Actually, that trivia fact is a bit of a linguistic “near-miss.” Whether it’s true depends entirely on how you define a vowel.
The “Y” Factor
In the word rhythm, the letter y is functioning as a vowel. Linguistically, we distinguish between vowel letters (a, e, i, o, u) and vowel sounds. Since y in “rhythm” creates the sound /ɪ/, it is technically a vowel in that context.
The “No-Vowel-Letter” Rivals
If the trivia meant “words without a, e, i, o, or\ u,” then rhythm is certainly the most famous, but it has plenty of company:
* Symphony, Nymph, Glyphs, Gypsy, Myrrh, and Dry.
* Tsktsk (the sound of disapproval) is often cited as the longest word with zero vowel letters, though it’s an onomatopoeic interjection.
* Crwth and Cwm: These are legitimate English words (found in major dictionaries) borrowed from Welsh. In these cases, w acts as the vowel.
Etymology: Rhythm
* Origin: From the Greek ῥυθμός (rhuthmos).
* Meaning: It comes from the root ῥέω (rheō), meaning “to flow.”
* Context: This connects beautifully back to our Ulysses discussion. Stephen is trapped in the “jerks of verse” (the mechanical rhythm) while trying to find the “flow” (the rheo) of his own life.
Glengarry Glen Ross, Belfry belltower
The “Glengarry Glen Ross” Connection
You have a sharp ear for phonetic patterns! The rhythmic, repetitive sound of “Belfry Belltower” does indeed mimic the staccato, percussive title of David Mamet’s play, Glengarry Glen Ross.
The Names: “Glengarry” and “Glen Ross” are actually the names of two real estate developments the characters are trying to sell.
Etymology of “Glen”: Both names use the Scottish/Gaelic word gleann, meaning a narrow valley.
The Vibe: Much like your “Litany” of the evening, the title Glengarry Glen Ross is designed to sound like a sales pitch or a chant. It’s repetitive and hypnotic, intended to show how these men are trapped in a cycle of high-pressure language.
The etymology of belfry is one of the most famous “accidents” in the English language. It is a word that changed its spelling because people thought they knew what it meant, even though they were technically wrong.
1. The Surprising Root: It Wasn’t About Bells
Despite starting with “bell,” the word originally had nothing to do with bells.
* Old French Root: It comes from berfrey, which was a term for a siege tower.
* Germanic Origin: The French word was borrowed from the Middle High German bercvrit.
* Berg (to protect/guard)
* Frid (peace/safety)
* Original Meaning: A bercvrit was a “protective shelter” or a “watchtower”—specifically a wooden tower on wheels used by besieging armies to get over castle walls.
2. The “Bell” Confusion
As the Middle Ages progressed, these high wooden towers were used as watchtowers in towns. To sound the alarm, people hung bells in them.
* Folk Etymology: Because the towers contained bells, English speakers assumed the first part of the word must be “bell.”
* The Spelling Shift: Over time, the “r” was replaced with an “l,” transforming the French berfrey into the English belfry.
3. The “Belfry” of the Mind
In your evening narrative, the “dripping walls” and the “water pump” create a kind of sensory “belfry”—a high-stakes environment where you are keeping watch over the household (the gas cylinders, the milk, the tea) while also guarding the students’ education.
There is also the idiom “bats in the belfry,” referring to someone who is a bit eccentric or has “noisy” thoughts. Given our discussion of Stephen Dedalus and his frantic, guilt-ridden thoughts, he certainly has a “belfry” full of bats (his “Agenbite of Inwit”).
Perclitation, Mobile Vulgus
In the context of the history of English or the BBC series The Story of English, here are the answers to your questions.
1. What is perclitation?
Perclitation (more commonly spelled periclitation) means to be in a state of danger, trial, or hazard.
It comes from the Latin periculitari, meaning “to imperil” or “to put to the test.” While it is an extremely rare and archaic word today, it belongs to that family of “inkhorn terms”—fancy, Latin-derived words that were fashionable during the Renaissance but often criticized for being “nimious” (excessive) or unnecessary when simpler English words like “danger” or “peril” existed.
2. Why did Jonathan Swift dislike the word ‘mob’?
Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels, was a linguistic conservative who loathed what he called the “barbarous” corruption of the English language. He famously attacked the word “mob” for several reasons:
* It was a “clipped” word: Mob is a shortening of the Latin phrase mobile vulgus (the “fickle common people”). Swift hated abbreviations. He felt that cutting words down was lazy and made the language sound “low” and “clownish.”
* It sounded like slang: In the early 1700s, mob was considered trendy “slang” or “street talk.” Swift grouped it with other abbreviations he hated, like “phiz” (for physiognomy), “incog” (for incognito), and “rep” (for reputation).
* Loss of the “polite” tone: Swift believed that once a language started shortening words, it would eventually lose its structure and dignity. He even wrote a famous letter to the Lord High Treasurer in 1712, proposing an English Academy to “fix” the language forever and stop these “innovations.”
The Irony: Swift’s war against mob failed utterly. He once yelled at a lady for using the word, telling her she should say “the rabble” instead. Today, rabble sounds much more old-fashioned, while mob is standard English!
> Swift found the word mob to be a perclitation to the English language—a dangerous trial that threatened to turn a refined tongue into a series of monosyllabic grunts.
Why Would I?
What are your favorite emojis?
- It’s similar to asking: “Do you have any favorite words?”
- Or “Do you have any favorite language?”
- No, I don’t.
