detritus

Collecting odd or seldom used words seems to be a hobby within a hobby. A related sub-hobby would be to try to bring some of these lonely, mostly forgotten words back to everyday usage. The hobby overall is etymology, and since one can claim any hobby without a necessary seriousness to the devotion thereof – or expertise in said hobby – such is my claim.

In everyday reading, I'm always alert for words outside of my normal usages. Once while reading a Pittsburgh newspaper, I tripped over the word "detritus", and upon discovering it meant any accumulation of disintegrated material or debris, I felt this could be in one way a bit descriptive of my hobby within the hobby. Also sounds like the condition of my shop down in the basement.

On another occasion, while tripping the light verbalistic, I stumbled upon "nescience" - lack of knowledge or awareness, ignorance - and felt this might also describe some of my grappling with the language. Then there is ignoratio elenchi, which is a fallacy in logic of offering proof irrelevant to the proposition in question and that sounded vaguely similar to some of my writings.

A word that is seldom used in our permissive society any more is ignominy, meaning personal disgrace, dishonor and/or shameful or dishonorable quality or conduct. The word may not be used a lot but it still seems to be the claim to fame of many in the entertainment industries – nuff said.

The word sclaff had never come before my eyes before it was accidentally discovered, as per usual, while on my way to another word and there it was in all its meaningful glory. Every golfer has sclaffed, at least a few times, since it means to scrape the ground with the head of the club during the swing and just before impact with the ball. This had always just been hitting the ground just before hitting the ball, now I’ll try to remember what to call it, if I ever play golf again.

Then, another day and another time, the word "cruciverbalist" came into my areas of cognition. Of course the meaning is - a crossword designer or enthusiast – to the latter of these I lay somewhat of a claim. But looking closer at the root words, one could construe – or misconstrue, in my case – this word to mean a person who spoke often and a lot about the cross, which seems to slightly fit me as well. But even more than the formation on which death took place, I speak often of the Christ who loved me - and humankind - enough to die on that killing instrument. God is good – all the time! ec