Wordcatcher (11 page)

One who assembles, creates, puts together
. Coined by French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss to explain how the “primitive mind” works. He writes that a
bricoleur
is “someone who works with his hands and uses devious means compared to those of a craftsman. … Mythical thought is therefore a kind of intellectual ‘bricolage.’ … Like ‘bricolage’ on the technical plane, mythical reflection can reach brilliant unforeseen results on the intellectual plane. … The
‘bricoleur’
is adept at performing a large number of diverse tasks. … The rules of his game are always to make do with ‘whatever is at hand.’” Levi-Strauss’s work was enormously important in Paris during the 1940s and ‘50s, and he inspired artists such as Picasso and Braque. Psychologists such as James Hillman use the word to illuminate how the soul works: “Let us imagine the dream-work to be an activity, less of a censor than of a
bricoleur.
… The dream
bricoleur
is a handyman, who takes the bits of junk left over from the day and potters around with them.” Companion words include
bricolage
, the result of the
bricoleur’s
handiwork, “an assembly, montage, or reconstruction that is intended to reflect the complex
and rich form of its subject”—a word soon discovered by French artists, who saw in the word an apt
metaphor
for the assembly process of many avant-garde artists. In 1965,
American Anthropologist
described man as a “creator of Culture, like a
bricoleur
… who makes constructions for the fun of the thing out of anything that is lying around.” From the French
bricole,
trifle, and Italian
briccola
.

To spread the good word.
Originally, it meant “to scatter seed,” which was recorded in 1767, and in many paintings, such as Van Gogh’s
The Sower
, which depicts a shadowy farmer throwing seeds across his fields. In
The Yellow House
, an account of the years in which Van Gogh and Gauguin lived together in Arles, Martin Gayford writes, “In addition to the familiar terrain, the sower
broadcasting
his seed was an image that had been with him almost since he had become an artist.” In 1921, only thirty years after Van Gogh’s death, at 37, the verb was applied to spreading the word over radio waves, casting word seeds so ideas might grow. During the war in Southeast Asia, the notorious Hanoi Hannah said, “Because the GIs were sent massively to South Vietnam, maybe it’s a good idea to have a
broadcast
for them.” Hall of Fame baseball announcer Ernie Harwell says, with his trademark modesty, “I’ve been lucky to
broadcast
some great events and to
broadcast
the exploits of some great players.”

Melancholic reflections in the soul’s own studio
. As the lifelong melancholic Dr. Johnson defined it, “Gloomy meditations; study in which we direct our thoughts to no certain point.” Earliest mention comes in a 1532 book,
Dice-Play
, which
augured
the coming meaning: “Lack of company will soon lead a man into a brown study.” Here we have a 16th-century word for deep, or to some, gloomy, meditation, from the color brown, which used to refer to a gloomy mental condition, and study, which meant during the late medieval period any form of intense meditation. This monochromatic word was used by the Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson to describe his
melancholy
in several letters. It derives from the French
sombre-reverie,
and later
brow-study
, as in “fevered brow,” from Old German
braun
or
aug-braun
, eyebrow. Today, in creative circles, it refers to abstraction, absentmindedness, deep thought. Brewer cites a verse from William Congreve’s “An Impossible Thing”: “Invention flags, his brain grows muddy, / And black despair succeeds
brown study
.” Judy Garland’s version of “Melancholy Baby,” in the 1954 movie “A Star is Born,” captures the heartrending emotion of one overcome in the
brownstudy
of life. There are many modern equivalents, the most colorful being “in a blue funk,” which the OED defines as “extreme nervousness, tremulous dread.”

