A Loveliness of Ladybugs
Have you ever heard a more beautiful phrase? The venerable David Attenborough was photographed with a "loveliness of ladybugs," and it reminded me of not too long ago when I would sit with my parents, every evening, and chat about various topics.
More often than not, we would fall down some interesting rabbit hole or another, always delighting in the strangeness, beauty, and peculiarities of our beloved language. My parents were the two people in this world that I could rely on for spelling, grammar usage, and meanings of most words.
My dad was the chief bullshitter when it came to words. He would look at you in mock-seriousness and declare that (whatever) was a word, and it meant (whatever). I was always wary of challenging him because 99 out of 100 times, he was right. I remember the first time I heard the word "dis" when referring to putting something or someone down. I found it whilst proofreading a grant application from a tenured professor, so I thought it may be a real word. This was before it was commonly used. My dad, however, knew this slang term and explained (in his professorial way) that a professor in the "hard sciences" should not use such a term. I just had to laugh.
We would often chuckle at pronunciations and spellings while sitting on the deck in the warm spring evenings, with the hummingbirds buzzing around and the roses beginning to bloom. One such evening, we were discussing the names of groups of animals.
We would be discussing a bunch of butterflies flitting around, and muse what they should be called. A pat of butterflies? A monarch? A swirl? In reality, and fittingly, they are called a ‘flutter’ or a ‘kaleidoscope’ of butterflies.
Then on to a ‘flight’ of dragonflies.
A ‘shrewdness’ of apes.
A ‘fever’ of stingrays.
How about a ‘pitying’ of turtle doves?
And of course, a ‘wisdom’ of owls.
A ‘flamboyance’ of flamingos.
And a ‘conspiracy’ of ravens’.
A ‘fluffle’ of rabbits.
A ‘mischief’ of rats.
A ‘bloat’ of hippopotami.
And on the evening would go, dad sipping his tequila and lime, mom with her G&T, and me with white wine, listening to the hum of the lawnmowers, the barking of an occasional neighborhood dog, and the sound of familial contentment. I smile at those memories. I don’t miss them, I simply treasure that I had them.
My dear grandson had a big week as he graduated to crawling on all fours and even pulling himself up to see what's happening above his sitting level. It seems sudden, but I know it's been a while in the making. My son and I took him to the New York Aquarium for a Saturday outing while Mom and Baba caught up on sleep. Arthur was fascinated with the fish, octopi, huge crabs, and lobsters. He especially enjoyed seeing the seals and jellyfish. Along with his infectious laughter, his language is developing quickly too, with all kinds of sounds, but his favorites are "mamamamama" and "dadadadada". One more phrase I adore (and just coined) is a "wonderment" of a one-year old.
