Acrid & Its Sad Pals

ACRID
— a sharp or harsh or unpleasantly pungent in taste or odor . Pungent
— deeply or violently bitter

ACRIMONY
anger and bitterness : harsh or biting sharpness especially of words, manner, or feelings

ACRIMONIOUS
The adjective form: angry and bitter, biting, caustic in feeling., language or manner

John sat in the café, nursing his coffee, needing someone to talk to. I was wiping tables nearby so I was the designated listener, and glad to let him spill it in his soft-spoken way. I knew him as a sensitive man, perhaps somewhat inclined to melancholy, and I gathered that John had been broken by the acrimony of his divorce.

He was a farmer, as a young husband he’d been trying to get ahead in an occupation which demands long hours in the fields at times. That was one thing his ex-wife apparently complained about. Yes, he’d probably neglected the family at times, trusting in that “someday” when he’d have more time for the important people in our lives. Don’t we all?

He told me how much he’d loved her when they were newlyweds, but times had gotten tough. He couldn’t always give her all the money she wanted to spend. She evidently became bitter; in court she’d torn him apart, building her case on an acrid exaggeration of all his faults.

I listened and sympathized. He seemed like a decent man. But I realized I was only getting his side.

Origin:
borrowed from Middle French acrimonie, from Latin ācrimōnia, a word formed from ācr-, ācer meaning “sharp, biting, keen” + –mōnia, the suffix for abstract nouns.

A Prayer

Floral by Luciana Silva — Pixabay

Lord grant me, I pray,
Courage when the best things fail me,
Calm and poise when storms assail me,
Commonsense when things perplex me,
Sense of humour when they vex me,
Hope when disappointments damp me,
Wider vision when life cramps me,
Kindness when folk need it badly,
Readiness to help them gladly,
And when effort seems in vain
Wisdom to begin again.

From The Friendship Book of Francis Gay, 1981

Free

Here’s another simple, old word that people have had a hard time defining properly, as G.K. Chesterton explains in this statement about FREE LOVE:

It is common to meet nowadays men who talk of what they call “Free Love” as if it were something like Free Silver…some new and ingenious political scheme…
Free Love as been going on in every town and village since the beginning of the world; and the first fact that every man of the world knows about it is plain enough. It never does produce any of the wild purity and perfect freedom its friends attribute to it.

From The Wit and Wisdom of G.K. Chesterton

Free is another well traveled word, coming from the Old English frēo; akin to Old High German frī , Welsh rhydd, and tracing back to the Sanskrit word priya, meaning own, or dear.

Love

I want to share a poem about LOVELINESS soon; of course the root word here is LOVE, and I got curious about the origins of this word we hear so often.

Everyone has a pretty good idea what the word LOVE means, though some people use it to season their discussions the way diners use pepper as a seasoning on food. I heard about a young woman getting a gentle reproof about this one day:
A young wife was talking to friends some item she liked, and enthusiastically gushed, “I just love it!”
An old grandma was among those listening and responded with some wise words: “Don’t love things. Love something that can love you back.”

And folks really get off course when they call it LOVE when it’s really infatuation or obsession:
A divorced and bitter woman, legally restrained from viciously stalking her ex and his new wife, sought the help of a psychiatrist. Explaining her obsession, she wailed, “But I love him! I can’t live without him.”
The psychiatrist bluntly replied, “That’s not love. That’s being a parasite.”

Love is one of the simplest and oldest in our English language. According to both dictionaries LOVE goes way…way…back — to the old English lufu, akin to the Old German luba. And this comes down, according to Lexico, “from an Indo-European root shared by Sanskrit: lubhyati, or “desires.”

Like ourselves, it has descended from the peoples who spread out after the biblical Tower of Babel episode. Perhaps, as the old grandma suggested, we should handle it more respectfully.

Image by sathyatripodi — Pixabay

Your Smiling Face

A Friend’s Smiling Face

Author Unknown

There is a place I like to go
Whenever I’m feeling
Lonely or sad–
A place of sunshine,
Laughter and love
That always leaves me
Feeling glad.
There I share my secrets,
Hopes and fears,
For this warm, inviting place–
Always waiting, always welcoming–
is found in my friend’s smiling face.
The world is a more beautiful place
because of friends like you.