Ruminating over ‘redux’

The adjective “redux” is a perennial favorite among headline writers. It means “brought back” or “restored.” It comes from the Latin reducer, which meant “to lead back,” according to Webster’s.

I have no idea of the make of the restored vintage car shown below. I wish it were a Rolls, because I‘d alliteratively dub it a Rolls Royce Redux.

Photo special to the Sentinel
 

Selective seeing

The words that crop up in the funnies are pretty amazing at times. OK, yeah, I had to look “spirillum” up.

"Spirillum" is a biologic term that describes “any of a genus (Spirillum) having the form of a spiral thread and characterized by flagella,” according to Webster’s. Webster’s adds that the term is also applied to “any of various similar microorganisms.”

It’s amusing that Jeremy could spot a spirillum but not the mustard. It reminds me to never overlook the obvious.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
 

A squirrelly use of a word

I only had a vague notion of what a “meme” is, so I looked it up.

First, I tried I my trusty desktop Webster’s, and the word was not in there. (It may be time to invest in a more up-to-date version.)

Going online, I discovered the word is relatively new – it’s only been around since 1976. It was coined by a British biologist named Richard Dawkins “as a way to encourage readers to think about how Darwinian principles might be extended beyond the realm of genes,” according to Wikipedia.

Dawkins’ word is based on the Greek word mīmeîsthai, which meant to “imitate, copy,” according to the 2013 edition of the Random House Dictionary

Disappointingly for Dawkins, the word has taken on a much more general sense. In the context of the cartoon above, it means “a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes,” according to Random House.

Apparently, the Internet is overrun with memes in their latter-day sense. We spread them by using tools such as Facebook, Twitter and e-mail.

A charming example is based on a squirrel that stole the show in a photo taken on a vacation in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. For more on that story and to see the photo, go to http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2009/08/13/camerahogging_squirrel_an_internet_sensation.html.
 

Woden’s Day

March has flown by, and so has its final full week. It’s already Wednesday, aka Woden’s Day or Odin’s Day.

“Woden” is an Old English variant spelling of Odin, a powerful Norse god whose name eventually became part of the English way of classifying time. (The Vikings repeatedly invaded the British Isles.)

In Old English, it was Wodens dæg. (Yes, the “a” and “e” should be squished together.) Eventually, the word morphed to Wednesday.

The name of Odin’s son, Thor, also contributed to the name of a weekday. (For more on Thor, see entry of Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012.)

Photo special to the Sentinel

Odin, sculpted bronze figure by Lee Lawrie. Door detail, east entrance, Library of Congress John Adams Building, Washington, D.C.
Caption and photo courtesy of Wikipedia
 

Small miracles

Sorry, but I beg to differ.

If Miller had understood the etymology of “enthusiasm,” he may have chosen a word such as “zest” instead.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word meanders all the way back to Middle French in the 1600s on back to Latin and then back to the Greek word enthousiasmos, meaning "divine inspiration.” That word evolved from “enthousiazein ‘be inspired or possessed by a god, be rapt, be in ecstasy.’” And that word came from entheos, meaning "divinely inspired, possessed by a god."

Entheos contained two word parts. “En” meant “in,” and “theos” meant “god.” We still see the word part “theo” in many words that have God as part of their meaning. For example, theology is the study of God. Theocracy is “the rule of a state by God,” according to Webster’s. Then there’s my favorite, Theodore, which means “gift of God.” That was my father’s first name, and he lived up to it.

If one believes that miracles are divinely inspired, then enthusiasm is indeed part and parcel of them.

Yes, I would agree that one needs to believe in miracles, but belief can come and go, as well. Might not we all admit that our belief, our faith, and yes, even our enthusiasm, waver a time or two as life presents its unique challenges?

Even though the modern-day world sometimes seems devoid of divine inspiration, I think the trick to continue believing in miracles is to discover some small event or sight each day that recharges our enthusiasm, our faith and our belief.

With that in mind, it’s time to admire those daffodils by the Sentinel’s back door again. With nighttime temperatures still hovering around freezing, they seem like small miracles to me.

Photo special to the Sentinel