A pirate, swashbuckler, adventurer
. The first
buccaneers
looked very little like the debonair Errol Flynn in
The Pirate
, or even the demented Johnny Depp in
Pirates of the Caribbean
. Instead, they were ordinary islanders,
boucans
, who smoked meat on a wooden rack placed over an open fire.
Boucan
was what 17th-century French settlers heard of the original Tupi Caribbean word
mukem
, which makes you wonder how closely they were listening. Later,
boucanier
became a sobriquet for the privateers and outlaws who hid in the remote woods of the West Indies and later grew fond of barbecuing their meats over a fire. Speaking of which, if you look up
buccaneer
, you’ll soon come across the Dominican
barbacoa,
from which we get one of our favorite backyard activities, the
barbecue
. Companion word:
pirate
, as in the five-time World Champion Pittsburgh
Pirates
, so called in 1890 because of the reputed “piratical” practices of the new owners, who switched from the old American Association to the National League. Today, their nickname just happens to be “the Bucs” or “the Buccos,” short for
buccaneer
. Considering how many Pittsburgh
Pirates
star players have come from the Caribbean, such as Puerto Rico’s charismatic Roberto Clemente and the Dominican Republic’s versatile Felipe Alou,
buccaneer
is another wonderful example of how words can often go home again.

An idealistic plan to spend only what is earned
. Originally, a
budget
was a small sack full of money, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who has tried to keep to a budget ever since, but it evolved into the act of sorting money into several little bags. This is a useful visualization for sorting out expenses. Our English word derives from the Latin
bulga
, a bag, from French
bouge
, and its diminutive
bougette
, a pouch. Traynor writes that it was “a tinker’s traveling bag for holding implements of his trade; hence a tramp’s bag.” Companion words would have to include
bankrupt
, the condition of those who haven’t kept to a
budget
. This unfortunate word that dates back to 1533, from the Italian,
banca rotta
, a broken bench, from
banca
, a moneylender’s shop or bench, and
rotta
, broken, defeated, interrupted. The 18th-century lexicographer Brewer lends a colorful backstory in his indispensable
Fables and Phrases
: “In Italy, when a moneylender was unable to continue business his bench or counter was broken up, and he was spoken of as a
banca rotta
—i.e., a
bankrupt
.” Updating this observation, novelist John Updike writes: “
Bankruptcy
is a sacred site, a condition beyond conditions, as theologians might say, and attempts to investigate it are necessarily obscene, like spiritualism. One knows only that he has passed into it and lives beyond us, in a condition not ours.” Companion words include
banquet
, from
banchetto
, and
rupture
, from
rotta
. The modern sense of “morally or intellectually
bankrupt
” means ethically or mentally bereft. Consider also
mountebank
, a charlatan, from
montare
, to mount,
banca
, bench, figuratively, someone who lends money at usurious rates to
bankrupt
people.

A large animal
, a papal decree, a ludicrous statement. Three wide-ranging definitions for one of the most mythic words. The
bull
is there at the beginning of time, a robust beast with which our ancestors deeply identified, longing as they did for the virility of the animal, and its horned association with the phases of the moon. Going back to the source, we find the PIE root
bhel-,
to blow, to swell, like a snorting
bull
, pawing at the ground in a
bullring
. It enters Old English as
bula
and the diminutive
bullock
. This is evident by the rituals of
bull-riding, bull-dancing, bull sacrifices, and bull coins
, all of which were rife in the ancient world. During the 13th century edicts issued by the Vatican were sealed with
bullets
of wax, from the Latin
bulla
, seal; hence, a papal
bull
, and later,
bulletin
, little edict. The third meaning enters like the proverbial
bull
in the china shop, probably from the Middle English noun
bul
for “falsehood,” and the 15th-century verb
bull
, to mock or cheat, and Old French
bouller
, to deceive. Companion words include
bullshit
, the smelly epithet;
bulldoze, bulldozer, bull’s-eye.
Roy Blount Jr. cites the
American Heritage Dictionary’s
tracing of
bull
back to” the PIE root
bhel
, to blow, swell with derivates—referring to various round
objects and to the notion of tumescent masculinity: boulevard, balloon, ballot, and fool.” Speaking of the devil, Will Rogers once quipped: “After eating an entire
bull
, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him. The moral: When you’re full of
bull
, keep your mouth shut.” And I still recall my father’s advice when I went into the offices of the
Wayne Dispatch
to interview for my first newspaper job: “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, buddy, baffle them with
bull
.“