Gam

A simple word can have many meanings. I knew the slightly archaic meaning of ‘gam’ which is slang for leg.

There are, however, three additional meanings for the word, as well as meanings for its use as a preface and suffix and one for its use as an abbreviation. A versatile combination of only three letters.

From the Scottish, ‘gam’ can also mean a large or crooked tooth. So another body part.

The third meaning in my dictionary is “a visit or friendly conversation, especially between whalers or other seamen at sea or ashore” (though it can also be used more generally as having a gam with friends). The word can also be used for a pod of whales.

‘Gam’ or ‘gamo’ comes from the Greek gamos, meaning marriage and we see its use in such words as bigamy and gamogenesis.

As a suffix, ‘gam’ is used for plants and specific types of reproduction e.g. ‘cryptogam’ (reproducing by means of spores).

‘Gam’ can also be used as an abbreviation for gamut.

So here’s a sentence:

I stretched my gams to walk over to the coffee shop and have a gam with my friends, and in the process our gam ran the gam from gams of whales to bigamy.

I prefer a little more variety in my sentences, but on the other hand, if you want to puzzle someone, it’s rather a useful word.

Frivol

The dictionary is full of such lovely words. I was originally going to write about ‘famulus’ which is similar to ‘amanuensis’ but I wrote about the latter in January of this year so decided to do something different. Just as an aside, ‘famulus’ can be an academic assistant to a university professor or a private secretary to a scholar or magician (I love this). According to www.manchester.edu/kant/helps/glossary.htm a “commonly used synonym of the day (for amanuensis) was famulus (although the latter has a wider meaning.)” What I didn’t know was that at a university, your amanuensis was a student who was “given a free portion of food in the university cafeteria.” I note that in some definitions, the role of an amanuensis was purely literary (e.g. a scribe) while a famulus also had other jobs such as being in charge of the tables and chairs for a lecture room and collecting fees from students.

Anyway, on to ‘frivol.’ I picked this word (meaning to act frivolously, given to trifling acts) because my Webster’s dictionary gave an example from Dorothy L. Sayers’ book Murder Must Advertise. The quote is, “a man of weight ... does not come and frivol in the typists’ room.”

Murder Must Advertise is one of my favourite of Sayers’ books because I first discovered and read it when I was working in an advertising department of a large company, and though its first publication date was 1933, the description of the advertising agency was very congruent with my experience. The above quote is said to Lord Peter Wimsey as he is introduced as the new copywriter in the advertising agency (as Death Bredon): “That is the whole department, except Mr. Hankin and Mr Armstrong who are directors, and Mr. Copely, who is a man of weight and experience and does not come and frivol in the typists’ room. He goes out for his elevenses, and assumes seniority though he hath it not.”

The place where I worked didn’t have separate offices for copywriters and artists; we lived in open cubicles, but the same kind of frivolling occurred. Instead of the Derby sweep (betting on the races) we bought occasional Lottery tickets as a group, and instead of munchies for the daily tea breaks we had an in house cafeteria. We also took turns baking cakes for each others’ various birthdays. This passage from Sayers again, does speak truth: “Bredon had never in his life encountered a set of people with such active tongues and so much apparent leisure for gossip. It was a miracle that any work ever got done, though somehow it did.” I enjoyed myself there.

Also, the relationship between advertising agency/department and clients does not seem to have changed much. Sayers describes at length the tortuous process of presenting copy to the clients, of which they then, “fretfully rejected all but half-a-dozen, and weakened and ruined the remainder by foolish alterations and additions.”  Eventually, after more back and forth and a final meeting, the client, “found himself returning with a sense of relief to the rejected layout. He then discovered that it was really almost exactly what he required.”

I have to say that one of the greatest lessons I took from my experience working in advertising was not to be personally very attached to any writing work that I did for a client. I learned that if they really wanted certain changes (even if I didn’t agree with them) it was, after all their money, and I just made the changes. This actually has stood me in good stead in jobs that I took afterwards, as I think it’s well to be able to detach yourself to some extent from whatever work you do, so that changes or rejection don’t entirely undermine you.

Anyway, for sheer entertainment, I highly recommend Murder Must Advertise. It’s well worth frivolling away an afternoon, evening or two.