Tag Archives: words from dictionary

Abbasid

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter AAbbasid: (1) adj. of or relating to a dynasty of caliphs who ruled in Baghdad from 750 to 1258.  (2)  n.: a member of this dynasty.

I remember a time when the mention of guns would conjure in my youthful immaturity the concept of cops and robbers. Also, I guess, was a flash or two of soldiers.

It was simpler. As a young kid, I would finish my breakfast hurriedly and head outside on a summer’s day to play all around the neighborhood with my friends, to return for a lunch of a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of yucky tomato soup, to then run out the door again and play and play with wild abandon.

I didn’t have a monitor on me to make sure I wouldn’t be abducted, nor did my mother worry about whether the neighbors were perverts.

Now, you see, some of them WERE. Perverts aren’t new. We didn’t come up with them in the past twenty years. It’s just that perverts were aware that they were odd–and tended to hide their predilections away from the neighborhood.

The reason I bring this up is because when I read the word “Baghdad” in the definition, I thought about how much that word has changed in my mind over the years. When I was a kid, Baghdad was a place in stories where people rode camels and when they got tired of moving so slowly, they leapt upon magic carpets.

It was cool. It was magical.

I didn’t know they were Muslims … because I didn’t know what a Muslim was. I didn’t know they hated America … because why would you hate us when you’ve got TENTS that look small on the outside but when you walk inside, they’re palaces? I didn’t know their women were subjected and mistreated. In the stories, they were all princesses.

Move ahead a little bit and Baghdad turns into kind of a stronghold for some guy named Saddam, who lives next door to another strong-arm dude named the Shah of Iran–but we’re told it’s cool because they’re our allies. This, of course, pleased me. Because they were our friends, we had a lifetime supply of magic carpets available to us.

Then we find out the Shah is a jerk and Saddam is kind of crazy–followed by some of their people abandoning their carpets and jumping into our jets and flying into our big buildings–and those folks from Baghdad suddenly become our enemies. Since then, my public perception of this place has been going constantly downhill.

It’s too bad.

Maybe Baghdad people never WERE Ali Baba, but I’m sure they’re not all Ali Bad-Bad either. I’ll never know, will I? I’ll never get the chance to find out about their caliphs and their Abbasids, because basically they’re our enemies–or is it now our friends? It’s hard to keep up.

There are not a whole lot of things I would like to return to. I certainly think that knowledge has progressed us, holding back the tide of disease and stupidity, but it would be nice to recapture some of the trust and gentleness we felt towards our fellow-man–even those in Baghdad.

Abbas

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter AAbbas: Ferhat (1899-1989) Algerian nationalist leader. He was president of the Algerian provisional government in 1958 and then president of the constituent assembly of independent Algeria from 1962-63.

Who cares? I mean, I’m just human. I read about this guy with the funny name and I thought to myself, “What difference does it make?”

Then, to promote a bit of humility, I looked ahead in the dictionary–checking for MY name–and upon discovering that it was absent, I realized that this fellow did something really remarkable. Even though he’s not internationally famous and his name is not spoken frequently in the household, he found a place for himself, made a difference, and to those around him, became important.

Who can ask for more than that?

I walked out of my house today, looked up into the trees and saw a bird. There was NOTHING distinguishable about this creature whatsoever. It was grayish-black, as bland as possible, just sitting up on a branch. But I realized that somewhere that bird is …well, Top Bird. Somewhere that bird has built a nest, goes out looking for worms for his or her little offspring, and in that particular venue, is King of the World.

We spend so much time criticizing ourselves for failing to achieve the top echelon of our goals instead of celebrating how far we have come in comparison to how crappy we COULD have been.

So this Abbas guy did a bunch of stuff in Algeria that made a difference. And he made the dictionary!  Hat’s off. Or if that’s inappropriate in his culture, hat’s on.

I was ashamed of myself for being indifferent to someone who made a difference and I decided to follow the philosophy of my little pal in the tree. First of all, the bird can fly. One up on me. The bird has a nest. The bird is out trying to find worms. The bird is … important in that environment.

So join me today in building your nest. Then go out and find your worm. And then, strut your bird. That’s right–be aware that even if you don’t make the dictionary, you still have done your part to define excellence.

Abbacy

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter AAbbacy: (n.) the office or period of office of an abbot or abbess.

There are so many words there I don’t understand that I don’t know where to begin. So instead of beginning, let me do what most politicians do and just talk about stuff that comes to my mind that I really don’t understand.

