Dungeon of Death

Romantic that I am, last week I took my wife for her birthday to a dungeon. 

Astride a tiny island in the Delaware River, Fort Delaware is a tragedy-lover's must-see.

Built in 1859, it was one of 42 coastal citadels commissioned by the US government in the wake of the War of 1812, when the British torched Washington, DC. 

The fort was, in fact, the largest of the 42 built—and the largest fort in America at its completion.

Like most of those forts, Fort Delaware was never used to repel an invader. 

But during the Civil War it was used as an enormous prison, housing "at the urgent invitation of Mr. Lincoln" over 33,000 Rebel captives.

To get a sense of prison life at Fort Delaware in 1863, you only have to hear the nickname of the fort's fearsome commander.

Austrian Army-trained, General Albin Schoepf—known to his enemies as "General Terror"—helped cement Fort Delaware's grisly reputation.

Throughout the South, it was referred to as "Hell on Earth" and the American version of the "Black Hole of Calcutta."

General Schoeph had a good reason to act terribly: his garrison of 250 troops, detailed as guards, was vastly outnumbered. 

To keep the Rebel prisoners in line, the general used cruelty—and permitted his soldiers to use it as well. 

Hanging a prisoner by his thumbs, even for a minor infraction, was a particularly popular technique among the Union guards. 

"I cannot comprehend that species which makes use of authority to torture helpless prisoners of war," one Confederate prisoner wrote of General Schoepf at the time.

Cruelty was by no means proprietary to Schoepf and his men. 

Retaliatory maltreatment of Rebel prisoners was favored by the majority of Northern citizens, and was practiced in other prisoner-of-war camps, such as Camp Douglas in Chicago. 

One historian has attributed Northerners' attitude to "war psychosis."

Far more terrible than General Schoepf, however, was Mother Nature. 

She killed 3,000 of the fort's inhabitants. 

Her favorite techniques were smallpox, measles, tuberculosis, dysentery, diarrhea, typhoid, malaria, scurvy, pneumonia, and erysipelas, a torturous skin infection.

In a show of humanity, General Schoepf was always quick to remove the dead from the prison population. 

He buried all 3,000 of the dead on the shore opposite Fort Delaware, in a New Jersey marshland.

It wouldn't be the last time a New Jersey marsh would be used for that purpose. 

But that's another story.

Above: Vaulted Ceilings, Fort Delaware. Photo by Robert Francis James, 2021. Interior of Fort Delaware. Photo by John L. Gihon, 1868.

An Exercise in Gobbledygook

Anything is better than not to write clearly.

— Somerset Maugham

"Dear Neighbors," the 16-page letter begins.

The author, Jean Wodnicki, say she hopes to advise Champlain Towers residents of the "state of the building," because answering their pesky questions has become an annoyance and "all-consuming." 

The issue at hand: a repairs estimate for $15 million. The homeowners association, over which she presides, has almost no money.

Three long, boring paragraphs in, Wodnicki notes that the building's state is lousy and "has gotten significantly worse" since the estimate was received. 

It appears the pillars are "spalling."

I've read Wodnicki's letter—sent three months before last week's collapse of Champlain Towers South—and can only say don't ever send a letter like this.

Anything is better than not to write clearly.

Monday-morning quarterbacking is easy; but were I to have written Wodnicki's letter, I might have opened it like this:

Dear Neighbors,

We have talked for years about the need to repair our crumbling building. There's no more time for talk. Now is the time to proceed. The repair will cost $15 million. Because there is little cash on hand, all of us will have to pony up.

With the benefit of clairvoyance, I would have added a second lead-in paragraph:

Dear Neighbors,

We have talked for years about the need to repair our crumbling building. There's no more time for talk. Now is the time to proceed. The repair will cost $15 million. Because there is little cash on hand, all of us will have to pony up. 

If we don't pony up, 150 of us will be crushed to death in three months. That's painful—much more painful than finding the money.

Clairvoyance or not, I would have made sure the letter fit on one side of a piece of paper, and that readers understood by the close that the repairs must commence—immediately.

Jean Wodnicki's letter is an extended exercise in gobbledygook sandwiched in self-pity.

“An honest tale speeds best being plainly told," Shakespeare said.

Don't ever send a letter like this.

Fossils

The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson famously called language "fossil poetry."

Like a seaside cliff, he said, language comprises fossilized images—out-of-date tropes that have "long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin."

Some words are obsolete except when we use them in idioms. 

Linguists, too, call these words "fossils."

We'd never use them otherwise—and don't even know what the words mean.

A bumper

A few examples include:

Bumper. We're comfortable saying, "Farmers enjoyed a bumper crop last season," but we'd never say, "Everyone, raise your bumper!" A bumper was a 17th-century tavern glass, so called because a drinker would bump it down on the bar when offering a toast. First, however, the barkeep had to fill it to the brim with grog. The word eventually became synonymous with "voluminous."

