A Word With A View

You‘ve got to love language. It’s such a freaky thing. And it’s amazing what we have words for ... as well as what we don’t have words for. It doesn’t surprise me that there are words like ‘home’ or ‘lover’ or ‘life’ or ‘death’, or words for any event or action or object that we regularly refer to. What does leave me gob-smacked though is that we have a word for the very singular act of throwing someone (or something) out of the window:

Defenestration.

How weird is that?

I mean, it’s not like something that happens very often. I don’t know about you, but I can’t recall ever hearing of someone who was thrown out of a window, let alone doing it myself (although now that the word is in my vocab ...). Besides, in Australia, where the majority of houses are single storey, pushing someone out of the window would just make them mad. Madder than a cut snake, as they say in these here parts.

It seems that if ‘defenestration’ exists in the lexicon, then there should be specific words to describe a number of other singular acts that occur on a more (frustratingly) regular basis, such as:

when the toast slides off the plate and lands butter-side down on the floor;

when the biscuit breaks into your hot drink after you’ve dunked it;

when the cork snaps as you’re pulling it out of a bottle of wine.

So, this week, I’m searching for single words to describe any of the above, or for other events that fall into this category, or for other bizarre words like ‘defenestration’ which seem as if they oughtn’t really to exist, but do.

As always, all contributions gratefully received.

To cap it all, I browsed YouTube in the hope of finding a clip of someone being pushed out a window and found this:

What do you look for in a book?

Helen Garner is a big name in the Australian literary world, but, to my shame, I’d never read any of her books until I was recently asked to read The Spare Room, her first work of fiction in 15 years. Book taste is a very subjective thing and the synopses of her books have never made me want to pick them up and engage with them. That’s alright. We all have different tastes---thank goodness. And she has fans aplenty without me.

I wouldn’t have picked up The Spare Room either, as it’s not my type of book: it’s about the friendship of two women in their sixties and the difficulties which ensue when one, who is seriously ill with cancer, comes to stay (in the spare room). However, I’m glad I did, even if it was just to see what a fine writer Helen Garner can be and how striking her observations of people and the way they interact can be. That’s pretty much as far as I went though. It was a very readable book and didn’t take long to finish, but apart from the expressions of grief and frustration for the stubbornness of a dying friend, and the strains such an imposition can create, it was not only a little too genteel and staid for my taste, but felt more like the stuff of a short story than 194 pages of novel.

Also finished Michael McGirr’s Bypass, The Story of a Road. I began reading this travelogue---recounting a journey down the Hume Highway on bike---several months ago and enjoyed the many anecdotes and bizarre snippets of information which make up each chapter and each leg of the journey, even though I’m generally not a fan of non-fiction. It would be an ideal coffee table book, if I had a coffee table, as there seemed to be nothing lost in picking it up and putting it down again between reading novels.

Whether you prefer fiction or non-fiction, what do you look for in a book?

UPCOMING BOOK PREVIEW: Goodbye Bling-Bling, Hel--loo, Jailbird

Goodbye Bling-Bling, Hel--loo, Jailbird! This will be my first attempt at non-fiction. The plot is based on true story, and is a classic tale of one man’s lust for the American dream and his temptations to take short cuts to fortune, fame and his willingness to risk freedom to get it, came as easy as the next line of coke!

Available in bookstores: September 2008