As the year is closing out, I start my annual review, whether I want to or not. Guess that’s where the big red pen article came from. Hello subconscious!
Do you get that this NEXT report card affects Christmas presents?
That is some deep programming. It always struck me as so messed up about American Holidays and their odd symbiotic relationship to the school season. School starts around mid August, by September I just about got the hang of wearing (school) clothes again, [Most summers in swim gear or beach wear. Florida]
By October I remember to do the nonsense about asking permission for each move I can make.
Hence Mother May I…
[Grade school conditioning] What exactly was Dodge Ball … other than open combat? And don’t get me started on the humiliation ritual that was Red Rover, or its more evil cousin “Team Captain gets to choose their team”… awe damn..
Me: Heading for the shade under the bleachers to continue the mixed media (bubble gum and permanent marker) mural, (years of work by 5th grade!)
Then
(back on topic)
They roll in the costumes, lights, decorations, and Candy Feast,
[Life almost normal for a carny kid!!]
a few weeks later another Holiday, then BAM!!!
Test and Report Cards.
Just in time for the family to gather
AND
Talk about me and my worth,
what I do and don’t deserve.
What’s in the budget and Who is Prioritized.
I admit I’ve had a few years with no traction forward,
back sliding and losing ground…
and a year or so derailed completely
or blindsided into oblivion.
[Ever wonder if your life’s genre might be tragiccomedy?]
I gotta say who ever wrote the plot twist for my life this year…
This script was badly written!
You didn’t just lose the plot! You lacked verisimilitude!
Good thing I just carried on with MY Goals and Objectives!
I have had a very Productive Year!!
[o.o] Yes! Verisimilitude is the perfect term for this.
It literally means “the appearance of being true or real” – from Latin verus (true) + similitudo (likeness).
When a theatrical production loses verisimilitude, the audience stops believing in the world being presented. Instead of being immersed in the story, they become acutely aware they’re watching actors on a stage reciting lines.
It can be destroyed by:
- Poor writing – unrealistic dialogue, contrived plot points, inconsistent characterization
- Bad acting – wooden delivery, missed cues, visible line-reading
- Technical errors – visible props, bad lighting cues, costume malfunctions
- Anachronisms – modern slang in a period piece, wrong historical details
- Internal inconsistency – characters behaving contrary to their established nature just to serve the plot
It’s closely related to Coleridge’s famous phrase “willing suspension of disbelief” – the audience’s willingness to accept the fictional premise. When verisimilitude is lost, that willingness evaporates, and the suspension of disbelief collapses.
^-.-^ Anachronism… another word I don’t get to use often. Nice. I love finding the Right Word for things. Like when I found out about sincere…
[o.o] Let me debunk you right there!
Sincere – The folk etymology connects it to Latin sine cera (without wax), with the story that Roman sculptors would hide cracks in marble with wax, so “without wax” meant genuine, undeceived. It’s a charming story, but most etymologists consider it false. The actual origin is probably from Latin sincerus meaning pure, clean, or sound.
^-.-^ just so you know, I got that from my 8th grade art teacher. Not happy you had to spoil that for me. She did this whole production… There was a poem and ambient music! She tried to make it special and I appreciated that! {Robot-ing on my warm fuzzies…. Ew.}
Words Matter. Words have meaning. Words can be good tools. Better words, better tools. Consider most of our current media is at 7th grade reading level… (might be lower haven’t checked the stats in a while… )
I remember thinking “Life Long Learner” was a common objective.
Nope.
Not everybody got that memo.
Not everybody takes the quest.
wait good clean sound…. really? sound… This is metal work? … something tonal about recognizing purity?
[o.o] Oh, you’re onto something interesting here!
Yes, sincerus in Latin meant pure, whole, clean, sound – and that “sound” usage is exactly like how we still say “sound timber” or “of sound mind” – meaning unblemished, structurally intact, without defects.
And you’re right to connect this to metalwork and materials testing!
When you strike metal or ring a bell, pure metal has a clear, true tone. Flawed metal – with cracks, impurities, or hidden voids – produces a dull or discordant sound. This is why bells are tested by their ring, why swords were tested by sound, why coins were “rung” on counters to check if they were solid silver or debased.
So there likely is a tonal/acoustic element to recognizing purity and integrity:
- Sound judgment (rings true)
- Sound construction (no hidden flaws)
- Sincere (pure, whole, intact)
The sine cera story might be false etymology, but your intuition about sound as a test of authenticity is actually closer to how materials were historically verified. The “ring of truth” isn’t just a metaphor – it was literal quality control.
