Debby Detering Wordcraft

Debby's writing, book reviews, words to amuse or inspire.

Panama and Beyond

At my mother’s estate sale, an elderly gentleman with interest in local history purchased a box of newspaper clippings, twenty-some years of local history that we were about to toss into the recycling barrel. A few hours later, as we stuffed the last few mementos in our van, that gentleman—bless him!—returned with a manila envelope of “some papers you might want.” That envelope included a journal mailed from my grandfather, William Richard Hobby, to his cousin Mabel Louise Potter in 1914. He wrote that journal aboard the S. S. San Juan, a steamship from Panama to San Francisco.
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A century of change in compound words

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I hadn’t noticed until I checked the manuscript with Grammarly that many words we write as compounds are separated in these old letters.  Perhaps it was one of Uncle Charley’s quirks, but I have found similar instances in other writers. 

Language changes over time. We now compound word pairs like “state room,” “light house,” “to day,” “up stairs,” “worth while,” “every thing,” “dug out” (canoe), “bow sprit,” “center board” and many others.

The Grammarly program, which goes beyond ordinary spellcheck (that word is both new and compound) flags those now-compounded combinations for me. I make the corrections if it’s my writing, but leave the words as is if I’m quoting an antique letter.

The Tin Forest

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Helen Ward, author, and Wayne Anderson, illustrator, have created one of those beautiful books I’d like like to share with everyone from our pre-school grandchild to friends two or three generations older.

The Tin Forest surprised me because it was recommended by our church curriculum for my middle-grade Sunday School class, but when it arrived, I discovered that nowhere in the book is God mentioned, or Jesus, or anything biblical.

But the book is a springboard for discussion of hope, renewal, and kindness regardless of one’s religious or non-religious belief.

Then one day across the barren plain
the wind swept a small bird.
The old man spilled crumbs from his sandwich…
But the next morning, the visitor was gone.”

Helen Ward, The Tin Forest

You see hope come to life in Wayne Anderson’s (and the old man’s) art.

I Lost Volcano Soconusco!

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My grandfather thought he saw the volcano  “Soconusco” erupting in 1914 when the San Juan steamed by that Central American coast:

Judging from my map that we should pass the volcano of So-co-nus-co some 30 miles inland during the night, I decided to see it if the haze permitted. Several times I came out and scanned the horizon, and at last was rewarded by sight of its red glare. Then called several others. … From midnight to early dawn we sailed in sight of it, when mist obscured it, though for a time gleams shot through like sunbeams through rifted clouds. Then the coming sun claimed attention as it gilded the mountain tops and shot up a halo like the pictured head of a medieval saint. …

It is somewhat depressing to be obliged to add as an appendix that there is a difference of opinion among the officers as to whether we saw the volcano last night, some claiming what we saw was only a fire on the mountains. But the weight of evidence seems to be in our favor so we are “hugging the delusion,” if such it was.

When I first looked up “Volcano Soconusco” I confirmed that the boundary between Guatemala and Mexico runs over it, and sailors called it “The lighthouse of the sea” because of its frequent eruptions, or at least lava flows.

I wanted a photograph to go with Grandpa’s journal, and that’s when Soconusco disappeared.  Pictures of Guatemalan volcanos:  No Soconusco.  Mexican volcanos:  No Soconusco.

Grandpa’s ship was still passing Guatemala, so I looked up “Soconusco” in Guatemala.  Not there.  Meanwhile I discovered that Mexico has States but Guatemala has Departments and neither has one named Soconusco.

Wikipedia: “Soconusco is a region in the southwest corner of the state of Chiapas in Mexico.”

Back to the site I first found,  several paragraphs down:  “Tacana is known as the Soconusco Volcano in some regions of Mexico.”

Found!  The “Volcano of Soconusco” is the volcano Tacana, partly in the Guatemalan municipality of Tacana, Department of San Marcos, and partly in the Soconusco region in the Mexican state of Chiapas.

Photograph of Volcano Tacana, or Soconusco, on the border of Mexico and Guatemala.
Volcano Tacana–also called Soconusco.

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