Writing Exercise: 'Words Of The Day' That Make Me Think Of Diabetes~

Old ass 'words of the day' that make me think of diabetes.
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When I was younger and bored and bitching about it loudly, my father would tell me to read the encyclopedia or the dictionary - I'd make fun of his suggestions of course, but every now and then I'd listen to him. Encyclopedias weren't half bad reading. Dictionaries? Not so much.

My father also spoke Latin fluently (he had 12 years of Latin back when Catholic masses were still said in Latin. Grades K through 8 in Catholic School and  and 4 years in public high school,) and he was constantly taking apart words and telling you want the prefix, suffix & root said word meant in Latin. 

Yep, turns out 12 years of a dead language really did come in handy and I wish I'd taken 1 year of Latin before I tackled French - But I digress. 

His word dissemination also came in handy when I was studying for the SATs and those Dad word breakdown memories always make me smile when I think about them.
So I was thinking about writing and my dad and I decided to do a writing exercise that would certainly John Kunik approved if he were still with us. 

I Googled the phrase 'word of the day,' in the hopes of a little post inspiration and yes, all sorts of interesting verbiage popped up - And a couple of those words, while not really diabetes related, reminded me of living with diabetes. 

The first word that sounded interesting to me was the world "Filipendulous,' an adjective which literally means to hang by a thread.

It's Latin, derives from the word filum (thread) + pendere (to hang). It's European in root (s)pen- (to draw, to spin,) and it's also a source of other more familiar words like; pendulum, spider, pound, pansy, pendant, ponder, appendix, penthouse, depend, and spontaneous. 

And I was like, yeah, I can relate to feeling filipendulous for sure. 

Because sometimes dealing with diabetes 24 X 7 makes me feel like I'm literally hanging by a thread of sanity because of the blood sugar pendulum that's not only hovers over my fingertips, but swings over my head as well. Causing me to pound the lancet over said fingertips, not to mention keyboard. 

And Diabetes makes me ponder all sorts of things and makes being spontaneous somewhat challenging at times, but never impossible. Yep, I get that filipendulous feeling for sure.

And then I found the word "Dilly," which I immediately wanted to follow with dallie, but didn't.

Turns out the world dilly is a really good thing, as is being called a dilly. Dilly is a noun that means something or someone regarded as remarkable and unusual.

And according to the people at Dictionary.com, "Dilly is thought to have come to English by combining the first syllable of delightful and delicious with the -y suffix meaning full or characterized by."

And dilly reminded me of the Diabetes Online Community - An amazing group of remarkable and unusual characters connected to one another thanks to busted pancreases and screwed up metabolisms and who are always there for one another- Especially when we are feeling filipendulous!