and the time it took us to read the novel and whoever came out with the best results would be the ultimate reader of that book.

The first novel I remember reading was with my reading group, and it was actually a series, the Harry Potter series. Our group started the series because we had watched the movies and really enjoyed them. They were also the biggest books in our reading library, so we saw reading them as a challenge.

Everyday, I would ask Ivan and Isaac what page they were on, and then we would sit down during lunch break or recess to discuss the plot and characters. Sometimes I would even tease them about upcoming plot twists that they had yet to read. I remember telling Ivan and Isaac how I was obsessively checking my mailbox to see if my letter from Hogwarts had arrived, and they confessed to me that they had been doing the same.

Reading with Isaac and Ivan was special because in my mind we had turned into Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley. These competitions made the reading of Harry Potter even more special because I had a group of friends that I could discuss the books with. Reading was no longer a solitary activity.

I will always remember fourth grade fondly because of those reading competitions, and I will always remember the beginning of my love for the Harry Potter series. But most importantly, I will remember the time I spent with my two very good friends, Isaac M. and Ivan D.

Book I Ended Up Loving: ‘The Remains of the Day’ by Kazuo Ishiguro

Almost by default, we tend not to take to books that are required reading for a class. Fortunately for me, however, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro has established its place in my library as a beloved story that happened to be required for a Modern British Literature course at UCSB. What started as a seemingly dull, slow-paced first half eventually gave way to a deeply tragic story of missed opportunity and, ultimately, a life of self-imposed lack of autonomy.

Told entirely from the first person point of view of Mr. Stevens, the exemplary English butler of Darlington Hall, The Remains of the Day primarily explores what it might be like to be a separate entity from one’s own emotions. An obedient product of his upbringing, Stevens goes through the motions of his story as if from behind an impenetrable glass window.

From the people to the situations he encounters, readers are slowly assured of Stevens’ absolute adherence to professional protocol, even when conversing with his father. It becomes apparent that both Mr. Stevens and his butler father, Mr. Stevens, Sr., have gotten by all their lives without ever feeling any real human warmth in their lives, not because there’s no one to offer it, but because they choose to push it away. In contrast to the several instances in Darlington where maids and manservants resign and elope together, Stevens’ own love life is noticeably nonexistent, but only of his own making.

Stepping back a little from the microcosm of Stevens’ life, we can read The Remains of the Day as the real, tumultuous post-war era in 1950s Britain. Although all the characters are fictional (with the exception of cameos by famous world leaders of the time), their lives appear to be so full of unplumbed potential that they could have been real people at some point.

I think the reason this story resonates so deeply, even today, is because sometimes we push away people who seem to grow too close to us. Oftentimes, it’s not because of the persons themselves, but because we fear the vulnerability that comes with that closeness. Sometimes, it can feel like an intrusiveness that we feel the need to protect ourselves from. On the flipside, this story is also relatable because sometimes we might feel close to our family and friends, but never really get to know them on a deeper level. Furthermore, we can also easily relate to a certain relational situation in this story, one of missed chances with a possible love interest.

Basically, it’s difficult to find some part of this story that we cannot relate to in our own lives. The intimate yet professional style of Stevens’ language is able to transport us into his shoes. Thus, it is completely possible to live vicariously through Stevens’ rich yet almost robotic storyline, an interesting paradox that works exceptionally well with Ishiguro’s hypnotic storytelling. The fact that Stevens’ Darlington Hall could have easily existed in the English 1950s is an added draw to this novel.