Reading the Merriam Webster Dictionary Backwards
September 20, 2014 Saturday
blog address: Readingthedictionarybackwards.blogspot.com
email: ishmaelish36@blogspot.com
You can find my other blog of pediatric anecdotes, poetry, artwork and literature at ishmaelish36.blogspot.com
I would love for you to share your thoughts, comments, anecdotes on these words on this blog. Thanks. Glenn :)
kestrel: a small European falcon that is known for its habit of hovering in the air against a wind; it is one foot long.
This word reminds me of the beautiful poetry of the shy Jesuit poet, Gerald Manley Hopkins. Rich, emotional, Dylanesque words and images. The poem, "The Windhover," is at the bottom of this post.
wingding: a wild, lively or lavish party
wisteria: [named after Carl Wistar, 1818]
a colorful flowering plant
Carl Wistar (1761-1818) was a physician and famous anatomist who lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (He did the definitive exposition on the ethmoid bone…) He was a friend of Thomas Jefferson. He would throw open his home every week during the Winter to friends, scholars and students and have lively intellectual discussions…called "Wistar Parties." This flower was named after him (and misspelled).
"The Windover"
| I caught this morning morning’s minion, king- | |
| dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding | |
| Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding | |
| High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing | |
| In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing, | 5 |
| As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding | |
| Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding | |
| Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing! | |
| Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here | |
| Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion | 10 |
| Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! | |
| No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion | |
| Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, | |
| Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion. by Gerald Manley Hopkins |
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