#archaisms

No matter how hard I try, I cannot get my brain to always use “spun” as the past tense of “spin.” Under a lot of conditions, my brain insists it should be “span.” Which is apparently formally obsolete.

I’ll have to see if my library’s web site has access to the OED Online since it seems to be behind a goddamn paywall.

In other places I skimmed, it was said that it appeared in a lot of old literature. I devoured old literature in my teens-- far more than more “modern” works-- so I wonder if that’s how I picked it up.

My brain wants to use “spun” as an adjective only, I think. Like “spun wool.” I have to forcibly change usage. And I’m not always conscious of it.

But my brain likes the pattern like ring=rang, sing=sang, sink=sank. All of those have been migrating to use U instead of A in past tense (rung, sung, sunk) and my brain HATES IT.

I have a lot of archaisms rattling around in my brain, apparently. My 2nd grade teacher taught us the plural of “roof” was “rooves,” like “hoof=hooves,” so even though I have retrained myself to use “roofs” I sometimes twitch at it.

Lovecraft is sometimes called the father of horror, though not the horror of the “Freddie Kruger” slasher kind, but rather the horror that comes from fear of the unknown, what might be just beyond our senses, lurking in the dark. He remains extremely influential even though the vast majority of his work was published posthumously and he died in poverty, but he was the ultimate wordsmith, believing that American English was low level and slang and not worthy of being used, meaning that his works contain many interesting, archaic words. His first work was poetry, which is what his mother thought he should be writing, and his prose is clearly influenced by poetry, having a kind of rhythm and metre. He was greatly influenced himself by Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic writings, which also use a number of archaisms.

Lovecraft, as well as both his father and his mother, seemed to have suffered from chronic forms of what we would call mental disorders. Both his father (who died when Lovecraft was quite young) and his mother died in that same mental health institution. One recurring aspect of his writing is the idea that the sins of one’s fathers are paid for by the sons down through the generations. Although it is not known or mentioned by any of his biographers, he may have felt either consciously or subconsciously that his mother’s and father’s psychological problems contributed to his own mental malaise.

His life and works are fraught with his ideas of racial superiority and inferiority, which probably cause a lot of upset to 21st century sensibilities. He very much disliked the immigration of non-white, non-Europeans to the USA and often used racial insults to describe those who were not WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants). This fact may influence some to ignore his work but I believe we should not judge those of a less enlightened age by our modern standards.

Lovecraft himself adopted the stance of atheism early in life. In 1932, he wrote in a letter to Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian:

All I say is that I think it is damned unlikely that anything like a central cosmic will, a spirit world, or an eternal survival of personality exist. They are the most preposterous and unjustified of all the guesses which can be made about the universe, and I am not enough of a hairsplitter to pretend that I don't regard them as arrant and negligible moonshine. In theory, I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of radical evidence I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist.

(direct quotation taken from Wikipedia)

He had a particularly nihilistic view on life, feeling that human beings had little or no control over their lives and were at the mercy of the powers of the universe. The gods in his works are alien, which is perhaps reflective of the belief that there is no god as we, humans, believe, but rather the “Elder Gods” who are from a completely different and much older civilisation/universe that sees our own as puny, inferior and sees humans as only good for being slaves or sacrifices.

Whatever your views on Lovecraft’s beliefs, as a wordsmith he is second to none. Here are a few of my favourite words from some of his stories.

Machicolations – a projecting parapet with an opening for projecting missiles/oil/etc on an enemy below (See photo)

Preceptor – a teacher, an instructor

Batrachian – frog like (from the Greek word βατραχος /vat-tra-hos/ meaning frog)

Chthonic – adjective describing gods and other creatures dwelling under the earth (from the Greek word χθόνιος,  /kʰtʰ-ón-ios/ meaning in, under, or beneath the earth

Camalote – a type of water lily (see photo)

Lucubration – laborious, studious work often producing a pretentious or sedulous literary result

Rattlebrain

Whiggery

The principles of whigs

Fracas

A noisy quarrel

Trilinear

Involving three lines

Postulator

An official who presents a plea for beatification or canonisation in the Roman Catholic church

Imbrication

An overlapping of edges (in tiles or scales)

Envelope

All contractions of "It:" 'twas, 'twould, etc., used in any contemporary context. i.e., "'Twould be epic to see Spock kick Boba Fett's ass." (For some reason, it's always nerds who use "It" contractions.)

"Mayhaps"

"Methinks." Only ever used in smug contexts.

"Perchance"

rare words (✿◠‿◠)

new words (≧◡≦)