Confabulate

Aren’t words wonderful?  One dictionary definition of confabulate is “to talk familiarly together, confer.”  Origins of the word are from the Latin fabulari – to talk, and fabula – story.  Another definition is “to fill in gaps in one’s memory with fabrications that one believes to be fact.”

I think that for a writer, confabulate is totally what s/he does, whether filling in gaps of fiction or fact or mixing the two.

Confabulation, it seems to me, is one of the things that differentiates humans from other species. Although, for all we know the Cetaceans (whales, porposes, etc.) great and small, as well as other creatures may confabulate also. We just don’t understand their languages yet. (I wonder if bees confabulate when they come home to the hive and dance the road to the nectar they’ve just found?)

At any rate, humans have been telling stories likely for as long as we’ve had language (though stories are told through pictures, dance and actions as well as words). Perhaps the first story was told by a mother trying to get her child to sleep.  She might tell him of the stars in the sky and of the pictures they represented to her. A hunter returning from a successful or unsuccessful foray could recount the events at the evening fire.  Oral stories kept alive the history of groups of people, set out the values and expectations.  And of course, stories always had to entertain, because who would want to listen if they didn’t enjoy the tale?

Winter is a great time for storytelling, and has been in many cultural traditions.  It’s cold outside, and hopefully food has been gathered and stored for the winter. There’s not a lot to do, and it gets dark early.  Stories make the time go more quickly and more enjoyably, and they also provide an opportunity for teaching.

Stories have many purposes, as varied as the people who tell them.  Some are short, others long, some forgettable, others stay with us for all our lives.  A story can be told by one person or by many.  Old tales and legends can be given new meanings.

One of my current favourite television series is “Once Upon a Time” which has taken the old Grimm’s Märchen (and other so called fairy tales) and given them a new spin, connecting all of them and putting the people into a town in the modern world.

Anyone can tell a story, and if you think you’re not good at storytelling, in this as in other things, practise means improvement. 

Rather than saying, “Let’s go for coffee,” to a friend, why not say, “Let’s meet to confabulate”?

Butterfly

On April 17, 2011 I posted a blog about seeing a particular butterfly – a Mourning Cloak – and mused about it.

However, the word ‘butterfly’ is interesting in itself.  My Webster’s dictionary defines it as “any of certain slender-bodied diurnal (active during the day) insects forming the division Rhopalocera of the order Lepidoptera that have very large broad wings which are often strikingly coloured and patterned and are usually held vertically over the back or expanded when at rest and usually slender somewhat club-shaped antennae sometimes hooked near the ends.”

The bit that fascinated me most in my dictionary, though, was  just before the definition regarding the origin of the word – from Old English buttorfloege and the belief that “butterflies or witches in the shape of butterflies stole milk and butter.”  I wonder how these ideas got/get started.  Did someone see a butterly light on a dish or milk or butter?  Many butterflies eat nothing at all, but of course it would take a lot of observation to find that out.

In some of the ancient Central American cultures images of butterflies were carved into many buildings (including temples) and objects (jewellery).  Such an image was often shown with the jaws of a jaguar.  I have difficulty putting those two things together, and yet in a sense they make sense – the dark and the light, yin and yang.  And of course, such an image would resonate even more in those cultures where butterflies were believed to be the souls of dead warriors.  Beauty and strength, poetry and death (reminds me of the Samurai)

Very Jungian somehow, and perhaps also Joseph Campbell.  The connections just keep happening -- the ancient Greek word for butterfly is ‘psyche.’

Perhaps you’ve heard the expression about the flap of a butterfly’s wing causing a tornado somewhere.  I tracked down (by accident – wonders of Internet serendipity) the correct statement and the origin of this.  In the late sixties Edward Lorenz was using an early computer program at MIT to study weather and changed one number representing atmospheric conditions from .506127 to .506, which totally transformed his long-term forecast. This resulted in him presenting a paper in 1972 before the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  The paper was titled “Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?” He doesn’t actually answer yes to this question, but does say, in effect, that predicting weather over the long term is very difficult because we don’t understand all of the factors (small thought they may be) that go into affecting weather.  To read the entire article (which isn’t that long and is pretty easy to read) paste the following into your browser: http://voluntaryboundaries.blogsome.com/2011/02/03/predictability-does-the-flap-of-a-butterflys-wings-in-brazil-set-off-a-tornado-in-texas/ Lorenz died in 2008, but it’s great that his paper is still available (and it still seems valid to me).

I think that butterflies are truly amazing, whether in reality or in our imaginations.  And they have been with us a long time -- the earliest known butterfly fossils are from 40 to 50 million years old.

Amanuensis

What a beautiful and romantic-sounding word for a rather mundane job – someone employed to copy from dictation or from what another has written – a secretary (Webster).  The word comes from the Latin servus a manu meaning servant at hand.

For 2012 I’m going to move through the alphabet, finding a word for each letter that interests me in some way. I’d already decided to use ‘ambition’ for this first blog and was going to begin with my Webster dictionary definition, but in the process of finding the word I came across ‘amanuensis’ which I’d heard and read before, but I wasn’t sure of the meaning. This is a good example of why, although internet searches can be very useful, they can also be narrowing rather than the opposite. If I’d merely looked up the definition of ‘ambition’ on line I wouldn’t have stumbled onto a word I’d much rather explore.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my computer and internet – lovei t amazes me that when I’m working on a novel about the sea I can find whale song and listen to it immediately – but I also still enjoy the old fashioned ways of research.  It’s a case of ‘both and’ rather than ‘either or.’  Now that I have that out of the way, I decided to do an internet search.

The term ’amanuensis’ apparently developed (according to Wikepedia) from a personal scribe or assistant in Rome, and evolved in France to become an assistant to the king.  This assistant was authorized to reproduce the royal signature on documents to save the king time and thus developed into portfolio ministers. ‘Amanuensis’ in Norway has been an academic title similar to an associate professor.

Writers have used ‘amanuenses’; for example, William Burroughs apparently had one who acted as secretary, researcher, assistant, and writer’s block breaker.

When I explore further on line I find other descriptions, such as someone who could take notes for a disabled person, copyist, transcriber, or a general assistant.  It’s one of those words that can be defined specifically or broadly, depending on need.

I’d love to have an amanuensis who would be a combination of muse, researcher, editor, companion and friend.  I’m sure other writers have them – in some cases they are probably paid positions, in others perhaps a spouse, friend or partner.