The repeat song of the day has been "Annie Waits" by Ben Folds. Further, Ben Folds has been the repeat artist the last couple of days, since his driving piano and strong vocals have driven me to get a lot of work done. A nice thing these days.
I just turned off the repeat, but only after forty listens. Yikes! It's good.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Refectory
I have to wonder about pretension. Or pretending.
The other day, I was on the intranet for Fuller Seminary, and I saw their refectory was closed or had limited hours for the summer. This begged the question in my head: "What the heck is a refectory?" I had an idea, but I had to check. And sure enough, it did have to do with food. Well, I'll be. I'm a pretty big fan of foody stuff.
Why did my seminary use such a pretentious word for "cafeteria"?
Because they aren't pretending.
My widget tells me that a refectory is a place for communal meals, especially in a religious or educational institution. Fuller's good on four counts. There's food. They're religious. They provide education. And they like to emphasize community.
I'm not normally against big words, but for some reason I thought this pretense was a bit out of line. It's a friggin' cafeteria. But actually it's not. A cafeteria denotes a place where feedlot cattle would eat if they were bipeds and carried trays. A refectory is a place where students or monastics intentionally—self-consciously, in a good way—come together to share a meal in a reflective atmosphere.
Not having been on the main campus of Fuller since I was four, I'm happy to know that they are at least trying to cultivate the discipline of reflective communal supping, even if it may be in name only.
The other day, I was on the intranet for Fuller Seminary, and I saw their refectory was closed or had limited hours for the summer. This begged the question in my head: "What the heck is a refectory?" I had an idea, but I had to check. And sure enough, it did have to do with food. Well, I'll be. I'm a pretty big fan of foody stuff.
Why did my seminary use such a pretentious word for "cafeteria"?
Because they aren't pretending.
My widget tells me that a refectory is a place for communal meals, especially in a religious or educational institution. Fuller's good on four counts. There's food. They're religious. They provide education. And they like to emphasize community.
I'm not normally against big words, but for some reason I thought this pretense was a bit out of line. It's a friggin' cafeteria. But actually it's not. A cafeteria denotes a place where feedlot cattle would eat if they were bipeds and carried trays. A refectory is a place where students or monastics intentionally—self-consciously, in a good way—come together to share a meal in a reflective atmosphere.
Not having been on the main campus of Fuller since I was four, I'm happy to know that they are at least trying to cultivate the discipline of reflective communal supping, even if it may be in name only.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Demonym
When I showed my wife the hilarity of my friend's post, we started talking about Niger, the country where they live. What is a person from Niger called? I had an idea, but I didn't want to make anything up, so I checked Wikipedia. Our friends there introduced me to one of my new favorite words: demonym. Literally, it means "name of the people." It seems a fairly recent neologism, and it's brilliant. By the way, they're "Nigeriens," pronounced with a Freedom accent.
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