I’m able to squeeze one more post into these puppy-days of summer, a perfect epilogue to my previous two posts, and then I’ll be on leave for the week. My next daily dose of Dickinson will drop on Saturday, June 13, the Ides of June (the Ides falls on the 15th only in March, May, July, and October). And today’s hot topic? Did Dickinson ever use the word “goose” in any of her poems? My posts for June 5th and 6th dealt with the word “duck,” so what better way to end this three-day series than with the word “goose”?
As per usual, I began my scholarly exploration on “duck-duck-goose” at the online Dickinson Archive. I ran a search on “goose”; no results found. I tried “geese,” too. Ditto.
As per usual, I began my scholarly exploration on “duck-duck-goose” at the online Dickinson Archive. I ran a search on “goose”; no results found. I tried “geese,” too. Ditto.
I then went to the site’s Lexicon, clicked on option for the letter “G,” and ran a word search for “goose,” and I got a hit. However, the list of “G” words, from “gable” to “gymnastic” did not include “goose” or “geese.” Huh? What is going on?
Here’s the low down, my fellow logophiles and verbivores: the word “goose” popped up in the etymology for the word, “gossamer”: “goose” + “summer.” Turns out, the word “gossamer” entered the English language in the early 14th century as “gossamer,” a compound of two Middle English words: “gos” (goose) and “somer” (summer). One theory is that it referred to a period of warm, mild weather in late autumn (similar to our current use of "Indian Summer"), traditionally the time of year when geese are fat, ready to be eaten, and migrating, and a time when gauzy threads of cobweb rest on dewy grass like the delicate down of a goose.
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The OED, with seven meanings for “gossamer,” records the word’s earliest written use from 1325, meaning “a fine filmy substance, consisting of cobwebs, spun by small spiders, which is seen floating in the air in calm weather, esp. in autumn, or spread over a grassy surface.” Here are two other examples of usage from 1386 and 1500:
 | At the left: The meanings for "gossamer" listed in the OED. Here’s where I rolled my eyes: for “gossamer” meaning “an extremely delicate kind of gauze,” the OED included one example of usage from 1872.  Seriously, OED? You referenced an 1872 Victorian travelogue and romance novel by Scottish author William Black (shown below) and NOT Emily Dickinson’s poem from 1862, “Because I could not stop for Death”: “For only Gossamer, my Gown / My Tippet – only Tulle" (full poem HERE). To top it off, examples of usage for both “gossamer” and “tippet” come from works by Charles Dickens. No examples from Dickinson! |
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C’mon, now, OED! You’re better than that!
By the way, if you’re wondering what in the world is a “tippet,” here's the definition in the OED: “A long narrow slip of cloth or hanging part of dress, formerly worn, either attached to and forming part of the hood, head-dress, or sleeve, or loose, as a scarf or the like.”
By the way, if you’re wondering what in the world is a “tippet,” here's the definition in the OED: “A long narrow slip of cloth or hanging part of dress, formerly worn, either attached to and forming part of the hood, head-dress, or sleeve, or loose, as a scarf or the like.”
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