If I were to write a book it would most certainly be 147 Words Redefined, a dictionary revised. But not just any dictionary. It would be my own with original interpretations of the hundreds of words I have long mistook to means things other than their actual definitions. Actually, there are really only about twenty or so.
Sepulcher is the first one on my list. For the longest time I was convinced that a sepulcher was a fancy wine goblet, perhaps one used by Vikings or the ancient Romans in ceremonies; or conceivably, and more romantic still, it was a relation of the Holy Grail, sought for with a similar fervor by chivalrous knights and sinister lords. In this way I continued along in a merry state of delusionment until one bright morning, at the age of sixteen, my quixotic world was shattered by a daily dose of enlightenment (more notoriously known as the “word of the day”). “Sepulcher, children,” announced Mr. Carroll “is a tomb or a crypt; a burial place, sometimes prepared in a church. It is from the Latin sepultus, meaning….” The rest fell on deaf ears. Did I mention that I was traumatized? Sepulcher, a tomb? A holt* of death? How could this be? The golden goblet of my fantasy melted into a mournful lump in the forge of higher education. To this day, when someone mentions that word the image of a resplendent wine chalice flashes before my eyes, but rapidly evaporates, its vestiges the gloomy outline of a tomb.
Another word that always bothered me was truculent. Most people would define it as “characterized by or exhibiting ferocity or cruelty; fierce, cruel, savage, barbarous.” However, in my mind it is a contented toddler trundling determinedly along. To me the term carries the double emotion of contentment and fortitude, or resilience. It describes that attitude exhibited by many sportsman of “I’m gettin’ along, doin’ alright here. If there is a problem, that’s okay because I’m happy and I can deal with anything.” How is it that I come up with these bizarre meanings, and convince myself of them? But that isn’t the worst of it.
Nimbus was a word I found not long ago, and, from the context of the sentence, appeared to describe or name a person that is dull, dimwitted, essentially a numbskull. Imagine my surprise to discover that a nimbus is no such thing. Webster’s New World Dictionary defines it as “an aura of splendor about any person or thing; a bright cloud supposedly surrounding the gods or goddesses when they appear on earth.” There is nothing in that definition that even implies insipidity. Undoubtedly, it is related to “nebulous” through some insanely far-off Latin root.
If I ever do write a book I guess I will need to find another topic because there really weren’t one hundred forty-seven words that I want to redefine. There weren’t even twenty; just these three. Did I ever mention how I feel about medical terms…
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