certain moment.” Later, plumbing the depths of duende , he wrote that it is “the mystery, the roots that probe through the mire that we all know, and do not understand, but which furnishes us with whatever is sustaining in art.”
Duende (Lorca in Havana)
DUNCE
A fool, a backward thinker . “Introduced by Aquinas’ disciples in ridicule of disciples of John Duns Scotus, from Dunce, Berwickshire, supporter of old theology vs new theology, opponents of progress.” A contemptuous word, named after the controversial Scottish philosopher John Duns Scotus, who was widely read in the Middle Ages, then widely reviled in the Renaissance. His influence led to a veritable war of words between the old learning of the Dunsmen, Dunses, or Dunces, and the new scholasticism. As usual, Dr. Johnson had a thing or two to say about them: “It was worthwhile being a dunce then [in the days of Swift and Pope]. Ah, sir, hadst thou lived in those days! It is not worth while being a dunce now, when there are no wits.” Companion words include dunce’s cap , as worn by Alfalfa in The Little Rascals , whose punishment for his antics was to sit in the corner of the one-room schoolhouse with the
traditionally conical hat of shame plopped on his pointy little head. A dunce’s corner is the place where bad kids, like Dennis the Menace, are banished. The clever website that is also named Dunce’s Corner includes this witticism: “Oh, you play chess, huh? That’s sort of like checkers, right?”
DUPE
One who is easily fooled , a chump, patsy , sap , sucker, or pushover . An old hunting term from the French duppe (first recorded in 1426), and le huppe , the hoopoe , an extravagantly feathered but easily caught bird. The hunters knew a metaphor when they saw one, and the name naturally evolved into dupe , the personification of one who is equally easy to catch, or, in the argot of thieves, “a deceived person.” Thus a dupe is one who is easily gulled , an imitative word for an unfledged bird, and gullible , easily fooled, possibly from gullet , the esophagus, which tightens up whenever we try to swallow a lie, while its verb form, to dupe , is “to fool, to deceive, to take advantage of.” Mrs. Byrne’s Dictionary offers gobemouche , French for “swallowing flies,” a person who swallows anything, as in gullible . An illuminating antonym is morosoph , a wise fool. Speaking of which, the On the Road journalist Charles Kuralt once defined a dupe as someone “trying to learn how to fool a trout with a little bit of floating fur and feather.”
E
ECLIPSE
To leave out, fail, overwhelm, pass by, suffer . In Skeat’s phrasing, “a failure, especially of the light of the sun.” The word’s origins are overshadowed only by its euphony. Our current word dates back to Middle English eclips , and the Greek ekleipsis, a leaving out, and ekleipein , to omit, forsake a usual place, fail to appear, from ek , out, and leipein , to leave. Eventually, eclipse came to refer to the complete or partial obscuring of one celestial body by another, as well as the passing into the shadow of a celestial body; figuratively, it came to mean “falling into obscurity, decline, the shadows,” as to one’s reputation. Companion words include the celestial ecliptic (c. 1391), “the circular path in the sky followed by the Sun, whose light is eclipsed when the moon approaches the line.” In a letter to Galileo, in 1611, Kepler wrote: “The Ptolemaic Astronomy was barely able to prognosticate a lunar eclipse .” Almost four
centuries later, Stephenie Meyer presents the dilemma of the vampire hero of her novel Eclipse : “The clouds I can handle, but I can’t fight an eclipse .”
ELDRITCH
Eerie, uncanny, terrifying . A 14th-century word that stretches over the moors of language like a supernatural mist. The Concise Oxford Dictionary has only “ weird , hideous,” as if it’s the scary uncle in the attic. We do know that by the late 18th century it
Duende (Lorca in Havana)
DUNCE
A fool, a backward thinker . “Introduced by Aquinas’ disciples in ridicule of disciples of John Duns Scotus, from Dunce, Berwickshire, supporter of old theology vs new theology, opponents of progress.” A contemptuous word, named after the controversial Scottish philosopher John Duns Scotus, who was widely read in the Middle Ages, then widely reviled in the Renaissance. His influence led to a veritable war of words between the old learning of the Dunsmen, Dunses, or Dunces, and the new scholasticism. As usual, Dr. Johnson had a thing or two to say about them: “It was worthwhile being a dunce then [in the days of Swift and Pope]. Ah, sir, hadst thou lived in those days! It is not worth while being a dunce now, when there are no wits.” Companion words include dunce’s cap , as worn by Alfalfa in The Little Rascals , whose punishment for his antics was to sit in the corner of the one-room schoolhouse with the
traditionally conical hat of shame plopped on his pointy little head. A dunce’s corner is the place where bad kids, like Dennis the Menace, are banished. The clever website that is also named Dunce’s Corner includes this witticism: “Oh, you play chess, huh? That’s sort of like checkers, right?”
DUPE
One who is easily fooled , a chump, patsy , sap , sucker, or pushover . An old hunting term from the French duppe (first recorded in 1426), and le huppe , the hoopoe , an extravagantly feathered but easily caught bird. The hunters knew a metaphor when they saw one, and the name naturally evolved into dupe , the personification of one who is equally easy to catch, or, in the argot of thieves, “a deceived person.” Thus a dupe is one who is easily gulled , an imitative word for an unfledged bird, and gullible , easily fooled, possibly from gullet , the esophagus, which tightens up whenever we try to swallow a lie, while its verb form, to dupe , is “to fool, to deceive, to take advantage of.” Mrs. Byrne’s Dictionary offers gobemouche , French for “swallowing flies,” a person who swallows anything, as in gullible . An illuminating antonym is morosoph , a wise fool. Speaking of which, the On the Road journalist Charles Kuralt once defined a dupe as someone “trying to learn how to fool a trout with a little bit of floating fur and feather.”
E
ECLIPSE
To leave out, fail, overwhelm, pass by, suffer . In Skeat’s phrasing, “a failure, especially of the light of the sun.” The word’s origins are overshadowed only by its euphony. Our current word dates back to Middle English eclips , and the Greek ekleipsis, a leaving out, and ekleipein , to omit, forsake a usual place, fail to appear, from ek , out, and leipein , to leave. Eventually, eclipse came to refer to the complete or partial obscuring of one celestial body by another, as well as the passing into the shadow of a celestial body; figuratively, it came to mean “falling into obscurity, decline, the shadows,” as to one’s reputation. Companion words include the celestial ecliptic (c. 1391), “the circular path in the sky followed by the Sun, whose light is eclipsed when the moon approaches the line.” In a letter to Galileo, in 1611, Kepler wrote: “The Ptolemaic Astronomy was barely able to prognosticate a lunar eclipse .” Almost four
centuries later, Stephenie Meyer presents the dilemma of the vampire hero of her novel Eclipse : “The clouds I can handle, but I can’t fight an eclipse .”
ELDRITCH
Eerie, uncanny, terrifying . A 14th-century word that stretches over the moors of language like a supernatural mist. The Concise Oxford Dictionary has only “ weird , hideous,” as if it’s the scary uncle in the attic. We do know that by the late 18th century it
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