It’s been a while since I posted about interesting and often archaic words that contribute to a fuller, richer vocabulary. Even though it’s been less than a year since that orange POS somehow took power, this country has turned into a shitshow of one horrible event after another and that seems to eclipse any sense of normalcy.
Anyway…here’s one that’s quirky and will hopefully take our minds off this ugly reality for a minute or two.
Quiddity is such a great word: it’s the essence or unique nature that makes something the kind of thing it is and makes it different from any other.
Vague and not vague at the same time — I can sort of comprehend it only if I don’t allow my brain to delve too deeply into the intricacies of the meaning because then it becomes overwhelming and my mind takes off onto strange and faraway little tributaries. Sometimes it’s best not to overthink things.
From Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “Where be his quiddities now…?
To me: “Her passion for Leon Russell’s music is as much a quiddity as her curly hair.”
More examples:
“Many people share the quiddity of dipping their fries into their milkshakes.” which is a waste of a good milkshake and a good french fry.
“For there is no knowledge of things insofar as they are external in effect, but insofar as their nature and quiddity is grasped by the mind.“
When a politician avoids answering a question while pretending to answer it, he often does it using quiddity, or by bringing up irrelevant and distracting points.
Quiddity is a usefully sneaky tool if you want to evade an argument or question, and it’s often used by people like lawyers in court and teenagers angling for later curfews.
The noun quiddity has a philosophical meaning too, “the essential nature of something,” or the unique thing that makes it what it is. The Medieval Latin root, quidditas, translates literally as “whatness.”
I think we all need to incorporate quiddity into our daily language, written and verbal, don’t you?
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