Words I like today
This is bound to sound strange, but sometimes I just like certain words. Today, I happened to see something Jason Fried quoted himself saying at Web 2.0, on seeing oneself as a “curator” of software. And while I understand and admire his point, what I really like is that word, curator. One of my father’s best friends was a curator for a museum in Toronto, so the word conjures for me very specific sorts of curation. I have a vision of lab coats and trays of antiquities and lovingly prepared labels with red borders. And the stories this man told about a childhood encounter in the treasure room of the old Shah of Iran. You see there was this room full of treasure at the Shah’s palace, with chests of rubies and pearls. And there was this one tiny box, with each side made of a thin sheet of emerald, and tiny, almost invisible silver work holding it together. Surely no one would notice if this one small box slipped into a pocket… And looking up and noticing how closely the guards watched, with their long curved swords at the ready.
The other word I like today is archivist. Again, I have a personal association, this time with a woman who used to be the archivist at Choate. She would let me into her basement-of-the-library kingdom to research articles and I every time I found myself awed at the special gray document boxes tied with string and old school uniforms wrapped in acid-free tissue. How just seeing those uniforms conjured fall days and girls in plaid skirts and pony tails playing field hockey. How fierce they were. My ankles and shins hurt just thinking about those long-ago girls and their hockey sticks.
None of this is apropos of much, I just like those words. They describe activities and a kind of attention I don’t think we notice much as things go along. We spend a fair amount of time in daily life curating our collections and archiving bits for the future. And bogging down in the minutiae and the decisions this work entails.
And then blogging about some of it. Which is both curating and archiving.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice! Certain words really do lend themselves to people. For example, my wife absolutely loves the word “apothecary”. She will try to fit it into any sentence she can, and even some she can’t. For example “Jamie, I need you to go to the store and pick up milk for dinner, and, um, apothecary”.
Is the opposite also true? Do you have any words that you hate? I once knew a girl when I was in grade four who absolutely loathed the word “nib”. This made for an interesting class because we were doing a calligraphy unit.
Hey, Jamie! Glad to see you here on Wild Keys.
Naomi has good taste — “apothecary” is a lovely word.
Hmm, to consider your question, are there any words I hate? You mean besides slang words for women’s body bits or racial slurs? Or “impact” used as a verb? Have to think. In the words of Caribou Barbie, “I’ll find some and bring ‘em right to ya.”
Leave a Comment