A is for Amateur

Amateur is often used in a negative context in English—a rank amateur, an amateurish production. Yet from the etymology, amateurs love what they do. From Latin amator (lover) through French amateur (lover) to English, ultimately from Latin amare (to love), the amateur is not remunerated for what she does, but does it out of love, a devotee.

Although the word professional is often used to signify an expert and amateur a dilettante, a tyro, many amateurs have achieved great heights in their loved avocations. Bobby Jones, for example, was one of the greatest golfers of all time yet never played professionally. At one time Olympic athletes were all amateurs, but their level of expertise is world class.

Speaking of amateurs who are world class, Longmont, Colorado, boasts one of the top amateur symphony orchestras in the country. The Longmont Symphony Orchestra performs throughout the year, including the annual Fireworks Display at Thornton (see my Independence Day post below).

Our friend, Deb, plays viola for the Longmont Symphony Orchestra, for the Razumovsky String Quartet, and for the MahlerFest orchestra. She gives private lessons and teaches music appreciation and theory at the University of Colorado. She shares the richness of music with the community in innumerable ways. It was in her Music Appreciation class in 1999 that I was introduced to opera, and my wife and I have been hooked on opera ever since. I did a post on our annual Central City Opera House summer festival trip last year here.

Orig: 7/8/08

Independence Day, July 4th, 2008

The sights and sounds, the music and pageantry of the celebration of the birth of my country never fails to bring tears to my eyes. When I ponder the blessings we have received "with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence," as the writers of the Declaration of Independence put it; when I meditate on the privileges and advantages my family has received in our lives; when I think of my fellow Americans, who share this bounteous prosperity; I am choked up with gratitude and the thought that I did very little to earn these advantages. I was born in this country—born to a life of privilege—not exactly a meritorious act of volition.

Every year, we attend the Thornton festivities, which start with a concert by the Longmont Symphony Orchestra playing popular and patriotic music. (Of course, they always end this most American of concert celebrations with the music of a Russian, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture!) This year, there was also a spectacular performance by sky divers, gliding into the midst of the huge crowd at dark. Thornton also hosted the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall. The official site and photos are here. Pam took some "phantastic" photos of the wall, the fireworks, the sky divers, and the family, which you can see here.


Every year, the Longmont Symphony Orchestra plays a medley of the armed forces songs. When Anchors Aweigh is played I stand up for my 25 years of Navy service. It is always a humbling experience to stand and be thanked by your fellow citizens. It was especially so this year as I was sitting next to a young man who put his life on the line in Iraq and thankfully returned home safely to tell about it. I was also reminded of the tens of thousands of my fellow Americans whose names on the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall signified their ultimate sacrifice during their service. And as the fireworks overhead reminded us of Francis Scott Key watching the bombing of Fort McHenry, a local radio station played country music in the background. In one song, a young mother with small children talked to their father far away at war. As I choked back sobs, the tears welled in my eyes as I thought of the sacrifices, the loss of life, the breakup of families, the bravery but yet the ugliness of war.

In 25 years of service, I never faced down an enemy soldier. I never slept in a tent, never slogged through a swamp in some forsaken jungle, never carried my weapon everywhere for protection, never looked in the eyes of a child and wondered if he or she was wired to kill me. And yet people thank me for my service. How much more should we thank those who face death every day for an ideal, for a 232-year-old experiment called the United States of America.

As I pondered these things, I began to wonder what makes me "proud to be an American." What is the quintessentially American ideal that we celebrate every year on the birth of our nation? Freedom and liberty are words thrown around so much, they mean everything and nothing.

I finally came to the conclusion that I could not improve on the words of the Declaration of Independence and these self-evident truths: "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

And in what is more a declaration of dependence than independence, the following: "And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."

Independence from a despotic power with a "history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over (us)" and dependence on Divine Providence and one another.

And I wondered, deep in my wonderer, in the place where I wonder, whether or not "the governed," i.e. us, we the people, have the capacity and the will and the understanding and the resolve to truly give our informed consent or whether we are destined to submit ourselves again to tyranny. We can only hope, pray, and work together that it be the former and not the latter!

Congratulations, Karielle!

