WordWacky

The word poverty originates comes from the Latin, paupertatem, via Old French, poverte. It is first recorded in Old English around 1225, as mentioned in a book published in 1868, Old English Homilies.

We use the word poverty, and its cousin, poor, casually, meaning broke, perhaps, or cash deficient. Yet we know true poverty when we see it, don’t we? In people who are homeless. Or people who debate between heating their houses in the winter and eating.

Growing up, I thought we were poor, my single mother and I, but she worked steadily, at the same job throughout my childhood, a good job by many standards — a job with the City that had good benefits. I didn’t have the same clothes or sneakers as some of my classmates, or a piano, and my mother slept in the living room of our one bedroom apartment in the Bronx. But in reality, by the definitions set out for us by the U.S. Government, we were not “poor.”

According to the U.S. Health and Human Services Poverty Guidelines for 2008, a family of two, like ours, would have to be making less than $14,000 a year in the contiguous U.S. to be below the poverty line. We lived in New York City. It is unfathomable to me to think someone could live on that amount of money and still eat, get clothing, and use transportation to and from a job on that income in New York.

Apparently it is also unfathomable to the human services providers, too, because you qualify for food stamps at 130% of the federal poverty limit, for WIC at 185%, and often for Medicaid (depends on the state) at 200%. According to Columbia University’s National Center for Children in Poverty, “Research suggests that, on average, families need an income of about twice the federal poverty level to meet their most basic needs.”  So if the guideline doesn’t even determine what we consider poor, why set it at falsely low levels? Seems to me there can only be one reason: to deny people benefits. (But I’m a cynic. If you can think of another, please speak up.)

I’m taking three steps against poverty, starting today. I urge you to find three things you can do to stop poverty, however you or the government defines it. Here’s what I’m going to do:

1. Donate. I’m going to take Brian from Copyblogger up on his generous offer to match 250% of my $10 donation to Save the Children! Unheard of, really, people. You should donate ten bucks, too.
2. Educate myself. In addition to the research I did for this post, I’m going to read a book that’s been on my to-read list for too long: Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich.
3. Vote. You heard it here first. And I’m not a non-profit, so I can say vote for That One, please. If you don’t, please don’t tell me about it.

Last week the New York Times did an article about Palin calling McCain a maverick at the VP debates.

This word, maverick, derives from a surname — a surname that survives to this day.

“I’m just enraged that McCain calls himself a maverick,” said Terrellita Maverick, 82, a San Antonio native who proudly carries the name of a family that has been known for its progressive politics since the 1600s, when an early ancestor in Boston got into trouble with the law over his agitation for the rights of indentured servants.

In the 1800s, Samuel Augustus Maverick went to Texas and became known for not branding his cattle. He was more interested in keeping track of the land he owned than the livestock on it, Ms. Maverick said; unbranded cattle, then, were called “Maverick’s.” The name came to mean anyone who didn’t bear another’s brand.

The rest of the article goes on to detail some terrific activities of this lefty family, including serving in the Roosevelt administration, defending draft resisters and atheists, attacking the Iraq war, and serving as a board member for the Texas ACLU.

Says Terrellita, “Every time we hear it, all my children and I and all my family shrink a little and say, ‘Oh, my God, he said it again.’”

There are lots of words that derive from names. Here are a few others:

Boycott - after Captain Boycott, an Irish land-agent who was shunned by neighbors — they would not speak to him, buy from him, nor sell to him — after refusing to lower rents for his tenants

Dahlia - from Anders Dahl, an 18th-century Swedish botanist who introduced the flower

Dunce - from John Duns Scotus, an unstupid philosopher whose ideas went out of fashion in the 16th century, and were from then on thought to be idiotic

Guillotine - after Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a French assemblyman during the Revolution, who called for a universal method for capital punishment

Lynching - after Charles Lynch, a judge in Virginia at the time of the Revolutionary War who exacted strict punishment against English loyalists

Mausoleum - for the tomb of King Mausollos of Caria, a monument of such stature as to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Quixotic - after Don Quixote, the famous character in the Spanish novel of the 1600s

Tawdry - from St. Awdrey, who gave her name to a fair at which you could buy lacy clothing that was later deemed cheap and of poor quality

Maybe some descendants with these names also cringe when they hear their birthright misused, who knows?

One thing is abundantly clear, however: McCain is no Maverick.

