The fun Pigeon Review has published a story I had fun writing, indulging one of my favorite fascinations, etymology—and right along with it, wordplay. You can find “Etymology for Beginners” online, here.
And for an amuse-bouche—
“Florence would have liked to be named for the famous Italian city, with its Etruscans (the tower builders) and its bridge of gold. Or, adding an F for femininity, for the Friar in Shakespeare’s play, with his knowledge of herbs and family politics, his role in that famously bad ending. Or for the Saint, patron of poor people and school children, comedians and cooks, martyred on an iron grill in the third century. (Another bad ending.) Or even for Quebec’s great river, bedded in an ancient geologic depression. That she'd been named instead for her Aunt Florence Wilson, with no distinguishing characteristics whatsoever, other than her stolid decency, had set in motion a lifetime of yearning and making do.
Her fascination with names, for one. (Flo—Flora—Flory, all considered and rejected as not suiting her at all.) With words, more broadly—and what they meant, what they implied, and where they led, both backwards and forwards. Her need to be part of the great world and its wonders, setting off a lifelong quest for connection. For following the rivers (and their flow—so maybe after all, then, Flo would name her perfectly) from source across uncertain boundaries to outlet (River of the Algonquins, Big Water Current); the aqueducts from snowmelt in a slow descent to the Villa d’Este’s glittering fountains via Rilke’s poetry; the nightingale (also related indirectly by her name) from nurse to lovers’ near mistake.”
Image: Photo by Ruiqi Kong on Unsplash
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