A spiked horseshoe

Roughshod. We say, "The backfield ran roughshod over the defense," but we'd never say, "The players were roughshod in Adidas." In the 16th century, roughshod referred to spiked horseshoes. The spikes improved traction, but were brutal on fallen infantry when the cavalry overran them. With the addition of "run," the word came to mean to "clobber" or "punish."

A pinking

Pinking. We're comfortable saying, "My pinking shears have orange handles," but we'd never say, "I was pretty drunk when I got this pinking." A 17-century word, a pinking was a decoration on a body part—in other words, a tattoo (to pink someone meant to "pierce" him). To prevent bad luck, sailors in the British navy would cover themselves with "pinkings," but the word over time came to refer only to the tool we use to add decorative edges to cloth.

Wend. We say, "I'll wend my way home," but we'd never say, "I'll wend to the office on Monday." The verb wend, meaning to "go," dates to the 13th century, when people wended everywhere—the field, the barn, the privy, the square, the church, the market, the castle, the theater—but today we only "wend our way." We never just wend.

Full of sleight

Sleight. We'd readily say, "McConnell performed a sleight of hand this week," but we'd never say, "McConnell is full of sleight." Sleight is a 14th-century word that meant "cleverness," "nimbleness," "cunning," or "trickery." It was the latter sense from which we got the idiom sleight of hand.

Lots of words that grow obsolete never fossilize; they merely fade. A few examples are:

Sockdolager. We'd say an incomparable person was an "original," but in the 19th century she'd be a sockdolager. (Sockdolager was the last word Lincoln ever heard spoken.)

Pumblechook

Pumblechook. We'd call Bernie Madoff a "crook," but in the 19th century he'd be a pumblechook. The word came from Great Expectations, where Dickens described the despicable character Uncle Pumblechook as the "basest of swindlers."

Shoddyocracy. We'd say, "Champlain Towers is shoddy," but we'd never say, "Florida is home to the shoddyocracy." In the 19th century, an entire class of people enriched themselves by selling shoddy merchandise. Newspapers gave these pumblechooks a collective name: the shoddyocracy.

Shrift. Before they were executed, 14th-century felons were permitted a shrift—a confession to a priest. But it had to be brief, so the mob's entertainment wasn't delayed. We still know the word from the idiom short shrift, which means "little to no consideration." But the word has otherwise faded from use.

Morphiated. Cocaine and morphine abuse were common in the 19th century (think of Sigmund Freud and Sherlock Holmes). A user who we'd say is "stoned" was in the 19th century morphiated. I would not feel so all alone: everybody must get morphiated.

Linguists used to believe words had a shelf-life of from 8,000 to 9,000 years; but, as they have recently discovered, 23 fossil words are truly ancient—more than 15,000 years old. One study calls these words, preserved for millennia with "remarkable fidelity," ultraconserved.

Deriving from "Proto-Eurasiatic"—humanity's first language—the ultraconserved words include mother, brother, man, fire, ashes, and worm.

That last word sounds fishy to me.

The Suspense is Killing Me

On a technical note, Google will suspend its Blogger email delivery service on Wednesday. (Blogger is the platform I use for Goodly.)

Beginning July, Goodly subscribers will receive emails from me weekly. 

Each will contain links to my newest posts.

Sadly, several great blogs that I read have decided to shutter due to Google's short-sighted move.

The lesson for content producers: don't build your house on "rented" land.

Why Google is suspending Blogger's email delivery service is a mystery, until you realize that shareholders are nervous about the company's profitability.

It's plowing billions into more servers and "moonshots" such as the driverless car—billions it may never earn back.

Will Blogger go on the cost-cutting block next?

Above: Paranoia by Gregory Guy. Acrylic on canvas. 24 x 18 inches.

Time to Choose

If we're to avoid a fascistic America, Democrats have to choose.

The letter E or the letter U?

Will we defend or defund the police?

Yesterday, my wife and I drove through a dicey part of Wilmington at dusk.

It was Friday and summery, the sweet twilight air the proverbial "balm for the soul." 

All the neighbors were out of their rowhouses, gathered on the stoops and street corners and in front of the packaged goods stores.

On one empty corner, we saw a lone uniformed cop in a centurion-like pose.

He was keeping the peace as best he could.

He didn't look happy.

I wouldn't have his job for the world.

But I'd readily fund his salary—and the salaries of hundreds of more young centurions.

Armed gangs this week have turned Wilmington into Dodge City.

Yesterday, the mayor met with residents to condemn the killing of a 14-year-old on Tuesday and seek advice for ending gun violence.

Twenty other people have been shot in the past 25 days. 

If three more are shot next week, a new city record will be set for most shootings in a month.

And it's only June.

The mayor wants Delaware to repeal the state's open-carry law and plans to pump $55 million unto new streetlights and surveillance cameras.

Why not more cops?

Shootings across the country have become more lethal and brash.

Shooters no longer care if they're seen by witnesses; snitches are nonexistent; community organizers have taken to crouching in the hallways; and handguns have become as common as sneakers.

Why would we defund the police—worsening the bloodbath while we pave the road for Trump.

Democrats have to choose. Now.

They have to take a chance on a letter.