Made-Up Words and Art: Bosch, Monet, Tondalus, Tond, and Bluffing in Scrabble
Continuing along the lines of books and the words found in them, here we encounter a Facebook discussion of Scrabble and made-up words, and two books about art. The latter includes one artist who has influenced my own writing of books (including my use of made-up words).
Bosch and Breughel:
From Enemy Painting to Everyday Life
by Jospeh Leo Koerner
When I first encountered the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch as a kid, my reaction seemed appropriate enough: shock and fear. Later I learned that many of the seemingly bizarre details were drawn from popular idioms and expressions of the day, and so the paintings were rather like Gary Larson cartoons — and the appropriate reaction (at least of viewers during Bosch’s time) was laughter. (A couple of them are still funny today if you know the joke: “The Conjuror” and “The Hay-Wain”.) This book, however, brings into focus at least two other, deeper (and much darker) layers of meaning: one, that Bosch was aware that his paintings themselves could be seen as demonic enemies of the people viewing them; and two, a thoroughly nasty strain of racism and anti-Semitism that was in Bosch’s culture but finds new expression here in the most vile and slanderous of terms. Fortunately for modern lovers of art, the latter is no longer easily discernible. Anyway, the author traces all three of these lines (visualization of idioms, “demonic” art, and prejudice) through Bosch’s art and into that of his artistic descendant Brueghel — where they transform into the art of everyday life. How this was achieved is, of course, a long and complex process, and the author provides plenty of details and analyses. Read this book if you are interested in art, and marvel at the insights – but be warned that some of the content is even more shocking than Bosch’s paintings themselves.
The following digression will mean little to readers who haven’t read any of my novels. So read them!
Bosch’s art has influenced the fantasy world of “Tond” (which I write about in the “Tond” series) and my (supposedly unrelated) novel “Ussers and the Echo of Nothing”. In sixth grade, I happened to find an art book in the school library, and saw a reproduction of a Bosch painting called “Vision of Tondalus”. I immediately assumed that Tondalus was the place where the bizarre events in the picture were taking place. A couple of years later I started to invent details and backstory for a fantasy book, and decided that Tondalus would be the name of the faerie world. I named Bosch’s demonic critters "gruntags" (in “Vision of Tondalus" and other paintings), and they were the enemies of the people who lived in Tondalus. Also, the “Man-Tree”, the monstrous colossus that dominates the hellscape in another Bosch painting, became Tyronda (a phonological variant of “tyrant”), the ruler of the gruntags.
Over many years, the books evolved. I demoted the Man-Tree to a lesser monster. I populated Tondalus with various other races of creatures (and of humans), and I shortened the name to “Tond”. (There were a couple of problems, collectively known to me as “The Name Thing”. First, my middle and high school versions of the book included made-up words that kept unintentionally sounding like names of other students in my school. Then, forty years later, after I had published a couple of books in the series, another author contacted me saying that he had invented the land called Tond. Turns out there are at least two Tonds. We settled amicably, provided that I mentioned him in my last “Tond” book and state that the resemblance is accidental.)
The most recent development in this Bosch and Tond saga is my latest novel, “Ussers and the Eco of Nothing”. Here, I fictionalize my childhood encounter with “Vision of Tondalus” and my later quest to find out what it actually means. ("Visio Tnugdali" is a mid 12th-century vision narrative, which was the most popular of the genre until Dante’s Divine Comedy was published about seventy years later.) Tondalus is not the name of a place but of a person; the Latin name of a knight called Tundale in English and Tnugdali in the original Irish. His story is a visionary journey through purgatory, hell, and heaven. The visions become part of the plot in “Ussers and the Echo of Nothing” as well, and so does the Man-Tree. “Ussers” and “Tond” are supposedly unrelated; “Ussers” is a magical-realist novel, set in what is more or less the “real” world (though with surrealistic elements and dream sequences) — it is not an Otherworld like Tond — but both draw from Bosh’s art and thus may prove to be connected after all. As I write this, my brain is finding ways to have them interact.
Okay, back to the reviews on books about art.
Monet's Garden in Art
by Debra N. Mancoff
I once saw one of Monet’s almost mural-sized “water lilies” paintings in a museum (in Tokyo) and was knocked out by how he’d made this simple, illusive subject into such an epic, eyeball-filling field of exquisite colors. This fascinating book explains “how” this was done (though of course artistic genius is seldom possible to “explain”). Monet’s gardening is discussed (it was an intrinsic part of the artist’s vision, after all), as well as what previous art influenced him and the other Impressionists (it’s perhaps fitting that I saw the work in Tokyo, since Japanese ukiyo-e prints were a major source). The author also discusses Monet's legacy: other art that he influenced, and the state of the garden today. The book is beautiful, with lots of reproductions (and some details of the brushwork) — though not, of course, the same as seeing the original paintings.
