John Gardner, in his wonderful book "The Art of Fiction" uses a word that had me playing word detective. The word is "oonch". (By the way, if you are in the mood for inflicting some serious damage on your gentle, creative self, I would strongly recommend reading this book.)
When I first read it, I could not help but associate it with the Hindi word "oonch", a word meaning "up" or "high" ("oonchai": meaning altitude or height; also, "oonch" + "chai" = "high tea", har har. Just kidding.)
This is how Gardner uses the word:
"Leave nothing--no slightest detail--unexamined; and when you discover implications in some image or event, oonch those implications toward the surface."Unable to find any references in my beloved OED and on the Web, I turned to books.google.com and that paid off.
The Dictionary of American Regional English defines "oonch" as:
(The wonderful Dictionary of American Regional English)
So there you go. "Oonch". It's a bit like "oomph" minus the sex appeal.
***
Here's a really good interview with John Gardner. (Link to Paris Review, pdf of the full interview available in the story.)
5 comments:
Does he supply a word ending in "gry"? Supposedly there are only two, though you would think there would be more (so a common trick question is "name three").
Rahul: Classic one, that :) I did look it up. The third word is "puggry", a variation of "puggree" ("pagadi" in Hindi)
That's cheating :) But hey, Lexulous accepts it (I just checked) so it must be ok, right?
There are 434 words ending in "ch"? I can't think of more than a few - of course, if they are going to include "aircoach", whatever that is.. And I find they don't have "poonch". Hobson-Jobson, on the other hand, might well have it.
lekhni: Well, if "puggry" can make it, why not "poonch"?
Post a Comment