Monday, February 4, 2013

Searching for word origins

Viridis means green in Latin, and around the late fourteenth century the word virus was introduced as meaning a "venomous substance", from the Latin virus "poison, sap of plants, slimy liquid". It was not until the early eighteenth century that the word virus came to signify an agent causing infectious disease. The computer sense of the term dates from 1972.

Although the prefix "con-" indicates being "together, with" something, I want to try to think of the various meanings of the word "con", as well as what it might mean as a suffix.  As a noun, the first sense is that of meaning "negation". Contrary to something...the pros and cons of it all. But it also means "study", from Old English cunnan "to know, know how". As an adjective, a con is a swindle. It's why I try to avoid adjectives (adverbs are outright banished). That was just a little joke. Back to the origins of the word I invented today, viricon.

 See, I looked it up and nothing really came up. I want to take this time to say that I dedicate the word to the writing energies of M.John Harrison, the wonderful British author of strangely wrought and intricately detailed fantasies, whether they be on earth or in space. I dropped the -ium suffix and attained the word viricon, I make no claim to it whatsoever, when we invent anything there's a good chance we're simply rediscovering something buried long ago that not a soul has since bothered to dust off. I feel relatively certain that my word can most likely be found in a proper unabridged Oxford Dictionary, for instance.

 The word viricon with its virile associations through its inherently viridian prefix must not be confused entirely with the viral aspect, and the latter half of the word in particular must not be mis-understood, for the condition of context is crucial to know the real content of any word. Remember, words are consensual entities that we long ago were to have broken off from yet somehow we remain in their service to this day, instruments by which words transform themselves via the inoculation of language...it is a virus.

 Laurie Anderson sang that William Burroughs quote. But I'm staying on track here, pardon me momentarily for expanding the frequency.   Where were we ? Oh yes, a new word I captured today, because there are no discoveries, really, for all we know, if you stop and try to think about it, and succeed, you'll see this idea applies to all things and why shouldn't it, exactly?

That's really all I'd like to know...how could there be any such thing as a real INVENTION when everything's been here since the beginning and it's been proven the very fabric of creation itself is merely recycled stuff?

You are the only invention in the realm of creation and it was you who helped create this word, thank yourself the next time you open a dictionary because it was you who wrote it, every last word from the beginning of the alphabet including all those words that are now extinct in order to make room in the limited size dictionaries so that common people like you and me could keep up with the times!

 I told my brother today that I invented a new form of poetry, and I only want to lay claim to having uncovered it once again, the oldest form of poetry known to our species: one word. That's it.

A new form of poetry limited to being expressed in one word.

And the best part is this form never excels quite as well as it could until it invents a new word, then the form is being exercised. Any one-word poems utilizing words already found in the dictionary are perfectly acceptable yet akin to keeping the horse leashed to his post.

 Only when the poet invents a new word which is to say, rediscovers an ancient lost word and re-introduces it can it be said that this ancient form is being expressed.  And should he truly catch the wind of inspiration and introduce or that is uncover for the very first time a brand new word never before heard or seen in the world, then he is riding this ancient form at an easy gallop.

This is also meant to resemble a test which sets up a standard by which this ancient form of poetry, the one word poem poised at a potential communication as yet unexplored by any member of the human race, may achieve its unique form; this form in deed being a word excavated by the poet that had been a part of the old original language all along, of course because that is the meaning of our race--nothing more than the code script which has been hyper marked up from the below and down from the above in order to facilitate the ancient chaos of the living ecosystem of words.

 Try to think of it this way. We are not the protagonists in the unfolding drama of creation, we are merely the script. Words themselves are in fact the alien sentient beings from which our own species was inexorably derived. Welcome to Viricon, a condition of being, an estate, an empire.

 The negation of viridian, the viral context. The process which sterilizes organic development by committing the perfectly innocent sin of self awareness.  Welcome to Viricon.