When my wife and I were watching clips of Katie Couric and Sarah Palin, I commented that her responses were more like poetry than prose. They were non-linear, free association style riffs, and with her (affected?) midwestern lilt, it sounded like a spoken word performance.

Apparently I was not the only one who noticed. Slate writer Hart Seely added some line breaks to her quotes and came up with “The Poetry of Sara Palin”:

“On Reporters”

It’s funny that
A comment like that
Was kinda made to,
I don’t know,
You know …

Reporters.

(To K. Couric, CBS News, Sept. 25, 2008)

It reminded me of an oldie but goodie, the George W. Bush quote poem I had hanging in my cubicle for some time. It still gives me joy to read, so forgive me for reproducing it here. This one is slightly different than the Sarah Palin poetry, in that it is a multitude of quotes that are rearranged to create the poetry. But each one has been verified.

MAKE THE PIE HIGHER

I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It’s a world of madmen and uncertainty
And potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the Internet
Become more few?

How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.

I know that the human being
And the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope, where our wings take dream.

Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!
Make the pie higher!

Indeed. Let’s make the pie higher.

I used the word schadenfreude not long ago in an IM conversation regarding Sarah Palin. It was the early days of her addition to the ticket, and I was relishing her scandal, yet simultaneously ashamed of my glee at someone else’s difficulties. Sort of.* The next day, the person I was messaging told me she’d seen that same word multiple times within the last 24 hours in friends’ blog posts. At first I blamed the collective unconscious. Avenue Q was too long ago — even when it finally made it to Seattle — to be a direct influence. Then I realized it was likely Sarah Palin who was making us all feel joyous at another’s pain.

[Editor's note: As I said, this was in the early days of her campaign, when it seemed natural to assume that someone who'd advocated the losing proposition of abstinence-only education would feel saddened when, as expected, it didn't work at all -- even in her own privileged Christian home.]

If you’re not completely clear on the word, or just need some video entertainment, here’s someone’s Disney-altered version of the Avenue Q song, “Schadenfreude.”

Of course, my schadenfreude regarding the Palins was limited to Mom. Toward poor Bristol, I felt something quite opposed to schadenfreude.

Back when I was working in the mental health system, there were strict rules around the use of prefixes, when it came to the client’s feelings, especially their pain. We were allowed to empathize, but never sympathize.

What’s the difference? It’s slim, to be sure, and I would argue that friends can do either, and both, at the same time. But to maintain a professional distance, empathy was required over its fraternal twin, sympathy.

American Heritage defines the prefix em- as:

en- or em- or in-   

1. a. To put into or onto: encapsulate.
    b. To go into or onto: enplane.
2. To cover or provide with: enrobe.
3. To cause to be: endear.
4. Thoroughly. Used often as an intensive: entangle.

While the prefix sym- is:

syn- or sym-   

1. a. Together; with: synecology.
    b. United: syncarp.
    c. Same; similar: sympatric.
    d. At the same time: synesthesia.
2. a. Same; similar: sympatric.
    b. At the same time: synesthesia.

The base of both words is the root, path, which is related to pathos, the quality of evoking compassion or pity. It comes from the Greek, páthos, or suffering.

So if we were to understand the words based on their components, empathy would be to get into a feeling with someone, while sympathy would be to feel it with them, or at the same time. This is pretty close to the meanings of the words. From Dictionary.com:

empathy - (noun)
1. the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. 

sympathy - (noun)
3. the fact or power of sharing the feelings of another, esp. in sorrow or trouble; fellow feeling, compassion, or commiseration.

Still pretty similar ideas, but the clinical distinction was definitely one of distance. To empathize was to imagine how the client felt, while maintaining your own place in the relationship with the client. To sympathize would be to feel it right along with them, for example, perhaps telling stories of when similar things happened to you.

So while I have no sympathy, mere hints of empathy, and some schadenfreude for Mrs. Palin, I do feel some combination of sympathy and empathy for Bristol.

For example, I feel sympathy for her being pregnant for the first time, and aprehensive about what might happen next. I am able to get right in there and feel it along with her, as I am going through the same experience, at least as far as those aspects of it are concerned.

But I am twice Bristol’s age. I have a partner, and my baby was not only planned, but in some sense, engineered. My partner and I are both degreed and employed. Mine and Bristol’s situations are not, in fact, similar enough that I can truly sympathize with her. Yet I can empathize with being too young to make lifelong decisions like marriage and children. I can empathize with having no choice but to go obscenely public with what I will generously call her decision to become a teenage parent.