Double congratulations are due our niece, Karielle. She not only graduated high school with flying colors. She was also chosen to the University of Missouri Dance Team, the Golden Girls. This is quite an accomplishment for anyone, but especially for an incoming freshman.

Congratulations, Karielle. We love you, and we are very proud of you.

University of Missouri website here.

A is for Antipodes

The first time I heard the word antipodes was in a class during my naval career. The word was mispronounced by the person who used it (and didn’t know what it meant). Everyone turned to me since I was known for an obsession with words. I had never heard it, but naturally had a dictionary close at hand and looked it up. We found out the proper pronunciation does not rhyme with Shanty Codes but rather with Euripides, putting the accent on the second syllable, i.e. an-TIP-uh-deez. The definition of the word is “any two places that are situated diametrically opposite one another on the earth's surface.” From Greek through Latin, the word means literally “the feet opposite.” So the people at the antipodes (on the other side of the earth) have their feet opposite us.

The Antipodes, when used as a proper noun, refers to Australia and New Zealand since they have their feet diametrically opposite to the people of England. British sailors apparently coined the word in the 19th century. (Note: Strictly speaking Australia and New Zealand are not at the exact antipodes of Great Britain. Wikepedia has an interesting map and article here.)

The word antipodes can also refer to “the exact opposite or contrary of something” (as can antipode, a word coined by back-formation from antipodes).

Antipodes reminds me of a related "pod" word, tetrapod. Literally meaning "four feet," some 10,000 tetrapods were used in the construction of the Rota Naval Station. Carefully placed to provide a seawall to protect a large artificial harbor entrance, the tetrapod became the station's symbol. We were stationed in Rota for a total of 10 wonderful years.

The picture below is from the Stars and Stripes newspaper from April 26, 2006.

Ted Rohde ©Stars and Stripes

Rota, Spain, September 9, 1957: Huge concrete tetrapods are piled up on the beach at Rota, site of a new U.S.-Spanish naval base. The French-designed tetrapods, weighing between 8 and 25 tons each, were used to break up wave action and absorb the ocean's eroding energy.

For more information on the Rota Naval Station, check out the website here. (Warning to my family: don't spend too much time on this site. You'll get homesick!) (Note: The main Naval Station site seems to be down for some reason. I have substituted another web site.)

A is for Australia

"Tempus fugit," as the ancient Italians were wont to say!

It has been over a week since my last post, so here goes:

Australia is a very special country to us because:

1) It's a very special country. Check out the official travel and tourism site here.

2) Australians have always been faithful friends and allies of our country. See my previous post here.

3) Our daughter lives there with her husband (who is from Australia) and their two children, as well as her husband's family, who have become very dear to us.

4) My mother had an uncle who immigrated to Australia and lived near Melbourne. We still have cousins there.

5) The unique flora and fauna that exist on this island continent and nowhere else in the world (otherwise, they wouldn't be unique flora and fauna. Duh!). For further info, check out this article and this article.

6) Infinitely many other reasons for which neither time nor space avail (obviously, since they're infinitely many!). Wikipedia is always a good place to start Internet exploration.

Getting back to the linguistics of the word (which is, after all, my purpose for going through the dictionary from A to Zed--have to say Zed, since I'm writing about Australia. Interestingly, though, it seems only in the U.S. do we name the last letter of the alphabet "Zee." Seems everyone else in the world says "Zed." You truly do learn quite a few new things every day!)

Terra australis incognita (literally, unknown southern land) was a phrase describing a southern land of legends going back at least as far as ancient Rome. Seems the land wasn't legendary, though! It just hadn't been discovered by the denizens of the northern hemisphere yet.

When I was a lad, my family in Ohio observed the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) on a few occasions. It's not something you forget. The Aurora Australis are the corresponding Southern Lights. For some amazing sights of Auroras (or Aurorae), both Southern and Northern, check out Youtube here.

The Australian flag also reflects Australia's southern location. The constellation represented on the right-hand side of the flag is the Southern Cross (Crux Australis).

More on Australia.

