theWORDjunkie

… more bullshit than a cattle ranch …

Tryst

Root: Latin, tristia, meaning an appointed hunting place.

Definition: A poetic word implying a rendezvous between two lovers.

Examples:

  1. Their tryst this night, as on many others, was at the entrance to the apple orchard.

twj says:

The fun is, of course, not in using the word for lovers, but applied to innocent parties to imply that something more might be going on, or that there’s a secretive aspect to the rendezvous.

I do like the hunting root. The word has retained a sense of the hunting/chasing/danger in pronounciation. Short, sharp, succinct.

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Calliope

Root: Greek, Kalliopē, literally having a beautiful voice.

Definition: Name given to a keyboard operated steam-whistle organ, mostly found on old steam-ships.

Examples:

  1. As she forged through the waters, her calliope could be heard whistling away.

twj says:

This is another example of language being used for hollow showmanship. Calling a steam-whistle organ Calliope is a travesty of lingual heritage. It’s like calling the diggeri-doo celestial, no offense implied to diggeri-doo aficionados.

Calliope was chief of the nine Muses of ancient Greece, the muse of singing. The word should be kept in a velvet-lined, gold-plated box, and carefully removed and pronounced only when absolutely necessary.

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Phlegmatic

Phlegm, or “flem”. Gives me the shivers cos I immediately see a dodering old fool showering me with spittle as they ed-jew-mi-kate me on some arcane social grace that I’ve never heard of, growing ever more angry until they work themselves into a coughing or whooping fit. But it doesn’t mean that at all! It means someone unemotional, calm, unrilable. Someone you can’t work up into a passion. Someone who just sits there coolly in the heat of an argument, unbothered, apathetic, even.

Root: Greek, phlegmatikos, meaning inflammation, which is from phegein, meaning to burn.

Definition: A calm or apathetic temperament/calmness of temperament.

Examples:

  1. His phlegmatic temperament enabled him to endure many a cold, lonely, difficult night.
  2. The noise of the siren would rile even the most phlegmatic of characters.

twj says:

To truly understand phlegmatic, you have to look at the medical science of the middle ages, wherein they would diagnose the health of the patient in terms of the four cardinal humours: the blood (sanguine), the phlegm (phlegmatic), the yellow bile (choler, or anger), and the black bile (melancholy). These terms are still in heavy use today as a way of describing our humour/humor, which has as it’s root the meaning fluid.

Although it is regarded as barbaric and hopelessly out-of-date for medical science, the subject of the four humours, or temperaments, is fascinating and merges with the cardinal elements of the astrological science. (Yes, I just said “astrological science” to see how phlegmatic my rational readers are). Read more on the Wiki:

Anyway, I have to imprint the meaning of Phegmatic, and I’m going to do it by thinking of someone who’s got a cold, is all phlegmed up, and has no real enthusiasm for anything. Hope it works for you as well.

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