Supercilious

Lets get back to our roots here.  I haven’t done a good “Definitional” post in a while.

Today was exciting.  I started reading a new book.  Going to get a new book is one of my favorite things, especially when it is pretty much only new to me because it happens to be considered a classic.  I chose this book because the New York Times pointed out to me (in this article: Celebrate Banned Books) that it is frequently placed on “banned book” lists.  Another website (Banned Books Reasons) shows you reasons and times various classics were banished.  Its pretty interesting.  Seems like a lot of the time it has something to do with the book containing some *cough* sexually explicit content *cough* 🙂

Anywho, I will no longer leave you in suspense as to what book I chose.  This is how it was listed on the website mentioned above:

Sophie’s Choice, William Styron

Banned in South Africa in 1979. Returned to La Mirada High School library (CA) in 2002 after a complaint about its sexual content prompted the school to pull the award-winning novel about a tormented Holocaust survivor.

Just so you know, I’m only 11 pages into the book so far.  I just picked it up a few hours ago.  YET, I can already tell I’m going to love this book.  It has a vocabulary that will supply me with fodder for this blog until …well, until the unfortunate day when I give up blogging.  Fear not, that day is a long ways off my friends.

SO, to the word that caught my eye within those first eleven pages and has been rolling around in my head for the last few hours.  Supercilious.  Dictionary.com, my go-to for all things definitional, describes the word this way:

adjective — haughtily disdainful or contemptuous, as a person or a facial expression.

Honestly, when I first read it I had strong hopes that this word would mean something along the lines of “extremely silly.”  For such a fun word to say, it has a rather negative purpose in the English language.  Granted, I figured it meant as much in the context it was used in the book.  This author has a rather sarcastic and biting wit.  The exact reason I’m already in love with it.  I’ll be sure to keep you posted on how I end up liking the book, as well as what other fascinating words crop up.  I almost spent this post on the word “japery.”  I’ll let you look that one up, if you’re so inclined.  I promise its worth it…because then you can incorporate it into your own vocabulary and use it when you feel like you absolutely don’t want to be understood.

Oh, and apparently Meryl Streep was in the movie version of Sophie’s Choice.  Don’t cheat though, you should always read the book first.

Endorph…what?

Okay, so I’m having a pretty decent day today.  The weather is abso-freakin-lutely fantastic!!  I loooove fall.  So, I went on a walk/jog today and am now on a kind of high for the rest of the day.  I’ve generally come to know that is due to these things in our brain called endorphins.  I looked up endorphins on wikipedia, and the first sentence describing what they are said the following:

“Endorphins (“endogenous morphine”) are endogenous opioid peptides that function as neurotransmitters.”

Um, I thought wikipedia was supposed to make things more understandable?  Yikes.

The next sentence had this delightful explanation:

“They are produced by the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus invertebrates during exercise,^[2] excitement, pain, consumption of spicy food and orgasm,^[3][4] and they resemble the opiates in their abilities to produce analgesia and a feeling of well-being.”

I have to say, I’m liking that spicy food is listed as one of the instigators of the production of endorphins.  Every other thing listed on there relates to some sort of physical activity, so its good to know that just eating spicy food can trigger the same neurotransmitters as exercise.  Then again, so can excitement.  I wonder…can it be any kind of excitement?  Does anxiety count?  I usually consider feeling anxious and excited as feelings that normally go hand in hand.  Maybe if I ever meet a scientist who specializes in this stuff, I’ll ask him/her.

Here is wikipedia’s (most likely inadequate) explanation for a runner’s high:

“Endorphins are released during long, continuous workouts, when the level of intensity is between moderate and high, and breathing is difficult. This also corresponds with the time that muscles use up their stored glycogen. During a release of endorphins the person may be exposed to bodily harm from strenuous bodily functions after going past their body’s physical limit. This means that runners can keep running despite pain, continuously surpassing what they once considered to be their limit.”

That makes it sound like endorphins are the body’s way of coping with a stubborn person’s refusal to listen to its body and quit running.  Kind of explains the whole marathon thing.  All those people are pushing their bodies past their physical limit due to the power of endorphins.  In other words, there is a neurotransmitter that we all came equipped with that allows us to trick even our own bodies into believing we can do things that we shouldn’t be able to do normally, because this little neurotransmitter tricks the brain into believing the body is ok.

Note:  That is probably an extreme simplification, and is most likely incorrect.  Please don’t harass me about                        my medical/technical/scientific stupidity.

Well, I think I like those endorphins.  I mean, they are probably the only thing that will ever allow me to become a runner.  Lord knows my body rejects the notion out of hand!

Surf & Stop!

Do you ever, through a series of clicks, wind up at something surprisingly new on the internet?  One thing always seems to lead to another, until all at once the clicking must stop because you have arrived at a page worth pondering.  Such is the nature of the topic I stumbled upon today.

Hypergamy:  (colloquially referred to as marrying up) is the act or practice of seeking a spouse of equal or higher socioeconomic status, or castestatus than oneself.

but wait…wikipedia has a more thorough explanation…

“The term is often used more specifically in reference to a widespread tendency amongst human cultures for females to seek or be encouraged to pursue male suitors that are comparatively older, wealthier or otherwise more privileged than themselves.^[2] Hypergamic behaviours can be explained in terms of genetic economic necessity, in which societies with high levels of gender inequality are more likely to have women who “marry-up” for the benefit of their children, and more likely to have men who “marry-down” to ensure that their mates have a higher incentive to remain faithful.^[3]“

This could easily be ascribed generally to the behavior of “gold diggers” but I would caution you to broaden your horizons and not totally throw this “hypergamy” out with the bathwater.  Think about it.  True, there are the stereotypes that fit this definition to the max and are categorically chastised for it by being labeled “gold diggers” and Kanye even wrote a song about them.  But pause … and consider the pervasiveness of this one rather innocuous word in American society.

Genetic Economic Necessity; in other words, based on your genetic gene pool (coming out boy vs. girl) creates an economic NEED to marry either above or below the station that person was randomly born into.  This is kind of blowing my mind for some reason.  Obviously it is not a novel concept, but based on the total randomness with which we come into this world there is an automatic economic price affixed to our persons.  Based on that immediate circumstance labeling, men may need to marry a woman of lower status to “ensure their mates have a higher incentive to remain faithful.”

Okay, side note, I think this word’s definition is sexist.  I know, a big DUH goes there.  Still, the definition leaves no room for the possibility that a man would ever want to marry into a higher social class.  I mean, we all know men are totally faithful and its women who constantly cheat (please note the massive amount of sarcasm that is meant to be overflowing in the immediately preceding sentence).  I looked up the definition of hypergamy in dictionary.com, which limited its definition strictly to Hinduism.

This word baffles me, and in several ways offends me.  I think you can tell why I am so intrigued by it.  Gets me all riled up.

Alright, I think thats enough confusion for now.  Tune in next time when I will attempt to write something coherent!