D is for Gobemouche
WEBSTER AND AMERICA
“Americans, unshackle your minds and act like independent beings. You have been children long enough, subject to the control and subservient to, the interest of a haughty parent…
You have an empire to raise…and a national character to establish.”
Noah Webster was not just a lexicographer, vacuuming up words into his brain for later storage in his mind palace, he was a writer which is a natural evolution from Speller, Grammatist, Teacher, Educator. His topic choices ranged from grammar, history, morality to politics. America had won the war, seizing political independence, some of the next steps included cultural independence, linguistic independence, having a sense of nationalistic pride, and more. The books in American schoolhouses and classrooms were from England and taught the English man’s ways, English man’s history, and English man’s Geography. It was time for a change.
Note the opening words of “Sketches of American Policy”, written in 1785, and see if it resonates with similar values that shaped the country:
“Every individual in society has certain powers, rights and privileges, which no other individual can justly abridge of destroy; and of which consequently the whole body of individuals has no right to deprive him without his consent. But in a state of nature, where every individual has rights, and has no power but his own strength to defend them, his person is constantly exposed to the abuses and his property, to the encroachments of his more powerful neighbor. Hence the origin of a social compact which either expressed or implied, is the basis of all civil government. This compact is nothing more than an association of all the members of a community, by which each individual, for his own security, consents to obey the general voice.”*
VOCABULARY ENRICHMENT FOR TODAY
gobemouche
noun
gobe·mouche | \ (ˌ)gōb¦müsh \
Definition of gobemouche
: a credulous person
especially : one who believes everything he or she hears as words here cost nothing,
In 17th-century Europe, in the midst of the Black Plague, physicians who cared for plague victims wore a sinister, ugsome costume. They covered themselves from head to toe and wore a mask with a long bird-like beak. The beak was used to put aromatic items and keep the foul smell of the plague away from the doctors. Dried flowers, herbs like eucalyptus and peppermint, spices, and camphor were used to provide aroma to the doctors. Charles De Lorme is credited for the Beak Doctor costume.
ugsome
adjective
ug·some | \ ˈəg-səm \
Definition of ugsome
: FRIGHTFUL, LOATHSOME
zugzwang
noun
zug·zwang | \ ˈtsükˌtsfäŋ \
Definition of zugzwang
: the necessity of moving in chess when it is to one's disadvantage
squdgy
adjective
Definition of squdgy
: SQUAT, PUDGY
a squdgy, ill-shaped body
virtue signaling
noun
\ ˈvər-(ˌ)chü-ˈsig-nə-liŋ \
Definition of virtue signaling
: the act or practice of conspicuously displaying one's awareness of and attentiveness to political issues, matters of social and racial justice, etc., especially instead of taking effective action
malversation
noun
mal·ver·sa·tion | \ ˌmal-vər-ˈsā-shən \
Definition of malversation
1: misbehavior and especially corruption in an office, trust, or commission
2: corrupt administration
“When a citizen gives his suffrage to a man of known immorality he abuses his trust; he sacrifices not only his own interest, but that of his neighbor; he betrays the interest of his country.”
* R e f e r e n c e s
Definitions listed in this blog are from the Merriam Webster Dictionary.
Yes I saw the title D is for Gobemouche. I am not so much of a Gobemouche. I know where D and G fall in the alphabet line up. :-)