Spot the Frippet: something predatory.

 To be predatory you have to go out of your way to take things from someone else.

It'll quite often be the life of another creature.

Here's a rather common predator you might spot today:

photo by JP

It's not just the eating of other creatures that makes a predator (a trip to the butcher doesn't count) but the taking-without-leave. The theft has to have a substantial effect on the victim, too: a cleaner who keeps stealing toilet rolls from his or her (yes, yes, other genders are available) employer isn't predatory unless the place makes toilet rolls and this causes the factory significant and continuing loss.

Being on the look-out for predators is probably hard-wired into the brains or more or less everything on the planet that has a brain. 

See how much time you spend trying to Spot the Predator today.

from Havelock Ellis's book The Criminal

You'll probably get suspicious every time something arrives in your junk mail folder, for a start.

Spot the Frippet: a predator. This word comes from the Latin praedārī, to pillage, from praeda, booty.

Sunday Rest: pre-Madonna.

 I saw the word pre-Madonna on a comment board the other day.

Presumably it describes someone who doesn't subscribe to the principles of humility that are such an important part of the Christian religion.

Still, it's fine to say it out loud.

Sunday Rest: pre-Madonna. Madonna means my lady in Italian and usually refers to the mother of Christ. 

according to Wikipedia this is Mother and Child with Angles (sic) by Adriaen Isenbrandt

Prima donna means first lady, also in Italian, and refers to an Opera Star, or else anyone else who tends to have tantrums when under pressure, or when they don't get their own way.

Saturday Rave: A little cloud swims to the sun by Taras Shevenko.

 Taras Shevenko, 1814 - 1861 survived an upbringing of sorrow, poverty, and cruelty to become an artist and poet whose work is revered and celebrated in his homeland of Ukraine to this day.

Here's a self-portrait:

He was born a serf, which was a sort of slave, when Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire. His mother died when he was very young, and by the time he was seven his father had died doing forced work. Taras was left to the care of a cruel stepmother. He found work herding sheep and as a servant at a school, all the time trying to find a drawing master who would teach him.

A change in the ownership of his village saw Taras become a servant to this new owner, and opportunities to paint increased. Eventually Taras went with his new landlord to St Petersberg, where Taras met various artists who arranged a raffle of a portrait of the Russian poet Vasily Zhukovsky, donated by Karl Briullov, and with the proceeds they bought Taras's freedom.

I can hardly believe that such a life could be possible such a short time ago.

Taras Shevenko began writing poetry while he was still a serf. Here's a short poem, translated by Vera Rich.

A Little Cloud Swims To The Sun

(За сонцем хмаронька пливе)

A little cloud swims to the sun,
With all her crimson borders trailing,
And beckons to the sun to sleep 
And covers it with rosy veiling,
Cradled in the dark blue sea,
As a mother lulls her child...
Lovely to the eyes... And now,
It seems, the heart is still,
For one little hour of rest,
With God speaks quietly...
Like an enemy, the mist 
Falls upon the sea 
And the little rosy cloud,
Darkness in its wake 
The grey mist rolls and billows out,
And the silent dark
Throws its shroud upon the soul,
And you don’t know where to wander,
Longing, longing for the light,
Like small children for their mother.

**

Longing, longing for the light/ Like small children for their mother.

It breaks the heart.

Word To Use Today: crimson. This word comes from the Old Spanish cremesin, from the Arabic qirmizi, red of the kermes. Kermes is an insect which yields a red dye.

Word To Use Today: coddiwomple.

 Every authority I've found marks coddiwomple as slang.

Still, it's a magnificent word, and deserves, I think, to be embraced.

To coddiwomple is to travel in a determined way towards some vague object. This implies, I suppose, that the fun is to mostly be had in the travelling. A coddiwomple might involve a brisk walk without any particular end in view.

Or perhaps coddiwompling is more about exploring: I had a coddiwomple over the hill and found a view of the sea. 

Perhaps you coddiwomple your way through your whole life. Having no defined destination does mean you'll never fail, after all. 

(Or succeed, either. But hey...)

Word To Use Today: coddiwomple. I don't know of any derivation of this word. It's obviously playful, and it does seem to be British. Coddi may come from cod, a British word a meaning sham, as in cod Latin, and which earlier meant a fool. Womple suggests both yomp, which is military slang meaning to trek, heavily laden, over difficult territory, and womble, a creature native to Wimbledon Common but which, famously, womble free.

An unsavoury dish: a rant.

 Why is it that someone unsavoury is almost never sweet?

Word To Use Today: savoury. This word came into the English language in the 1200s. It was savure, then, from the Old French savourer, to savour. The Latin sapere means to taste.

Just to make things even more confusing, a savoury, meaning a small savoury course of a meal, is sometimes served at the beginning of a meal and sometimes as the last - after, or instead of, a dessert. 

photo by Tamorlan

In which case, I suppose, it might conceivably be described as both a savoury and a sweet. 

Nuts and Bolts: sijo.

Sijo is a type of Korean poem, first written in the fourteenth century at a time when Confucian philosophy was beginning to emerge against the background of Buddhism.

The verse form is short, just three lines (though the lines themselves aren't particularly short, each usually having fourteen to sixteen syllables).

The first line will establish a theme or setting, which will be elaborated in the second line. The third line will first present a twist on the theme, and then bring the verse to its completion.

The mood is quiet, lyrical, and perhaps wistful. Sijo is a rather quiet thing: not the place for cleverness or jokes.

Here's an example:

Mind, I have a question for you - How is it you stay so young?
As the years pile up on my body, you too should grow old.
Oh, if I followed your lead, Mind, I would be run out of town.

The verse is sometimes performed sung to an instrumental accompaniment, when it is called sijo chang. The song doesn't last very long, for obvious reasons, but it's longer than might be thought because the words are hugely elongated. It's a skillful business, that kind of singing, especially as the accompaniment might consist only of an occasional drum beat.

Here's an example of sijo chang:

Isn't it extraordinary? Like entering a different world.

Nuts and Bolts: sijo. This word is a European approximation of the original Korean.

Thing Not To Be Today: lysergical.

 Lysergic acid diethylamide is usually known as LSD.

It gives people hallucinations. It's illegal. 

Some people have said that it improves the quality of their creative output, but the truth remains that very nearly all the great works of art in the world have been made without its help.

LSD is deeply unpredictable. There's some evidence that medically supervised use over a short period may help some people who are mentally ill. There's also evidence that sometimes it makes some people go bonkers.

Lysergical is a new word, and seems to mean inspired by LSD. 

On the whole The Word Den would recommend a more reliable source of inspiration.

Thing Not To Be Today: lysergical. This word comes from the words hydrolysis and ergot. Ergot is a fungus that affects wheat, and is the original source of the compound LSD. The word ergot comes from the French word for spur of a cock, but what's that got to do with anything no one knows. The Greek word hudōr means water.