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ROGET’S

July 9, 2020
ACTIVITIES, EDUCATION AND LEARNING, SCHOOL/SCHOOLING
5 Comments

 BY: JAMES F. O’NEIL

“The thesaurus or synonym dictionary is a reference work for finding synonyms and sometimes antonyms of words . . . often used by writers to help find the best word to express an idea . . . fitly and aptly . . .” [Wikipedia]

. . .

When I began teaching so many long, long years ago (1963), my first classes were with 9th graders.  I taught at an all-boys Catholic school in the suburbs of Chicago.  I was as new in the classroom as they were, though eight years differing in age; yet I had the degree, the suit coat, and the tie.

I always worked hard on my lesson plans, studied hard to teach the grammar exercises and literature requirements, and all the other peripherals that accompany “Language in Thought and Action.”  Plus, a novel or two each semester (Call of the Wild, Life on the Mississippi. . .).

One of my “bestest” vocabulary-building exercises, reserved for eager-to-be-dismissed Friday afternoon students–or held in reserve for those awful condensed classes before pep rallies–was my “Roget’s.”

So simple.  Somewhat baby-ish busy work (isn’t that what I needed?  quiet time busy work?)

I distributed white three-holed college-ruled paper.

Each student (40 in a class–I had five classes) had a paperback copy of Roget’s Thesaurus [in dictionary format].  (I bought them at a discount for my classroom, as I recall, a few at a time.  Some eager students purchased their own copies.)

“Close your eyes.  Open your book anywhere.  Keep your eyes closed.  Run your finger down the page.  Stop.”

“Take your pencil or pen and begin to copy the MAIN word under your finger, then copy all the words that are under it.  Then go to ‘See also,’ and continue copying.”

“See also.”

And they could never finish before the bell, before they ran to the buses or to the gym, or to the football field or to the auditorium–or wherever.

Let’s see.  Running my finger down the page of my vade-mecum (!) Roget’s Thesaurus in Dictionary Form (hardcover, of course!), with over 17,000 individual entries, edited by Norman Lewis © 1959 Putnam’s, I open to

BOREDOM           

boredom, tedium, lack of interest, ennui, doldrums, weariness, world-weariness [pandemic?]; jadedness, apathy, lethargy, languor, lassitude, listlessness; detachment [Covid-19?], indifference,  incuriosity, unconcern [W.H.O.?], monotony, dullness [new cases, new cases, new cases?]; prosaism, vapidity, platitude, weary, pall [latest number of deaths?]; tire of, tired, blasé, perfunctory, tepid, lukewarm, monotonous, dull . . .

See also FATIGUE . . .  See also BOREDOM, INACTIVITY, REST, WEARINESS [hospitalizations?] . . .   spent, worn out, succumb . . .

. . .

Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869): British physician, natural theologian, lexicographer, created the English-language thesaurus in 1805 (released to the public in April 1852).

© JAMES F. O’NEIL  JULY 2020

 

 

 

 

“WHAT DID YOU DO IN THE WAR, DADDY?” “WERE YOU IN THE ARMY?”

February 24, 2020
ACTIVITIES, ANECDOTES, EVENTS, GROWING UP, MEMOIRS, SCHOOL/SCHOOLING
3 Comments

BY: JAMES F O’NEIL

“Many are called, but few are chosen.”

. . .

Let me tell you: My cousin Leonard was a Marine in the Pacific in WWII.  (He never told me war stories when I was young, but he showed me his samurai sword and a Japanese flag.)  My cousins Ed, Bill, and Dick were all Marines.  (They all had pretty neat tattoos.) My cousin Jim O’Neil was Army.  (When I first went into scouting, I inherited his sleeping bag.)

My brother Tom enlisted into the Navy, serving on the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown during the Vietnam War.  (He inherited Agent Orange illness.)

My brother-in-law Dave was an Army tanker.  (He patrolled in Europe during the Cold War.)  My other brother-in-law served in the USAAF long before I met his sister, my wife-to-be.  (He was based in Newfoundland.) 

My one son became an Army career officer with 30-years’ service, a bird colonel.  (He’s got medals and ribbons.)  His son, my grandson, follows in the Army.  (He moves and transports people and tanks.)  My other son learned the ways of the military in Navy ROTC in high school.  (It helped him win an Air Force scholarship.)

Me?  Here I am, how I turned out.  That’s the story here.

