Booking Through Thursday: Carpe Diem...

[fajrdrako]

From Nov. 23 - and this is sort of complicated:

Joanna and Brad are asking about “connecting words,” and they don’t mean conjunctions like “and” or “but.” No, what they’re looking for are unique, or treasured words that we’ve found out and about in our daily travels, words that might not be common usage, or often heard, but which struck a chord for some reason.

Now, the blog cited is this one and it looks quite fascinating. The way Joanna and Brad pose the question is this:

All you need to do is share with us (and the rest of the blogosphere)
1. A word or words that you’ve learned, read, noticed, been gifted
2. What it means to you
3. Who you got it from
4. Any conversations or connections that followed

Carpe diem. Okay, it's two words, and they aren't even English, but it's my LJ so I can cheat all I want to.

Carpe diem. Sieze the day. I love the concept. Take what opportunities come. Do what you want to, or need to, or can, and do it now. Step into the TARDIS. Write. Lounge. Follow your bliss, wherever it leads.

I've no idea when I first heard the phrase. I was long familiar with it when I re-encountered it in Latin for Canadian Schools as a teen. Perhaps when I was four, tiptoeing to look at the wonderful sundial at the frog pond at the Experimental Farm - for some reason, unremembered now, I associate the phrase with that garden and that age. Perhaps my mother said it to me.

I love it too when people use and abuse the phrase - carpe horam (sieze the hour), carpe canem (grab the dog), carpe pecuniam - go for the money. Or just carpe your chances, buddy!

Now, if I can add an addendum to this... and I can... this brings to mind another whole class of words that I think of as Dunnett words, meaning they are words I first encountered in the Dunnett novels. "Otiose" is a good example of this. It means "useless". I love the word. I found it in The Disorderly Knights, where a hard-drinking pirate calls Lymond "dead cold sober to the point of otiosity". I love it when a pirate talks like that.

Comments

[gryphons-lair.livejournal.com]

Um, is that last sentence supposed to break off in the middle?

On my screen, it ends: Lymond "dead cold sober to the point of o

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I was robbed!

No, it was not supposed to break off in the middle. When I write it, it had a beginning, a middle, and an end, just like all good sentences should have. Then half of it went and wandered away into another dimension or something.

Now fixed.

Thanks for pointing it out. (Last time I looked, it was there, I swear!)

[gryphons-lair.livejournal.com]

*rereads* Yes, that makes a lot more sense. And I like pirates who use elaborate verbiage, too!

I was halfway through my first comment when it occurred to me that you just might have done it deliberately-- a sentence that breaks off mid-word illustrating the concept of "useless".

That's the sort of subtle joke that usually flies right by me. :-)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Your icon. Woooeee! That's an eyecatcher. (My Captain Jack greets your Captain Jack and offers rum. With a smile.)

Yes, there's something about an eloquant pirate.

I might have done that to be stylistically clever... but really, I'm not so subtle. Except maybe once a millennium on a blue moon in February.

[gryphons-lair.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I'm rather fond of that version of Cap'n Sparrow myself. I'd credit the maker if I could remember who she was.