Imbricate and imbrication and overlap and imber and tegument and tegula and roof

The simplest way to explain imbricate and imbrication is to create a mental picture of overlapping roof tiles. These tiles are said to be "imbricated." But I would like to take you on a journey with this word today, a journey that will begin with rain and roof tiles, move on to literary style and then end with comments about modes of personal action. I will argue that the most effective mode of writing is an imbricated style--one that "overlaps" with preceding thoughts--and that a most useful way of living is to "live imbricate"--by "overlapping" with the mental and physical space of others.

Origins

I love the word picture suggested by the Latin word standing behind imbricate--imber. Imber is simply "a shower or storm of rain; rain water." An imbrex is "a semi-cylindrical tile, placed over the joints between the roof-tiles." Roof tiles are tegulae, derived from the root tego, which means to "cover" or "roof over." The fourth principle part of the verb tego is tectus. Now we are talking about a word that has a wide utility in English--tectonics, tectics, etc. are various studies of "plates" or "roofs." But, back to imber. Thus, the rain falls down, but you need something to "catch" it. To do that you have roof tiles, or tegulae. In English we have the word pantile, which is defined in a very complex manner by both the Century and OED, but when you look at the picture provided, it is quite simple. A pantile, as the Britannica says, combines the tegula and imbrex, so that it is a "double-curved" roof tile, linking the tile to the next one and creating a funnel or groove for the rain water to wash down the roof. The concave-shaped tile is the tegula and the convex-shaped tile, holding together the two tegulae, is the imbrex.

Now we are ready for imbricate and imbrication. The Century defines the former, "to lay or lap over one another...as or like tiles or shingles..." But the dictionary goes on to give pictures not only of roofs but of an imbricate flower bud or imbricate scales of a pine cone. One can also have imbrications in a column. The purpose of the imbrications is both practical and aesthetic--it helps the water "flow" but it also gives the viewer a sense of covering or overlapping that nature (or human effort) frequently provides. But what is the "purpose" of overlapping buds in a flower, when all you need is one "thickness" to "cover" all the surface area? I don't really know, but I think it gives us a window into the nature of life lived well. Here is what I mean.

Imbricated (Writing) Style

Communications theoreticians tell us that in order for communication to take place between people, there must be enough of a shared reality between them that the words/gestures make sense to both parties. In other words, there must be "overlap" between people. Cultural imbrication is necessary for understanding to take place.

But if you spend some time thinking about what makes for effective writing, you will soon conclude that literary imbrication is essential. Last evening, when reading a book on fossil collecting and dinosaurs, I was taken by how well-written the introduction was. The author was introducting some unfamiliar concepts, such as the therapsids, the rhychosaurs, the thecodonts and the phytosaurs, all in the same paragraph. Nevertheless, by the end of the paragraph I felt that I understood things clearly. I decided to examine the structure of the paragraph (pp. 10-11 in Bones for Barnum Brown) and saw that the key to the paragraph were the little linking phrases at the beginning of sentences. One sentence ends with "reptiles and amphibians." The next sentence begins with "The dominant large reptiles." A later sentence describing the thecodonts in detail is followed by a sentence beginning, "Among the thecodonts..." That is, the reader is helped by an author who realizes that meaning is best created by imbricated sentences.

One Other Form of Imbrication

While Socrates is supposed to have said, "The unexamined life is not worth living," I would qualify that: "The unimbricated life is not worth living." What does it mean to have such a life? It is a life that realizes that it must "overlap" with others in order to have meaning. Sometimes, as with the bud of an Althaea rosea, the small petals overlap considerably. In other instances, there might be only a relatively minor overlap. But overlap, imbrication, there must be. The unimbricated person is one who only has his or her semi-cynlindrical roof tile, so to speak, and that tile is able to deflect some of the driving rains of life, but really is quite useless against the penetrating and soaking fury of a summer squall. Thus, we need to "overlap" with others. Maybe that isn't a bad picture to close this essay.

The "buzz" today is about having "soul-mates" or "connection" or "relationships" with people, but I think it is much more visually-powerful and accurate to say we need "overlap" with others. The concept of soul-mate is suffocating for me; that of "connection" is too static and sterile; and relationships is a rather wimpy word. Why not say without equivocation that what one needs is an imbricated life and leave it at that? Those who have ears to hear will hear.

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