Day 51: Lexicon

Yesterday I wrote about my desire to find a word for profound and paralyzing boredom. Eleni suggested ennui and Small proposed lethargy, but neither captures the distress. Since it seems there isn’t anything in the English vocabulary, Eleni thought that maybe we should coin something. I welcome suggestions.

That reminds me of an article I read about ghost words: those that made it into a standard dictionary even though they’re not real. An intentional fabrication violates the Universal Lexicographer’s Ethical Code, which is a decidedly uncool (though fun) thing to do. It happens very rarely because not much gets by a lexicographer. Merriam-Webster’s last ghost word—dord—was in 1934, and it snuck in by accident, not by design. It came about when the chemistry editor submitted the following entry on a 3″ x 5″ index card. Note the upper-left corner.

What the editor meant is that either [uppercase] D or [lowercase] d can be an abbreviation for density. Instead, someone mushed the letters together and, voilà, a new word for density was born. It didn’t get yanked from the dictionary until 1947.

Hey, wait. What do you think about this?

Dord [\ ?d?rd], adjective: desperately, insanely bored. I never dreamed I could ever be so dord. See also: dordom, noun.

Oh, too much time on one’s hands is a dangerous thing. Let’s talk about something else.

I had my second Zoom session with my ESL conversation partner in Oregon, who looks to be in her mid-twenties or so. She and I had agreed last time that she would come to this meeting with ideas about what she wanted to discuss. Today’s exchange went something like this:

Ginna: What would you like to talk about today?
Student: I don’t know.
G: We’d decided that you would bring some ideas today. Did you do that?
S: No.
G: Oh. Hmm. Well, can you help me think of ideas now?
S: Maybe… places to visit?
G: But that’s what we talked about last time. Should we try something new?
S: I don’t know…

Maybe I haven’t communicated clearly enough or am misunderstanding something. Or not. Anyway, we made it through our fifteen minutes. Sometimes I had a hard time hearing and understanding her as well. Not sure if that was because of technical or physiological limitations on my part. I did strike 90 seconds’ worth of verbal gold when I asked her about a horse painting on the wall behind her. It turns out she’s an experienced equestrian, and she lit up when telling me about it. I hope we can find more of these moments next time. Despite the challenges to my conversational creativity, it’s a good project to be doing.

I’ve never been skilled (or interested) in the culinary realm. I don’t even remember how I used to keep my kids well-fed when I have such a hard time in the kitchen now. Tonight I decided to make myself an all-American dinner, but I almost burned the rice (the timer didn’t time, or maybe it was operator error) and I put the pork chop in without turning the oven on, but I didn’t overcook the asparagus.