My vision of an abbot is someone who wears robes and works in a church. That other word sounds an awful lot like Abyss, which was a really cool movie about a huge water snake coming in, staring at a girl and morphing into her face. (It’s too difficult to explain unless you’ve seen the movie.)

The other Abbot I’m aware of is Bud Abbot. He joined with Lou Costello to form, of course, Abbot and Costello.

I am dating myself to put these names into the article. Most people today would be completely unfamiliar with Abbot and Costello, so to focus in on Bud Abbot would be to double the potential for obscure and confusing knowledge. But for the record–he was the straight man–which I guess, WOULD describe an abbot,right?  Is there such a thing as a comical abbot? I suppose if YOU had to walk around all day in woolen robes, with a funny haircut, consume large portions of porridge and say prayers all day, you might feel like you were IN an abyss.

Which brings us back to where we started.

I don’t know what I’m talking about.

 

Abba

by J. R. Practix

 

dictionary with letter AAbba: (n.) (in the New Testament) An intimate term for God as Father.

A friend of mine once said that if you think about God too much you go crazy. He also believed if you lick the back of a frog, it was like taking LSD. He had a lot of ideas. He didn’t mind sharing them. He felt it was his duty to inform the world of tiny pieces of information, even though many of them were yet unconfirmed.

I don’t think it’s how MUCH you think about God that makes you crazy–but some of the beliefs you can land on certainly alienate you from your fellow-humans.

Each one of those particular incarnations of the Almighty has its own personality, style and demeanor. I guess of all the choices available, thinking of Him or Her as a Father is pretty good–if you mean father as in the dad we all wish we had instead of the substitute-teacher-figure who ended up in our home classroom.

If God is a dad, who would he be?

My choice would be Harrison Ford as the President in Air Force One. If you don’t remember the movie, even though the plane is hijacked by Russian subversives with really bad accents, Harrison, as the President, decides to stay onboard, fight them and save his family. He does a whole bunch of brave stuff that you know he would not really be able to do, but disbelieving that he was willing would take a lot of the fun away from the story.

Yeah, God could be Harrison Ford.

I don’t know if it would be advantageous to me to think of God as my ACTUAL dad. I mean, I don’t have anything against him. He was a small, German man who normally didn’t say more than six things during the week and five of those were explanations on why he wasn’t talking. No, I couldn’t really tolerate a silent God. You’d always be wondering why He ceased to communicate.

But I kind of like the idea of God fighting for me. I kind of like the idea of God being that kind of Father.

Of course, according to my friend’s philosophy, I’ve already talked enough about God to earn a 72-hour hold at Bellevue.

Abaya

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter AAbaya: (n.) a full-length, sleeveless outer garment worn by Arabs.

One of the true signs of prejudice is our incessant belief that our particular selection of wardrobe is fashionable, while all other garments range from the sublime to the ridiculous.

If I was born in an Arab land, I might wear one of those sleeveless tunics. I think what would bother me most about the abaya is that I would have to go through a season of lifting weights to make sure that my biceps looked muscular instead of flabby. Of course, in the process of lifting weights, I might get other parts of my body to become equally as fit and trim. At that point, I would certainly not want to hide these muscular abs under a loose-fitting tunic. So I probably would come up with some silly rendition of the abaya–where there would be a hole cut in the center to exposed my flourishing six-pack. This would, of course, evoke scrutiny and possible criticism from other abaya wearers, who would find it completely inappropriate to ruin the fashion statement by showing off skin.

I would recoil from their criticism and stop wearing my abaya, which would make me feel alienated from society and soon I would stop my exercise regimen, begin to overeat, develop heart disease, and one day be waddling through the market to purchase chocolate-covered dates and fall over dead from a heart attack.

As you can see, an abaya is not for me.

I just want to make sure that I don’t criticize a Middle-Eastern “look” just because I find it questionable.

This may be the best road to peace–if for one week each culture that was ready to go to war just simply had to wear the clothing of the opposing culture, perhaps enough sympathy could be mustered that we would be forced to the peace table.

The nice thing about an abaya is that you could put on ten pounds and no one would ever know–as long as those “chubbies” didn’t show up around your jowls. Then you would have to wear an abaya with a turtleneck, which would probably also be considered inappropriate–even though I’m not sure the goats in the herd care one way or another.

Abaxial

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter AAbaxial: (adj.) {botany) facing away from the stem of a plant, especially denoting the lower surface of a leaf. The opposite of adaxial.

