ADDENDUM

This site is no longer active, but does serves as a link to my other web logs. All new posts will be published at Knotbuchwerks (KBW) or Knotbuchwerks, too (KBWt). Links are:

knotbuchwerks

knotbuchwerks, too

CwHD began May 1, 2017. Besides thematic essays, the site provides a vehicle for any other words or bits of language that I chose to print. My self-published work can be found in The Book Patch Book Store.

My profile 'portrait' is a line drawing of Han Shan, an 8th century Chinese mystic. I use this drawing rather than my own photograph because self-aggrandizement---blowing one's own horn---goes against my grain. Authors I admire a good deal are, for the most part, both reticent and reclusive. J. D. Salinger and Thomas Pynchon come to mind. There is something too crass about a writer whose name eclipses the title on the covers of their books. Besides, there are too many faces everywhere.

The dog featured in the site's logo is Zudnik. He was a wolfdog, a hybrid. His mother was a malamute; his father was a wolf. Few people think breeding wolves and dogs is a good idea. I agree. Zudnik came to me as a gift, and I had no heart for just putting him down. Loving, ferocious, gentle, vicious, he spent ten good years sharing my life. He was a beast, but he was my beast.

WHY KNOTBUCHWERKS

Over the past fifty years, I have written twenty books. This website is intended to provide information on the fifteen that are available. A list of the books each with its own synopsis can be found at KBWt.

The title of this web log is odd, intentionally so. I enjoy wordplay, and the sheer number of 'blogs' makes new titles hard to come by. KNOTBUCHWERKS originated with a rejection slip. Scrawled on the cover letter of my submission was this: ... 73 pages is too short for a book.

Samuel Beckett notwithstanding. Or sitting. Or lying prone.

The sixteen 'books' on my shelf---most of which are only 100 pages or so---were offended. They were no longer books. Now we know, they said, how Pluto felt. So ...

'Not books' became knotbooks---it is a tangled web we weave---became Knotbuch Publishing. I paused a good while over that word 'publishing.' Not the right word at all. Too highfalutin; and not what I intended for my knotbuchs. So ...

Knotbuch Publishing became Knotbuchwerks.

And for your edification: About 25% of English vocabulary has a Germanic origin (buch, werk); 45% comes from Latin-French infusions (flute); the remaining 30% is usually labeled 'native' and comes from a variety of sources. More or less.

SYNCHRONICITY, again

Many people are bamboozled by intellectualizations. Some people enjoy exhibiting their polysyllabic vocabulary. Synchronicity is a word rarely used in conversations at the corner five and dime. Not many people know what it means, and fewer still understand the meaning.

The definition of the word is this: The simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no causal connection. Coincidences in time.

Synchronicity is a concept, first introduced by analytical psychologist Carl Jung, which holds that events are "meaningful coincidences" if they occur with no causal relationship yet seem to be meaningfully related.

Synchronize your watches is a not uncommon phrase particularly in military circles. The idea is there.

Never mind. Think kaleidoscope. Every child has had one some time or other. Pick one up, give it a turn, and have a look. What do you see? Beggars description, it does. Think synchronicity. Everything seems to be happening at the same time together.

Time is the problem. If time did not exist, then everything indeed would be Now. I tried to draw the concept once. A cyclone came to mind. Everything swirling around, inside, outside, up and down. Without time, everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the gurgle of your stomach would be coincidental, happening all at once now.

Kaleidoscopic, dude.

photograph by M Simoni

I spent most of my classroom time teaching remedial classes. Two of my students, both considered well below the normal range of measured intelligence, came to me asking if they might combine their science project with their metal shop assignment. I agreed. The photo above is the result of their efforts: a fine strand of DNA, complete with color coding.

It occurred to me that a double helix of DNA, with its colored segments entwined, also makes a nifty example of synchronicity. Are all cells synchronized? Yours, mine, and the crow in the tree? This would mean, given the nature of genetic machinations, that each one of us is happening right now, everywhere and forever, individually and together. Phew!

FLUENCY

Archaic words are those terms which were once used commonly in a language, but which are now rarely used. They constitute a slow eddy, a back water, a stagnant pool in the stream of sound and image that is language. A synonym for archaic is antiquated which means characteristic of an earlier or more primitive time. Take primitive with a grain of salt. Homo sapiens today are no more evolved than the cave painters of Altamira. Evolution, like the water cycle, does not work towards perfection, only towards efficacy. And the same can be said for language.

The internet has a plethora of sites that list archaic words. Cheyne is such a word. Meaning? Pronunciation To read Shakespeare these days one must be well versed in archaic language. Both words and rhythms have changed over time.

Fools had ne'er less wit in a year;

For wise men have grown foppish,

They know not how their wits to wear,

Their manners are so apish.

(King Lear, Act I, Scene IV)

Not only is his language Elizabethan (17th century), but he also relished the words and phrases from the middle ages (roughly 1000 to 1500 CE). The Canterbury Tales (1387) provides a plethora of tasty verbiage; and the Tales are well worth a read. Cheyne is used in the following quote from Chaucer, and context provides ample clues to its meaning.

For with that faire cheyne of love he bond
The fyr, the eyr, the water, and the lond
In certeyn boundes, that they may nat flee.
(The Canterbury Tales

The Knight’s Tale, 2987–2993)

Vintage literature is not the only reason to be well versed in archaic words and phrases. To read history with some degree of understanding requires a knowledge of the language used during the period in question. 'Unique,' for example, no longer means unique. And, of course, the classic aphorism of Spanish philosopher George Santayana still applies:Those who do not read history are condemned to repeat it.

Use over time for the word 'plethora.'

Languages, like all concepts, have a flow to their pattern of development, their use, their misuse, their demise. The above might be described as a flow chart. This is but one of many ways to use the concept of flow to describe words and language. 'Plethora' seems to have made a comeback of late.

Flow theory, created by a somewhat obscure Hungarian professor of psychology, states rather baldly that humans are most content when they are in a state of flow; and flow is described as a state of mind which entails complete absorption in the task at hand. The state is further marked by intrinsic motivation and complete immersion. All else becomes lost to consciousness in these moments.

Language itself is fluent when the metered rhythm of the words matches both the measured syntax of sentences and the logical order of paragraphs. Once flow is established, various techniques can be used to emphasize content. Staccato delivery might be used to emphasize specific words (the hard boiled detective grilling a suspect; the emotional orator pushing an argument). Words with multiple syllables are often relied on to suggest the writer's or speaker's erudition. And space --- the long pause (look back at comedian Jack Benny) or blank in the middle or between paragraphs (common poetical device) --- is often used to change the flow of language.

When one has thoroughly learned a language, one is said to be fluent. Without an understanding of how languages evolve from origin to ending, fluency will be difficult. Non-native speakers prove the point. Even basic literacy will be compromised without some knowledge of both the old and the new and the rhythms of each. Who'd a thunk it. LOL.

NOTES:
Fluency has many definitions most of which pertain to reading and speaking well. The word simply means to flow.

Here is Santayana again:

... the whole machinery of our intelligence, our general ideas and laws, fixed and external objects, principle persons and gods, are so many symbolic, algebraic expressions. They stand for experience; experience which we are incapable of retaining and surveying in its multitudinous immediacy. We should flounder hopelessly, like the animals, did we not keep ourselves afloat and direct our course by these intellectual devices. Theory helps us to bear our ignorance of fact.

The Sense Of Beauty (1896), Pt. III, Form; § 30: p. 125

And click on the name to learn more about Mihály Csíkszentmihályi.