December Words

I’ve been building up a few words of the week for a while now. The first was something that I didn’t recognize in the heady, barely palatable book by David Wells, “Above All Earthly Pow’rs“. Dealing with the church’s place against the backdrop of post modern thought, he mentioned how post modern ideals were ensconcing themselves into the field of biblical interpretation. He used it better than I did. Because he’s smart and I’m an engineer. It basically means “to cozy up with,” though I think I like it in a more nefarious sense of parasitically burrowing into something. That interpretation is not supported by the definition, but if I can ever bring myself to use it, I’ll use it negatively. Why? Because language is my tool, not the other way around. So long as you don’t chop off your fingers, you can use a circular saw to slice an orange if need be. Think about it.

The word is actually not at all related to abscond, which means “to make a discrete exit.” I don’t make many discrete exits these days, but if I did, I would later tell people that I was caught absconding from the party. There’s a decent chance I’ll be able to use that one in the next 3 months – it’s a little bit closer to my current lexicon, I wouldn’t be too awkward tossing it in amongst my other words. Someone made me use a different word for “gird” today, so it’s entirely possible that it will fall on deaf ears.

Meanwhile, RudyGu used the term fiduciary in the recent debate. I like how that sounds. I have known the word in the past, but not when he used it. It’s been stuck in my craw for a few days now, so I might as well throw it up as a bonus. I think I’d mess it up if I used it with words other than capacity or obligation.

Now, while we’re here, we need to come up with some December Words for people. Maybe this can become a tradition.

Since I have started monitoring my site’s statistics again, I have received multiple hits for the current month plus the word “words”. I had hits for October Words (6), for November Words (9) and now for December Words. I’ve gotten three hits today alone for December words.

I’m not sure what they are looking for. What would possess you to search for such a thing? I’m trying to do at least one good deed a day, and since it seems like I’m -1 so far today, here’s a list of good December words:

1) Christmas
2) Poinsettia. I was on the fringe of an hour long debate about the pronunciation of this word once. I can’t remember what I thought it should be. But ee-uh and uh are acceptable, they tell me. At one point I thought strongly about this, it just goes to show you…never think strongly about anything that you’re likely to forget.
3) Mistletoe. Speaking of parasites…
4) White. Snow is white. Sometimes it snows in December. If not, there is always a fresh layer of powder in all Christmas villages.
5) Red. After communists, and the Decembrist Revolt which is, in fact, named thusly because of when it occurred.
6) I don’t associate green with December. You shouldn’t either. If you’re coming to me for December words, you’re not leaving here with green.
7) Advent, from the Latin for arrival, itself derivative from the verb to come, and the prefix ad, indicating what we’re coming to something. Like the birth of Christ, for instance. Or Kwanzaa, whatever.
8) Stars. I used to TA astronomy. It was mostly very clear in December, and we had brutally cold labs late at night while all the jocks who had procrastinated throughout the semester tried to squeeze in their last lab. We did the CCD (charge coupled device…aka photon counter…aka fancy black and white camera) lab this time of year. There’s also a star of Bethlehem.
9) Cold. It’s cold in December, especially a night like tonight when it’s 30 degrees with 25 mile per hour winds. Brrr.
10) Intermezzo. It’s right between Thanksgiving (where I just took 10 days off) and Christmas (where I will take about that many off again). It’s actually a great time to work, it feels like less people are around. They’re really just more lazy. I can decrease my focus at work and still maintain my “work 15% harder than most people” paradigm.
11) Matt Jankowski. Because his birthday is the 19th. My grandfather’s birthday was also in this month, I think.
12) Pearl Harbor. You might not associate Pearl Harbor with December, since you remember a bunch of guys running around on a tropical island dressed in summer clothes. That’s because it happened on Hawaii. It was probably cold as balls in the north east on that day that will live in infamy. Incidentally, apparently “cold as balls” is a term that has nothing to do with testicles. It’s related to cannon balls, they tell me.
13) All the characters of the Christmas story: Baby Jesus, Virgin Mary (but picture her enormously pregnant, like Erin Donovan. Just as grumpy), Wise Men, farm animals, manger, hay, inn (where there is no room), Joseph (since he was buzzing around), and maybe the phrase “lies make baby Jesus cry.” I would throw in the big three Jewish Christmas words too, but I can’t spell them, not even close enough for google to recognize them. They make their way into English in various forms anyway. I’m talking about the holiday commemorating the miraculous oil supply during the Maccabean revolt, the candle with all the prongs, and of course that devilish little spinner thing, I made you out of clay!

Feel free to add some more. I want to be the world’s foremost authority on December words. I better get thousands of hits by all those strange people. Maybe they’ll put it on their areligious Christmas cards.

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