STIRRING
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
DIANE DECILLIS
Should I care that mamihlapinatapai is considered
the most succinct word, and hardest to translate? Perhaps
because of its two distinct meanings, a head-scratching
homonym, that in the Scripts National Spelling Bee,
could be a real time-buyer. “Could I have the definition?”
Mamih-lap-inata-pai which I’ve also heard pronounced
mammal a pineapple a pie, from the almost extinct
Yaghan language of Terra del Fuego. On one hand,
defined as “To look at each other hoping either will
offer to do something both parties much desire done
but are unwilling to do." Which, I think could be
even more succinct. How about, Well, this is awkward.
Or, You go first. No, you go first.
Also refers to “the moment
of meditation around the pusakí, or fire when the grandparents
transmit their stories to the young. It’s that instant in which
everyone is quiet.” I get that. My grandmother shared a story
about a deadly snake slithering through their window. My
grandfather grabbed it by the neck (do snakes have necks?)
and bit, severing its head, incisor style. That instant of quiet.
More succinctly What the hell?
What the hell, a predictable
response upon hearing the longest word in the English language.
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. Yes,
pneumo noultra microscopic silico volcano co·ni·o·sis.
Coming at you with 45 letters, it’s a lung disease brought on
by inhaling silica or quartz dust—coined by Everett Smith,
president of the National Puzzlers League, and possibly a sadist.
But is it really the longest? How about titin, short for a 189,819-
letter word that takes 3 ½ hours to read. (One guy fell asleep
while reading it on YouTube). The largest known human protein,
it provides the skeletal and cardiac muscles with elasticity. Mutated,
titin can lead to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. A syndrome causing
the heart muscle to grow too thick eliciting shortness of breath while
walking or attempting to run.
Which brings me to the most specific
word in the English language. Boasting 645 definitions— run.
Three letters, one syllable. As in: He felt his blood run cold
when the hairy Venezuelan Poodle Moth he was certain he’d killed,
landed on his nose. Sal, the bookie who runs the numbers prefers
to go by The Wizard of Odds. Odds are her self-restraint has run
its course. You may want to run before her imagination runs wild.
Diane DeCillis’ poetry collection, Strings Attached (Wayne State Univ. Press) earned a Michigan Notable Book Award for 2015, won the 2015 Next Generation Indie Book Award, and was a finalist for the Forward Indie Fab Book Award. Her most recent collection When the Heart Needs a Stunt Double (Wayne State University Press, 2021) was selected by Publisher’s Weekly as one of eight books for Weathering the Times: Poetry 2021. Four of DeCillis’ poems are included in an anthology for the Writers on the Moon project. It will launch to the moon on the Peregrine Lander, 2022 and will remain there in a time capsule for the future.
