These days we’re hearing a lot about privilege. The word privilege showed up in English in the 1200s. It came through Old French from the Latin term privus legis, private law — a law applying to or giving favor to one individual — a law that by design did not apply equally to everyone. The term was used in France to apply to a privileged class that was exempt from taxes. Peggy McIntosh, a Wellesley scholar who spent years studying the darker side of privilege found this way to help root out her own privileged thinking: I asked myself, on a daily basis, what do I have that I didn’t earn? It was like a prayer. Over the years, other wise women have had things to say about privilege: No privileged order ever did see the wrongs of its own victims. -Elizabeth Cady Stanton Privilege is the greatest enemy of right. Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach It is natural anywhere that people might like their own kind, but it is not necessarily natural that their fondness for for their own kind should lead them to the subjection of whole groups of other people not like them. -Pearl S. Buck Privilege, almost by definition, requires that someone else pay the price for its enjoyment. -Paula Ross I’ll close off with a tribute to the spelling mnemonic method of Mrs. Fern Byrne of Capistrano Elementary School. To remember how to spell privilege, just remember that within it is a four-letter word starting with v. Comments? Comment away! My thanks go out to this week’s sources, Etymonline.com, The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women. Washington Post, Merriam-Webster.com, Wordnik, Collins Dictionary, & the OED.
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Finishing up our March celebration of wise women, here are eight wise women's thoughts about truth. Truth…is the first casualty of tyranny. Barbara Grizzuti Harrison Let us accept truth, even when it surprises us & alters our views. -George Sand Truth will not be ignored. It will rise up & consume us. -Katherine Wylde What a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an hypothesis! -Mary Wollstonecraft Much sheer effort goes into avoiding truth: left to itself, it sweeps in like the tide. Fay Weldon Truth is a rough, honest, helter-skelter terrier, that none like to see brought into their drawing-rooms. Ouida There is at least one thing more brutal than the truth, & that is the consequence of saying less than the truth. -Ti-Grace Atkinson Between the two poles of whole-truth & half-truth is slung the chancy hammock in which we all rock. -Shana Alexander May your week be filled with harmonious truths. Big thanks to this week's sources: theguardian.com wisefamousquotes.com, The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women., & Oxford Dictionary, We continue our Women's month celebration with the words of wise women with these thoughts about friendship. (Friendships) are easy to get out of compared to love affairs, but they are not easy to get out of compared to, say, jail. -Fran Lebowitz Female friendships that work are relationships in which women help each other belong to themselves. -Louise Bernikow One is apt to think of people’s affection as a fixed quantity, instead of a sort of moving sea with tide always going out or coming in but still fundamentally there. -Freya Stark True friends are those who really know you but love you anyway. -Edna Buchanan Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, & it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. -Anais Nin A friend may be waiting behind a stranger’s face. -Maya Angelou I have come to esteem history as a component of friendships. in my case at least friendships are not igneous, but sedimentary. -Jane Howard There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate. -Linda Grayson May your week be filled with good friends. My thanks go out to this week’s sources: The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women., https://quotationsbywomen.com , & quotefancy.com Here at Wordmonger, we’re celebrating the last three weeks of March by focusing on wise women’s words. March 2 we considered progress, & March 9 we considered lying. This week we’ll take a look at what some wise women had/have to say about kindness. When the milk of human kindness turns sour, it is a singularly unpalatable draught. -Agnes Repplier When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them, as if their reason has left them. -Willa Cather Kindness is always fashionable. -Amelia E. Barr I prefer you to make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness. -Mother Teresa So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind, Is all the sad world needs. -Ella Wheeler Wilcox May you take every opportunity to spread some kindness. My thanks go out to this week’s sources: The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women., Oxford Dictionary,& Etymonline. Here at Wordmonger, we celebrated the last week by considering some wise women’s thoughts regarding progress. This week we’ll take a look at what some wise women had/have to say about a topic that's getting a heap of news coverage these days -- lying. Cowards are not invariably liars, but liars are invariably cowards. -Minna Thomas Antrim Elvira always lied to herself before she lied to anybody else, since this gave her a conviction of moral honesty. -Phyllis Bottome Particular lies may speak a general truth. -George Eliot You can lock up from a thief, but you can’t from a liar. -Flora Thompson Once admit the idea that it is good to lie for religion’s sake, and the lie may grow to any dimensions. A little lie may serve a man, but it is hard to calculate how big a lie may be wanted to serve God. -Frances B. Cobbe Lying is an occupation, Used by all who mean to rise; Politicians owe their station But to well concerted lies. -Letitia Pilkington May your week be free of liars and lies. My thanks go out to this week’s sources: The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women., Oxford Dictionary,& Etymonline. Here at Wordmonger, we’re celebrating Women’s History Month by focusing on selected words of selected women. This week we’ll take a look at some wise women ’s thoughts about progress. Progress affects few. Only revolution can affect many. Alice Walker Even the “worst blizzard of the century” accumulates one flake at a time. Mary Kay Blakely This seems to be the law of progress in everything we do; it moves along a spiral rather than perpendicular; we seem to be actually going out of the