A is for Alpaca

An alpaca is a domesticated South American mammal, related to the llama and having fine, long wool. It is one of four New World camelids (the family to which camels belong). Alpaca derives from the Aymara language (yeah, if you want more information about that language, follow the link. It is one of only a few native American languages with over a million speakers—actually, Aymara has over two million). The word camel goes all the way back to the Hebrew gamal.

The alpaca is closely related to (in fact, descended from) the vicuña. Here's a picture of these wild animals, who inhabit the high Andes. The word vicuña comes from the Quechua, the language of the ancient Inca empire, which is spoken to this day by over eight million people in six south American countries.


The paco vicuña is a cross between the gentle, domesticated alpaca and the wild vicuña. The fiber from the paco vicuña is of such high quality and so expensive that it was once reserved for Incan royalty. For more information about the paco vicuña, check out this article.


The llama is the best known of the South American camelids. There is a cute story about how the llama got its name. I originally read it in the book Native Tongues by Charles Berlitz. The story goes that when the Spaniards first came to South America and encountered the llama, they asked what it was called (in Spanish “¿Como se llama?”) Supposedly, the natives were confused and repeated the word llama over and over, convincing the questioners that the creature was called a llama!

Whether or not I like this story is immaterial. It seems that the story is apocryphal. Apparently, the Quechua word for llama is a word that sounds like—you guessed it—llama. So when the Spaniards asked the natives “¿Como se llama?” obviously asking what the animal was called, the natives responded, “Llama”!

Speaking of “what is this called” gives me an excuse to write about names and naming. We often think of names as arbitrary labels stuck on things to identify them. In fact, names are often closely associated with the inherent characteristics of the thing named. In Hebrew the phrase we translate “to name” is literally “to call its (his or her) name.” The naming of the animals was the assignment of a Hebrew word reflecting the basic nature of each animal. It wasn’t that the name was an arbitrary designation given by Adam but that Adam called the name (i.e. identified the name) of each animal.

Moreover, when reading about the naming of people in scripture, we find that the process of naming is one of calling into being the inherent nature or character of an individual, either in consonance with an event associated with the birth or as a prayer or prophecy of the future of the individual. In many cultures, names are carefully chosen to provide the maximum possibility of a good and prosperous future.

These are just a few thoughts about naming, a subject about which volumes could be (and have been) written. For just one, check out Marcia Prager's wonderful book The Path of Blessing.

The fourth, lesser known, and wild South American camelid is the guanaco. The name derives from a similar word in Quechua.

A year ago, I posted a little recap of our visit to the Estes Park Wool Market, which we visited last year with our daughter, Hannah. It was a fascinating day. You can read about it here. Over the course of the past year, I have noticed that I receive many hits from people looking for information and/or pictures of the South American camelids. That had something to do with my choosing alpaca as a word to highlight, but also I just think these animals are the most fascinating creatures.
Incidentally, there is still time to make it to the 2008 iteration of the Estes Park Wool Market, which is being held this weekend, June 14-15, 2008.

A is for Alibris

I used to spend hours in bookstores (and rarely escaped without buying something). Even better than new bookstores, I loved used bookstores. The Internet changed all that. For years, I've been doing most of my book buying online. Occasionally I'll go in to a physical location to browse or if I need something right now, but not very often.

At first, I relied on Amazon.com, then found Overstock.com to be cheaper. Recently, I discovered Alibris.com, a used bookstore online. They have compiled a huge database of used books, millions of titles in thousands of bookstores around the country. Books in very good condition or better go for $1.99 and up. My first order was eight books, and they came from eight different locations. I was quite satisfied both with the timeliness of the shipment and the condition of the books. I recommend this site.

Orig: 6/4/08

A is for a Nadder

The word adder brings me to a class of words that I find quite interesting. They illustrate how languages evolve, not only through growth but by corruption and deterioration. For example, the original form of the word adder in the Old English was a nædre. In Middle English a naddre became an addre. Once used generically for any snake, its meaning has been narrowed to a particular type of serpent.

Other words in this class formed by a process known as false splitting or juncture loss are apron (a napron from Old French naperon), umpire (from Middle English a noumper, originally French noumpere), and orange (see the dictionary entry for the fascinating story of how this word came to us from Dravidian through Sanskrit, Persian, Italian, and French through a similar process of false splitting).

