Word of the Week – Galaxy

Word of the Week – Galaxy

by | Sep 27, 2021 | Word of the Week

Did you know that galaxy is from the Greek word for milk? I didn’t! Given that our galaxy is the Milky Way though, I wasn’t terribly surprised. The original Greek phrase was in fact galaxias kyklos, meaning “milky circle.” The term made its way into Latin, and from Latin to French, and from French to English by the 14th century.

By the mid 1800s, the term had become a bit more technical, meaning “the discrete stellar aggregate including the sun and all visible stars” rather than just “that milky white conglomerate up in the sky.” Around that same time, astronomers began to wonder if some of the things they could see through telescopes were in fact other galaxies…but it wasn’t until the 1920s that telescopes became powerful enough for them to be certain of it. So galaxy and Milky Way were interchangeable pretty much up until then.

I’ve always loved studying the night sky, though I am faaaarrrr from an expert. How about you? Do you enjoy astronomy?

A Storytelling People

A Storytelling People

by | Sep 23, 2021 | Thoughtful Thursdays

We are a storytelling people. It only takes a look at modern society to see the truth of it. Our advertisements, our movies, our books, our games…we love them and are persuaded by them not because they tell us facts or make promises. We are persuaded and enchanted when they tell us a story we can believe in.

I love this about humanity. I love that story often matters more than a mere recitation of fact. That is, after all, what I make my living on–telling YOU stories that will show a bit of God’s truth through my fictional words. I love it because I recognize how powerful such things are in my own life, my own heart. A history book that just presents a list of facts? Forget about it. But one that tells me about the lives–the stories–of the people who lived…those stay with me. They teach me. They help me to understand situations and cultures and people unlike me. It’s why I began Seeing the Story, it’s why I’m a novelist.

But there’s another side to being a storytelling people too–there’s a dangerous side. Have you ever paused to think about that?

The term today is “anecdotal evidence,” which probably makes most scientist cringe, LOL. But it’s something we put a LOT of stock in. Because they’re stories. Stories about people we know, or who are known by people we know, or on down the line. Anecdotal evidence comes in compelling packages and can never be disproven, because it exists only in the realm of story, really. Track down the actual person, and you may find facts quite different from the anecdote you heard (we all know that “telephone” game, right?)

I came across this years ago when I was doing research for The Reluctant Duchess. I needed a character to think she had miscarried a child. She fell a few days before. Could this cause a miscarriage? When I looked it up, I was shocked to see that doctors say, “No. Highly unlikely.” At least for the kind of fall I was talking about. But that’s not what I’d heard over the years. How could that be? Well, because there are anecdotes of women falling and then miscarrying. Surely it was linked! But was it? The sad truth is that a certain percentage of pregnancies end in miscarriage. And it’s also true that a certain percentage of people trip and fall every day. There’s going to be overlap there, but that doesn’t necessitate cause.

But a hurting heart doesn’t care about statistics. A hurting heart wants a reason. And so we seek them. We latch hold of whatever makes most sense to us. And we tout it as truth.

This can be so dangerous though. This can lead so quickly to “Mary and I got in an argument, and she scowled at my garden, and the next day it withered! She’s a witch!”

We may shake our head at witch trials in the literal sense today, but there’s a reason they’re part of our history–it’s because they’re so indicative of our natures. We tell ourselves stories…and we believe them. We act on them. We teach them as truth. And if scientific evidence ever dares to disagree, which do we believe?

The one with the most compelling story.

Now, I’m a storyteller–I am not a scientist. So my natural inclination is always to go with the stories. But I’ve had to teach myself over the years to check that impulse when it comes to certain things. Health, medicine, technology, just to name a few. Because though I can tell a great story about how all the computers in the house rebelled at the same time and come up with a really great conspiracy theory as to why…let’s be realistic. It’s just a coincidence. Me telling stories about how software corporations are out to get me is not helpful, LOL.

Which then makes me ask the same about other stories I tell, other stories I hear. Are they true…or just compelling? Do they have actual fact behind them? Do they agree with documented studies, if it’s a field that has such things? If not, then I need to favor fact above anecdote.

Because trust me, I know the power of words, of story. And that’s why I know how important it is to use them wisely.

