A driving question

Recently, Richard and I have done some traveling.  We had the pleasure of watching the waning color of New York wave us into the vivid colors of New Jersey and parts south, foreshadowing, perhaps the holiday lights soon to come.  As I watched the color pageant parade past, I read the roadside signs and thought about--words!  With some words, the meaning is obvious, as in “thruway” or “highway.”  The New York State Thruway spans through the state to make travel more direct, as does a highway or expressway.

Turnpikes serve the same purpose, but what does the word “turnpike” mean?  Does it involve fish or pointed iron tools or weapons?  On the way south, we drove past the Mass Pike and drove on the New Jersey Turnpike.  On the way home, we drove past the Oregon Pike and on the Allentown Pike in Pennsylvania.  I figured that perhaps “turnpike” came from a different language, since various nationalities influenced the settling of the northeast, generally.  For example, in these parts “kill,” as in “Catskill,” comes from the Dutch influence and means “creek.”  Therefore, the word “catskill” does not reflect some vicious plot to eliminate cats from the area but simply means “cat creek.”

As it turns out, my hypothesis regarding a possible foreign origin of “turnpike” was wrong.  “Turnpike” comes from Middle English.  However, my associations of “pike” with a weapon or tool relate to the meaning of “turnpike” as a roadway.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “turnpike” as “a spiked barrier fixed across a road or passage, as a defence against sudden attack, esp. of men on horseback,” with examples going back to the 15^th century.  In today’s world, similar turnpikes prevent theft of rental cars.  Technically, the turnpike that we drive on is a “turnpike road,” which the OED defines as “a road on which turnpikes are or were erected for the collection of tolls; hence, a main road or highway, formerly maintained by a toll levied on cattle and wheeled vehicles.”  (Can you imagine an E-Z Pass for cattle on cattle drives?)  The American Heritage Dictionary, 5^th edition supplies a more modern definition for “turnpike”:  “a toll road, especially an expressway with tollgates.”

Back in the day, the medieval Department of Transportation would erect iron bars, sometimes curved, across roadways for purposes of defense or to collect a road use fee.  (Perhaps strewing pike fish across the road would have been almost as effective although somewhat less practical.)  In today’s world, toll booths as opposed to turnpikes for the collection of fees are more practical, but they don’t make paying the fees any more palatable!  (Smells like fish!)

LAGNIAPPE 1:  The word “high” originally meant “main,” as in “main” road or way.

LAGNIAPPE 2:  Richard reminded me of George Carlin’s philosophical question, why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?  (Sounds “fishy” to me!)

Your Sereneness

Of late, I have been quite busy, in a good sort of way.  For “Be-Worded,” most words I write about come from everyday life experiences.  In my busy-ness, I have been distracted, and words for the blog have not been presenting themselves readily.  The other day, I ran across an old Mary Engelbreit-themed journal with the title, “The Queen’s Journal.”  I opened and flipped through entries.  One entry dated 4 January 2005 popped out at me. It reads, “I am feeling serene.  That is an adjective not found on those magnetic ‘Today I Feel’ thingies.”  I have always associated serenity with calmness, so I looked up “serene.”  While I found meanings which I expected, I also found one surprising definition.

I started my investigation with the Oxford English Dictionary.  The first meaning listed is “of the weather, air, sky:  Clear, fine and calm (without cloud or rain or wind).”  The next meaning reads, “of other natural phenomena (e.g. the sea): calm, tranquil.”  With the third meaning, we finally run into serenity regarding people, not the weather: “of a person, his mind, circumstances, etc.: calm, tranquil, untroubled, unperturbed.”  The final meaning was new to me: “an honorific epithet given to a reigning prince (esp. of Germany), formerly also to a member of a royal house.”

Next, I checked the American Heritage Dictionary (AHD), where people trumped nature in the “serene” category.  The first meaning listed is “Content or composed; untroubled,” followed by “Unaffected by disturbance; calm or peaceful.”  Weather shows up in the third meaning, “Unclouded; fair:  serene skies and a bright blue sea.”  For the “royal” definition, the AHD is more general:  “Used as a title and form of address for certain members of royalty.”

