Sandra Cisneros. It put me in mind of Gorilla, My Love. Vignettes manage to sketch a full picture of Esperanza's life. Short, not sweet.
Today I learned a new word: cloture. It means closure, the closing or limitation of debate in a legislative body especially by calling for a vote, and the t is a ch-y t.
Recently I learned that jalopy is stressed on the second syllable instead of the first, jaLOPy.
I am slightly better at remembering when "gi-" starting a word is hard or soft. Gin is soft but gimlet is hard but giblet is soft though an alternate hard pronunciation is encroaching. Gibraltar, gibberish, and gibbet are soft (I thought gibbet was hard). Gibbon and gist are hard (I thought gist was soft). The gill of a fish is hard but the gill as a unit of measure is soft, according to Merriam-Webster--who knew? Gimcrack is soft but gimmick is hard. And oh no, a gibbous moon is soft. How am I supposed to remember that?
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For the first time since I named it six years ago I am tempted to change the name of my journal. From a recent Word-a-Day email:
1. Gardening marked by an affected and elaborate style.
2. Affected use of archaic language.
[From the line "A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!" in a poem by Thomas Edward Brown (1830-1897).]
Now here is a word with a dual personality. Poet T.E. Brown unwittingly helped coin it when he wrote a poem describing his garden filled with all that came to his mind: grotto, pool, ferns, roses, fish, and more.
And when he needed a word to rhyme with the line "Rose plot," he came up with "God wot!" He used "wot", an archaic term that's a variant of wit (to know), to mean "God knows!" and it stood out among other contemporary words in the poem.
If you wish to create your own godwottery, we recommend: sundials, gnomes, fairies, plastic sculptures, fake rockery, pump-driven streams, and wrought-iron furniture. A pair of pink flamingos will round it out nicely.