The word of the day* for February 10, 2007 is "morass" - noun : 1 : MARSH, SWAMP. 2 a : a situation that traps, confuses, or impedes <a legal morass>. b : an overwhelming or confusing mass or mixture <a morass of traffic jams - Mary Roach>.
On the way to Kansas City from our house we have to cross the Marais des Cygnes River. This is a pleasant little river where I-35 crosses it: not dry most of the year nor yet fast running most of the time. So many of our Kansas place names have Spanish or Native American names like El Dorado and Wichita. The towns and rivers have names that are pure history.
Sometimes I wonder at the way that names have persisted from one generation to the next, from one country to another. Caesar becomes Kaiser; Moishe, Moses. El dorado becomes El Dorado (pronounced Eldoraydo) and then-facetiously-Eldora-doo. Where I'm from Tripoli and Missouri are pronounced as though they ended with an "ah" rather than a long "e" sound and the town of Nevada is pronounced with the first "a" a long vowel: Nevayda. Such fun with words.
The quote† for today is from John Ashbery (b. 1927), "A Wave":
One idea is enough to organize a life and project it
Into unusual but viable forms, but many ideas merely
Lead one thither into a morass of their own good intentions.
;^) Jan
* The definition is from either Merriam-Webster Online, 10th Edition or The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition and is used by permission.
† The quote is from either Bartleby: Great Books on Line or The Quotation Pages and is used by permission.
P.S.: Comments and word requests are welcome.
SURRENDER
10 years ago
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