Being raised in a Germanic household in the Midwest, where the mention of sex only required a simple pronouncement of “male” or “female” and nothing more, I have not made a practice of looking at the undergarments of plants.

So I’m a little uncomfortable with abaxial.

It sounds kind of sneaky–maneuvering your way behind the hapless greenery to peek under one of its stems and examine the full hidden foliage …

Am I the only one who’s nervous about this?

It’s not a plant’s fault that it has to be so … well, so exposed. That’s the only way it can get sunshine–similar to a voluptuous blonde laying out next to the pool and unfastening her top to gain the rays of the sun to promote her particular brand of growth.

it is not good for me to ogle either one.

Now, it’s not that I’m a prude–it’s more that the wisdom of precautionary action in the realm of the sexual experience will often keep you from the embarrassment of backing up claims in the real world which you have made with your fantasy statements In other words, if you have not talked about your sexual prowess, when the actual moment arrives with your partner, you can always plead inexperience, insufficiency or the classic–“a cold breeze must have blown by.” If you’ve been bragging, then there’s always a season when “pay-up or shut up” unveils all of your shortcomings.

So it’s not so much that I believe in being a prude as that I fear false advertising, and therefore a disappointed consumer.

Yes, sometimes it’s a good idea NOT to sneak behind the plant and look up at it from the backside–in an abaxial mode.

I guess it’s just like real life with real girls. You just wait for them to invite you … to de-petal them.

 

Abattuta

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter AAbattuta: (adv.) a musical term meaning to return to strict tempo.

Sometimes I think life should be more musical–not in the sense of bursting into song while you’re waiting for your meatball sandwich at Subway, but musical in the sense of flourishes in timing, with exciting melodies and enhancing harmonies. Music grants you the ability to suddenly play very fast. And then … you can abattuta! Return back to your strict timeframe.

Life is not that way. It takes sixty seconds to make a minute, an equal number of minutes to make an hour, and twenty-four of them eventually make a day. Wouldn’t it be great if you had some sort of control–like a conductor’s baton–to make certain portions of your daily composition go quicker?

In other words, when you go to the dentist and he’s drilling on your teeth, you could increase the tempo–get out of the chair with a flourish. And then, as you were allowing the Novocaine to wear off and you stop at that Steak and Shake to reward yourself with a delicious chocolate-marshmallow milkshake, you could slow the tempo w-a-a-y down, allowing the ooey-gooey to eek its way down your throat.

You could speed up church services and slow down romance.

You could accelerate the interchanges you have with your children to confirm that you’re a good parent, and slow down the ending of the game, which finally, for a change, is actually close and interesting.

Maybe that’s the whole problem–life is too abattuta. Because when we try to relish moments, the clock frowns at us and continues its steady pursuit of strict formality.

Yes, clocks are like that. Still, I will search for a way to freeze moments so I can enjoy them even more as they thaw out. And I will hum songs and think happy thoughts to speed through those activities that are truly grueling and boring. Yet I know there will always be the abattuta to taunt me back to the mature notion of remaining in strict time.

I guess I never saw God as the conductor of an orchestra. To me, He’s more like the guy who plays the triangle. He lets the symphony ensue, but every once in a while, inserts his two-note passage that seems to make all the difference in the world.

 

Abattoir

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abattoir: n. a slaughterhouse

Thank God.

I will never, ever again have to nervously tell my friends that I will be unable to join them for dinner because I needed to pick up an extra shift at the slaughterhouse. I can just inform them that I am “tied up at the abattoir.”

Don’t you love words like that? Without them, our civilization might crumble in a series of offensive utterances that leave the room either confused or repelled.

For instance, how about the guy or gal who first came up with “restroom?” After all, even “bathroom” is a little bit weird and ambiguous. )It did, however,  at least give us the ability to escape crapper, pot, toilet and “take a dump.”)

Yes, because we have “civilized” our language, we are now able, as high-browed souls, to judge others on their improper usage of words.  If anyone is going to say in mixed company that they’re going to “take a crap,” we assume that they would kill baby birds and also vote for the candidate distasteful to our tender conscience.

I would love to see us resolve this with the issue of romance–because to proclaim that the previous evening afforded you the opportunity to have sex is way too blatant, conjuring images of you in the nude which are unpleasant to all participants. Equally nasty is “getting it on,” “hooking up,” “bumping uglies,” “getting some,” and even “making love.” I guess that last one, “making love,” is the least offensive, but it still invites images of movie scenes with soft lighting, air-brushed bodies and guaranteed orgasms for all parties.