“Many are called but few are chosen”: I heard this mantra weekly–sometimes more than once a day–when I entered the high school seminary in Chicago in 1955.  I was fourteen years old, a 9th grader.  (At present there exist fewer than 10–maybe 5–high school seminaries in the United States.  Check Wikipedia.)

QUIGLEY SEMINARY in CHICAGO

I was marked, though, during 7th and 8th grades as one of the chosen ones to attend the “minor” seminary: high school, grades 9-12.  I was “special” to the nuns and priests.

But during this time, I still had the right toys and guns, leftovers from my Previous Age.  I lived, however, during The Cold War, The Red Menace, The Yellow Peril: the war in Indochina and the Korean War.  Additionally, I still had a close intimate cinematic relationship with William Holden in the film The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954), and with John Wayne and Kirk Douglas and old war movies and war comics.

When I was a child, I played soldier.  In high school, I planned priest-to-be.  Not quite enough time for war stories and movies, though I did manage to squeeze them in whenever I could, especially during the summer months.  Now I was, however, “putting on the armor of Christ.” I was a different kid.  Oh, I rode the city bus and had a school bus pass; I studied physics and trig, English and rhetoric, but Latin and Greek, too.  And “the spiritual life.”  Up at “oh five thirty,” church attendance, off to school-classes at 0830, and the day schedule, in the uniform of the day: suitcoat and tie (never mind that they didn’t match). 

Acne Pic of Me in High School Photo

Thus, I carried on, for four years, until college–where all changed: “You’re in the Army now!”  Well, not really.

DAILY SCHEDULE

0530 Rise

Great Silence (Magnum Silentium) until post breakfast, 0730

0800 classes until 1530

Dinner

Magnum Silentium

2230 Lights Out

[with all other duties and activities]

And so it went.

Instead of “Eat-Pray-Love” it was “Pray-Study-Pray” for the most part.  During this (college) time, I had little exposure to war-related items except for studying history or translating the Aeneid from Latin or the Iliad from the Greek.  Singing of arms and men or singing of the wrath of Achilles: it was war.

In 1962 I was able to see the film about the D-Day invasion, The Longest Day.  (I had read the book in my “free time.”)  Somehow, I was able to make my way through the great–and large book–The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960) by William Shirer. . . .

“In the world, but not of the world.”

In November 1962, I had completed full three years of “service.” At that time, I decided to leave my position of prayer and studies, turn in my “uniform” by which I was recognized: Roman collar, cassock, and my three-cornered biretta hat, with pom-pom.  No need for those items as I became part “of the world.”

Pic of Me in My Service Uniform Cassock

I left the ecclesiastical service with no regrets.  I was disappointed, at times, with myself that I did not remain longer: for more studies, for strengthening of friendships, and for a bit more maturity and discipline that I was obtaining.

DISCIPLINE: training that produces obedience or self-control, often in the form of rules.  The word “discipline” is from the Latin word disciplina meaning “instruction and training.” Discipline is to study, learn, train, and apply a system of standards.  It’s training, especially moral or character.  And, of course, rules (with “punishments”) and followers (“disciples”).  If I can use ONE word to sum up my experience in my years of training during the years of service, in preparation to go into the world to do work, that word would have to be DISCIPLINE.

Wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord–these are the gifts taught to us for us to learn as we became good soldiers.  (The last one was really inculcated during room inspection by the Dean of Men, the “Lord.”)  But by our daily lives, we were highly disciplined, made to learn organizational skills, use of time, even good manners.

I must add, though, we had no firearms, no weapons training.  We did march, sometimes, in line (not on a parade ground), stood and sat to the sound of a bell in the refectory (dining hall), had times of the Great Silence (sometimes for days at a time). 

We made our beds (racks?), a habit I continue, kept our rooms clean, our lockers in order, and our desks neat and tidy (I am not good at that today).  A luxury we did have, though, was laundry service: we dropped off and picked up weekly.  This laundry business I had to learn on my own at home after my separation.  Later, my new wife, thankfully, knew all the intricacies of “whites, lights, and darks” –which I soon mastered, and later taught to our boys when they were able to learn this discipline.

And that, basically, is the end of my story.  That’s all that I’m going to say about it, some sixty years later.  Writing this, I have a tiny inkling of what a WWII Mustang fighter pilot must feel when answering questions about his war exploits or war record during the time of his years of service, no matter how long or short.  “What was it like?” “Were you ever scared?”  “Are you glad you joined the Army Air Force?”  “Any regrets about leaving the service?”

