It Takes Two to Collude

Have you ever seen two of your children huddled together and you know that they are plotting and planning and up to no good?  They are colluding on performing some sort of mischief.

Collude [kuh lood] is a verb that means to conspire.  Those two kids are definitely conspiring about something!  Collude also means to conspire especially in fraudulent ways. Say I want to get rich quick.  I come up with a scheme but I need a partner to help me carry out my plan.  I would find someone with whom I could collude (conspire). If I’m lucky, I scam people out of their hard earned dollars.  If I’m not, I land up in the state penitentiary.

Collude also means to act together through a secret understanding, especially with evil or harmful intent.  Doesn’t that sound like our congressmen of today?  They collude with their special interest groups.  The congressman creates a rider for a bill that gets passed in congress and then the special interest group gives kick back to the congressman in terms of votes, money, privileges, or perks.  That’s collusion in its finest form.

The mafia collude with their thugs for ways to collect money due to them.  Drug lords collude with underlings in a network to distribute and sale drugs.  Terrorist collude with subordinates to convince them to become suicide bombers.

Me?  I collude with my husband about warm, tropical places to visit in the winter time.  But, hey!  That’s not conspiring against anybody or anything — unless you talk to our kids who moan that they don’t get to go with us . . .

Logy after a Long Day

When I was in the 5th grade, I collected marbles.  Or should I say I won them from playing unsuspecting boys who refused to believe how good I was.  (After one or two games, you would have thought they would learn that they couldn’t beat THIS girl!)  My favorite marbles were the bumble bee ones, black with swirls of yellow.  My next favorites were the crystals (one solid clear color) — especially red crystals.  Cat-eyes were too common to be of much worth to me.

Words are to me now as a grown-up as marbles were to me then as a nine-year old.  My bumble bee words are those that are new or unusual. Words that roll off my tongue with spunk.  Words like logy.

Logy [loh-gee] is an adjective that means lacking physical or mental energy or vitality; sluggish; dull; lethargic.  As I write this, it is chilly outside.  And dark.  It’s been a long day at work.  I don’t have any physical energy to do anything more constructive than to snuggle on the couch with my laptop.

On a hot summer day, the heat and humidity might make a person logy (lethargic).  A bear just coming out of hibernation might be logy (sluggish and dull).  After a hard game of playing football, the football players might be logy (lacking in vitality).

Writers may feel dull and therefore logy in their writing.  Grandparents may be logy when compared to a grandchild.  After running a marathon, the runners might feel very logy because their energy is all used up.

Whatever the cause of your logy-ness, I hope that your vim and vigor return after a restful (not restive) night’s sleep.

Say One Thing And Mean Another

The word I want to share with you today is one that is rather confusing.  At least it is to me.  I recognize the root of the word.  And that is what throws me off track.

The word is restive.  Restive and rest both come from the same Latin root restāre.  But, somehow in their travel through time, they have become so distance that they actually mean quite the opposite!

Restive [res tiv] is an adjective that means fidgety, restless, uneasy, edgy, in suspense, jittery.

When I think of the word ‘rest,’ I think of something that rejuvenates.  Something that is tranquil or peaceful.  Restive is anything BUT restful!

I have seen restive connected to the restless leg syndrome.  I don’t have that syndrome, but I sure get the jitters in my legs and it is very difficult for me to sit still.  Restive certainly describes THAT situation.

If you are awaiting a decision or answer from your boss, your parents, or a marriage proposal, you could be restive — uneasy or edgy –  until you get your answer.

If you are reading a suspense novel or watching a thriller movie, you could be restive (uneasy, in suspense) as you await what is going to happen next.

The next time that I get the jitters, I’ll tell myself to be restful and not restive!  (Think that will help?  Probably not . . .)

No Fun with Fungible

I’ve been reading Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman.  Interesting book.  He used the word fungible which I didn’t know.  So, I gamboled to the dictionary.  Most of the time when I come across a word that is new to me, I am delighted with it.  I want to write about it here.  I put it on my fridge as the word of the day.  But this time, fungible let me down.  Sure, I’ll write about it here.  But I don’t believe it will make it to my fridge nor into my everyday conversation.

Fungible [fuhn-juh-buhl]is an adjective that means being of such nature or kind as to be freely exchangeable or replaceable, in whole or in part, for another of like nature or kind.  Something that is exchangeable or substitutable.

Friedman talked about fuels being fungible in a world market.  Most of the time, my conversation does not include discussions about fungible fuels.  Tried that once.  The person I was speaking to got glassy eyed.  So, I stopped.

In the stock market, assets that are identical in quality and are interchangeable. Commodities, options, and securities are fungible assets.  Like, do I daily deal in fungible financial assets?  Not hardly.

At work, I exchange an amount of my time and effort and receive a paycheck in return.  So in this instance my time is fungible with my employer’s money.

Still, I don’t foresee myself using this word much.  I find it great fun to say.  Fungible.  Fungible.  Fungible. But lack the opportunity to use it much.  Chalk this word up as something that will reside in my brain but rarely see the light of day on my tongue.

My Pudency Moment

My mother makes quilts.  Gorgeous quilts.  Yet, when she talks about them, with gread pudency she claims ‘they aren’t anything special.’  I beg to differ.

Pudency [pyood-n-see] is a noun that means modesty.  So, my mother is very modest about her quilt making skills.  She has pudency.  She compares herself with her sister-in-law who does machine embroidery on quilts.  Since my mother can’t do machine embroidery, she feels she isn’t as good.  But she pieces quilts and makes fabulously beautiful ones!

Pudency also means bashfulness.  Maybe you know someone who has done something that you think is spectacularly fabulous.  Yet that person’s pudency (bashfulness) keeps him from bragging about his deeds.

Pudency can also mean embarrassment.  Pudency definitely describes my feelings of a situation I was in several years ago.  At that time, I was playing the piano for a children’s church meeting.  I started playing the song in the key of C.  It was written in the key of E flat.  I started laughing so hard at my mistake that I banged my head on the piano.  Talk about pudency!

I hope you don’t find yourself in situations where you feel pudency like I did!