Scrabbular Bluffs
Now about Scrabble. I wrote the following on a Facebook post the other day:
Scrabble bluffs that I almost got away with:
1. Unisock (the design for a type of sleeping-bag)
2. Weirling (in English folklore, a child that can shape-shift into an animal. I made up this word thinking that the root word of "werewolf" was "weird", hence the odd spelling.)
3. Heg (an Ethiopian antelope)
It's a good thing I never tried Calvin's "zqfmgb".
The result was this conversation. As always, the names (initials) were changed.
FH: I actually already have a word: tnetennba.
NN: Reason #472 why I hate Scrabble.
DC: Amending previous answer to fully agree with you.
KU: Those all seem like perfectly cromulent words. They’ve embiggened my vocabulary.
KN: Ironically, Embiggen was added to the Merriam-Webster in 2018.
UC: That's some solid wordification.
TD: Bluffing is my favorite part about scrabble.
DC: Calvin and Hobbes is my favorite! I am bad at scrabble because I’d rather play a good/cool word than play a short, simple word in a great place.
WD: In high school, my friends and I played a Scrabble variant we invented called Scrmabblej, which forbade the use of real words. You could play anything, as long as you could pronounce it and come up with a somewhat linguistically plausible definition. We were obviously very weird kids.
KS: Now I gotta ask about the best “words” you can remember from that game and their definitions.
WD: Kegimit: a large koozie-type wrap to keep a keg cold.
Wilevur: a sausage made from an animal whose name you knew.
We had/have a whole book of them; every single one was written down because they couldn't be duplicated in another game.
KS: Awesome lol!
WD: We also didn't have the tile bag any more, and there was a non-regulation amount of tiles, so we used an old oven mitt. Somewhere, we made up a word for that, too.
WB: Well, A+ for creativity!
Me: THAT IS ABSOLUTELY THE FUNNEST IDEA I'VE EVER HEARD. I'm going to try it. I have a lot of those words anyway.
WD: Oh man, please do!
Me: I have another nonsense word game called non-dyon-dogga-donsense, but I haven't played it with anyone yet. I won't explain more here because I'm going to copyright it after I've played it a few times to see if it works.
Me: Concrastinate, optigon, miscontangulated...
Me (to WD): When I was in middle school, I thought anyone was weird if they didn't like to make up words (and worlds), couldn't quote from the Silmarillion, hadn't memorized the names of animal phyla, or didn't like to listen to Takemitsu...
HI: I only play Scrabble with a Scrabble dictionary and a list of two letter words. If you do not think a word is valid, you can challenge.
Me: One of my "glitch in the matrix" experiences involves a word that I happened to see in a Scrabble dictionary while challenging another player; but later when I actually played the word, it was not in the same dictionary.
HI: Oof, yah, I could see that happening.
Me: The weirdest thing was, there wasn't even a word that was close to it, i.e., something that I could have misread (with one or two letters different). I believe the word was AXUMBAR, defined as North African cloth. Apparently that word only existed for the fifteen minutes between when I saw it and when I played it.
HI: (Expletive)!
Me: Yeah, it would be a high-pointer for sure. My high school English teacher once played QUIXOTIC in a game during school lunch; it was on two triple-word scores and netted him over 300 points for that single word.
SA: I think I had a 100+ word once. I do remember squeaking out a win over my cousin and very confident uncle by going out creating the words LOGE and SATE. He challenged my words and lost.
RQ: ...But if you challenge and it turns out to be a real word then it scores double.
TT: I'm never sure if the X should be pronounced in "quixotic". It seems like it should be pronounced similar to chaotic.
LM: "key-ho-tic". Spanish x is pronounced like Spanish j, so basically h.…
Me: Interesting. I never knew about the challenged word scoring double. So if I'd challenged "quixotic", I could have made him score over 600 points for that one word!
RQ: Not an official rule, but it might make the game a little more interesting...
FH: You might have gotten away with "weyrling", a child raised in a dragonweyr in Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders series.
Me: I read one of those about 20 years ago, but don't remember the word. I've written and published my own fantasy series, though (it doesn't have dragons or dragonweyrs.)
(A meme of a vampire teenager showing a Scrabble rack with Q, Z, X, J, K, P, and 3.)
JV: Sounds like you should play Balderdash!
Me: Great game. That and "Says You", which is Balderdash on the Radio.
