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Carrion Luggage
Carrion Luggage
 
Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem.
This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it.
It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans.
It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier."
I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination.
December 8, 2025 at 11:13am December 8, 2025 at 11:13am
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Today, we have Mental Floss with another blurb about how fun English can be.
Well, I bloody well have now. (Or at least seen them type it.)
The English language is certainly bizarre in the best way.
For alternative definitions of "best."
Some of it is totally run-of-the-mill, and some of it is full of words that only seem to appear in one extremely specific situation.
I haven't seen MF try to explain idioms like run-of-the-mill (they might have and I missed it), but nothing about our language is truly ordinary, once you really look at it.
So let’s take a little stroll through eight words that only show up in one weirdly specific context.
You know, there's another way to look at this, too. What we call a "word" is pretty arbitrary. You can take two words and mush them together, like "homework" or "housework" (which are, absurdly, not the same thing at all). So another perspective is that these featured phrases are actually words that just happen to have a space inserted in them somewhere.
Inclement (Weather)
For that matter, no one ever describes the weather, or anything else, as "clement."
Bode (Well/Ill)
Bode is a free agent in theory, but let’s be honest: you’ve only ever seen it next to “well” or “ill.”
Free agent? Nah, it's in a threesome.
Hermetically (Sealed)
Now, this word is a little “underground,” if you will. Hermetically sealed sounds like something out of a sci-fi lab, but it mostly refers to food packaging...
This is where I get to rant: if it's being used for food packaging, that's- well, not wrong, per se, but a distortion of its original intent.
It's a bit complicated, but despite Hermes being the Greek equivalent of Mercury, it has nothing to do with the god Mercury, the planet Mercury, or the element mercury. Instead, it's related to the Egyptian god of wisdom and knowledge, Thoth (I told you language was weird.)
Thoth was said to have invented a magic seal that could keep vessels airtight (presumably useful in certain Egyptian interment procedures). But he's best known for being the mythical founder of certain occult orders, and the adjective "hermetic" originally referred to these spiritual practices, and was basically a synonym for "occult."
So if you use, or see, "hermetically sealed," just remember you're communing with deep, ancient spirits. Treat them with respect.
Pyrrhic (Victory)
There's good reason for this one, which is derived from some ancient general who won a battle, but at too great a cost. It's not like you could have a Pyrrhic loss. Or a Pyrrhic anything else at all.
Contiguous (United States)
I'm going to quibble with this one; I'm pretty sure I've heard the word used in math contexts.
More at the link if you're interested. Mostly I just wanted to rant about the "hermetically" entry. |
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