words beginning with o, obeisance, oblivion, obsequious, obstreperous

As I continue to read through the dictionary as I prepare words for the Celebrity Spelling Bee in Portland (OR) in connection with the Schoolhouse Supplies annual fundraiser in January 2007, I have reached the "o's." I confess I like "o" words better than almost any other in our alphabet. Despite the fact that they take only 62 pages in the Unabridged dictionary and much fewer in the Collegiate, I select more words/page from the "o's" than any other letter. Why? Because I think the "o's" stretch us most to move from our current level of vocabulary to a higher level. In addition, the "o's" have lots of familiar but sophisticated-sounding words that are in educated speech, so almost everyone feels that s/he is elevating self by using these words. Thus, the "o's" are a perfect educational device for those who want to continue to develop and challenge the mind. The purpose of these essays is to introduce what I call the three "levels" of "o" words, and then go into detail on one particular word--officious.

Three "Levels" of "O" Words

My thesis is that, in addition to the most simple words beginning in "o" which everyone knows, words beginning in "o" neatly divide themselves into: (1) words spoken by educated people; (2) words which are a challenge to thinking people; and (3) words that challenge even the most sophisticated wordsmith among us. Let me illustrate.

Category 1. Smart or sophisticated people like the word obfuscate or obfuscation. I first heard this word in high school, when a pseudo-intellectual among my friends urged us all to "eschew obfuscation." But it now is used almost everyplace, a wonderful word for "confusion" or "unclarity." The dictionary also has obfusticated, which means the same thing, but if a confused person uses it ("I believe I am obfusticated"), it sounds even more funny. Other words in this category abound. One can be obdurate, which is a much better word than stubborn to get across what you want to say because of the "dur" root in it. Beginning in the 19th century, America was obelisk-crazy, and we can see remnants of that from sea to shining sea--from the Washington Monument in DC to the Battle of Bennington Memorial in VT to the Whitman obelisk just outside of Walla Walla, WA. Make sure you distinguish obelisk from odalisque. I love the latter word, but it probably is a "category (2)" word. An odalisque (spelled in more than way in the Unabridged, but not in the Collegiate) is a female slave or concubine. Just to show how studying words opens the world for you, Odalisque is the title of Ingres' 1814 painting. Be sure you don't confuse obelisk also with obelus, which is a + mark or a division mark in old manuscripts to mark the beginning of a suspected passage.

Feminist scholars have learned to use the word objectify in the last 30 years, to describe what men have traditionally done to women. Then there is the word obeisance, which is quite different in meaning from obedience. Indeed obeisance (pronounced o-BAY-cents) means deference or homage or even a bow. "I did obseisance to the memory of Robert Frost by saying a quiet prayer as I stood beside his grave in VT." Then, continuing with category (1) we have oblation, which you should know. It is a sacrifice or offering. Then, we have such words, still from the beginning of the "o's" as oblivion, oblivious, obsequious, obstreperous, obtuse, obviate, obtrusive, obsolescence. My contention is that people want to know and use these words properly in conversation and writing; indeed, they aren't too difficult.

Category 2. This category includes those words that are slightly beyond the grasp of most educated people but which, when you think about it, have a considerable utility. So, I urge you to learn them. Obloquy and its near neighbor obliquity for example, are wonderful and useful words. I would like to give both of these words for the contest preparation list because you change vowels in the second syllable despite the fact that the words mean the same thing. Obloquy means disgrace or calumny. We often use it in a sentence such as the following: "His action is deserving of obloquy." Actually the word obliquity is a much richer word than its cousin. Though it can mean "deviation from (moral) rectitude," its more usual use is in mathematics, where "oblique" means "skew" or deviation from both parallelism and perpendicularity. Well, we continue. This category also would include obsequy, normally appearing as obsequies, which are the services or rites you give for a person who has died. One of my favorites in this category are obnubilate (also obnebulate), which means to "becloud," and refers either to the sky or, even more, the mind. "There he sat, 35 years-old, worthless for almost everything practical, his mind completely obnubiliated by the categories of scholastic philosophy." Another favorite is obcordate, which means an "upside down heart." Usually referring to a leaf, the word also might be useful for those writing romantic poetry.

Category 3. Then there is my last category, which includes words which almost no one knows but which accomplished wordsmiths and people who just love learning might want to embrace. A few examples are obtect, a scientific word (originally used by Linnaeus in the 1750s) to describe something that is "covered over," and applied in English in the early 19th century to speak of a pupa's appendages that are held firmly against the body; and the body, in turn, is covered by a hardened cuticle. But I think the word can be liberated from this usage and mean, simply "to cover over." A home can be "obtected by a roof worn in spots." An objurgation is a harsh reproof. I love this sentence.. "He objurgated the custom of garnishing poems with archaic Latinisms." Then, we have the word obcaecation, which is a sophisticated word for blindness, obelion, which is a point on the back of the skull, obreption, which is a term from old Scots law to decribe an attempt to obtain a dispensation from an ecclesiastical authority or a gift from the sovereign by fraud.

Conclusion

There might be several others to fit into the three categories, but I think you see what I mean. And, we are only to the "ob's." Welcome to the wonderful world of "o's." The next essay looks in detail at one charming word: officious.

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