JV: How about Unspeakable Words?
FH: I will have to check that one out! I was surprisingly good at Balderdash as a teen but it's been a long time since I've played.
Me: By the way, I've figured out how to pronounce "zqfmgb". Say "zuh-quff'm-gub and drop the vowels. It actually works. Of course it helps if you've learned a few words in Japanese and are used to deleting half of the vowels. I also remember a game called something like “Dsqphzbnt!” which works the same way: D’s-qua-f’zz-b’nt. Drop the A.
(Meme of reindeer playing Scrabble, asking Santa why he’s not playing. His rack shows: VENISON.)
UM: I once got a teenager to 100% believe me on FARTFAIRY (I told him before his next turn and took it back, though, lol, to be fair.)
TB: My best-ever Scrabble score from a single word is FINGERER, using two triple-word-score squares and an R already on the board — 131 points. But when I tell people this, they think I’m making a naughty joke.
Me: I once played an online game where the highest-scoring words were RECTALLY and TINKLED. Absolutely true story.
(Meme of a laughing bird)
GC: Fyi Root word in Werewolf is Wer old english for man. And I looked it up old english for woman is wīfmann so I guess technically a female werewolf would be called a Wifwolf.
Me: So that's probably where the word "wife" came from.
GC: And "woman".
LH: I play Scrabble with my daughters; one is a medical lab tech and the other is a research microbiologist. They are constantly putting BS sciency words on the board and I fall for it every time. Whenever I do question it... they show me that it really IS a legit word!!!
HX: I offer my sincerest contrafibularities sir, excellent stuff.
Me: I get it: the plural noun form of the adjective meaning "against lies".
HX: I always find that putting down interesting words doesn’t help. It’s all about memorizing a bunch of random words that no one says (looking at you, ZA) and putting them in triple letter spots. Of course I never have those letters when I am near those spaces so I get 4 points for a great word and they somehow get 76 points for Qi. I wish scrabble emphasized knowing words more.
Me: Za, zo, qi, qat, jo, fez, xu, xi: they all need context, ja?
TC: Actually, it is about area control and not giving the opportunity for your opponent to score big.
Me: So you're saying it's kind of like a lexical version of Go. I like that.
TC: Yes. Never open the board for your opponent to lay down good scoring words. Cut the board in half.
SY: You should try Unspeakable Words. When you are close to losing, insane, you can use any word you want, real or not.
GT: A Swedish championship final match was once won due to a bluff. Beautiful times!
Bosch and Breughel:
From Enemy Painting to Everyday Life
by Jospeh Leo Koerner
When I first encountered the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch as a kid, my reaction seemed appropriate enough: shock and fear. Later I learned that many of the seemingly bizarre details were drawn from popular idioms and expressions of the day, and so the paintings were rather like Gary Larson cartoons — and the appropriate reaction (at least of viewers during Bosch’s time) was laughter. (A couple of them are still funny today if you know the joke: “The Conjuror” and “The Hay-Wain”.) This book, however, brings into focus at least two other, deeper (and much darker) layers of meaning: one, that Bosch was aware that his paintings themselves could be seen as demonic enemies of the people viewing them; and two, a thoroughly nasty strain of racism and anti-Semitism that was in Bosch’s culture but finds new expression here in the most vile and slanderous of terms. Fortunately for modern lovers of art, the latter is no longer easily discernible. Anyway, the author traces all three of these lines (visualization of idioms, “demonic” art, and prejudice) through Bosch’s art and into that of his artistic descendant Brueghel — where they transform into the art of everyday life. How this was achieved is, of course, a long and complex process, and the author provides plenty of details and analyses. Read this book if you are interested in art, and marvel at the insights – but be warned that some of the content is even more shocking than Bosch’s paintings themselves.
The following digression will mean little to readers who haven’t read any of my novels. So read them!
Bosch’s art has influenced the fantasy world of “Tond” (which I write about in the “Tond” series) and my (supposedly unrelated) novel “Ussers and the Echo of Nothing”. In sixth grade, I happened to find an art book in the school library, and saw a reproduction of a Bosch painting called “Vision of Tondalus”. I immediately assumed that Tondalus was the place where the bizarre events in the picture were taking place. A couple of years later I started to invent details and backstory for a fantasy book, and decided that Tondalus would be the name of the faerie world. I named Bosch’s demonic critters "gruntags" (in “Vision of Tondalus" and other paintings), and they were the enemies of the people who lived in Tondalus. Also, the “Man-Tree”, the monstrous colossus that dominates the hellscape in another Bosch painting, became Tyronda (a phonological variant of “tyrant”), the ruler of the gruntags.