These are some actual questions that I have asked fighter pilots whom I have met in the not-so-distant past.   On the other hand, I have many of my own “war stories,” as it were, memoriesofatime, that I can share about my time together with classmates in hallowed halls, classmates who still reminisce about “duty stations” (classes and work details), “officers” (deans), the “general” (the rector); “S.O.S.” (creamed chipped beef on toast).  But I am not so naïve to make comparisons, to say that academia was completely like military service.

Though, at times, recalling an instance or event that I lived through, I’ll comment, “That’s no different from the Army way.”  And so it goes.

Was I ever in the Army?  Nah.  But note that I did have a draft card when I turned 18. . . .  “Many are called, but few are chosen.”  Some of my “comrades in arms” were called and chosen . . . some have already “slipped the surly bonds of earth.”  

©  JAMES F O’NEIL  2020    

 

 

 

 

LATINITY REDUX

November 19, 2019
ACTIVITIES, ANECDOTES, EDUCATION AND LEARNING, READING, SCHOOL/SCHOOLING
4 Comments

BY:  JAMES F. O’NEIL

Omne agens agit propter finem.  “Every agent [doer] acts for an end.” —Scholastic Philosophy Principle

I bought another Latin book.  I couldn’t help it.  My wife thinks I am obsessed.  “You’re obsessed.”  OBSESS = to preoccupy the mind; to have the mind excessively preoccupied with a single emotion or topic [from the Latin ob + sedere: to sit, beset, occupy].  OBSESSION = compulsive preoccupation with a fixed idea or an unwanted feeling or emotion (often accompanied by symptoms of anxiety); a compulsive, often unreasonable idea, or emotion.

I wrote on 11-30-2018 “Everybody’s Dead Language: Latinity” –that I was still Latinized (q.v. = “which see”:  https://memoriesofatime.blog/2018/11/30/everybodys-dead-language-latinity/).  I also cited in that blog “How’s Your Latin?  Or, Sleeping with the Enemy”: https://memoriesofatime.blog/2013/11/08/hows-your-latin-or-sleeping-with-the-enemy/  which I posted on 11-08-2013. 

Now I don’t go around in my life obsessed with Latin or searching for Latinity.  Really?  Mens sana in corpore sano.  “A healthy mind in a healthy body” wrote Juvenal.

* * *

I was visiting Pewaukee, Wisconsin, celebrating my sister’s 80th birthday.  One thing we did was she had me take her to her favorite re-sale store, Saint Vincent De Paul.

 

 

She told me of its generous book section.  Oh, yes!  I devoured the eye-candy of pages and book covers, shelves, and shelves: fiction, history, geography, biography, and much more.

Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur.  “Whatever is received is received in the manner of the receiver.” –Aquinas.  I was ready to receive: I was in a good mood, looking through the books for sale.  Then, to my obsessive-compulsive delight, I glommed onto Second Latin.

Oooh, I had to have that nearly pristine copy, for $1.09.  A second-year Latin grammar course book for those who needed “to intelligently read Latin textbooks of philosophy, theology, and canon law.”  I did that many years ago.  Why not review for old times’ sake?  I looked around for its companion copy, Latin Grammar; but, alas, it wasn’t to be found there.

When I returned home, I searched online: “Used.  Like new.”  “The aim and scope of Scanlon’s Latin Grammar are to prepare those with no previous knowledge of Latin to read the Missal and Breviary with reasonable facility.  Unlike most First Year Latin textbooks, it is not an introduction to the reading of Caesar.”  I placed an order.

* * *

Sic transit Gloria mundi.  “Thus passes the glory of the world.”  –Anon

At home: Once more I pulled out the black cardboard file box from my bookshelf.  Once more I fingered the Manila folders: my teacher certification materials; copies of letters of recommendation; hiring letters and contracts.  And there my high school, college, and graduate school course transcripts noting Latin Composition, Horace Odes and Epodes, Cicero’s Letters, Patristic Latin, Survey of Latin Literature, and something called Advanced Latin Reading.

