by Roseanna White | Sep 29, 2014 | Word of the Week
As I’m sitting here blurry-eyed and sore-throated (sure, that’s a word) after my trip to the ACFW Conference, I seriously considered skipping my Word of the Week post and doing a recap of the conference.
Then, of course, my brain went, “Recap…hmm. I don’t think I’ve ever looked that up…” So I did.
Recap is a shortened form of recapitulate, dating from 1920. Recapitulate, in turn, is a back-formation of recapitulation from 1560. So, of course, I have to look up recapitulation. It comes from Old French and arrived in English in the 14th century so is o-l-d OLD! It has a very literal meaning of “go over the main points of a thing again; restate by heads or chapters.”
Then of course I had to wonder at why capitulation and recapitulation have rather different meanings, despite just adding that “re.” It’s because capitulation originally meant “an agreement.” As in, one drawn up in heads or chapters. It wasn’t until the mid-17th century that the meaning narrowed to “terms of surrender.”
As for my recap…I’ll do that my other blogging days this week. 😉 When, hopefully, my throat is no longer sore and my eyes no longer blurry. 😉
by Roseanna White | Sep 25, 2014 | Uncategorized
It’s conference time! And I’m heading out dark and early this morning to head to St. Louis for the ACFW Conference, where I’ll be representing WhiteFire Publishing.
If you’re going to be there, be sure to stop in and say hi! I’m presenting a Spotlight On session tonight and taking appointments Friday and Saturday.
Looking forward to visiting with everyone…and to having meals put before me, LOL.
I’ll be back on Monday!
by Roseanna White | Sep 24, 2014 | 17th-19th Centuries, Remember When Wednesdays
Hey look at me, actually remembering that I should blog on Wednesdays. 😉 In fact, I’m blogging twice. I have a post up on Colonial Quills today too.
It’s short and sweet and visual, so I thought I’d direct you that way, for a glimpse at some Colonial American art. Take a peek!
by Roseanna White | Sep 22, 2014 | Word of the Week
So, my husband made what I deem an incredible etymology discovery this weekend. That isle and island are completely unrelated words, from different roots.
Color me baffled.
The world island was originally spelled yland, and appeared in 1590…to replace the Old English igland. This spelling is taken from ieg, a word influenced by Proto-Germanic, which means “thing on the water” LOL.
The spelling changed from yland to island in 1590, however, because of the word isle.
Isle is from the French isle, which in turn traces its roots to the Latin insula. So, the same meaning, but one Latin root and one German, and they sounded the same…hence, I suppose, why ye Older English folk decided to spell them the same too. Thereby confusing the following generations into thinking them indelibly related. 😉
by Roseanna White | Sep 18, 2014 | Remember When Wednesdays, Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
This past weekend, I was in Annapolis. Strolling old, familiar streets, laughing with old, familiar friends. Striding across rain-dampened grass that I’ve darted over many a time, struggling to keep a book-laden bag on my shoulder.
Now, homecoming is every year, but this is the first we’ve gone. Because it was our 10th. Ten years! Gracious, that makes me feel old, LOL. But as we sat on the Quad, browsed through the bookstore, and watched the truly spectacular Star-Spangled Fireworks light up the sky over back campus, I realized it didn’t matter how long we’d been gone–there’s something about St. John’s that never leaves you.
The event was over the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Ft. McHenry in Baltimore, the battle that “The Star-Spangled Banner” commemorates–because Francis Scott Key was an alumnus, thank you very much. =) One of our most famous, but…well, then again we can also claim the creator of MacGuyver. In fact, he received an award at the banquet this year. So yeah. FSK + MacGuyver. St. John’s obviously rocks. 😉
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| View of McDowell Hall from Back Campus |
I don’t often just talk about St. John’s on here because, well…so few people know what it’s all about, and I could ramble on forever on the subject, which no one wants, LOL. But today, I have to talk a bit about it. Because if anything struck me this weekend, it wasn’t the fireworks. It was the camaraderie. It was the sure knowledge that whatever stranger I spoke to on campus, we had common ground.
We are Johnnies. And that means something very special.
It means we can talk about Plato, Aristotle, and St. Aquinas. It means we debate Marx and Jefferson and Nietzsche. It means we have a working knowledge of physics and metaphysics and biology and chemistry…and that we might take a conversation on one of those into music theory at any moment. It means we know how to think, we’ve learned how to ask questions. It means we can carry on a conversation with absolutely anyone, on any topic…though fair warning, we might sneak Greek into the weirdest places.
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| This is from the SJC website…but it’s also pretty much one of my bookcases |
Being a Johnny means loving books. Loving literature. Loving philosophy. But more, it means loving learning. It means cherishing what has shaped us, not just the way we turn out. It means recognizing the value of the journey. It means recognizing that different opinions, different perspectives, different conclusions aren’t to be dismissed–they’re to be learned from. They don’t have to convince us…but you know, in examining what we don’t agree with, we often discover why.
Yes, we study Mr. God Is Dead right along with Augustine and Aquinas and the Bible itself. And you know what? Reading other people who question the very existence of God, the value of faith, made me value it all the more. Made me understand why I believe what I do…and made me able to talk about it to those who don’t.
St. John’s helped make me who I am. In every single book I’ve written, you’ll find reference to Program material–whether it be based on the work themselves (like
Jewel of Persia) or feature cameos of some of my favorite books (Brook, in my upcoming
The Lost Heiress, is wading through the German of Hegel, which is so difficult that German students often use the English translation!).
This weekend, I was reminded of all that. I got to hang out with my friends and talk about everything from dog breeding to Plato’s Symposium. Wine making to the publishing industry. I got to chat with current students and know that, though I’m a decade older, we all have that Johnny soul. I got to watch alumni from the ’40s come up to the podium and talk about how they fled Hitler’s Germany…and were blessed to find the opportunity in America to attend St. John’s.
I got to remember why I so love asking questions, exploring the what-ifs, thinking through a story…and teaching my kids Greek (everyone thought that was awesome, by the way). I got to be, not just a wife, not just a mommy, not just a teacher or a writer or an editor…I got to be a Johnny. I’d almost forgotten how cool a distinction that is.
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.