Tuesday, July 22, 2003
Word of the Week
After reading a lovely piece in Salon about how blogging is related to the lesser essays of George Orwell, I feel that it is a little unworthy to write a filler entry about my favorite word of the week. More and more often, I've been at a loss for what to say in these pages; both because I believe I have no audience beyond family and freinds, and because despite this, these words are commited to posterity and for good or ill, are added to my living body of work. You might say that on the body of my work, they are the love handles.
Still, I'm trying to reach out. I haven't been doing this very long, and I don't have an audience with expectations. However, if there's one thing I'd like to be known for, it's a love of words... squishy, sloppy, sweaty, flaggellating tongue love; and here's the word I'm in love with this week:
Passersby: noun. I've heard it said that the most beautiful phrase in the English language is 'cellar door.' I like 'cellar door;' but 'cellar door' is like the French supermodel of beautiful phrases... despite her humble origins, she's become narcissistic and bulimic.
To my mind, passersby is the young, Audrey Hepburn-esque upstart. It's quirky and free. It reads poetry and shows up in Rasputina songs. Passersby doesn't bother to follow the conventions of English, it's got a style all its own.
It is the plural of passerby... simply people who pass by. I'll use it in a sentence: The passersby ignored the bleeding man sprawled across the sidewalk. I know what you're thinking... that word cannot be correct. It should be 'passbyers' or worse, 'passerbyers.' The 's' should be at the end of the word. You want to at least hyphenate it to 'passers-by' but no, it's correct just the way it is. Don't you dare hyphenate it, or you'll remove all the magic.
The magic comes from '-sby' coupled with the soft double 's' in the middle. Say it a few times and you'll find that the word evaporates on your tongue like fine Swiss chocolate.
