WordSmith: Words and their meaning, matter
I rarely carry an umbrella; when you’re an all-weather-walker you know how useless umbrellas actually are. To be fair, they’re good for short-term use, like keeping you relatively dry on the dash from the shop to a car. But, even the most robust of umbrellas will rarely survive five minutes in a wind-driven Cavan downpour.
The other day, during one such deluge, my eye caught that of a women doing battle with her wind inverted umbrella. “Isn’t that an ojus-bad day,” she exclaimed, with a wet, wind weary demeanour. I nodded agreement, “It’s not nice at all.” I hurried towards shelter with one of her words lodged in my mind: ojus.
It’s a word I’ve not heard since my youth. A word with duality of meaning: ‘bad’ like the umbrella-woman’s use of it, and ‘good’ as in the food-appreciative, “That was an ojus feed.”
Words, like ourselves, age. And ojus is getting old; becoming frail and rarely heard. But, it’s very much still with us; and I’m pleased to give it star billing in this column.
And so, from one ‘ojus-bad day’ to an ‘ojus-good day’ – a warm May afternoon back in 2019. I was with friends and family; the tea was flowing along with the buns and banter. As with all social gatherings, groups formed, and I found myself in one discussing the virtues of a mutual acquaintance.
As we swapped anecdotes about said acquaintance, I jolted when a group member emphatically announced, “He’s impotent!” Surprised and a little shocked by this unexpected down-turn in the conversation, I asked, “How do you know that?” The answer was delivered with a knowing surety, “Sher, everyone knows.”
I asked no more questions, and the conversation moved onto up-coming elections. Afterwards, my mind meandered over the highly intimate insight about a person I knew only on a surface level. I couldn’t understand how such an intimate aspect of a person could be so widely revealed; because, after all, men don’t generally go around introducing themselves thus, “Hello, I’m Dave and I’m impotent.”
Anyway, like time, a meandering mind moves on, and soon another word entered our lexicon. This was a word we’d previously associated with good times: beer, song, and dance; now, it had taken on a malevolent bedfellow to give it a malevolence that instilled fear: CORONAVIRUS.
I confess, initially I had little concern for Coronavirus. At the time I was immersed working backstage at the newly refurbished Townhall on a stage adaptation of Dermot Healy’s Book, ‘Long time, no see.’ And, Coronavirus seemed so far away from Healy’s world. Until one evening, when I arrived for rehearsal and saw someone disinfecting counter tops and other shared surfaces – this simple, everyday act stopped me in my tracks. That’s when I knew our world was on the cusp of change.
That show went on. But, the day after the final curtain-call, Healy’s words became prophetic – Ireland closed its doors; and so began a long time, with no seeing family and friends.
Amongst the maelstrom of fear and unknowing, words began connections that gave rise to new terms: ‘Social-Distancing’, ‘Flatten-the-curve'. We learned to differentiate between ‘Isolation’ and ‘Quarantine'. We remained metres apart from family and friends, the words between us muffled behind masks. And, it was during one such mask-muffled conversation that the subject of an impotent mutual acquaintance, arose – again.
On my way home from an ‘essential’ trip to the supermarket, I met a friend with whom I had enjoyed that May afternoon before Coronavirus. We stood socially distanced, and as we chatted through our masks, I asked of our mutual acquaintance, “How does everyone know he’s impotent?” She didn’t answer, instead I watched alarmed as she almost inhaled and choked on her mask. When her laughter subsided, she wiped her eyes and said, “He’s impudent, everyone knows he’s impudent!”
The penny dropped and I matched her mask choking mirth. Of course everyone knows he’s impudent. And without wishing to be punny, I’d describe him as cocky, as impudent is not a word I’d use; yet it’s still a word widely used by my elders.
‘Impudent’ and ‘Impotent’ – similar sounding words, huge difference in meaning.
Words and their meaning, matter.
My believing our acquaintance was impotent was an ojus-misunderstanding, altogether.
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