Notes from the Prairie: Wonderings Column #2

Wondering While Wrestling Mademoiselle Editor

Above: Mademoiselle Editor
[Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay]

Preliminary note:

During the past week, a record number of readers responded to last week’s first “I Wonder” column. And a record number of people opened and read it. I’m thrilled. Based on readership and reader responses, “I Wonder” has a promising future!

But I decided to use the column below, written six days ago anyway, written when I feared no readers or responses.

The comments and chats are great fun to read just as they are. I had thought I would respond to them in a column. I don’t need to convert them to a column. They make good conversation right where they are.

Thanks, everyone!

____

You may remember that, after I daydreamed hundreds or maybe thousands of responses to the first-ever “I Wonder” column, my imagination entered a dark room: no readers, no responses. Nada.

I feared I had launched a caffeine-inspired collection of nonsense.

As I write, it is the next morning.

Two new wonderings rise:

• I wonder about the word “wonder.” Does have different meanings as a verb than as a noun.

• I wonder: Why have my two sisters have always whomped me at the card game Speed. (It is a multiple-person version of Solitaire.)

Mademoiselle Editor asks me: Are these two related enough to be in the same column?

Wearing reading glasses, up-swept hair, and a starched, white collar, Mlle. Editor has been a guest inside my head since junior high grammar class.

I tell her: Go back to the other room where you belong while I am still generating ideas. I will allow you back in when it is your turn. I used to lock her in a closet, but in recent years, she has become less bossy. Now, if she has been cooperative, I permit her to retire quietly to the couch in front of the fireplace.

I return to the word “wonder” as noun and as a verb. I try it as a verb:

• I wonder what the weather will be like tomorrow.

• I wonder what lies beyond the stars.

When I use it this way I am questioning and curious. The first example is answerable. I can look it up. The second might have an answer, or it might not, but I am still asking a questioning and curious.

Now I try the word as a noun:

• The child's eyes were filled with wonder at the sight of the fireworks.

• The Grand Canyon is a natural wonder.

I consider these nouns. Here I think: Wonder means “awe.” That is different from “questioning.”

But I am not a dictionary. I pull my Compact Oxford English Dictionary (OED) from the shelf and and study the expert definitions. This compact edition is much less expensive than the full edition, but its print is so small that reading it requires a high-end magnifying glass. For everyone. Even teens.

OED entries for “wonder” span five pages. I will summarize. Noun definitions include: “something that causes astonishment” and “an event brought about by a miracle.”

So far, so good. OED agrees with me. Now for the verb.

Mlle Editor interrupts: Do you need a period or question mark after those two “I wonder. . .“ questions?

It is not your turn. I speak firmly, but I don’t yell. She leaves. But, I can’t resist checking for the answer. I learn that my two example sentences require periods.

The first OED verb definition is “to feel or be affected by wonder.” Uh-oh. That means the verb can mean the same kind of awe as the noun. Quick, look for the second definition.

The second definition includes these words: “to feel some doubt or curiousity.” Whew! I’m not totally incorrect. I just use the verb more often with this second meaning. Am I alone in my preference for this second meaning when I say “I wonder. . .”

Ok, readers, here’s your chance to chime in: What do you mean when you say, “I wonder…?” Are you implying awe or questioning and curiosity? When you say “It’s a wonder,” are you talking about a sense of awe?

Mlle. Editor pops her head into my mind’s door and says: That’s 672 words. Only 282 are left for your second point.

OK, Ok, I tell her. This time I sound irritated when I send her back to the couch.

Onward to my sisters whomping me at the card game Speed.

I recall: I don’t think my sisters scored incredibly higher than me on standard IQ test. So what is the reason they so soundly defeat me?

I consider my thinking process. I realize I process my card-playing decisions with silent words: Let’s see. That is a three of hearts. I need to lay a four of hearts. Do I have one?

An explanation dawns: My sisters are not word-nerds like me. They process intuitively. They recognize what to do without needing to attach words to the process. That is faster.

Now I understand, after multiple humiliating losses why I can’t beat them.

I decide to keep doing what I have been. I have stopped playing that card game with them. Instead, we play card games that require strategy, remembering, and a bit of analysis.

That I can do. Creating words in my head, of course.

It is time to let Mlle. Editor into the room. She peers over my shoulder, frowns, and points to multiple places I can use fewer or clearer words. I listen humbly and make change after change.

She says: You should check your card-loss theory with a psychologist or neurologist. I rebel. She is right, perhaps, but I am not willing to do that research.

She tells me I have spelled curiosity two ways. I check and tell her: The OED quotation, written in Great Britain, is the British spelling. The one in my words is, appropriately, the US spelling.

She also notes: Your word-processor underlines “whomp” in red.

She’s right, but when I check Merriam Webster Dictionary online, it tells me “whomp” is indeed a word. I overrule her a second time.

With that, this just-in-case-I need-it column is ready to post.

Mlle Editor is screaming. I have exceeded her 900-word limit.

Next week, I shall write fewer words. Or lock her in the closet.

Carol Van Klompenburg is a writer living in Pella, Iowa. She has a BA in English and an MA in Theater Arts — and is available for reading performances of her work. Her latest book, A World in a Grain of Sand: Lively Little Stories of Household Stuff is schedule for release December 2024. (Stay tuned!) Readers can contact her publicly by commenting on this Substack or privately at carolvk13@gmail.com.