Examples of false splitting occur in the opposite direction as well. A nickname derives from an eke name, which was "an additional name" in Middle English.

A newt comes to us from an eute in Middle English being mistaken for a neute.

Apparently the opposite of a billy goat originally was an anny goat, which became a nanny goat, whether through the process of false splitting or because nanny is a nickname (an eke name) for Anne.

Orig: 6/2/08

A is for Anti- but also Ante-

Another one of those building blocks that we use to form words in English is the prefix "anti-". I think most of us know that it means opposite or against. We have many examples: antiaging, antidisestablishmentarianism (sorry, couldn't resist!), antifreeze, anti-inflammatory, antipathy, antipodes (we'll explore this one later), and many more.

There's a second ante-, usually pronounced the same as the first anti-, but its meaning is entirely different. Ante- means "prior to, earlier, in front of , before." Some examples:

antebellum——before the war
antecedent——something that goes before
antediluvian——before the flood
ante meridian——before noon (A.M.)
antemortem——preceding death
antenatal ——before birth
antepenultimate——before the next to the last

Note: Although the anti-/ante- difference usually holds, there are a very few cases in which the before (i.e. ante-) prefix becomes anti- in English, for example anticipate and antipasto (which is not "against the meal" but "before the meal"). I used to think antipasto meant before the pasta, and I always wondered why the "a" in pasta was changed to an "o" in antipasto. It turns out that the pasto root means meal or food. Of course, the first course of an Italian meal often consists of pasta, so technically I guess antipasto is before the pasta, too! Excellent. Mangia! Mangia!

Orig: 6/2/08

A is for Adit

All of you crossword puzzlers (cruciverbalists) out there will know this word for a mine entrance—adit—because it's a fine crossword building block—two common consonants that work as a first, last or middle letter and two vowels. It fits nicely into a crossword puzzle.

If you don't do crosswords, you may never have run across this word. You're welcome!

(I found out from my trusty dictionary that the word adit means specifically "an almost horizontal mine entrance" and that it comes from the Latin aditus, access, past participle of adire, to approach from ad, to, toward and ire, to go.)

Trivial side note: Ad was one of the first words we learned in first-year Latin. We learned it as "ad with the accusative," indicating the case for the object of the preposition. The prefix ad- in English is one of those useful "bits and pieces" that help us figure out the meaning of a word when no dictionary is handy (heaven forbid that should happen very often!).

Orig: 6/1/08

Israel 60 Celebration Dinner

This year, Action Israel and many other organizations joined with the Allied Jewish Federation to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, one of the miracles of the modern world. Many dinners have been held this year in the Denver metropolitan area, including 100 on the Night of 60 Dinners in April. Our local group of friends of Israel held a celebratory dinner tonight.

All told, we had 22 in attendance, a neat coincidence as the Hebrew Alefbet contains 22 letters. Using recipes from the materials provided by the Allied Jewish Federation, everyone prepared and shared typical Israeli dishes.

Below are pictures of just a few of the items that graced our table.

The complete menu looked something like this:

Chopped Israeli Salad (pictured below)

Israeli Spiced Chicken (pictured below)

Sliced Eggplants with Garlic and Tomato Glaze

Israeli Cous-Cous Salad with Fennel and Goat Cheese

Humus

Chicken Hamin

Moroccan Meat Balls

Moroccan Chicken with Olives and Lemons

Pot Roast with Carrots, Potatoes, and Gravy

Potato Kugel

Challah and other breads

Brownies

Jam Thumb-Print Cookies

(If you are interested in the recipes, we have posted some of them on our daughter's recipe blog here and will be posting more in the next few days.)

Another interesting article about the Night of 60 Dinners with some insight into Persian cuisine can be found here.

After the meal, we shared some interesting facts about Israel in her 60 years of existence in the modern world, using the materials provided by the Allied Jewish Federation. You can check some of them out here and here. Some of us had gathered other information, as well, and since many of our people have visited Israel, we shared our experiences and our favorite memories.

One of the most touching moments was the reading of the blog post of our friend, Ori, who is spending some months in Israel. She wrote about her thoughts and feelings attending ceremonies on Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day, literally The Day of Remembrance). Yom Hazikaron is always held the day before Israeli Independence Day, which is intended to remind people of the price paid for independence and of what was achieved with the soldiers' sacrifice. Ori's writing really is worth reading, and you can find it here.