Have you ever been convinced by a story just because it’s compelling, only later to learn it’s totally untrue? Are there any cases of anecdotal evidence floating around your world today that you need to investigate more closely? I hope we can remind each other to do that. Because loving stories is one thing–but we need to be careful we’re loving the right ones. The ones that speak of Truth.

Word of the Week – Utopia

Word of the Week – Utopia

by | Sep 20, 2021 | Word of the Week

I daresay we all know what I mean when I say the word Utopia, right. It’s a perfect society. We all know it’s pretty much mythical, much like the one Socrates outlines in “The Republic.” And we probably also know the word was coined by Thomas Moore when he wrote a book with that title.

But did you know that he chose that title and name for his society based on the Greek word for “nowhere”? I didn’t! That makes it really cool though, doesn’t it? That even in its name, we recognize that it does not–and cannot–exist. He wrote, and hence coined the term for, Utopia in 1516, and it’s been a part of the English language to describe an ideal society since 1551.

What’s really interesting though is that many people didn’t understand the rather complicated Greek idiom that led to this word (I won’t get into it here) and thought that instead of meaning “nowhere” or “no place,” it was based on the Greek eu, meaning “good,” and that the word meant “good place.” Incorrect…but compelling enough that it’s why people created the word dystopian to be its supposed opposite!

Have you ever read Utopia? I haven’t yet, but my husband’s reading it now…

Word of the Week – Parable and Parabola

Word of the Week – Parable and Parabola

by | Sep 13, 2021 | Word of the Week

Did you ever pause to consider that parable and parabola come from the same root? I don’t think I’ve ever really thought about it, until my husband brought it up the other day. He was talking about parables and used the adjective parabolic to describe it…and then paused and said, “Huh, that’s usually just used in the mathematical sense, but I bet parable and parabola are actually related, don’t you think?” I did! And they are.

Both words are from the Greek parabolē, which means “a comparison,” literally “a throwing beside” or “a juxtaposition.” The word moved from Greek to Latin and hence down the line into the Latinate languages. Interestingly, common (vulgar) Latin even adopted it to mean “word,” which is where we ultimately get parler in French for “to speak.” In English, the word parable has been used to describe stories with a lesson since the 1200s.

Now parabola, the mathematical term used to describe the open bell-like curve formed when a plane cuts through a cone on an angle parallel to one side. It was named by Apollonius in 210 BC, but at the time it was the same Greek word used for the stories, since it was a juxtaposition, a throwing beside of a plane and a cone. Keeping in mind that mathematical terms were still presented in their original Greek and Latin for quite a lot of modern history, it’s not then surprising that our English word parabola–spelled with a different ending to differentiate it from the “story” meaning–dates only to the 1570s. The concept is of course far older, but the date is for the word itself as an English word.

As for parabolic, it was actually used to mean “figurative, pertaining to a parable” from the mid-1500s and didn’t get applied to the mathematical shape until the 1700s. So totally fine to use that one either way. 😉

Word of the Week – Postmodern

Word of the Week – Postmodern

by | Sep 6, 2021 | Word of the Week

Today’s Word of the Week actually came in as a special request…and I admit it’s a word I’ve always just shrugged off too. What, exactly, do people mean when they toss around postmodern or postmodernism in their conversations? Turns out, the word can mean different things depending on what it’s applied to…and hilariously, one of the strictest definitions is probably opposite what the speakers actually mean.

So to understand postmodernism we first have to look at modernism. We all know what modern means, of course. But modernism was actually coined by Jonathan Swift in a letter to fellow-writer Pope in 1737.

I wish you would give orders against the corruption of English by those scribblers who send us over [to Ireland] their trash in prose and verse, with abominable curtailings and quaint modernisms. [Swift to Pope, July 23, 1737]

What he means here as modernism is “a deviation from the classical manner,” in this case of writing. So modernism is the tossing out of convention and its rules and creating whatever you please.

Postmodernism, then? Here’s the funny part. In architecture, it means rejecting that modernism that eschews the classical rules and actually RETURNING to the classical form. But in literature (and philosophy in general), it instead takes it a step further. In postmodern thought, you’re not just rejecting the rules, you’re saying that there can objectively be no rules, because there’s no objective truth. Everything is subjective.

Where do you come down on classical vs. modern vs. postmodern? Me…I’m a classical girl through and through. 😉

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