by Carolee Sherwood
When you sit down to write, are you all business? Do you get straight to the point — a free-write? A revision? A first draft? Or do you dilly-dally a bit? Be honest!
Now I’ll be honest: I’m trying to trick you. I am attempting to remind you about the judgments we carry regarding what’s productive and what’s not, what’s “good” and what’s “bad.” I am hoping you remember what you’ve been told about taking your writing seriously: Set goals. Don’t procrastinate. Put your butt in the chair. Eliminate distractions. That’s all good, right? But what about the dilly-dally? That’s bad, isn’t it?
Not so fast! While it’s important to do the work of writing, it’s also important to play. Being playful is a critical writing skill, and it’s something we can practice.
Welcome to Games Poets Play, an interactive column here at the new Read Write Poem — meaning you are part of it! With each installment, we will introduce an activity, and then we’ll use the comments section as our word playground. Let’s get right to it, shall we?
Shh, listen!
When I was at the Tin House Summer Writers Conference last month, the organizers made sure we would listen to announcements preceding lectures by tossing in words that sounded like sex acts but actually had definitions that had nothing to do with sex. It was fun to hear the words in a sexual context and then to discover their real definitions. We’re going to keep it rated PG here at Read Write Poem (at least until you warm up to us), so we’re going to modify the game.
Let’s all listen for words that sound like diseases or conditions but are not. Let your ears communicate with your imagination by going through the dictionary and reading words aloud. Hear how the words sound. If you didn’t know the word, could it sound like a medical problem?
Declension would count; it sounds like a malady but is, in fact, a grammatical term. Honewort would count; it sounds like a variety of wart but is a plant in the parsley family. Glioma would not count because it’s a real health problem (a tumor of the brain).
Now go get your dictionary. Let it reveal to you all the possible new infections and germs and malformations you could inflict on humankind. Leave a word or two, along with their real definitions, in the comments of this post. If you want to be especially adventurous, you could even propose a “fake” description of the made-up disease.
Carolee Sherwood is a painter, mixed-media artist and poet. This moody mother of three boys shares her writing at her site, Carolee Sherwood, and is a senior contributor and columnist for Read Write Poem.
I am leaving a word, but no definition (so someone else can make one up): loge.
I used one in one of this weeks poems: Periphylla. It’s a disease that causes skin sloughing resembling scales on the distal appendages.
cbelle replied:
August 17th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
I have written about periphylla in a short short without knowing the tech. term!
Peripatetic really is a side-effect of some anti-psychotic meds.–tho’ not a disease.
Damian replied:
August 17th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Whoops. No, periphylla is actually a type of jelly-fish. I made up the disease definition
.
How about peripatetic?
Kerygma.
Pajamista – Indelible imprint of pajamas on the skin after sleep.
Kathy (A~Lotus) replied:
August 18th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
I love this definition. Good for sleepyheads like me.
I cannot help myself, one more:
coactum camena: a psycho neurotic condition causing one to compulsively write poetry with or without logical content or convention to accepted structure and form.
Now, I’m getting back on the couch.
Donald, I think I have that.
saphiza replied:
August 17th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
I’ll have to say I also am a sufferer of Coactum Camena.
Nice one.
appoggiatura:an overweight castrato.
rallentanda:someone who always comes last in the race.
neftali ricardo reyes: an affliction characterized by the ability to perceive and express beauty
Scruples
(which some do count a malady)
Dystopia
A condition of the vision. The complaint presents as tumbling cubes with tightly grouped spots.
mantid: any of several predaceous insects of the family Mantidae, having a long prothorax and typically holding the forelegs in an upraised position as if in prayer.
predaceous: predatory
megillah: a tediously complicated matter
pelisse: a woman’s long cloak with slits for the arms.
This is fun! Great idea, Carolee!
Here are a couple possible diseases:
Phalangium
Caryophyllus
rob kistner replied:
August 17th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Ooops – forgot…
My two offerings are actually the names of flowering plants.
mastication -chewing
dregs – refuse; rubbish
logophoricity:
1. One’s tendency to express himself/herself in an alembicated manner causing the apparition of logophors.
2. (regional) one’s tendency to talk to much causing a need for logophors.
A favorite old word: Flocculent.
* Main Entry: floc·cu·lent
* Pronunciation: \ˈflä-kyə-lənt\
* Function: adjective
* Etymology: Latin floccus + English -ulent
* Date: 1800
1 : resembling wool especially in loose fluffy organization
2 : containing, consisting of, or occurring in the form of loosely aggregated particles or soft flakes
Many computer terms sound to me like maladies. Here are a few —
1) logout (a low gout?)
2) RSS and CSS and HTML (like TB and AHAD?)
3) Akismet (like asthma?)
4) widgets (like rickets?)
5) gravatar (sounds fatal, no?)
6) tweets (like tics?)
7) podcasts (wouldn’t want this when pregnant)
Kathy (A~Lotus) replied:
August 18th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
This would be awesome to use in a poem. I was laughing so much with this list.
podcast(s) – a pregnant woman who wears a cast (or several casts) because of recent injury, thereby resembling a pea wrapped in a pod (as in peas in a pod).
Speaking of podcasts, I once watched this movie where a young woman persuades her older pregnant sister to be a model for one of her mannequin projects. She put the plaster on the pregnant woman’s body but it got stuck (like a cast) because she forgot a certain ingredient to the plaster mix, so they had to call 911 to get the cast off. After the 911 responders were successfully able to break the cast off, they had to ALSO deliver a healthy baby!! If you guys know what that movie was, give me a holler! It was interesting though–that scene.
Therese, *I* have a low gout.
TMI?
You could make an entire poem out of your list. Are you going to do so?
Therese – you forgot my dad’s favorite (he’s 89 and hasn’t ever dealt with a computer) …
BLOG.
He enjoys saying it like he’s about to hurl. I was trying to figure out a way to type it the way he says it, but there’s not much room for it. Try saying it like you aren’t feeling very well, and I think you get the idea.
Therese L. Broderick replied:
August 18th, 2009 at 12:29 am
Jason–Yes! I like “Blog” as an illness. It sounds like a blood clot disorder, or a new kind of keyboard flu, or a stomach bloating. Pepto-Bismol, anyone?
Damian replied:
August 18th, 2009 at 6:25 am
Blog. It’s a colloquial term for an infection of the blogosphere
.
maladroit – a mild dysfunction of the hands and fingers. If left untreated may develop into marmoreal syndrome.
polyglottal cornucopium: The persistent and over abundant use by a person with limited vocabulary of a stop consonant, without release, having glottal occlusion as a secondary articulation, as in yep for yes, nope for no.
rallentanda replied:
August 18th, 2009 at 9:22 am
My favourite so far…
Sancilla
Pangella
Noxilla
—I think if you add “illa” or “ella” to the end of most anything, it sounds like a bad germ–
concupiscence: a bladder complaint
pachy derm: discolouration of the skin, caused by the fungus pachyderma tricholoris!!
I always thought that Clematis sounded like a naughty disease. But I have several in my front yard. :p