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#TFW a "Housewife" begins to discuss any treatment she has discovered for any possible ailment, real or imagined or self-inflicted ... (No, this isn't as clickbait sketchy as some of those "gawk at vintage advertising stories you see on Teh Intarwebs.)

Brain scans on rappers ... discovered that during freestyle rapping, brain activity increased in the brain areas that engage motivation, language, mood, and action.

This piece is a wistful one for me, as a writer who knows what I CANNOT do; I do not have the chops. But man would I love to read this story from the perspective of the kids whose world this already was.

NSFW ... since about 1600 (science-ing the what out of what?). Ahhh, I love it when The Arrant Pedant gives us glorious etymology. Enjoy!

Collection

Jessica Faust at Bookends Literary Agency takes a look at the downside of #MSWL, or the Manuscript Wish List many pre-published love to pore over, hoping to find someone who'll represent our work.

The Arrant Pedant has a great post for those Americans coping with taxes this season: on the task of taxes and axing about the history of etymology. Also, I learned a new word today - palatalization. Not sure when I'll get to use it, but I like it anyway. Syncopated.

Speaking of great words: I'm always a sucker for palimpsest. Not least because, as artifacts, the things are wells of curious information and questions. The History Blog looks at a palimpsest in which the Battle of Thermopylae gets an "all killer no filler" description. Never let it be said the History Blogger is not a History Nerd.

The on-demand economy – or old-fashioned temping? I gave up temping myself twenty years ago, because being pimped is no way to make a living. Gee, and it turns out there are others who don't want to work that way either. Duh.

Collection

It is rare, if not unprecedented, for me to contemplate the phrase "everybody's talking about it!" without scoffing, pinching salt, or otherwise having no patience with the entire concept. But Harper Lee has brought us as close as I've ever seen, with the Go Set a Watchman epochal event publication. Mostly discussion seems to center on the disconcerting combination of darn-near-prurient curiosity about the manipulations involved in making public a draft work, and a general condemnation of the work as "should've been only a scholarly curiosity, really isn't a saleable novel, hey I'm only reporting the facts, and isn't it terrible they've done this (so I can buy in and then blog about it)?" There is a lot that's ghastly. So it was even more quease-inducing to read this. Apparently, Atticus - the great American symbol of moral rectitude and crusadership - turns out to be a big old bigot.

Sigh.

So let's look at racism in a different way. Nyki Blatchley provides a truly EXCELLENT post on the Aryan fallacy and all its little malformed fallacious babies. A linguistic/historical/cultural must-read, because it's incisive and important on multiple levels. It's good storytelling, it's good teaching, it touches on varied aspects of those ways we seem to love to come to wrong-thinking, and it's *sourced*, which is more than I ever do for y'all. So go. Now.

Buttonwheezeur

The happy little community at Janet Reid’s blog was using, as we do, her beloved friend Felix Buttonweezer in a discussion recently, when the spelling of his name came up. When the dastardly culprit responsbile for adding “Buttonweazer” to the mix published a smiling mea culpa this weekend, I got to thinking (again) about the way many people look at spelling.

An awful lot of us like the idea that spelling is a fixed system, subject to rules, reassuringly constant; yet event he briefest consideration blows this idea to smithereens. Or smithereans, if you like.

History provides copious exemplars of how the Very Silly People of the past used to spell things different ways; Henry VIII’s wives alone give us an almost dizzying array of spelling what was a remarkably limited variety of names (see also: Katheryn, Katherine, Catherine, and so on). Many of the most famous names in history, some spellings of which were pasted on without recourse to primary sources generations and even centuries removed from those they are applied to – and, of course, the translation of names from one language to another give us very famous names indeed the original user would never have recognized. Da Vinci is one of the best-known non-names, but take a look at the "à" in "Thomas à Becket" for a real roller coaster ride of interpolation.

Clovis, of course, was called no such thing by his un-sainted mother, and we have Romanization to thank for a charming variety of sobriquets presumed to be easier on the tongue than what may or may not accurately be called the genuine articles.

But this mutability in spelling is decidedly NOT an antique phenomenon, and that I think is where people get caught up short. In my own lifetime, Peking and the Hapsburgs have seen distinctive changes in Western spelling, and I’ve seen names and ages of world figures reinterpreted very commonly by the most supposedly-rigorous journalistic outlets and so on. It’s all too facile to lean on Reliable Sources for correct information, but even then we’re often dealing with translations – and, frankly, a standard of fact-checking that seems to have mutated itself over the past generation or so.