Using the AHD definition regarding royalty, those of you who know me as “the Queen of Everything” (whether you agree or not!) can now refer to me as “Her Sereneness” or perhaps the “Serene Serene Queen.”  Some Schroonies in my readership have posted on Facebook some awesome pictures of the recent serene sunsets we have had of late.  While we have had some clear days, the wind of late has rendered our daytime weather not serene

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(For those who care, “serene” came into Middle English from Latin.)

By the way, my serenity in January, 2005, lasted until 13 January, where the entry reads, “I am back to feeling discombobulated (nice word).”  Perhaps that word will supply material for my next blog entry.

Overflection, aka thinking too much

Recently, I resorted to sorting—actually re-sorting—memorabilia, an activity which caused me to reflect upon prefixes and suffixes, a topic which I mention upon occasion in this blog.  As I remused, regarding how affixes can alter meaning, I wondered if “flect” had ever been a viable root word.  My trusty Oxford English Dictionary tells me “yes.”

“Flect,” now obsolete, began word life as a verb of Latin origin meaning “to bend, turn” in both literal and figurative terms.  “Flect” lived a short life before becoming obsolete as a stand-alone word, but it lives on by combining its lexicographical DNA with certain prefixes.  The words which popped into my mind using “flect” as a root, in addition to “reflect,” include “deflect,” “genuflect,” and “inflect.”

A cousin of “flect,” “flex,” with both words descending from the same Latin word, lives on in modern usage, chiefly in scientific usage.

Regarding the word “reflect,” according to the OED the prefix “re-“ comes from the Latin, “with the general sense of ‘back’ or ‘again.’”  However, originally, “back” was its primary meaning.  The OED includes more information on the prefix “re-“ than you probably thought existed.  Next time you have a few minutes on your hands, check out the “histo-re-.”

Combining “re-“ with “flect,” the OED first lists a number of meanings, from “to turn or direct in a certain course, to divert; to turn away or aside, to deflect,” to the idea of throwing beams off of polished surfaces to “to return, turn back, after striking or falling on a surface.”  Because the idea for this blog began with the meaning of “to turn one’s thoughts (back) on, to fix the mind or attention on or upon a subject; to ponder, meditate on,” I am going have some fun with that usage here, first asking some Philosophical Word Questions (PWQ), and then reflecting upon the other words I identified which use “flect” as a root.

PWQs for “reflect”: since “reflect” for our purposes here means to think back upon, could “foreflect” or “preflect” mean to think about ahead of time?  If someone simply does not think, are they “nonflective”?  Parents, imagine asking your children after they do something thoughtless, “Are you nonflective?”  If someone thinks wrongly or wrongly understands, would they “misflect.”  (Honey, you misflect me!)  If someone thinks about something too much, do they “overflect”?  On the other hand, if someone does not think enough about something, do they “semiflect” or “subflect”?  Looking at a noun usage, if someone refuses to think, are they an “antiflect” or “antiflective”?

“Deflect,” the first additional word I cited using “flect” as a root, means “to turn aside; bend or deviate.  The prefix “de-“ means “do or make the opposite of; reverse; remove; out of (deplane); reduce.”  We can deflect anything from criticism to a foul ball at a baseball game hit into the stands.  PWQ for “deflect”:  can it also mean to straighten out if we are doing the opposite of bending or turning, as in “Let me deflect that unclear question” or “Let me deflect that pile of shoestrings.”

“Genuflect” means “to bend at the knees, sometimes as an indication of worship or respect but sometimes to grovel.”  “Genu-“ here is not a commonly used prefix, but comes from a Latin word referring to the knees.  PWQ for “genuflect”:  if to genuflect is an indication of genuine worship or respect, would “pseudoflect” better reflect the second part of the meaning, to grovel, with its implication of insincerity?

“Inflect” means “to alter (the voice) in tone or pitch; modulate,” with the prefix “in-“ meaning “in, into, within.”  We can inflect our voices to indicate many things from emphasis to innuendo.  As a teacher, it was informative to take a sentence and inflect each word separately.  For example, “There are chickens in the trees” can have all kinds of meanings, depending on which word you emphasize.  PWQ for “inflect”: could “outflect” refer to people who talk too loudly?

On a serious note, the idea of reflection is particularly relevant now at Yom Kippur, reflecting on the year past and thinking ahead to the upcoming year.  

NOTE:  In researching this blog, I learned that the lexicon contains skillions of affixes, with gadskillions of information about the history of these affixes.