November 4, 2022
Yammer
In case you didn’t know, I’m fascinated with words. The English language is amazing as the myriad of possible adjectives are beyond enumeration. (Exaggeration? Likely, I’ll bet someone, somewhere, has a count on how many adjectives are proper in our English.)
Nevertheless: Let’s dive into this rather funny anecdote.
I’ve finished a project I’ve been working on for over ten years. I started it with a cool dream and just wrote the outline in my head and fleshed out my main characters. I let it sit for a while until my dad asked one day if I was working on any long projects. Yes! Always – I have this one and about fifteen others I choose to pick at depending on what mood. Two more are close to completion now. But at that time, for whatever reason, I highlighted this one.
He kept asking how work was doing in it. He wanted to know what this or that character was doing. When was I going to introduce this or that concept. Because of his research that parallelled mine, I kept working on this project. I paused for almost three years after Daddy died because I’d cry just thinking about this project. A few months ago, though, I started on what I call a “stint” – my brain just ran with connecting each of the parts and filling in all the gaps. I ended up finishing a few days ago and proofing and finalizing.
So, my craziness? I was looking for a chapter name – in this project, all the chapter names are alliterative. I needed a “y” word that meant something like dismay, cry of pain, whining, etc. So I opened my old creaky dictionary and started reading the “y” section.
Yammering jumped out at me!
I was so stinking excited! I asked myself, “how in the Earth am I so excited over finding one word?”
Seriously! But “yammer” means to whine or complain, to make an outcry or clamor, to talk loudly and persistently. It was perfect! I love the complexity and beauty of the English language! I love how I can find just the right word for exactly what I need. It’s like in “Mutiny on the Bounty” (1935) movie I watched over and over as a child; this guy writing a dictionary says, “how is it your language has so many words that mean love?”
I used to answer with, “and English doesn’t?” (of course, the Byam couldn’t hear me).
And that is why I love writing! I love words, I love painting pictures with words, I love finding things that are super cool to say and mean simple things but make people give you the “huh?” face… Like ameliorate – it means “to make better.”
My brother repeated it in sentences so often that my daughters at 2 and 4 years old used it!
Anyway, I’m getting back to finding more perfect adjectives to match my nouns in all 40 of my chapter titles!
Type at you next time!
~Nancy Tart