Personally, I have a big tic about getting the spelling and pronunciation of people’s names correct, but I don’t have time to fret much about the many folks who like to spell my Diane with two Ns or insist on tagging that extraneous Bionic S onto the end of my surname. Or call me Debbie or Donna. It’s a matter of respect from my side, especially given the diversity of teams I have worked with over the years (I used to go pretty bazoo when people mispronounced some of our Indian, Pakistani, or French Algerian teammates lazily), but on the receiving end I’ve learned to take whatever name people want to call me, as long as it’s not insulting. (*)

From a youthful sense of grammatical and spelling superiority, I’ve come to a great fascination with the limberness of the English language. Its linguistic variety and beauty don’t stop, for me, when I hear the word I think of as “ask” pronounced “ax” (it's older than you think, and not racially coded) and I only wish I could see the day when diverse dialects gained the respect all tongues deserve.

All this said, I still can’t tolerate “NOO-cue-lur” and “JOOL-urry”.



(*Nearly a decade ago, I worked with a guy we’ll call George. George was an irascible, incredibly self-assured, talky guy much taken with his own sense of humor and very much an acquired taste, whom I happened to love to bits, irascibility and all. He used to call me “Lady Di” and I let it get to me to the point where I finally told him he had to stop it. His initial response, “BUT I LIKE IT!” was so wonderfully typical of him I grin to this day. And he stopped calling me Lady Di, cold. And I got so I really, really missed it. And still do.

This story is in no way a license for anyone else, ever, to call me Lady Di – any more than it is for anyone other than Mr. X or my mama to call me Di, or anyone but that one Green Beret I used to be friends with to call me Didee, or for anyone but that filmmaker friend to call me Darcey, or my Beloved Ex to call me a Wonderful Bag of Things. All rights to nicknames are non-transferable.)

Breaking the Rules

In The Ax and the Vase, Clovis occasionally refers to his wife and queen Clotilde as “Cloti.”  Linguistically, there is zero defense for this – not least as “Clotilde” itself is a Romanization of a name pronounced with very little relationship indeed to the adaptation.  I’ve discussed Clovis’ own name (given to him, not by his father, King Childeric, but by his mother, Basina).  His own Romanized epithet takes us from a name more like “Hludo-vechus” to something more familiar to the modern eye, raised on two thousand years of Romance language and an affinity for clipped phonics.

As do many in the family and the dynasty as a whole—Chlodomer, Clotaire, Chrotilda, and so on—Clotilde herself shares the primary root of her bigeminal name with Clovis.  The Clo- root word derives from “hlud” – a cognate for fame, and most often translated thus – but it also is a cognate and shares kinship with the modern word “loud”.  This informs, in a way, much of the plot of Ax.  Clovis spends a great deal of energy on what we could call propaganda; he not only makes his own myth, but he tells a particular sort of story—a spectacular sort of story—in acts calculated for maximum shock-value and impact.

In Clotilde’s case, the root is, interestingly, most often translated as “bright” rather than “famed” – and that may be a gender bias dating back centuries which continues to be regurgitated, a feminine interpretation of a root used both for men and for women alike.  Where Clovis’ name is said to mean “famed warrior”, hers is given as “bright battle” (the latter root of which tends to beg the question, what is “girly” anyway, in the context of Germanic naming?).  I can’t cite hard data that this is a gender bias, but the consistency of the different meanings given for the same root for Clovis and Clotilde is striking.

Anyway.  To the point (yes, there is one).


And so I have an early Frankish king being cutesy and calling his wife either bright or loud, depending on how we look at it linguistically … and the point is that linguistics went absolutely by the wayside in this conceit.

I felt it necessary to evoke perhaps the solitary area of tenderness in Clovis’ life and heart, by expressing it in his words to his wife.  Humans are creatures of nicknames – but how an ancient Germanic reiks might nickname his wife, his queen, is frankly beyond my ken.

And so, without justification and I am sure without the slightest reality, I created a diminutization with abbreviation.