*Perhaps I should disclaim my schadenfreude, tell you that I am outraged by the McCain campaign’s insertion of a woman — any woman — on the ticket, in the hopes that as a lowly woman I would see no difference between Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton. Perhaps I should ennumerate all of the ways in which Palin’s ideology is an assault on my life and everything I believe in.

But probably I shouldn’t, since this blog isn’t about politics. It’s about words.

Listening to NPR on the way to work this morning, my wife and I heard Ammon Shea, author of Reading the OED on Morning Edition. That book’s been on my reading list for awhile, as I am a fellow logophile who has been tempted to get neck deep in at least a few dictionaries, the venerable Oxford English Dictionary included.

The segment, which you can listen to on NPR’s website, is on the word bailout. The reference is to the dispute over whether or not the U.S. government is bailing out Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae by effectively taking them over with a large cash infusion.

As we probably all know, words have some weight, and I believe the argument is over whether or not the Treasury is putting too much into a lost cause. What Ammon Shea concludes is that whether or not you like the word, it’s appropriate to the situation — and you can tailor your definition by choosing the dictionary from which to draw its meaning.

Says Ammon:

Those who oppose the plan can point out that the Cambridge Dictionary of American English defines bailout as “the process of saving a company, plan, or other thing from failing by providing lots of money.” This would bolster their claim that the Treasury is subsidizing poor business practices and potentially throwing away billions of dollars that could help needy Americans.

Treasury secretary Henry Paulson could counter with the definition from the New Oxford American Dictionary. A bailout can also be an instance of giving assistance to a failing economy. That would bolster the claim that the government is acting to save the larger economy, and not simply trying to help the privileged few.

The dictionary wars continue on, and if you’re like me, you quickly lose track of which side is which, as the meanings blur together and collide.

For me, the most interesting part of the dictionary is not the fine lines between one meaning of a word and another, but the etymology of the word. In this case, the etymology is not out of current usage. To bail [out] still means the same thing it did when first used in the 1600’s: to dump water out of a boat that is leaking. The alternative, of course, is obvious — the boat would sink.

As an aside, I did learn about a new dictionary from the segment, the Merrriam-Webster and Garfield Dictionary. Who’s Garfield, you ask, and how did he get in on that exclusive dictionary team? Well, he’s a cranky orange feline, of course. [Editor's note: Personally, I prefer Garfield Minus Garfield.]

Like many people in the US, I’ve long accepted the definition of Jihad as a Muslim holy war — actual military war sanctified by Allah because it serves Muslim goals.

It turns out that like the Bush Administration, I was wrong. (It may be the only way in which I am like the Bush Administration, but that’s another story.)

This morning on the way to work, I heard this story on my local NPR affiliate, KUOW:

After years of using the word “jihadist” to describe terrorists who carry out attacks against civilians and the U.S. military, the Bush administration has finally realized that doing so actually pays those groups a compliment in the eyes of some Muslims.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration has relied on terms like “jihadist” and “Islamic extremists.” But jihad has very positive connotations in the Islamic world. It is akin to religious duty: when someone wants to better themselves, they embark on a jihad. Whether it’s to quit smoking, pray more, and in some cases, fight off anyone preventing them from practicing their religion.

Jihad is not, as I have believed, about militarism, but about duty to God. I guess, though I am not much for any of the capitalized deities, I can understand that, if only from the perspective of having the sincere drive to better myself however I can.

Like, for example, being a better blogger, one who posts on a regular basis instead of letting entire weeks pass between posts. I will try harder, I promise, though I am still pretty loathe to call it a blogging jihad.

Here are some etymology posts from the past week:

Gringo/folk etymology - “I’m pretty sure the dictionary is right about the word’s etymology. But I had learned a more colorful story: that Mexican-American vaqueros came into contact with Irish-American cowboys after the United States acquired first Texas, and then New Mexico and California. The Irish cowboys were constantly singing the song, “Green Grow the Lilacs.” The first two words of the song were slurred into gringo.”

Crunk - “Traditionally, crunk meant a hoarse, harsh cry. The term is often used as slang to mean intoxicated. Folk etymology suggests the modern usage of crunk originated as a portmanteau of the words ‘crazy’ and ‘drunk’ or having been ‘cranked up’ to a level of excitability at which one becomes ‘crunk’. Rapper Lil Jon defined crunk as a “state of heightened excitement.”

