saintadatha

a murder of crows, we all know.
a parliament of rooks, i knew also, via gaiman.
apparently this has its roots in a mediaeval belief that they were thought to be judging the souls of recently deceased.

but now ravens... ah, ravens!

the largest of the corvids, and the longest living, these monogamous, remarkably intelligent birds (they can count up to at least five, which i think is pretty smart; and they can reproduce almost any sound) appear collectively as both a conspiracy and an unkindness.
how cool is that?!

and, futhermore, they all can also be collectively termed
a storytelling...

why madam, all this wonderful wordplay doth make me veritably hot under mine collar... (saddo!)


next.

paean. an exultant song of praise, though not necessarily in the christian liturgic sense. an elegant word, but not an entirely obscure one. the etymology, however, which i stumbled upon lastnight, makes it even greater.

apparently paean stems from the greek paian which was a song of triumph to apollo, greek god of, amongst other things, healing. but from where on earth (or in all the various heavens) does paian then originate? for the answer we must turn to homer, arch-poet and grand-daddy of us all, for paian was the homeric name of the deific medic himself.

i find it touching that an essentially poetic epithet whould be transformed so, taken, as it was, to mean a song in the name of that for which it once already stood. and to then be remmoved one further link, by shedding its once inherent olympian context, and following its newer association (i.e. the song of praise) to the letter

now a paean has nothing to with paian...

words words words...


now it's your turn.
tell me a word that will raise my verbose temperature even higher.
give me a word that will send silver shivers down my spine,
that will raise the etymoligical hairs on my neck,
and stir my literary libido.

and make it snappy!
x