Word-ward, Ho!


Wherein Our Heroine Dedicates Today's Essay to Alicia, Teresa, and All Others Who Suffer More than a Megrim.
My mom gave me extra points for the use of the word "megrims" yesterday. We're such word sluts. My best friend refers to me as "The Girl who Swallowed a Dictionary."

It's true. I have plenty of people in my life who ask on a not-infrequent basis, "...what does that mean?" I am not sure why I like words so much, but I can guess - they are useful, they are beautiful and they are fun.

Take that word "megrims." It is severely out of date. The last time it was in common use may have been several hundred years ago, but like a well-preserved antique it is still useful. It has its own specific medical definition, but the French formulation "migraine" has outstripped it in popularity there. It has a secondary meaning of "whim or fancy," which seems strangely light and out of step with its primary meaning as a skull-splitting, debilitating headache. Best of all, the plural form has an entirely different meaning. Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary entry (2 b plural: low spirits) was the form I was using yesterday.

Who couldn't love a word like that? Okay, maybe you couldn't, but what word lover could pass up such a two-syllable Swiss Army knife? I can understand why migraine sufferers don't refer to a "megrim." A migraine sounds like what it is - it has big, strong, bold vowels. "I-AY" might be something you would say in the throes of such agony. But "ee-eh"? No. Those sounds convey a middling-to-bad day, a tiny whine, the dismissal of a mediocre meal. Megrim is a small-sounding word, and as such it is gorgeous: it is perfect for indicating prissy lowness of spirit, a tiny fit of the vapors, something worth ignoring. The tales I have heard of migraines indicate they are nothing to be ignored, and migraine sufferers are right to pass on megrim as a descriptive term.

So much for useful and beautiful. But fun? Yes, fun! Have you ever had an object you saved for some time, with no thought as to how it might be useful? Perhaps it was packed away in great big wads of aging newsprint. Did you ever have that "a-ha!" moment where you realized where it might serve a purpose? Did the use (finally!) after all these years give you pleasure? That is just one of the ways words are fun for me. I could have gone another way yesterday. I could have said, "The experienced geranium owner knows to ignore their low spirits - they will get over it in time." It would have worked, but it wouldn't have been fun. "Megrims" conjured up a better image: a hypochondriac geranium reclining on a chaise longue, handkerchief to forehead, emitting low moans. A subject, perhaps, for the late Edward Gorey. "Low spirits"? It is perfectly useful, but its pedestrian syllables don't quite summon up the melodramatic image I was looking for. So, out comes "megrim" from the old cardboard box, and voila! It made me smile, and it made Mom smile too.

If it made you smile as well, congratulations. Word-ward, Ho! You're a word slut.
Posted: Tuesday - May 18, 2004 at 08:28 AM         | |

©