Reflections on October and the Big O

If November is the ‘liver’ of months, then October is the meatloaf and gravy, or piping beef stew of months. You know, sort of homey and tucked in around the fire family fare 12th of the year.

I do not like fall, as I have said before, but October passes muster because it doesn’t seem yet wintry and, while the days are drawing in, I have an affinity for a certain crispness in the air (before the rains come to drench wretched November and vile December), the colors of the leaves as they turn towards their seasonal somnolence (the Virginia Creeper is again magnificently aflame), and the delicious fragrance of those leaves as they burn. Well, as they used to burn. The tiresome killjoy poops of our town council have banned all outside burning. Did you ever roast potatoes in a leaf fire? Ambrosia in my recall. Bylaw fascists obviously never did that.

October is also, of course, Hallowe’en and Canadian Thanksgiving. More sensible than the American version, in my esteem, because it’s not tucked right up there against Christmas, which is hectic enough, at least for those who choose to make it so. I don’t.

October is also the letter ‘O’ and is called what it is because in the old Julian Calendar it was the 8th month of the year. I like the letter ‘O’. It’s curvaceous (always a good thing) and it is ‘completed’ as only a circle can be. Circles are good and may they always be unbroken.

As I like the letter O, I like many O words that come to mind, such as:

Ocelot: If I were a big cat I’d like to be an ocelot. The very name sounds sleek and speedy. It’s not blunt and abrasive like the hard consonant sounds of ‘tiger’ or ‘cougar’. I think Ocelot would be a good name for a car. The new Opel (do they still make those?) Ocelot.

Onomatopoeia: Delicious word. Looks like what it describes, which is a word that sounds like what it describes, like buzz, hum, grunt, etc. The old Batman series of the 1960s would never have worked without onomatopoeia.

Organic: The most vilely misused word in contemporary marketing. How can milk not be organic? It is by its very nature. Organic is generally a ruse to sell overpriced, shoddy looking merchandise at an inflated price. “Hey, let’s buy those crappy looking grapes. They’re only a dollar more per pound than the inorganic ones.” I have a friend who is an organic farmer. He attests the whole thing was about marketing. “If I could make as much money by advertising my stuff as ‘inorganic’, I’d be happy to do so,” he told me once.

Orgasm: A fine, fine word for very obvious reasons. A word sometimes euphemized as the 'Big O' by the more delicate among us. Whatever. It is also, in a way, an onomatopoeic word in that it sort of looks like and sounds like what it’s describing. In recent years has come to be used in a non-sexual way to describe any moment of ecstatic thrill: “I was orgasmic when I finally saw the Taj Mahal.”

Oz: A place Wendy likes to return to cinematically every year at least, despite the fact she’s seen the film at least 37,000 times. Poor, sad Judy Garland. Also, what Antipodeans refer to their county as.

Onyx: A word that should be more difficult to pronounce than it actually is.

Oxymoron: Does not refer to a mentally challenged bovine, though it might.

Ozymandias: Shelley poem that contains sentiments that should be adhered to by all politicians. Also suggests not buying the green bananas.

Oenophile: Wino.

Oyster: Icky looking but very tasty bivalve. The world can be your oyster, I understand, but never quite got what the expression meant.

Ovulate: An important process for hopeful pending parents.

Omni: Omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibus. Overarching in various areas. I like ‘omnibus’. Much more dignified than plain old ‘bus’. “I think I shall take the omnibus to Pall Mall.” Something my Granny might have said. Granny always referred to lunch as ‘luncheon’, by the way.

Ordure: Cruddy stuff. So, I’ll leave off this exercise on this crappy note. Don’t really hear that word much any more since it has been supplanted by the more prevalent anglo-saxonism. And, “I feel really ordury (ordurish?) this morning wouldn’t have quite the same impact as its alternative.

Have a blessed October, all.