The other day I was reading some vapid prose and, overcome with the desire to share the experience, I phoned a friend to say, "I just feel like talking to someone who understands the word vapid."
I tried vapid and hedonism in one class this morning and palimpsest and wraith in the other, and of course I had to stop and explain my meaning in smaller words, even though the book we were reading followed the word hedonism with "You dedicate your life to the pursuit of pleasure."
I enjoy telling my students about palimpsests and even drawing diagrams to illustrate, but sometimes I need to speak to people familiar with palimpsests, people for whom the pursuit of pleasure includes the pleasure of unusual words. Here, for instance, is the context for wraith: "Lodged there in the tree, he began to feel himself to be a sodden wraith askulk in the night, some gnome or underbridge troll." That's from Cold Mountain, a book full of delicious sentences. I roll sentences like that around in my mouth like dark chocolate, delighted that I don't have to query any of its ingredients.
I hope to infect my students with this love of words until it spreads like a glorious contagion across the land, but they seem to have been vaccinated against my efforts. Whoever is distributing this insidious vaccine needs to just stop. Otherwise, we'll all be immersed in a sea of vapidity with no one to throw us a lifeline and then we'll all end up sodden wraiths askulk, if it's possible to skulk on the sea. (Yes, I know I'm mixing metaphors. No, I don't care.)
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