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aldersprigJanuary by the numbers continues (now two days off~)!
Fromkelkyag's prompt "Poise;" a ficlet.
This one turned out a little weird~~
🍹
It means weight.
Well, it doesn't mean weight, but it's all about weight.
Poise. When I was little, I thought "being poised to" was the same as "being poisoned" and I thought if someone was poised to, say, leap, it was because someone had poisoned their mind.
(Speaking of leaps, I made quite a few strange ones when I was young)
Turns out a poison is a potion, and not necessarily a weighty one.
Turns out a potion, if you mix it just properly, can actually stand in for proper poise.
Or not mixed with much care at all: a libation (meaning a sacrificial wine, poured out for a deity, or, I suppose, for one's fallen friends) can do the same, albeit only if ingested in small amounts.
But back to poise. I needed some. I am a small woman and one without much weight to my manner; people underestimate me, they under-value me, and they often undermine me, because I have so little weight.
So I indulged in a small libation, poured a tithe out for those who hadn't made it this far, and climbed the thirty-seven flights up to the witch's apartment.
It might have been a potion; it might have been a poison. I watched her mix it with far too little interest in which.
From underestimated to under-taken was not really where I wanted to go; I wanted to be under-writ. But at that moment, I found I had far too little concern for which way it went.
That happens, I’ve been told, when one is under a great weight (and so we return, again, to weight).
I drank down the thing the witch had brewed for me, hoping for poise. Hoping for enough weight, enough gravitas (which actually means seriousness, nothing to do with weight, but hey), to do what needed to be done.
Poised. I was poised to talk to the big bosses. Now the question was… was I also poisoned?
🍹
Next: Poise-oned - http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1256733.html
From
kelkyag's prompt "Poise;" a ficlet.This one turned out a little weird~~
🍹
It means weight.
Well, it doesn't mean weight, but it's all about weight.
Poise. When I was little, I thought "being poised to" was the same as "being poisoned" and I thought if someone was poised to, say, leap, it was because someone had poisoned their mind.
(Speaking of leaps, I made quite a few strange ones when I was young)
Turns out a poison is a potion, and not necessarily a weighty one.
Turns out a potion, if you mix it just properly, can actually stand in for proper poise.
Or not mixed with much care at all: a libation (meaning a sacrificial wine, poured out for a deity, or, I suppose, for one's fallen friends) can do the same, albeit only if ingested in small amounts.
But back to poise. I needed some. I am a small woman and one without much weight to my manner; people underestimate me, they under-value me, and they often undermine me, because I have so little weight.
So I indulged in a small libation, poured a tithe out for those who hadn't made it this far, and climbed the thirty-seven flights up to the witch's apartment.
It might have been a potion; it might have been a poison. I watched her mix it with far too little interest in which.
From underestimated to under-taken was not really where I wanted to go; I wanted to be under-writ. But at that moment, I found I had far too little concern for which way it went.
That happens, I’ve been told, when one is under a great weight (and so we return, again, to weight).
I drank down the thing the witch had brewed for me, hoping for poise. Hoping for enough weight, enough gravitas (which actually means seriousness, nothing to do with weight, but hey), to do what needed to be done.
Poised. I was poised to talk to the big bosses. Now the question was… was I also poisoned?
🍹
Next: Poise-oned - http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1256733.html
no subject
Date: 2017-01-16 02:35 am (UTC)The Doctor is having fun
Date: 2017-01-16 04:51 am (UTC)«It means weight.»
As in avoirdupois.
poise:
Late Middle English (in the sense ‘weight’): from Old French pois, peis (noun), peser (verb), from an alteration of Latin pensum weight, from the verb pendere weigh. From the early senses of ‘weight’ and ‘measure of weight’ arose the notion of ‘equal weight, balance’, leading to the extended senses ‘composure’ and ‘elegant bearing’.
avoirdupois:
1650s, misspelling of Middle English avoir-de-peise (c. 1300), from Old French avoir de pois "goods of weight," from aveir "property, goods" (noun use of aveir "have") + peis "weight," from Latin pensum, neuter of pendere "to weigh" (see pendant (n.)). After late 15c., the standard system of weights used in England for all goods except precious metals, precious stones, and medicine.
The word avoirdupois is from Anglo-Norman French aveir de peis (later avoir de pois), literally "goods of weight" (Old French aveir, "property, goods", also "to have", comes from the Latin habere, "to have, to hold, to possess property"; de = "from"/"of", cf. Latin; peis = "weight", from Latin pensum). This term originally referred to a class of merchandise: aveir de peis, "goods of weight", things that were sold in bulk and were weighed on large steelyards or balances.
Only later did the term become identified with a particular system of units used to weigh such merchandise. The warfare[clarification needed] impacted orthography of the day has left many variants of the term, such as haberty-poie and haber de peyse. (The Norman peis became the Parisian pois. In the 17th century de was replaced with du.)
(He bows and departs, leaving a card inscribed
Consulting Linguist, Grammarian,
Orthoëpist, and Philological Busybody
Re: The Doctor is having fun
Date: 2017-01-16 03:42 pm (UTC):-P
The narrator was using the definitions here:
1.
graceful and elegant bearing in a person.
composure and dignity of manner.
2.
archaic
balance; equilibrium.
Re: The Doctor is having fun
Date: 2017-01-16 11:10 pm (UTC)Re: The Doctor is having fun
Date: 2017-01-16 11:20 pm (UTC)This was a lot of fun, for the strange connections. I didn't know poison and potion came from the same root, for instance.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-16 08:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-22 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-22 08:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-28 08:07 pm (UTC)