Welcome to Learned, a short, weekly look at language, education, and everything else under the sun. I’m Joel, amateur linguist and professional slacker. This week, we're working late in the evening.
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I learned a new word recently, courtesy of John Dickerson and the Slate Political Gabfest podcast. The word is lucubration and it's a word I never knew I needed but now I can't live without because it perfectly describes how I work and how I've always worked. More importantly, having a word and a historical context is one of the most effective ways of shutting down naysayers, even, or maybe especially when they come from inside your own mind.
This isn’t my desk, but it might as well be. Photo by Beth Jnr on Unsplash
But, first things first. Here's the definition of lucubration from the OED: nocturnal study or meditation; study in general.
Merriam-Webster, in their “Did You Know” section, adds:
Imagine someone studying through the night by the light of a dim candle or lamp. That image demonstrates perfectly the most literal sense of lucubration. Our English word derives from the Latin verb lucubrare, meaning "to work by lamplight." (Yes, that Latin root is related to lux, the Latin word for "light.") In its earliest known English uses in the late 1500s and early 1600s, lucubration named both nocturnal study itself and a written product thereof.
Now, there are some caveats. The OED goes on to say:
The product of nocturnal study and meditation; hence, a literary work showing signs of careful elaboration. Now somewhat derisive or playful, suggesting the notion of something pedantic or over-elaborate.
Merriam-Webster backs this up:
Nowadays, lucubration is most often used as a plural and implies pompous or stuffy scholarly writing.
Well, in the interest of reclaiming good words, I’m taking it back. But first, back to John Dickerson and Slate. On the podcast, Dickerson cited an article written by a friend of his and forwarded to him that discussed the habit of lucubration as practiced by some of the founding fathers of the United States. These men wrote a lot and many of them wrote late at night, by candlelight, when they could be sure of few, if any, interruptions.
It's that idea that I find so appealing - that this practice that I have been doing since I was in junior high school of procrastinating or avoiding my writing or studying until late at night actually had a name and was deliberately practiced by some of history's great thinkers. And these days, I find it to be no less true or useful; I have a hard time getting anything done during the day. There are people around, there are immediate goals or tasks or errands to be run not to mention the endless distraction of life as it happens. But, my neighborhood goes to bed early. By about 9 pm, the lights are out in most of the houses on my street. This is when I usually head out for a walk, knowing that I am less in need of a mask, and I don't have to worry about nearly as many cars being on the roads.
I've always been a night owl. I don't wake up early, or easily, and I've always hated that society has evolved in this way that says "earlier is better" despite having plenty of evidence to the contrary at this point. Productivity, for better or worse, is one of the major measurements of success or, at least, perceived success in modern life. And thus, anyone who is not abiding by the of-the-moment philosophy on how best to Get Things Done is not succeeding.
The perfect place for both lubrication and lucubration. Photo by call me hangry 🇫🇷 on Unsplash
I really enjoyed reading, a couple of years ago, the research that says we didn't always function this way. Before the advent of electric lights, most people went to bed early and got up around one or two in the morning and spent an hour just hanging out, smoking, talking, making love, or, uh, writing.
As I said in the beginning, having names for things is important. It normalizes them and makes them an acceptable practice. So, now, armed with vocabulary and historical context, I feel a lot less pressure to change my ways. I won't beat myself up as much when I don't really get started thinking and writing until 11 pm, even, or especially, when I know it means I'm going to be up until 3 am. It's fine. I'm just lucubrating, that's all.
That’s all I’ve got for this week. Stay safe, stay up late, learn something.
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Joel