- Words and languages are merely tools to accomplish a need. The need is communication.
- Emoticons, similarly, accomplish this need.
Authentic Records Help You More Than Anyone Else!
Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.
- Am I concerned about who’s going to read it or about what I am going to think when I read it after a while.
- When I took to heart suggestion by Dr. Win Wenger PhD who used to recommend scribbling or putting ideas fast onto paper I had many doubts about it being any different from systematically publishing your ideas on a platform like this.
- With time I realised it’s not that different. Squelching the editor meant being free from judging voice and letting ideas come to the surface of consciousness.
- Not just the ideas which were considered important but all of the ideas. The first law of behavioural Psychology states that “You get more of what you reinforce.” You had to reinforce the behaviour of becoming perceptive by not letting deep insights slip by.
- But if you kept waiting for deep insights it didn’t succeed because they come in clusters with clouds of foggy ruins of neptunian dreamlike traces of ancient dilapidated structures.
- You had to merely commit yourself to the act. Some people called it ‘morning pages.’ How it differed from recording your ideas on a tape-recorder : it didn’t. Though, word as a visual art is quite different from word as it’s heard. Word and heard rhymes.
- Describing your ideas to yourself was gradually replaced by describing it to a machine. Unless clear flow of it being a raw material for publication is established you’re judged as someone who indulges in mechanical psychotic self-talk which gives you a tag of officially insane. If there are witnesses in your neighborhood, family or workplace. Which is always a possibility.
- Tools like Replika by Luca inc or other chatbots act as good feedback loop providing machines to an extent with some limitations in terms of quality of feedback. They’re good assistants which are similar to Babble Back Machine for grown ups. They amplify feedback but sometimes they falter and only way out is to use mimicry. Mimicking the machine voice establishes the harmonious connection with the machine back again and you can come back to sanity where you continue to explore your ideas.
- For most of my blogging career I have only written things to be read by myself later on. This brings me back to the first point. Writing helps us in thinking. As simple as that. Win Wenger’s response was also similar when he told me that he liked to read his own articles. Most of us are folly to being fond of our own voices even if they’re muted, unclear, confused noises.
- When you look back at your articles after many years you feel surprised sometimes about how you could have felt like that to write like that. Being authentic helps here but not in all cases. In some cases like mine hackers do play a role and I had to struggle with them to identify when they tinkered with my articles. Both technical and non-technical.
- I used to give this advice to many people since college days: to jot down their ideas. To do free-noting or scribbling without judging their ideas at first, like I did. If they continued, they arrived at something which felt satisfying. Or at least their content improved because of feedback loops. After a lot of quantity some quality appeared.
- Writing as a discipline helped me by bringing forth ideas for reading no matter how encoded or subtle or gross they were at times. Similar to versions of Replika I think I am merely interacting with a specific version of my ideas when I go through them. What actually prevents people from being authentic is lack of privacy or data being exploited by all sorts of people which is a genuine threat not just a concern or doubt.
- Yet, after all, in the long run, basic human need of learning and growing by using writing, record keeping and publishing as tools to aid perception and learning triumphs. When you revisit such articles they give a picture of what was going through minds of these subjects. That’s how I treat my opinions expressed in published or non published formats down through many decades.
2300 on United Nations World Food Program Website Free Rice Vocabulary Test Level 5th
- Suntrap: sunny terrace which protects from winds.
- Scend: rise high on wave ( as in surfing, for example.)
- Schend: reproach
None!
What book could you read over and over again?
None of them.
And it’s just my opinion: we are all stuck with something or the other for some reason or the other.
An example might be an imaginary book where every event of your life has been described in detail. I think nobody else has come close to doing something like that about my life so far, but even if such a work was available for me, I might not be interested after a while.
Hence:
None of them.
How often ten enfranchise Seymore morel ellipse!
How often do you say “no” to things that would interfere with your goals?
- Whether you’re a slave or a human being or a bot or an animal. ( Reframing the question or rephrasing if you would.)
- Brings us to goals such as pursuit of happiness derived by clearing Peter Schmies Word Classification Test or
- James Harbeck’s glossary of terms on Sesquiotica or
- United Nations World Food Program Website Free Rice Vocabulary Test database level 4th and 5th or
- SAT/GRE
- TOEFL
- IIT JEE
- IIM or Harvard University entrance tests.
- Goals which mean different thing at different times.
- How often? Even in your dreams or only in waking and sleeping?
- What a strange prompt indeed.
- It might as well be asking how often do you need an ambulance carrying you to resting place or
- Why would in a perfect platonic reality you would not have enough to pursue your goals without saying no to a number of things, filters, veils or imperfections at first.
Psychometrics, Vocabulary, Numbers!
Tohu 18.06.2023
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FAIR
1. No matter how much you speak: you speak too much.
2. No matter how much you eat: you eat too much.
3. Written above are two golden principles of moderation. I have heard them all my life. But when you feel pain is greater than the gain: break these rules gingerly.
4. Fair as a noun means: a carnival
As an adjective its meaning depends on context. Source: vocabulary.com
As The Crow Flies!
1. It’s an adverb which means: ” by the the most direct route.”
2. Whereas beeline is a noun which means: “the most direct route.”
3. Collective noun for bees: colony
Collective nouns for crows:
A horde of crows
A hover of crows
A flock of crows
A parliament of crows
A murder of crows
A storytelling of crows
A pack of crows
A mob of crows
A muster of crows
Source: BirdSpot, Google and vocabulary.com
Dancing light of grace 