Where did all that Latin take me?  I read, memorized, and learned.  I remember and retain some–enough–to make my way:  De gustibus non disputandum est.  “There can be no dispute in matters of taste.” –Anon.  Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.  “Remember, man, you are dust, and into dust you shall return.” –Roman Catholic, Ash Wednesday Ritual.  Bonum ex integra causa, malum ex quocumque defectu. “It’s good because it is integrally good, but it is ‘evil’ by way of any defect.”   Dionysius/Aquinas.  Bis vivit qui bene vivit.  “He lives twice who lives well.” –Anon.  Omnia vincit amor.  Amor vincit omnia.  “Love conquers all.” –Virgil

Blogging about my Latin experiences has certainly borne out my theme of memoriesofatime.  My blogging is a show-n-tell experience, a revealing that is most often a delight, letting others in on the story.  But aside from telling about my Life of Latinity, what about these new Latin books?  Cui bono?  “What good?”  Into my library, of course.   There they will remain, ready.  (“They also serve who only stand and wait.” –Milton)  

 

“I KNOW IT’S IN HERE SOMEWHERE!”

And that’s it.  For, as they say, Quod scripsi, scripsi.

© JAMES F. O’NEIL  2019

ADDENDUM/ADDENDA

In 1993, I found the Latin Phrase Book (1990 Rpt. of 1982 ed.).  A Longwood Academic reprint book, a translation (1894) by H. W. Auden of Fettes College (Edinburgh)–not W. H. Auden, the poet–from the sixth German edition of Lateinische Phraseologie by Professor Carl Meissner, organized into seventeen topics, with Latin and English indices.  This fascinating book was compiled to “help boys–not girls? –to some knowledge of Latinity in a short time . . .”  A most delightful, resourceful, and difficult book to work with–but to have . . .

Jon R. Stone attempted to “exorcise the ghosts of a Dead Language” with Latin for the Illiterati (Routledge, 1996, 2009).  A reference work, not a dictionary, but rather “a compendium of words, expressions, familiar sayings, abbreviations, with an English-Latin Index.  Pages of abbreviations (which is quite good).  This book sometimes shouts out to me, “Fac ut gaudeam!” “Make my day!

A Primer of Ecclesiastical Latin by John F. Collins (Catholic U. of America, 1985) is a book I wish I had in my young hands in 1955.  How it makes so much sense to study the language of philosophy, theology, prayer, and liturgy.  While we were engaged in those subjects, we were still learning and reading the Latin of Cicero and Horace, not that of Jerome or the writings of Scripture.  In this book, the vocabulary, readings, and exercises all are relevant “Church” Latin.  “The chief aim of this text is to give the student–within a year of study–the ability to read ecclesiastical Latin.”

Cora Scanlon and Charles Scanlon wrote one text in 1944 (Latin Grammar) for different groups of users of Church Latin: seminarians, religious novitiates, and other daily users of the Latin Roman Missal.  The book was reprinted in 1976.  That same year they published a reprint of their 1948 text Second Latin.  This work is for second-year students who will study Church philosophy and theology.  The first text has a 125-page vocabulary-dictionary.  Both works make me sad: that I/we did not have them made available to us when learning our Latin prayers and beginning our Latin studies.

My New Latin Grammar by Charles E. Bennett is the 1957 edition.  The first edition, “presenting the essential facts of Latin grammar in a direct and simple manner,” dates to 1894.  (Allyn & Bacon, 1957 [1895, 1908, 1918]).  My third-year Latin book–my junior year in high school.  In sophomore year we used a book called the Epitome, a Latin edition of the book of Genesis.  (I learned then that the Creation of Adam began in 4004 B.C. . . .).

 

Descriptive

NEW [1894] LATIN GRAMMAR

-30-

“COMMENCE!”

June 8, 2019
ACTIVITIES, ANECDOTES, EMOTIONS, EVENTS, MEMOIRS, RITE/RITUAL, SCHOOL/SCHOOLING
5 Comments

BY: JAMES F. O’NEIL

“Begin, commence, start, initiate, inaugurate, usher in, mean to take the first step in a course, process, or operation.  [Begin, start, and commence are often interchangeable.]

https://apps.npr.org/commencement/   The Best Commencement Speeches, Ever.  “Looking for some new words of wisdom?  Check out our hand-picked selection of commencement addresses, going back to 1774.  Search over 350 speeches by name, school, date, or theme.”

“Commencement”: Often referred to as “Graduation,” the Commencement ceremony is just that, a ceremony.  It is an end-of-spring semester celebration for students projected to successfully complete all their graduation requirements by the end of that Spring or Summer semester.  Confirmation of degree completion does not take place until official grades are posted.  “Graduation”: The term in which one has officially and successfully completed all of graduation requirements

I never gave a commencement address.  The closest I came took place in 1982.  The high school principal called me to help with graduation.  “Of course I will!”  I was a senior teacher.  I thought, This is finally it! My Big Show!  I’ve been waiting since 1955!

