Every month a question will be posed that may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Remember, the question is optional. You can write about anything that relates to your writing journey.
Let's give a warm welcome to our co-hosts: Joylene Nowell Butler, Olga Godim, Diedre Knight, and Natalie Aguirre!
This month's question is: Do you follow back your readers on BookBub or do you only follow back other authors? I am not a member of BookBub. I've heard of it, I've looked at the site, but to be honest, I don't buy many new books. I go to the library for new stuff. I don't know about anyone else but going to a site like BookBub is, for me, overwhelming.
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So last year (already?) I chose interesting words to delve into. This year I'm going to explore interesting phrases and weird words. I'm also going to go through my extensive collections of quotes and end each post with something pithy, humorous and/or mind-bending. Clever me. So original....
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Origins: a recurring post in which I delve into the history of a word or phrase.
After three years of being careful and getting all our vaccines, hubby and I finally got one of the many COVID variants. Nice gift at the end of the year... We now call ourselves, Disease and Pestilence. Anyway, I wasn't feeling up to snuff which made me wonder where the heck THAT phrase came from. I only knew it had something to do with snuff.
All sources agree it does indeed have to do with the sniffing of snuff, a tobacco product, which gave a certain quality of sharpness or energy to the user. So a person described as being "up to snuff" was someone who was alert, clever, and not easily fooled. So, someone NOT up to snuff, was the opposite.The first written use comes from a play by John Poole written in 1810. It's called Hamlet Travestie: In Three Acts a humorous spoof of Shakespeare's famous play. Poole was apparently quite popular in his day.
We all know that it means to be in a state of confusion, or disorder. But where did it come from? In that imaginative time between say 1830 and 1890, there was a fad going around to create fanciful mock-Latin words. Discombobulate is one of these and appears to be the only one that has survived. Others include: Absquatulate, to run away or make off with. Confusticate, to confound. Panjandrum, meaning a "pompous person of power and pretension." Love that alliteration! I like all of these mock-Latin words, particularly confusticate.
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I only manage to read 22 books of my 30 book Goodreads goal. But that's ok. It's always interesting to look back and be surprised by the variety and eclectic nature of my reading.
Harbor Me - Jacqueline Woodson
The Beatryce Prophecy - Kate DiCamillo
Shout - Laurie Halse Anderson
Squeeze Me - Carl Hiaasen
Once Upon a River - Diane Setterfield - I LOVED it even though it took me three months to read!
Melissa - Alex Gino
The War That Saved My Life - Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
Fish in a Tree - Lynda Mullaly Hunt
Pale Blue Dot - Carl Sagan
Queen Hildegarde - Laura Elizabeth Richards
This Book is Gay - Juno Dawson
Wait for Signs - Craig Johnson
Garvey's Choice - Nikki Grimes
A Long Walk to Water - Linda Sue Park
Bellevue - David M. Oshinsky - A interesting history of the famous hospital in NYC
See You on a Starry Night - Lisa Schroeder
The Children's Blizzard - Melanie Benjamin
Harriet Tubman - Kathleen V. Kudlinski
Hell and Back - Craig Johnson
The Ranch that was Us - Becky Crouch Patterson - a family memoir about a huge ranch not far from where I live in the Texas Hill Country
Femina - Janina Ramirez - A account of relatively unknown mediaeval women who did amazing things
How to Meditate - Pema Chodron - A very nice book with which to end the year
2024's list begins with three books I'm currently reading
Rattlesnake - C. Lee McKenzie - a great ghost story!
The Women's West - Susan H. Armitage - A compilation of articles and stories about the lives of real women who were pioneers of the American West
A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living
Quotes of the Month
"This planet is not Terra Firma, it is a delicate flower and it much be cared for." Astronaut Scott Carpenter
"I'd like to read a book...I've never read a book before. I understand they have pages and everything." Frank Oz
"Everyone is trying to accomplish something big, not realizing that life is made up of little things." Frank A. Clark
Being Thankful
Today I'm thankful hubby and I didn't get any sicker than we did. The medication we got certainly stopped it from galloping into our lungs and we are definitely thankful for that.
Happy New Year!
Are you a BookBub user? Have you read any of the books on my list? What do you think of those faux-Latin words? Got a favorite? Do you think we should make up some new ones? I'll start. Incompuhensive: The state of being almost understandable, but not quite, so that it drives one slightly crazy.
Sorry you finally got it. I think eventually everyone will.
ReplyDeleteLike the image you selected for the weird word. Weird Al is still cool.
So sorry it finally got you! Same thing happened to one of my sons and his family. They'd been SOOO careful.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the Goodreads challenge. I did it too, but I'm a huge audiobook fan, so my goal was 100 books. I got through 191.
I love the word: Discombobulate. I don't hear it enough. Happy New Year, Bish!
ReplyDeleteUp to snuff - the origins make sense.
ReplyDeleteI love these word origin posts. I'm sure I've heard "panjandrum" somewhere, so it must have lingered a little.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of these book sites are overwhelming! There are too many and too much trouble. I'd rather take a walk. Keep up the great word posts!
ReplyDelete