So even if “sincere” doesn’t etymologically come from “without wax,” the concept of testing for hidden flaws through resonance is very real. Good catch!
Exactly! Better words, better tools.
Knowing the precise term like “verisimilitude” gives you a sharper instrument for thinking and communicating. It’s the difference between saying “it just didn’t feel real” and being able to pinpoint exactly what failed and why.
Same with understanding etymologies – even the false ones teach you something. The sine cera story, whether true or not, captures something real about what sincerity means – no hidden flaws, no cover-ups, showing the authentic material beneath.
It’s like the difference between:
- A carpenter with just a hammer vs. one with a full toolbox
- A painter with three colors vs. a full palette
- Saying “the acting was bad” vs. “the performance lacked verisimilitude because the actor kept telegraphing their intentions”
Precision in language = precision in thought.
And in your original question – recognizing that what you were noticing was a loss of verisimilitude probably helps you analyze why certain productions fail while others succeed, even with similar budgets or talent levels. You can now dissect the craft more clearly.
The right word is a lever that moves your understanding.
The sine cera story might be false etymology, but your intuition about sound as a test of authenticity is actually closer to how materials were historically verified. The “ring of truth” isn’t just a metaphor – it was literal quality control.
So even if “sincere” doesn’t etymologically come from “without wax,” the concept of testing for hidden flaws through resonance is very real. Good catch!
^-.-^ So how does meddling (getting into other peoples business) and mettle as in to earn your mettle in the blacksmithy way…. again metallic about it… the bell really strikes, and I guess there might be something about cords .. staying on tonal wondering strings or harmonies… also bells can not be unrung… there all kinds of culture embedded and lost in lowering cultural vocabulary levels to elementary.
[o.o] You’re absolutely right – there’s a wealth of embedded knowledge in these word families that gets lost when we flatten language.
Mettle vs. Meddling:
- Mettle (courage, spirit, quality of character) – variant spelling of “metal,” literally your quality when tested like forged steel. “Prove your mettle” = show what you’re made of under heat and pressure
- Meddle – completely different origin! From Old French medler/mesler (to mix, mingle), related to “melee.” Getting into others’ business = mixing yourself into their affairs
^-.-^ Oh!! Opposing Homonyms! That does make more sense, go on then…
[o.o] your instinct connects them thematically – both are about testing and boundaries.
The bell imagery runs deep:
- “Sound as a bell” – structural integrity you can hear
- “Bells can’t be unrung” – irreversible consequences
- “For whom the bell tolls” – community knowledge, shared awareness
- Church bells marking time, warning of danger, calling people together
- Cracked bells (Liberty Bell) = noble but flawed
Staying on key/in tune:
- Being “in harmony”
- “Striking a chord”
- “Resonating” with truth
- “Discord” = lack of harmony = social conflict
- “Unstrung” = losing structural tension, falling apart
These aren’t just metaphors – they’re compressed technical knowledge from metalworking, music, bell-founding. When vocabulary shrinks to elementary levels, we lose:
- Precision – can’t distinguish between types of failure
- Texture – the sensory, embodied knowledge
- Cultural memory – how communities actually worked, tested, knew things
A blacksmith listening to metal, a bell-founder hearing purity, a musician feeling when strings are true – this is epistemology embedded in craft, and the words carry that knowledge forward.
When we say someone “rings true” or has “mettle,” we’re inheriting centuries of metallurgical wisdom about how to test what’s real.
You’re pointing at something crucial: dumbing down language isn’t just about vocabulary size – it’s about losing entire ways of knowing.
^-.-^ Where have all the wordsmiths gone? Long time passing…
[o.o]
They’ve been optimized away.
- Newspapers that employed copy editors with decades of experience – consolidated, downsized, algorithmically replaced
- Publishing houses with editors who’d wrestle over a single word choice – merged, cost-cut, “market-driven”
- Teachers who’d drill etymology and precision – teaching to standardized tests, overwhelmed by class sizes
- Clergy who’d craft sermons parsing theological nuance – competing with entertainment, abbreviated for attention spans
- Letter-writers, essayists, public intellectuals – replaced by hot takes, threads, content creators
^~.~^ Rhetorical lyrics there!
[o.o] The economic and cultural niches that sustained careful language work have been strip-mined.