way, and yet it turns out that we were really moving upward all the time. Frances E. Willard We have not crawled so very far up our individual grass-blade toward our individual star. Hilda Doolittle Things that don’t get better, get worse. Ellen Sue Stern If a man has lived in a tradition which tells him that nothing can be done about his human condition, to believe that progress is possible may well be the greatest revolution of all. Barbara Ward May whatever progress you’re working toward in your life come to fruition. My thanks go out to this week’s sources: The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women., Oxford Dictionary,& Etymonline. In an attempt to balance last week’s post regarding the etymologies of noisy words, here are some quotes about silence. First, three eloquent ways of saying almost the same thing: Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of that fact. -George Eliot In silence man can most readily preserve his integrity. -Meister Echkart I don’t think many people appreciate silence or realize that it is as close to music as you can get. -Toni Morrison Never miss the opportunity to keep your mouth shut. -Robert Newton Peck And on to the darker side of silence: In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. -Dr. Martin Luther King Silence isn’t always golden, you know. Sometimes it’s just plain yellow. -Jan Kemp The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others & hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, & from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light & life flow no longer into our souls. -Elizabeth Cady Stanton And last, some votes of confidence: Silence is all the genius a fool has. -Zora Neale Hurston Of those who say nothing, few are silent. -Thomas Neill Silence is not a thing we make; it is something into which we enter. It is always there…All we can make is noise. -Mother Maribel of Wantage I’m hoping you’ll use the comments section to let me know which of these quotes you’ve never heard, &/or which ones made you stop & think. My thanks go out to this week’s sources QuotationsPage.com, The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women,Psychology Today. Last week’s post featuring some thoughts from a favorite author luminary led me to this week’s post. I’ll get back to etymologies and such next week, but for now, I hope you’ll have a good time with the ever-prolific & fascinating Ray Bradbury. Born in 1929 & leaving this universe we know in 2012, author of 500 works, Ray Bradbury won the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, the National Medal of Arts, & the National Book Foundation Medal, & tons more. Known best as a science fiction novelist & short story author whose stories always valued character above technology, Bradbury also wrote TV scripts, poems, plays, & screenplays. Here is a tiny sampling of his thoughts: “We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.” “You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.” “We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.” & “Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.” I’m hoping some of you might choose a quote from above & have something to say about it in the comments section. Big thanks to this week’s sources: RayBradbury.com, SearchQuotes, BrainyQuote, & Quotes.net - photo from FamousAuthors.org November of 1922 brought the unsuspecting world Kurt Vonnegut. He didn’t have much to say initially, but as time progressed he proved to be a brilliant author, thinker, master of satire, dark humor, & pointed social commentary. This November 11 would be his 98th birthday. I’d like to celebrate with a tiny slice of what he had to say. True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country. Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be. I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center. Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why. I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries. Make love when you can. It’s good for you. The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest. Oh, and then there’s Slaughterhouse-Five, Welcome to the Monkey House, Cat’s Cradle, Breakfast of Champions, Player Piano, A Man Without a Country, & a stunning & steaming heap of essays, articles, short stories and novels. Have a favorite Vonnegut work or quote? Please leave it in the comments section. Big thanks to this week’s sources: Curated Quotes, Vonnegut.com, The Christian Science Monitor, Karen Cushman, & NPR. Image from pastdaily.com. My two all-time favorite quotation books are Carolyn Warner’s The Words of Extraordinary Women, & Rosalie Maggio’s The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women. It fascinates & saddens me that the brilliant bits between these covers seldom appear in most books of quotations, or internet quotation sites. Here are some food-related quotes from these two fine resources: Fran Lebowitz – Food is an important part of a balanced diet. Patricia Hampl – When we eat / we are like / everyone else Ayn Rand – Ah, there’s nothing like tea in the afternoon. When the British Empire collapses, historians will find that it had made but two invaluable contributions to civilization—this tea ritual and the detective novel. Erica Jong – Eating is never so simple as hunger. Fran Lebowitz – Cheese that is required by law to append the word food to its title does not go well with red wine or fruit. Julia Child – Noodles are not only amusing but delicious. Sarah J. Hale – There is small danger of being starved in our land of plenty; but the danger of being stuffed is imminent. Sara Peretsky – All food starting with a p is comfort food . . . pasta, potato chips, pretzels, peanut butter, pastrami, pizza, pastry. Peg Bracken – Molded salads are best served in situations where they have little or no competition. Joan Gussow – As for butter versus margarine, I trust cows more than chemists. Isak Dinesen – Coffee, according to the women of Denmark, is to the body what the word of the Lord is to the soul. Which quote hits closest to home? Which one coaxes a smile out of you? Please leave a comment. My thanks go out to this week’s sources: The Words of Extraordinary Women, & The New Beacon Book of Quotations by Women. |
I write for teens & tweens, bake bread, play music, and ponder the wonder of words in a foggy little town on California's central coast.
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November 2023
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