The Museum of Words

If most of your time at the art museum is spent reading the small squares of information hanging next to the art, then the Museum of Words is for you. Here, the pictures are just captions, and the words are on display…Our inaugural blockbuster, aah, is ready now. (The curators would like to thank Dr. Rengaswamy Sankaranarayanan just for being who he is.) More exhibits are under construction, and the good news is that you are already a member. You know a lot of words, right?

A QUICK JAUNT TO THE GOOD GREEN FIELD…EVERY EVENING BY THE PATIO SIX UNCOWED PALLID AMATEUR ZEBRAS SWIRL MOON ARIAS OF IC*E*

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A dictionary is a convenient but misleading way to store words, because words belong in a web, connected to each other by etymological arrows, among other links. Some of these links are stored in our brains, but some have to be looked up in the dictionary. BUCCANEER and BARBECUE are obscurely connected, for example.  While we’re on the topic, PICAROON is related to PRICK and PIQUE and PICARESQUE, and CORSAIR to COURSE. ROVER is linked to ROB. Then there’s PIRATE, with its very eh etymology: from Middle English via Old French from Latin via the Greek PEIRATES, which is related to PEIRAN, to try, to attempt. (Attempt! How innocuous–admirable even!) There PIRATE sits in English (with its obvious variations like PIRACY) unconnected to PRATE, PARROT, PIROUETTE, or anything else.…But wait! That same Greek root gave rise to EMPIRICAL.

 

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