Yes, now that we’ve taken care of that “slaughterhouse” dilemma, we need to work on a description of human sexuality that doesn’t leave the listener confused or completely grossed out.

What is the abattoir for romance? I wish they’d hold a contest. The submissions would be hilarious, don’t you think?

But in the meantime, I shall spend my day rejoicing that slaughtered pigs, cows, chickens and even goats are going out in finer style–at the abattoir.

Abate

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter AAbate: v. 1. become less intense or widespread: the storm suddenly abated. 2. cause to become smaller or less intense: nothing abated his crusading zeal

My parents certainly wanted to abate long hair and rock and roll. Facts are, they are dead and the Stones keep rolling–and the world is a’Gaga.

And the North wanted to abate slavery in the Southern plantations. It took a bloody Civil War but now black folks are allowed to vote at large instead of “tote that barge.”

It seems like every day of the week somebody wants to abate something. But here’s a clue: if you don’t have the right “a-bate,” you’re not going to get what you’re fishin’ for.

After having traveled this planet for some time, I have boiled it down to discover that if you want to be on the right side of history and end up looking smart later on instead of like a dumb old fogey, there are only two things you need to stand against and abate: killing and judging.

My experience is that everyone who has encouraged the death of anything has ended up looking like they brought chips and dip to a formal dinner party. Likewise, every individual who has tried to alienate one group, or place their clique above another, has gone down in the history books as foolish and bull-headed.

So I will tell you that I am for abating killing and judging. And because that’s too general, I will get more specific and talk to you about the promoters that put these two nasty boogers into business.

  • What causes killing is weapons.
  • And what promotes judging is prejudice.

Now, I don’t care if the weapon is an assault rifle or a scalpel held by a doctor in an abortion clinic. It could be a lethal injection on death row or people who just don’t have any sense of humor and murder all the good cheer in a room. It is the responsible use of weapons that causes us to put killing in a position where it is not only the last resort but even at that ugly hour, is reconsidered one more time in the pursuit of mercy.

And it is the removal of any notion that one human being is better than another that cripples judging–stifling prejudice.

You’ve got to be careful what you abate. You can lose an awful lot of good music and eliminate a whole race of people. But if you abate killing and judging, you’ll find yourself with an excellent mention in the history books and I believe, a pat on the head from the Almighty.

Let’s get sensible about weapons and let’s curtail our prejudice.

 

Abash

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter AAbash: v. cause to feel embarrassed, disconcerted or ashamed: she was not abashed at being caught.

So I was thinking this morning about what my favorite nightmares were. I guess “favorite nightmares” is the definition of an oxymoron. Maybe I change it to “recurring themes in the night-vision terrors.” Unfortunately, that phrasing smacks of too much drama.

Anyway, there are three events which inwardly terrorize my soul and if they were ever outwardly duplicated, I would be embarrassed–abashed, if you will.

First: My brain conjures visions of me being naked in a room in front of strangers. It is the personification of revealing my shortcomings. The anxiety that permeates my feelings during those apparitions often awakens me with a start–heart racing, chill running down my spine. I know there must be people who are totally confident about the prospect being naked in front of others, but truthfully, if anyone is going to see me naked, they must be willing to apply for the job, go through a drug test and survive three months of probation.

The second dream of horror is finding myself in front of an audience, and as I fastidiously and faithfully offer my gifts, the auditorium is gradually depleted by the viewers departing one by one. There you go. Apparently I am extremely embarrassed by the prospect of being abandoned on stage based upon my ideas or persona.

And the final example is driving in a car or some sort of vehicle, heading off for a destination which for some reason or another, is never achieved or even looms on the horizon–a frightening mixture of being lost and fully aware that I am in charge of the steering wheel, which has deposited me in the wilderness.

I guess the key is this: if you know what embarrasses you and you can be honest about it, you can avoid being abashed.

So I don’t like to be naked unless there is great profit and blessing to it in front of someone who is very forgiving.

And I don’t relish rejection, so I will use some wisdom in avoiding those who take pleasure in critiquing instead of doing.

And getting lost or running late obviously terrifies my soul, so an earlier departure and an excellent set of directions is my best remedy to such a fiasco.

Embarrassment is often what befalls us because we fail to acknowledge its existence.