The younger set was busily coloring during this time.

Here are the products of their artistic labors!

All in all, our celebration of 60 years of Israeli independence was rewarding, informative, delicious, and a whole lot of fun.

A is for Aircraft Carrier

Okay, so this is really not about aircraft carriers; it's more pictures of the family, but I couldn't come up with a good A-word, and after all, I have served on three different aircraft carriers (if only for short periods of time).

Yesterday, we saw some pictures of Aidan. Now for more pictures, including Ellie, Ryan, and Jack. The first day I was in town we ate at a wonderful little Korean place. Here are the boys.



Here's Jack watching TV. He has a DVD called Baby Einstein, which I also found captivating. (It's in seven languages, teaches common phrases, alphabets, and simple songs in Hebrew, Italian, Russian, Japanese, French, German, and English).


Here's another view of the little guy watching his DVD (i.e. learning seven languages).



Here are some shots of Aidan and Jack.




Aidan is always talking to his little brother and loves to hold him and play with him.



As Ellie said on her blog, sometimes you take a bunch of pictures, and you just have to post them all. Here's another shot of the boys.



Jack seems to be saying, "Where am I, and what am I doing here?"



Oh, okay, everything's all right now.



Here he is—sleeping sweetly. Frère Jacques; Dormez-vous?


A picture before saying goodbye at the airport.


A family picture.

And a silly version.

Sabba saying goodbye to Jack.

Oh, and about those aircraft carriers. Here they are. I spent a short time on the John F. Kennedy (CV-67) in the North Atlantic and again in the Mediterranean.

I spent a month or so on USS America (CV-66) in the Med.

USS Independence (CV-62) had a long escalator to bring flight crews quickly from below decks. I did a couple of months TAD (Temporary Additional Duty) aboard Indy in the Mediterranean.

Here she is in Yokosuka, Japan, which happens to have been my last duty station.

Orig: 5/20/08

A is for Aidan

I just spent a wonderful four days with Ellie and Ryan. I have a bunch of pictures. I'll start with the ones of Aidan and move on to the rest of the family tomorrow.

In this first one, we see Ellie and Jack with Spiderman, who is a special friend of Aidan.

He can fly, as demonstrated here!

Aidan loves to play with the hose in the backyard. Here he is getting a drink.

Here he is pretending it's raining!

Aidan in his golfing duds (knickers and golf shirt) ready to hit the links!

Aidan demonstrating his golf swing.

Standing on his head.

Aidan and Sabba at the airport.

My first post on this blog was in January of 2007, a picture of Aidan and me, which you can see here.

Orig: 5/19/08

A is for Accumulate

Do you ever think of clouds when you think of the word accumulate or accumulation? I didn't either until I read the etymology of the words. It seems they derive from a Latin root cumulus, meaning a heap or pile. Those puffy clouds we call cumulus come from an accumulation of moisture overhead, forming a beautiful heap in the sky. It seems that even in English the word cumulus can mean a pile or a heap, as well as clouds piled high.

Incidentally, knowing the derivation of accumulate means never having to misspell the word. If you know how to spell cumulus, you will never have to wonder how many m's or l's accumulate in the word. Just remember to double the initial c because of the prefix.

For more basic information on clouds, check out this site.
Orig: 5/18/08

A is for Aardvark and Aardwolf

Before reading halfway through the first page of my dictionary, I came across an etymology of a not uncommon word from an uncommon language and a word with which I was unfamiliar. We all know of the aardvark, also commonly known as an anteater. I didn't realize the etymology was from the Afrikaans language, a close relative of Dutch. Aard means earth, and vark is from varken, which is pig (it's just a short linguistic leap from Afrikaans/Dutch varken to English pork), making the aardvark an earth pig. Here's a picture of the porcine creature.

In the same entry, I read of another interesting African animal called an aardwolf, a hyena-like mammal. Unlike the hyena, though, the aardwolf is insectivorous, subsisting on a diet almost entirely of insects.

Orig: 5/17/08