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Sunday, April 24, 2011

T is for Tesseract

And for Tarnation

All last summer, when I was in bed and had trouble sleeping, I'd repeat the words "C. C Sabathia" over and over again. You can imagine my husband's surprise when he heard me murmuring these words since I have no earthly interest in baseball, let alone sports. But I like the way the words sound, the alliteration and the rhythm.

Tesseract is like that. There's a proper science definition of tesseract here, but when I think of that word I think of a Wrinkle in Time. Tesseract also sounds to me like ancient scottish for 'king' or 'laird', but I bet I'm just thinking of another similar sounding word.

Words are like that, they mean more than they mean. They can do more things then define and explain. I often forget that they are layered things, starting with the sound itself, then first, secondary, tertiary meanings and associations. I see it with my two year old as she toggles between english and spanish that it's great fun and completely a game, playing with words.

3 comments:

  1. I Love this! C.C. Sabathia is the only thing I like about the Yankees! :)

    And yes, I know just what you mean. I also get words sort of stuck in an internal loop, always cool words, though.

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  2. I think of A Wrinkle in Time too!!

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  3. Oh, tesseract is such a great word. It always makes me think of A Wrinkle in Time as well. Though A Swiftly Tilting Planet was my favorite of the series.

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