Or: Rooves, Wives, and Knives
As I sip tea at my desk this early morning, in this tin-roof shack that I currently call home, listening to the pitter-patter of little walnuts slamming at not-infrequent intervals onto my roof and into my ears, I ponder the state of demolished words.
In particular, words like "rooves."
I have been informed that "rooves," (like "wives," but not "knives"), no longer exist. They are now called "roofs."
~
I beg to differ.
As my plucky protagonist makes her way quickly but surreptitiously over a series of enormous factory rooftops, high above the post-apocalyptic, Gothic, Victorianesque urban jungle of Roial on a quest to free her mother from prison, I would very much like for the tops of those buildings to be called "rooves."
Alas, no one understands my craving.
Well, maybe Heidegger would. Heidegger understood something that many of his peers could not: that life is about being; presence; or Dasein. It is not about the march of progress, nor the accumulation of wealth and power. It is about experience. It's about "being there" in every moment. It's in what lies before one's eyes, and in one's heart.
~
Perhaps "knives" are allowed a continued existence because they are a popular product, and generate much profit. People use the word "knives" as a search term, which (thank goodness!) spares knives from having fallen away from a feeling of historical grace and into the realm of cold, hard, sharp, cutting fact.
I have no explanation for the shunning of archaic word like "knives," and "wives," but I fear I must refuse to eschew such words.
I feel that, in the right situation, "knives," and "wives," and "rooves" can be poetic words, and might contribute to a sense of the archaic. They stimulate a feeling of presence in a certain kind of environment; a presence that can not be described by the words "roofs," or "knifes," or (I shudder to suggest it) "wifes."
Style Guide
The above being the case, I declare my style guide to be as follows:
- I shall do my utmost to observe proper grammar (though I'll probably fail).
- I shall try to be poetic without it becoming overly obvious.
- And finally: Underline it squiggly red all you like, "rooves" is a word.
Thank you for understanding.
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