Over many years, the books evolved. I demoted the Man-Tree to a lesser monster. I populated Tondalus with various other races of creatures (and of humans), and I shortened the name to “Tond”. (There were a couple of problems, collectively known to me as “The Name Thing”. First, my middle and high school versions of the book included made-up words that kept unintentionally sounding like names of other students in my school. Then, forty years later, after I had published a couple of books in the series, another author contacted me saying that he had invented the land called Tond. Turns out there are at least two Tonds. We settled amicably, provided that I mentioned him in my last “Tond” book and state that the resemblance is accidental.)
The most recent development in this Bosch and Tond saga is my latest novel, “Ussers and the Eco of Nothing”. Here, I fictionalize my childhood encounter with “Vision of Tondalus” and my later quest to find out what it actually means. ("Visio Tnugdali" is a mid 12th-century vision narrative, which was the most popular of the genre until Dante’s Divine Comedy was published about seventy years later.) Tondalus is not the name of a place but of a person; the Latin name of a knight called Tundale in English and Tnugdali in the original Irish. His story is a visionary journey through purgatory, hell, and heaven. The visions become part of the plot in “Ussers and the Echo of Nothing” as well, and so does the Man-Tree. “Ussers” and “Tond” are supposedly unrelated; “Ussers” is a magical-realist novel, set in what is more or less the “real” world (though with surrealistic elements and dream sequences) — it is not an Otherworld like Tond — but both draw from Bosh’s art and thus may prove to be connected after all. As I write this, my brain is finding ways to have them interact.
Okay, back to the reviews on books about art.
Monet's Garden in Art
by Debra N. Mancoff
I once saw one of Monet’s almost mural-sized “water lilies” paintings in a museum (in Tokyo) and was knocked out by how he’d made this simple, illusive subject into such an epic, eyeball-filling field of exquisite colors. This fascinating book explains “how” this was done (though of course artistic genius is seldom possible to “explain”). Monet’s gardening is discussed (it was an intrinsic part of the artist’s vision, after all), as well as what previous art influenced him and the other Impressionists (it’s perhaps fitting that I saw the work in Tokyo, since Japanese ukiyo-e prints were a major source). The author also discusses Monet's legacy: other art that he influenced, and the state of the garden today. The book is beautiful, with lots of reproductions (and some details of the brushwork) — though not, of course, the same as seeing the original paintings.
Scrabbular Bluffs
Now about Scrabble. I wrote the following on a Facebook post the other day:
Scrabble bluffs that I almost got away with:
1. Unisock (the design for a type of sleeping-bag)
2. Weirling (in English folklore, a child that can shape-shift into an animal. I made up this word thinking that the root word of "werewolf" was "weird", hence the odd spelling.)
3. Heg (an Ethiopian antelope)
It's a good thing I never tried Calvin's "zqfmgb".
The result was this conversation. As always, the names (initials) were changed.
FH: I actually already have a word: tnetennba.
NN: Reason #472 why I hate Scrabble.
DC: Amending previous answer to fully agree with you.
KU: Those all seem like perfectly cromulent words. They’ve embiggened my vocabulary.
KN: Ironically, Embiggen was added to the Merriam-Webster in 2018.
UC: That's some solid wordification.
TD: Bluffing is my favorite part about scrabble.
DC: Calvin and Hobbes is my favorite! I am bad at scrabble because I’d rather play a good/cool word than play a short, simple word in a great place.
WD: In high school, my friends and I played a Scrabble variant we invented called Scrmabblej, which forbade the use of real words. You could play anything, as long as you could pronounce it and come up with a somewhat linguistically plausible definition. We were obviously very weird kids.
KS: Now I gotta ask about the best “words” you can remember from that game and their definitions.
WD: Kegimit: a large koozie-type wrap to keep a keg cold.
Wilevur: a sausage made from an animal whose name you knew.
We had/have a whole book of them; every single one was written down because they couldn't be duplicated in another game.
KS: Awesome lol!
WD: We also didn't have the tile bag any more, and there was a non-regulation amount of tiles, so we used an old oven mitt. Somewhere, we made up a word for that, too.
WB: Well, A+ for creativity!
Me: THAT IS ABSOLUTELY THE FUNNEST IDEA I'VE EVER HEARD. I'm going to try it. I have a lot of those words anyway.
WD: Oh man, please do!
Me: I have another nonsense word game called non-dyon-dogga-donsense, but I haven't played it with anyone yet. I won't explain more here because I'm going to copyright it after I've played it a few times to see if it works.
Me: Concrastinate, optigon, miscontangulated...