The only address I gave to the Class of 1982 was my shout at the top of my voice during that commencement rehearsal.  “SENIORS!  QUIET DOWN!!”  (I may have said, shouted, screamed, bellowed out–as I tried to maintain order as they practiced for the upcoming ceremony.)

If I recall, the guest speaker was a newspaper columnist-humorist.  I couldn’t humor those seniors as he did.  But I did have a speech ready for them, parts from a favorite essay I had (still have) from then-Chicago Tribune writer Bob Greene.  He had written a piece–“1964” –for Esquire, highlighting his work on keeping a journal for one year, capturing those memories of the times to look back upon (which he wrote he still did from time to time).  It was about his 17th year, 1964, recorded in one journal.

I wish I had written that.  I wish I had written those words, so that I could give the class a commencement speech: “Don’t Forget What We Did Here for You!  Write It Down!” (Is anybody out there even listening to me?)  But, to paraphrase Thoreau, writing About is not what interests us at the time; it’s the Experiencing that’s important.  (Bob Greene wrote in 1987 Be Good to Your School.  I wish I had written that, too.)

I participated in my first graduation in 1955 in Chicago, from 8th grade.  Then off to high school (graduation), college (graduation), master’s (graduation), and all those other ceremonies I attended robed in regalia while a teacher in an audience or on a stage–or during those seven years as a school administrator, dressed in “civvies,” patrolling halls and parking lots, or getting after noisy guests or silly graduates, or even fixing stage lights or curtains, or…or…providing water for the honored guest speaker.  Even locking up the gymnasium doors Post Commencement.

Nonetheless, I was never a commencement speaker.  I never gave that address:

De Paul University Colors [not me pictured] White: Liberal Arts

“Madame President, Members of the Board of Trustees, Distinguished Guests, Honorees, and Faculty; Parents, Friends, and Relatives.  And Graduates of the Class of 20__.  I thank you for asking me to come before you today, on this auspicious occasion….  WOW!  Look at all this color and flowers and the proud people in the audience.”

No, I never spoke for the graduates of West Point, the US Military Academy.

WEST POINT GRADUATION [without tassels]

I really wanted to tell them about the graduate who asked me, “Now what?”  And I would tell them What.  About luck, good fortune, life not being fair.  (They knew that already.)  “Reminder: Hard Work Pays Off!”  Maybe.  I would not be cynical.  I would be uplifting, edifying, funny, pleasant, grandfather-ly.  The wise old…what do I know about…anything?  Watch for it.  Here it comes: “Graduates.  Be flexible.  Be ready.  Be like the Coast Guard: Semper Paratus: ‘Always Ready, Always Prepared.’”  For?  The low ball, high pitch, fast ball, Hail-Mary Pass, missed putt, end run, unexpected, from out of nowhere.

Graduations, commencement times, are sad-happy times for me.  Since that 1955 time, as participant and observer, I’ve marched to “Pomp and Circumstance” (still brings chills, Mr. Elgar–and memoriesofatime).  I’ve listened to beautiful Palestrina choral pieces.  I’ve listened to names being called (in the thousands, I’m sure), speeches given (both enlightening and terribly boring), recognitions being awarded (I cannot recall ever being specialed-out for anything); trophies, certificates, diplomas, pins, books,  medals, and money-scholarships being handed out.

But after all is done, and rooms and halls are emptied, the work begins: the graduates must “commence” their lives now that a tassel has been moved.  Some will fail; we all have failures.  Great success will come to a few, as it should.  “That’s the way it is!” I would have told them.

And so , I may have never given a commencement address, may never have had to worry about preparing a speech, or needing a glass of water, or may never have had my tassel swing in front of my eyes–back and forth, back and forth–as I spoke.  (How annoying!)

Yet, overall, I’ve had my share of positions before the public, before audiences, and have even given a church sermon!  Yet there lingers within me a tiny bit of “missing-ness”: Never having been able to say, “And so, Graduates, in conclusion, therefore, good luck to you all!  Now go and commence!”

UNION HALL LA TROBE UNIVERSITY [before commencement exercises]

© James F. O’Neil 2019

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