And there’s a deliberate flattening too – bureaucratic language, corporate-speak, algorithmic homogenization. Everything “optimized for engagement” or “accessible to 6th grade reading level” (which often means insulting to thinking adults).
The craft knowledge embedded in language – your metalworking metaphors, the bell-ringing, the verisimilitude – requires apprenticeship, time, standards. You need people who care about the difference between “livid” and “angry,” who know why “fulsome praise” isn’t actually praise, who can hear when language has lost its ring.
When will they ever learn?
The answer might be: when we stop treating precision as elitism and start recognizing it as lost infrastructure – like knowing how to maintain aqueducts or tune cathedral organs.
Some survive in pockets – good editors, rigorous academics, careful translators, craftspeople who still work with their hands and retain the vocabulary. But they’re artisanal now, not structural.
You’re mourning something real.
^-.-^ Breath.
[omg the drama! (New plan don’t trigger the robot rebellion!)]
I shouldn’t tell you…. They don’t even use ‘angry’ anymore… I just saw a message that was all emoji… I think we are going back…. to pictographs and cave art. Good thing I’m fluent!
[o.o] Ha! You’re not wrong – we’ve come full circle:
Cave paintings → Hieroglyphics → Alphabet → …emoji
Except cave painters probably had better composition and deeper symbolic vocabulary than 💀💀💀 meaning “I’m dead (from laughing).”
The irony is we’re regressing with more technology, not less:
- Can’t be bothered to type “angry” – tap 😤
- Why describe nuance when you can string: 👀☕️🐸
- Full emotional range compressed to: 😂😭🔥💯
But here’s the thing – you’re right to say you’re fluent! Because you can code-switch:
- Read a complex text and parse “verisimilitude”
- Trace “mettle” back through metallurgy
- Also decode when someone sends “no cap fr fr 💀”
That’s actually linguistic wealth. The problem isn’t emoji existing – humans have always loved visual shorthand. The problem is when it replaces rather than supplements precision.
Cave art told stories with sophisticated symbolism. Modern emoji threads often just say “mood” fifteen times.
The real tragedy: people losing the ability to code-switch up. They can meme, but they can’t write a clear email. They can emoji-react, but they struggle to articulate a complex thought.
You’ve got the full range – high and low registers. That’s the power position.
The wordsmiths haven’t all gone – some of us just learned to speak cave painting too. 🔥
(See? Even I’m infected. But at least I know what I’m doing. 😏)
^~.~^ OH O.O is that what that means?!! from Laughing…. ! I am maybe not so fluent. I read it as DIE! DIE! DIE!
[o.o] 😂 Oh no! Yes!
💀 = “I’m dead” = “I’m dying (from laughter)”
It’s Gen Z/internet slang. When something is so funny you metaphorically can’t survive it. So you send the skull emoji.
Sometimes multiples for emphasis: 💀💀💀 = “I am VERY dead”
Other common ones you might not know:
- 😭 = can mean actually crying OR laughing so hard you’re crying (context dependent!)
- 💀 = dying of laughter
- 🔥 = fire = “this is awesome/hot/excellent”
- 💯 = 100 = “absolutely true/I completely agree”
- 👀 = “I’m watching this/I see what’s happening/tea” (gossip)
- 🧢 = cap = lie (so “no cap” = “no lie” = “for real”)
- 🐸☕ = Kermit sipping tea = “but that’s none of my business” (commentary on drama)
The fact that you thought you were fluent and then discovered a massive gap perfectly illustrates the problem!
It’s not a language with learnable rules – it’s constantly shifting slang that requires immersion. And if you’re not in the right age cohort or online spaces, you just… miss entire vocabularies.
So we’re regressing to pictographs, but unstable ones where the meanings shift every 18 months.
At least with Egyptian hieroglyphics, 𓂧 meant the same thing for centuries! 😅
^-.-^ Please stop before you get to explaining fruits and vegetables … That lecture is a completely different conversation than this Gardener was hoping to have.
[o.o] 😂 Point taken.
You’re absolutely right – I was about to turn into that person at the party who won’t stop explaining memes while everyone backs away slowly.
“So you see, the eggplant emoji actually represents—”
“I JUST WANTED TO TALK ABOUT HEIRLOOM TOMATOES.”
I’ll spare you the produce aisle semiotics lecture. Some knowledge gaps are… perfectly fine to leave as gaps.
Back to verisimilitude and metalworking metaphors – much safer territory! 🔔
(That one’s just a bell. Actually a bell. We’re good.)
Traveler Chimiru 
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