LABEL: (Noun) description . identification . designation . epithet . mark . tag . category LABEL: (Noun) description, identification, designation, epithet, tag, mark The word label is a simple one, but it has a wide array of applications— among them record labels, warning labels, food labels, social labels—and it is this last example that I have chosen to focus on in this week’s post. In a society, a label makes a telling impact. You may recall reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter in which Hester Prynne of Salem Village was doomed to wear a label, a scarlet A on her bosom, to identify her as an adulterer. Whatever else Hester…

OBSOLETE: (Adjective) no longer in general use  .  fallen into disuse  .  of a discarded or outmoded type  .  out of date The word for this week fits right into our modern lifestyle, where last year’s prized gadget or last month’s promoted approach to living has been thrown out the window, replaced by the new and the desirable. Obsolete should be the watchword for people who are forward-looking, or so we have been led to believe.  Admittedly,  some things do change and become obsolete without much outside social pressure. Things we once cherished, or felt we couldn’t live without,  are forgotten like museum pieces relegated to a permanent place in…

RUMINATE: (Verb, Intransitive) contemplate  .  consider  .  ponder  .  think about  .  mull over  .  chew over This week’s word, ruminate, has an interesting background or etymology. Coming into the English language as it did from animal life,  the word  refers to ruminants, such as cows, who,  after satisfying themselves with a full stomach of grass, find a shady spot, regurgitate,  and ruminate, allowing  their meal to digest.  Today, in English  we have phrases such as “chew the cud” and “turn over in one’s mind.”  In our quiet times, a variety of ideas—wishes, dreams, desires—pass through our minds. Ruminate is an apt description of what we do at such times. A poem by…

VULNERABLE: (Adjective) open to attack or damage . susceptible Although the word vulnerable has been in the English language since the early 1600s, we might be inclined to consider it  a 21st Century word because of its current popularity and varied  applications, especially with regard to its meaning of “open to attack.”  Also, it is often used by therapists in reference to emotional wellness, some people being more vulnerable than others to the adverse effects of stress. Moreover, vulnerable is used to describe anyone who is willing to be open and frank in sharing his or her feelings or personal failings. But it is in a different context that I am…

ASPIRE: (Verb) pursue . direct one’s hopes or ambitions toward achieving something I attend a small-group meeting on Monday evenings when we study the Psalms of David. Prior to our discussion this past Monday, the ice-breaker question was, “When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?” I said I wanted to be a teacher just like Miss Grant, whom I admired immensely.  A female member of the group said she wanted to be like Superman; she wanted to fly, and she made up stories about flying.  Now, isn’t that interesting?  A girl aspiring to be Superman! This is Women’s History Month. It is…

REJECT:  (Verb) refuse, decline, rebuff, dismiss, spurn The word reject raises red flags for most people, bringing to mind hurts that may go as far back as  childhood where there may have been that little group in grade school that refused to let us play with them at  recess time. We bump up against rejection in every stage of life. My early encounter with rejection occurred when I was about eleven years old and my father tried getting me into a Jamaican girls’ school with a little reputation. I had always performed at the top of my class,  many times placing first. When my neighborhood school  was about to undergo…

DIVERGENT (adjective) different, varying, dissimilar, alternative            Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,           And sorry I could not travel both            And be one traveler, long I stood           And looked down one as far as I could           To where it bent in the undergrowth. . . Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” has been studied and puzzled over by generations of college sophomores in in American Lit.  They have usually looked for enlightenment on the symbolic meaning of particular words and lines, with their professors nudging them along. In the poem, the word I am interested in is diverged, which means “separated”  or “parted” ways. Frost’s speaker in the poem sees…

Simplicity (noun) quality of being natural, uncomplicated,  restraint in ornamentation, plainness Although at first glance simplicity, our word for this week, may seem to need no explanation, a second look lets us know that it is multifaceted in both its denotative and connotative meanings. A few days ago, I received a forwarded e-mail from a friend who has a great sense of humor, and who also has her eyes on the times in which we are living. The writer of the original e-mail gave a long list of situations in the past when life was far less complicated, and nobody was the worse for it. Among them was this: “I  just can’t …

  LISTEN:  (verb) “To pay attention to someone. . . in order to hear what is being said.” ( Merriam Webster Dictionary) I came across a newspaper clipping in my files the other day concerning the British  Commonwealth Essay Competition for students in the year 2000. It had as its topic, “What would you most like to have learned at school  that you were not taught?”  The winning essay was thoughtfully written by a fifteen-year-old from Singapore.  In  it the student wrote, “School enlightened me on speaking well, but did infinitesimal  in teaching me how to listen.” Most of us would agree with the young writer. Our word for this week, listening, is…

ca  .  coph  .  o   .  ny /noun/  a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds; noise, discord, dissonance, uproar The synonyms associated with cacophony, our word for this week, are a commentary on the prevailing tone of our age.  It is no exaggeration to say  that ours could be called the  Noise  Age. We may delight in Edgar Allan Poe’s “tintinnabulation” of the bells, but loud, inharmonious  sounds are unsatisfying and harmful. A few months ago, I was stopped at an intersection, waiting for the green, when I heard a booming sound coming from the car in the lane next to mine. I took a furtive glance and saw an ample figure laid back in a white Cadillac, the decibel level…