Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Kathy @ Bermudaonion weblog where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our reading. If you want to play along, grab the button, and join the fun! (Don’t forget to leave a link in the comments if you’re participating.)
This week’s words come from The Welcome Committee of Butternut Creek by Jane Myers Perrine.
H-E-B — They entered Farm-to-Market–FM– road 1212A, which passed between Whataburger and the H-E-B.
The H-E-B is a supermarket chain in Texas and Mexico.
Cockles–”Must be all the warm bacon fat melting the cockles”whatever cockles were–his heart.”
Okay, so I’ve heard and said ‘warms the cockles of my heart” since I was tiny. It was on of my dad’s favorite sayings. But I never really knew why we said it. According to World Wide Words, and I’m totally paraphrasing here, it looks it comes from the heart looking like a bivalve mollusc. It turns out the saying has been around since the early part of the seventeenth century.
I also wanted to make note that Maurice Sendak passed away yesterday at the age of 83. When my kids were little Where the Wild Things Are was my favorite book to read to them. Not that they didn’t love it, I just think I may have loved it just a little bit more. The movie, not so much. It was a little darker take on the book than I would have had and it bothered me Max didn’t seem to be secure at home. And for me one of the things I love about the book is that Max comes home and finds his dinner waiting. And isn’t that what we all want, no matter how “wild” we are we can always come home and find dinner waiting for us? So, good-bye Mr. Sendak and thank you for all those wonderful hours snuggled up with my little ones.
“The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth / and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws / but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye / and sailed back over a year / and in and out of weeks / and through a day / and into the night of his very own room / where he found his supper waiting for him / and it was still hot.”
Good words!
I am bummed about Maurice Sendak too… That is so cool and thoughtful of you to do a tribute on your book blog – wish I had thought of that!
Thanks!
Thanks for the information on cockles — a word I’ve also used without full understanding.
I didn’t get a Wondrous Words Wednesday post written this week because I was busy writing a Liebster Blog award post — and you are one of my winners! Liebster Blog Award.
I’ve heard cockles for years too and never really know what it meant.
Yesterday was a sad day for readers everywhere.
What lovely words about Maurice Sendak. I’ve only found his work relatively recently. There is a fabulous documentary about him called Tell Them Anything You Want. I saw it last year. I’d love to see it again now. I knew HEB from knowing Texans, and I got to visit one last year when I went to Texas. I love how this meme gets us all looking up such different things like the cockles of my heart- a familiar saying even in Australia.
I haven’t heard that “cockles” phrase before. Interesting. Great words!
On another note, I have nominated you and your blog for a Liebster blog award. Check out my post about it here. Don’t feel any pressure to do anything, but I do enjoy your blog!
What a lovely surprise to see my book quoted here.. Thank you.
Jane Myers Perrine