Me (to WD): When I was in middle school, I thought anyone was weird if they didn't like to make up words (and worlds), couldn't quote from the Silmarillion, hadn't memorized the names of animal phyla, or didn't like to listen to Takemitsu...
HI: I only play Scrabble with a Scrabble dictionary and a list of two letter words. If you do not think a word is valid, you can challenge.
Me: One of my "glitch in the matrix" experiences involves a word that I happened to see in a Scrabble dictionary while challenging another player; but later when I actually played the word, it was not in the same dictionary.
HI: Oof, yah, I could see that happening.
Me: The weirdest thing was, there wasn't even a word that was close to it, i.e., something that I could have misread (with one or two letters different). I believe the word was AXUMBAR, defined as North African cloth. Apparently that word only existed for the fifteen minutes between when I saw it and when I played it.
HI: (Expletive)!
Me: Yeah, it would be a high-pointer for sure. My high school English teacher once played QUIXOTIC in a game during school lunch; it was on two triple-word scores and netted him over 300 points for that single word.
SA: I think I had a 100+ word once. I do remember squeaking out a win over my cousin and very confident uncle by going out creating the words LOGE and SATE. He challenged my words and lost.
RQ: ...But if you challenge and it turns out to be a real word then it scores double.
TT: I'm never sure if the X should be pronounced in "quixotic". It seems like it should be pronounced similar to chaotic.
LM: "key-ho-tic". Spanish x is pronounced like Spanish j, so basically h.…
Me: Interesting. I never knew about the challenged word scoring double. So if I'd challenged "quixotic", I could have made him score over 600 points for that one word!
RQ: Not an official rule, but it might make the game a little more interesting...
FH: You might have gotten away with "weyrling", a child raised in a dragonweyr in Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders series.
Me: I read one of those about 20 years ago, but don't remember the word. I've written and published my own fantasy series, though (it doesn't have dragons or dragonweyrs.)
(A meme of a vampire teenager showing a Scrabble rack with Q, Z, X, J, K, P, and 3.)
JV: Sounds like you should play Balderdash!
Me: Great game. That and "Says You", which is Balderdash on the Radio.
JV: How about Unspeakable Words?
FH: I will have to check that one out! I was surprisingly good at Balderdash as a teen but it's been a long time since I've played.
Me: By the way, I've figured out how to pronounce "zqfmgb". Say "zuh-quff'm-gub and drop the vowels. It actually works. Of course it helps if you've learned a few words in Japanese and are used to deleting half of the vowels. I also remember a game called something like “Dsqphzbnt!” which works the same way: D’s-qua-f’zz-b’nt. Drop the A.
(Meme of reindeer playing Scrabble, asking Santa why he’s not playing. His rack shows: VENISON.)
UM: I once got a teenager to 100% believe me on FARTFAIRY (I told him before his next turn and took it back, though, lol, to be fair.)
TB: My best-ever Scrabble score from a single word is FINGERER, using two triple-word-score squares and an R already on the board — 131 points. But when I tell people this, they think I’m making a naughty joke.
Me: I once played an online game where the highest-scoring words were RECTALLY and TINKLED. Absolutely true story.
(Meme of a laughing bird)
GC: Fyi Root word in Werewolf is Wer old english for man. And I looked it up old english for woman is wīfmann so I guess technically a female werewolf would be called a Wifwolf.
Me: So that's probably where the word "wife" came from.
GC: And "woman".
LH: I play Scrabble with my daughters; one is a medical lab tech and the other is a research microbiologist. They are constantly putting BS sciency words on the board and I fall for it every time. Whenever I do question it... they show me that it really IS a legit word!!!
HX: I offer my sincerest contrafibularities sir, excellent stuff.
Me: I get it: the plural noun form of the adjective meaning "against lies".
HX: I always find that putting down interesting words doesn’t help. It’s all about memorizing a bunch of random words that no one says (looking at you, ZA) and putting them in triple letter spots. Of course I never have those letters when I am near those spaces so I get 4 points for a great word and they somehow get 76 points for Qi. I wish scrabble emphasized knowing words more.
Me: Za, zo, qi, qat, jo, fez, xu, xi: they all need context, ja?
TC: Actually, it is about area control and not giving the opportunity for your opponent to score big.
Me: So you're saying it's kind of like a lexical version of Go. I like that.
TC: Yes. Never open the board for your opponent to lay down good scoring words. Cut the board in half.
SY: You should try Unspeakable Words. When you are close to losing, insane, you can use any word you want, real or not.
GT: A Swedish championship final match was once won due to a bluff. Beautiful times!
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