By Tony Deyal
I was reading a column and reached “Diaphanous.” According to the 1500 Poetry Society, “Diaphanous” is the most beautiful word in the English language, and it took me back to my elementary and secondary schools. I remembered one of the girls who won a scholarship in a big-time Convent asked, “Where did you go to high school?” I jumped up quickly and shouted, “A ladder! A ladder!” The teacher was coming with a stick to drop on me, and I ran outside to hide. But I got so interested in words that I forgot to go home, and my father came with his car and my belt. I never thought that, as one group said, it was “Smelly!” At least not what children had as fun and learning at the same time.
These are some that I loved, including Colossal: (Extremely large or huge); Dazzling: (Extremely bright or impressive): Gargatuan (Enormous or giant-sized); Gleeful: (Full of joy and happiness); Mischievous: (Playfully naughty, often in a fun way); Radian: (Sending out light or shining brightly); Scrupulous: (Extremely delicious to eat); Serene: (Calym, peaceful, and undisturbed); and Tipto: (To walk quietly on our toes). Given those, the “Diaphanous” was just an adjective for something so light, delicate, and fine in texture that it is almost completely transparent or translucent. It generally refers to fabrics (like silk, chiffon, or gauze) that allow us to see through them. Also, it can be applied to mist, wings, or ethereal forms.
What kept me in school was something I found in the teacher’s “hidden” area, and as soon as she left for the day, I grabbed and read her entire “15,000-Year-Old Words.” I found that there were some well-known English words that were there unchanged from the beginning.
These were: “Pronounce”- I, we, ye, thou, who; “Basic Family & Body Nouns”- Mother, hand; “Verbs”-To give, to hear, to pull, to flow, to spit; and “Everyday Concepts”-Not, that, this, what, old, black. What they found was that words uttered more than once per 1,000 times in everyday conversation formed the backbone of this deep linguistic heritage. Out of these, the pronoun “thou” was the only word found to have cognates, or words in different languages and meanings in all seven language “families”. These are the words that appear the most times in the Bible: : And, The, In, He, For, Unto, A, They, Lord, Shall, I, You, His, Not, Him, I, and Be.
But that is not all. What I found out is that the Bible contains considerable humour, from irony and sarcasm to absurd situations used by leaders and prophets. In fact, they do that to make sharp theological points, challenge pride, and encourage followers to laugh at their own flaws. Some of the most prominent examples of humour, jokes,d and satire in scripture include “Elijah’s Sarcasm (I Kings 18-27).” During the ultimate showdown on Mount Carmel, Elizah mercilessly mock the prophets of Baal when their God fails to answer them. He suggests they yell the loudest because “Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or travelling.
Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened!” Then there was Jesus’s Hyperbole (Matthew 23:24 & 7:3-5). Jesus used brilliant comedic imagery to point out hypocrisy. He jokingly described religious leaders as people who “stain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” He also used slapstick imagery of a person trying to remove a tiny speck from their neighbour’s eye while completely ignoring the giant wooden “log” sticking out of their eye. Then there was the Reluctant Prophet (The Book of Jonah) with a story that was a giant satire. A self-righteous leader ran away from God, got swallowed by a giant fish when a whole city actually repented, and then threw a dramatic tantrum because God was too merciful.
Also, there were “Bible jokes” that were light-hearted “icebreakers” which often focused on wordplay instead of mocking the text. For example, “Who was the smartest man in the Bible? Abraham. He knew a Lot!” Then there was, “How do you make holy water?” You take regular water and boil the devil out of it!” Then there was Doctor Steven C. Walker, Professor of English at BYU (Utah).
He said, “Humor informs biblical texts. To miss the humour of the Bible is to miss not only much of its fun but much of its meaning.” He suggested as an example, “God ordered: ‘Go east,” and Jonah went west, as far as he could. God then threatened Jonah with a mighty tempest in the sea so that the ship would be broken. Jonah, unfazed as a five-year-old, remained “fast asleep.” God got into a water fight with Jonah. He made it clear that as God he would rescue Jonah but not with, “Angelic life preserver, Submarine, or Trained porpoise.” Instead, God used a distressingly uncomfortable and disgustingly smelly one to put Jonah on the “belly of the fish.” As doctor Walker made it clear: “The humour in Jonah was not incidental or superficial decoration. The humour was not only fun, but functional. There is a moral to the Jonah joke.”
Fortunately, the majority of people, readers and writers especially, prefer the words! As Derek Walcott, the greatest Caribbean writer in the English language, said:
“The English language is nobody’s special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself.” First, let us look at what is considered the most effective words for everyday eloquence: “Crucial” (better than ‘important); “Enhance” (replace “improve”); Invaluable (better than “useful”); “Astute” (not as good as “smart”); “Facilitate” (and not “help with”); and “Comprehensive” (replace “Complete”). Then there are what most readers consider as the most beautiful words which are prized for beauty, sensory sound, or emotional depth.
Here are some: “Efferest” (Bubbly, fizzy, or enthusiastic): “Etheral” (Light, delicate, and seemingly too perfect for this word): “Dulcet” (Sweet, soothing, and his pleasing to the ear): “Serene” (Perfectly calm, peaceful, and tranquil); and “Ineffable” (Something too profound or great to be be fully expressed).
One of the most interesting things in the words is what is called the “Humanity’s vocabulary for sex”. This shifted from the poetic metaphors of antiquity to the direct slang of today. As they said, the English language, in particular, possesses one of the most vibrant and suggestive lexicons for physical intimacy. For example, and to sound that they knew what they were doing, the “Biblical Era” treated sex with a sense of “poetic metaphor” and “clinical consequence” like, “To Know/ To Lie With” instead of “sexual intercourse.” Or the “One Flesh Covenant” instead of “one flesh.”
Then there were the singing “erotic” love poetry like, “clusters of grapes” (for breasts), and a “lock garden” or “fountain” for “female intimacy”. In the 16th to 17th Century it was, “To Swive” (by Chaucer about sex), “The Best With Two Backs” (William Shakespeare in Othello), and the most famous ones to describe the physical act was, “To Die” which was an Elizabethan euphemism for experiencing “climax.” Then there were also “Fing,” “The Birds and the Bees,” and even “Bumping Uglies.”
*Tony Deyal is staying far from “Hookup Culture,” “Creampie,” and “Bareback.”