Thanks, Sheila, Doug.
Wasn’t sure whether ‘smitten’ was the right word but checked with
Merriam-Webster and feel justified.
Smite comes from an Old English word meaning “to smear or defile,” and the
meanings of the word continued to have negative connotations as the word
moved from Old English to Middle English and on to Early Modern English.
Most of its meanings over the centuries have had to do with striking,
hitting, injuring, punishing, or afflicting someone. The following is a
very partial list of the kinds of things people were getting smitten with
in books in the first half of the 17th century: leprosy, death, the plague,
blindness, fear, sorrow, remorse, a most stinking and vile disease, ulcers,
boils, the sword, fiery darts from heaven, the pox, barrenness, angels,
God’s displeasure/hand/scourges/rod/terrible thunderbolts/wrath.
Cheers,
Bill
On Wed, 12 Dec 2018 at 8:49 am, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Ha: I read it first as ‘slaughter’ in the subject line, Bill.
>
> But the actual piece catches something there, how it occurs…
>
> Doug
>
> > On Dec 11, 2018, at 2:25 PM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >
> > There’s an American laugh
> >
> >
> > A wordless hilarity-burst
> >
> > anywhere you go in Europe
> >
> > You just know when it starts up
> >
> > the words that follow
> >
> > will not be French
> >
> > or Spanish or Portuguese
> >
> >
> > It hangs
> >
> > in the smitten air
> >
> > welcome
> >
> > as cigar smoke
> >
> >
> > bw
> >
> > ########################################################################
> >
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>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
> https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>
> Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuations
> 2 (UofAPress).
> Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
> Listen. If (UofAPress):
>
>
> Oh, goddamnit, we forgot the silent prayer.
>
> Dwight D, Eisenhower
> [at a cabinet meeting]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ########################################################################
>
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