Megabytes

Today, I learned a new definition of the word ‘wick’. Matey looked out the window into our garden and said, “That plant looks wick on one side and dead on the other.” As you might guess, wick used in this context means ‘with life’ or ‘alive’.

This prompted me to rethink the words ‘wicca’, ‘wicked’, and ‘witch’. Matey learned this usage of wick when reading The Secret Garden many years ago. Dickson shows Mary how to determine if a plant has made it through the winter. Scraping a bit of bark off a tree or plant to reveal the green or lack thereof underneath tells you if it is wick.

No dictionary I consulted around the house included a definition to support this usage; until I went to The British Library website. There, I read “wick with means alive with, full of”

Then I got to thinking, does this usage of the word wick derive from Wiccan and/or witch? The Old English word wicca, referring to a spiritual practice celebrating life; traces its etymology to the Germanic wixa meaning consecrated, sacred. Ok, this makes sense.

So in the 1960s, when usage of the word wicked came to mean something cool, the word was actually being reclaimed and reverting to its original meaning!

Then, there is this interesting tidbit from Randomhouse.com:
Villain has some interesting cognates, all deriving from the Indo-European root *weik. The word wick, which is now obsolete except in local dialects in Britain, originally meant ‘house, village, or estate’ and appears in the form -wich in such place names as Greenwich and Norwich. The earlier form of Latin villa was *veixla from vicus ‘quarter or district of a town’ which comes from this root and gives us vicinity. Another form of the root developed into Greek oikos ‘house’, and from that we get diocese from dioikein ‘to keep house’ and economy from oikonomia ‘household management’.

I woke up singing this song. It’s called ‘Sisters’. Sung by Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen in the 1954 film, “White Christmas”. Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye are the male leads in the film. You’ve probably seen it running on cable channels during the winter holiday season.
I have four sisters, any one with which I would sing this song.

Sisters
Sisters
There were never such devoted sisters

I usually sing that lyric from the beginning of the song and this one from from the end:

Those who’ve
Seen us
Know that not a thing could come between us

Many men have tried to split us up but no one can
Lord help the mister
Who comes between me and my sister
And Lord help the sister
Who comes between me and my man

It’s not quite autobiographically appropriate for me, but fun to sing nevertheless. Besides, once a song like this gets into your brain, it stays there and you just have to give in and belt it out to your household.

Technorati Tags: music

I don’t actually sit down and read dictionaries but when I look up a word, I am often intrigued by other words that catch my eyes. There I am, paging through the mammoth-sized Merriam-Webster’s, looking for ‘object-oriented programming’, and ‘masher’ and ‘mash note’ pull me aside. A mash note is a term used circa 1890 referring to a sentimental note or letter expressing affection for the recipient. Quite the opposite of a ‘Dear John’ letter. Is there such a thing as a ‘Dear Jane’ letter, I wonder? And what might the politics of language have to do with this entry?
Oh, and a masher is a man who makes passes at women - as well as an object that mashes potatoes!
Words that are illustrated are very good at distracting me from my initial intention. Continuing on towards the Os, I see an illustration of a globe with points out in space above and below the globe. This is an illustration accompanying the definition for nadir. Nadir. The point of the celestial sphere that is directly opposite the zenith and vertically downward from the observer. Also, the lowest point. Cool word. Now, can I use it in a sentence? Hmmmm…
During my college years, my body was at a physical nadir due to my let’s-burn-the-candle-at-both-ends philosophy.
Ok. back to finding object-oriented programming. OOP. computer programming in which programming objects are used to form additional objects and are arranged into hierarchies and in which a single object member may be used in several different but related ways.

Mac Addict magazine used to have a regular column called “The Web Way and the Old Way” or something like that. The author would perform a couple of different activities - the web way and the old way and compare the methods, which was faster, which was more successful. In that tradition, I have just presented you with the old way of looking up a word, in this case, a tech word. Now, here’s the web way.

Point your browser to Webopedia, type in the the term and get this result. A lot faster. On the other hand, I didn’t learn about masher, mash note or nadir.

Which is better? depends.

Technorati Tags: astronomy, geeky

The Wizard of Oz is being produced in a local venue this Spring. I was hired to play clarinet and saxes in the pit orchestra. That’s always fun to do. I love performing, even when it is below the stage rather than upon it. The director has pulled together a good group of musicians for the show and we will groove on “Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead”, “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”, and “Follow The Yellow Brick Road”.
A plus to this production is that my 4th grader goddaughter auditioned for and was cast as a Munchkin. To say she is excited is an understatement. When she called to tell me the news, her voice was so piercingly high with delirium that it would have broken a crystal goblet, had I been holding one. ;-)
So Keahi and I will go rehearsals and performances together, hang out backstage together. It is definitely a bonding experience to add to our already deep connection.

Technorati Tags: music

I haven’t written in this blog for awhile. Just didn’t have anything to say, I guess. or perhaps I wasn’t in a writing mood.

But I was in a present-making mood. I created a coloring book for one of my nieces this past holiday. I took photographs and applied a combination of Photoshop filters to them to make them appear like a line drawn image that could be colored as shown above. I also created this one below already colored for the cover.

Technorati Tags: art, geeky