As false as it is by the rules, it’s authentic in terms of human behavior.  Today, name-shortening is the way we most commonly create pet names (and have for centuries … even if not the centuries in which Clovis and Clotilde lived).  It’s also a deliniation of how close an orbit is between two people:  there aren’t many people who get away with calling me Di, but those who do are VERY close to me indeed.  There is a brevity in affection which creates intimacy between us – if someone in my office calls me Di, they’re likely to get an eyebrow-raising wry smile.  But when X uses it, it is a sort of bond – he’s known me for so long, and he has earned the right to choose a name for me.  Oddly enough, a former coworker almost created a bond with me by calling me Lady Di – which bugged me so much I finally told him to stop it, and his utterly priceless response (you really had to know the guy to see how this could be endearing) was, “But I like it!”  He stopped it outright – and, in the end, I found I missed him calling me that.  And I still have affectionate memories of him to this day.

Nicknaming is a bilateral sort of leveling, a mutual sharing – and so, when Clovis speaks with his “Cloti”, it is a signpost of their unique rights to each other.  No other person would nor could even think of such a name for the queen.  And no other person would have the right to use it, either.  I gave him no nickname from her, but people sometimes share a thing only one of them actually wears, so to speak.

It is in things like this historical fiction finds its little freedoms.  There will be guitarists at the back of the bar of course, who scoff at such apalling license.  I’m not writing for those purists, apparently.

Every word I put down is translated through a modern mind which can never honestly nor completely capture the character, the period, the etiquette and protocol.  I can evoke them and study – but, being the product of the world I’ve lived in, forty-six years of hopeless modernity will inform the set construction.  On occasion, such as in this little license, I’ll use a screw, if it holds better than a nail – even if that’s not authentic.  If the wall stays up, and holds its own corner of the story, that is authenticity enough.  I want the story to stand.

I won’t write a feminist Mary Sue character, whose presence would outright tear the story and its setting down; but I’m not above allowing myself a bit of “modern technology” to get a point across.  If the ancient nails are rusted away, and there’s a Philips head and a screwdriver to be had … I’ll call my Queen-Saint “Cloti” in the bedchamber with her king, and apologize to nobody for it.

When looking in a Saint’s bedchamber, there is some license you can take … and some, of course, you really can’t.  All things considered, I hope I chose the right infraction!

Blade People

(One of mine is here ...)

It is a curiosity of antiquity/Late Antiquity, that there were major populations (to use the term “nation” calls to mind too many modern notions to be useful or worthwhile) who took their names from weaponry.  The ultimate derivation of the name now pronounced "Franks" is their throwing-ax, the francisca – which, interestingly enough, seems to bear a fundamental kinship also with their word for liberty (again, “freedom” is the wrong word, evoking certain specifics beside the point of what was meant in ancient context).

The Saxons, too, took their name from a blade, the seax, which was more a dagger than an ax – but equally as much a part of daily life as the Franks’ tool of choice.

Digging (perhaps with a pickax) farther back, we find the labris, the ancient Minoan double-headed ax, which gave its name not to a people, but to that classically enshrined place, and concept, the labyrinth:  “the place of the ax”.  There is an archaeological site in Turkey, the city of Labraunda, whose name also seems to derive from that of the weapon.

For some of us (though hardly for all) today, the idea of imbuing a weapon with spirit – indeed, with the spirit of an entire people (or a people’s being imbued with the spirit of a weapon) – is perhaps strange.  Yet, throughout human history, weapons – especially blades – have been the subject of our most sophisticated technology, the axis around which entire economies might revolve, the expression of our liberty – as in the Franks – and the ultimate statement of our power, our autonomy, our ingenuity … our purpose.  The highest arts are employed in the making of our blades, the greatest resources, the most skilled of our craftspeople, and the limits of our innovation.

Swords are not merely beautiful, but of extraordinary material value.  Anyone familiar with the +Ulfberh+t, the katana – with pattern welding, or the advent from bronze to steel, understands that the chemistry and artistry of blade-making surpass their concrete presence, and easily pass into a mystical reverence, into symbology we carry with us every day and no longer even see, after sometimes thousands of years of history.

In North America, the pipe tomahawk was an explicit reference to the choice our indigenous peoples had, in dealing with the Europeans:  weapon, or peace-pipe.

In Rome, the fasces – an ax lashed together with a bundle of rods – was a representation of the unity of its citizens (the many rods, held together as one), and its blade … or the absence thereof … spoke to the power over life and death held by the man before whom it was carried.  The fasces’ adornment with a laurel wreath meant, not peace as we define the concept today, but *victory* for Rome.

In Egypt, victorious pharaohs were buried with, and depicted with, the khopesh, the monarch’s blade.

