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• prodigy •

Pronunciation: prah-dê-jee • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: 1. A person of exceptional talent. 2. Something extraordinary. 3. An omen, portent.

Notes: Today's Good Word has traveled a long semantic trail and contains evidence of all the stops it made along the way (sense 3. was the original meaning). The adjective, prodigious, carries only the second, and now rarely used, sense. It brings with it an adverb, prodigiously, and a regular quality noun, prodigiousness.

In Play: The word is used most frequently these days in the first sense: "Randolph was a child artistic prodigy who developed his gift to become one of the city's most sought-after house painters." The second meaning is there just waiting for us to use it more: "The drug Lance Boyle developed to cure the common cold has been hailed as a prodigy of modern day medical research." Hitting six home runs in a single baseball game would be considered a sports prodigy.

Word History: This word entered English in the late 15th century meaning "sign, portent, omen" from Latin prodigium "omen, portent". This word is made up of pro "fore" + -igi "say" + -um, a noun suffix. Igi is a variant of agi-, an old root of aio "I say, I speak". This makes sense because the original meaning of the word would be "foretell", exactly what omens do. (When combined in a compound, an accented A in words often changes to I: beneficium "benevolent, kind" comes from bene- "good, well" + fac(ere) "do, make".) Moreover, we find the G again in adage from Latin adagium "proverb", ostensibly from ad "to(ward)" + agi- "speak" + -um, the same noun suffix. I'm convinced that agi- is the second constituent of prodigium. (Although not quite prodigious, the suggestion by Jeb Britton III of today's Good Word was magnanimous. We should thank him for it.)

Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, MTC.

Thank you, Luke, for the undeserved encomium which brightened my day like the sun coming up. I hardly merit being mentioned in the same breath as those geniuses--just a dabbler in words as I see it.

Lo, a Prodigy appeared
In the skies
A mouthless tongue
Thick and immobile
The people gather
Struck dumb like sticks
Waiting for an answer...

from the Apocrypha of MTC

Will the Apocrypha be sold on Amazon soon?????

Of course not. It cannot be documented. It's apocryphal!

Oh, my aching, bleeding heart. Gasp! A deep sense of
loss pervades my very being. I am so unnerved, off balance
and despairing.

Fear not. In due time the Apocrypha of MTC will see the light of day.

Fear not. In due time the Apocrypha of MTC will see the light of day.

Egad! Does this mean the Agora is the darkness?

Not at all. It's just that only bits and pieces of the Apocrypha have been published, mostly to the Goodwordians. Your reactions (and I thank you for them) help me gauge whether my writings have any merit. Sometimes the reaction is positive and encouraging; other times there is no reaction at all. For instance, on August 4th under "effable" I wrote my first short, short story, entitled "THE RESCUE." None of the Goodwordians commented. However, I submitted a draft of the mini story to a writer/editor who said it was "very good," and with minor corrections should be published. Everything I have read about publishing in today's world recommends starting with a blog. This daunts me. It would be an undertaking. In my contributions (if I may call them "contributions") to the Goodword site I am wading into bloggish waters. By now some of you must be pretty sick of my literary pretensions and efforts to turn the Goodword site into a writing clinic, and only wish I would go away. Others, I feel, are quite supportive. When I make the leap I'll let you know. In the meantime, thank you.

Keep writing.

Your efforts are appreciated even when some of us (ahem) fail to reply.

I believe this is MTC's "The Rescue".