Good/Bad - “Here’s the Oxford English Dictionary’s etymology for good, which turns out to derive historically from ‘fitting, suitable’, not from ‘noble, aristocratic’…

The American Heritage Dictionary joins in relating good to IE ghedh- ‘to unite, join, fit’, also at the root of together and gather….

And here is the OED’s etymology for bad, which turns out to come not from “lower class” but from ‘homosexual’…”

Hocus - “The two-word phrase ‘hocus pocus’ seems to have entered the language a century or so before the word HOCUS as a stand alone. In medieval times, the Latin words spoken by priests in the Eucharist included ‘hoc est corpus meum,’ meaning ‘this is my body.’”

And more politics, for those so inclined:

Counterinsurgency - “The term counterinsurgency gained currency under President John Kennedy in the 1960’s, and referred initially to countering “communist inspired, supported, or directed insurgency, defined as subversive insurgency” by Soviet-aligned guerillas against western colonial nations. (When the US aided indigent forces in the overthrow of unfriendly governments it was called paramilitary operations.) As in the above quote the US involvement in Vietnam was called a counterinsurgency.”

Yesterday I wrote an e-mail to William Safire, the conservative writer and linguist who has contributed to a column in The New York Times Magazine, “On Language,” since forever. Reading up on him in Wikipedia, I am informed that he graduated from the same high school from which I dropped out. This strikes me as symbolic, though I don’t want to belabor that point too much.

I also found this piece of information:

After voting for Bill Clinton in 1992, Safire became one of the leading critics of Clinton’s administration. Hillary Clinton in particular was often the target of his ire. He caused a mild tempest when he called her a “congenital liar”; Hillary responded that she didn’t feel offended for herself, but for her mother’s sake. According to the president’s press secretary at the time, Mike McCurry, “the president, if he were not the president, would have delivered a more forceful response to that on the bridge of Mr. Safire’s nose.”

My letter was in response to the latter half of this Sunday’s “On Language,” subtitled “Misogynist.” In response to Hillary Clinton’s assertion that she had been subject to misogyny during her campaign, “It does seem as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by comments and reactions of people who are nothing but misogynists,” Safire wrote:

The word misogyny has since its earliest recording in 1656 meant “hate or contempt for women.” The etymology of misogyny is straightforward: In Greek, miso means “hatred,” and gune means “woman.” A misogynist is a woman-hater. I thought Clinton’s choice of the word was in error, and that the word she meant was sexist, meaning “one who discriminates based on sex” - that she had been treated unfairly because she was a woman. When I looked up the word she chose in the Oxford English Dictionary online, however, I noted that the meaning of misogynist had changed slightly but significantly. In 1989, the definition was “hatred of women”; in the 2002 revision, the definition was broadened to “hatred or dislike of, or prejudice against women.”

Safire does not argue that there has not been “incredible vitriol,” yet he describes his immediate reaction to the word misogyny as incorrect, and only justifies her usage of the word as a synonym for prejudice. Thus, my letter, subject line: vitriol/misogyny.

Mr. Safire:

Relevant definitions of vitriol:

OED Online:
5. Virulence or acrimony of feeling or utterance.

Dictionary.com:
3. something highly caustic or severe in effect, as criticism.

American Heritage:
2. Bitterly abusive feeling or expression.

Worldnet:
2. abusive or venomous language used to express blame or censure or bitter deep-seated ill will

What about “incredible vitriol” does not imply hatred to you? Bitterly abusive? Venomous?

I heard many such press and non-press attacks. Dismiss me as one of Hillary’s feminists if you will, but your column is misguided in implying that vitriol does not suggest hatred, merely prejudice. I understand that you eventually accept the usage, but you imply that it’s politicized.

Perhaps it is your article that is using words to politick.

Having now read the Wikipedia entry on Safire, I would only alter my letter to remove the word “perhaps.”

Update: Here is my response from William Safire, dated June 22, 2008:

Dear Lexicographic Irregular,

You were good to respond to my invitation for comments and suggestions. A great many other readers have pitched in, too. Although I can’t answer mail individually, I read every letter and am most grateful for yours.

Sincerely,

William Safire

The boldface is his.