In my own home as a kid growing up, the saber of my grandfather, accoutrement of his World War I uniform, was a symbol of his service.  Of the service, indeed, of all American veterans, perhaps all the way back to our Revolution – a concrete emblem of pride and protection, which we honored silently, but very definitely, as an artifact of one part of what patriotism takes from its people in order to provide for our freedoms.

Antenna Swords
Image:  Wikimedia

Even rarefied, as attenuated as possible from the implication of actual death or warfare, polished and embellished and more the product of art than … well, saber-rattling intent … the sword’s beauty is not that of an idyll, a human face or a landscape.  The charisma of a blade is – literally – edgy, and I don’t intend a joke, but the real observation.  We are put on our guard by certain types of beauty, and we like the brand of wariness an inert blade can still instill.  Precious metals and jewels make us marvel, but it is the (again, I don’t mean to make a joke here) point of the thing which creates the energy of our admiration of a magnificent weapon.

I could say the same for our attraction to certain types of people, or relationships, but that is perhaps a post for another day …

We wear jewelry wrought in blades.  Damascene designs favor beautiful scimitars, ships of war – and goth girl and boy baubles, certainly, focus on daggers and swords and bleeding hearts and blood red glass jewels – but brooches I could wear easily to work come in the form of a great variety of figural weapons.

This post could descend into all the psychosexual implications and images of blades, but I think that truly is irrelevant at the highest level.  Humanity is a bitter – and beautiful – tangle, but a sword can be breathtaking without the breath being too hot and heavy (and I write this blog, as we recall, to the standard that my mom, my nieces, or my coworkers can read it).  In any case, sexuality in symbolism is a post I’ve been saving up, so I don’t want to blow it and use that material here.

Are there artifacts in your home, in your jewelry box, or simply the clutter of your mind, tied to swords or axes or daggers?  We are STILL – all – people of many blades, even those of us who have not named our national identity after a weapon.  You may not even see yours, or the ones lurking around you.  But they are there …  Where are they?  In the painting in the hall?  In the little bronze your great aunt once had sitting on a mantel?  Actual swords, or art reproductions … even just the tiny crest on some forgotten heirloom emblem passed down from someone’s government, or actual military service …

Where are your blades … ?  And what do they mean to you?

Sweet Lou

I still remember when my brother gave me New York.  Lou was raw, and he waspretty great.



Aww.  Best title I've seen.

I share a name with this guy.  And he shares one with Clovis.  Ultimately, Hludo-vechus gave all us Louises and Louis and Ludwigs a little of his noise and fame.  What a guy.

Same for Lou.

Researching Clotilde

Like her husband, Queen Saint Clotilde's name is rooted on the term hludo, a root which also gave us the word loud, and which means famed.  It is often translated as "bright" or "shining" - but, for modern ease of understanding, I think "famed" makes more sense for precision and the intellectual transfer we must make for mental translation.  The cognate term loud explains the resonance - fame can come from a great noise.  But brightness, though I can understand why it is sometimes used, doesn't link to that cognate word (loud) and so doesn't create the chain of meaning quite the same way.

Clotilde, though ... maybe "bright" is a feminine term in my mind, maybe "shining" just captures some aspect of this woman in the same terms as the character I came to know, writing her ... I like the flash of light this translation represents.

Clovis - hludo and wiga - famed warrior.

Clotilde - hludo and tild - bright battle.

Each of their names carries a deep resonance for me as the author of characters inspired by these real people.    Battle might not seem an apt name for the Catholic saint who brought the first king in Gaul, the first king in Europe, to her Church.  Yet she did mount a campaign, and Clovis' conversion in the end has been marked as her victory.

In many ways, too ... relationships - marriages - are a battle.  I don't say that in some pejorative sense, nor the shallow-brained manner people affect, making unfunny jokes about opposite genders, or reducing lifetime commitments to battles of will.  Clotilde, as I encountered her, is more than capable of pitting our king to just such a battle.

But marriage is work.  Is now, was then, always has been, between people who want more of it - from each other - than exactly those shallow stereotypes I deny employing just above.  And if a couple are required to work together, at times it will engender clashes inward and outward as well.  Clovis and Clotilde come against one another from time to time (even as their relationship is durably powerful emotionally and physically), but also find themselves called to stand together and face challenges as well.

Bright battle.  Shining saint.  Remarkable woman.  This is my Queen ... Saint Clotilde.

God-Sibs

A very nice post about gossips.  Etymology nerds, click away!