Series 2 of the Good Words Podcast kicks off with this episode about "QUOTIDIAN." Host Lynn Hickernell explains the word's two related meanings, with the help of an excerpt from James Boswell's journal regarding Dr. Samuel Johnson, and also poems by Emily Dickinson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Also featuring, "GET IT?!?!?" and the song, "Toothbrush Dance."
The Good Words Podcast is proud to be a part of Kids Listen! Find out more at www.kidslisten.org.
SHOW NOTES:
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, by James Boswell (full text)
"He maintained that Archibald, Duke of Argyle, was a narrow man. I wondered at this; and observed, that his building so great a house at Inveraray was not like a narrow man. 'Sir,' said he, 'when a narrow man has resolved to build a house, he builds it like another man. But Archibald, Duke of Argyle, was narrow in his ordinary expences, in his quotidian expences.'
"The distinction is very just. It is in the ordinary expences of life that a man's liberality or narrowness is to be discovered. I never heard the word quotidian in this sense, and I imagined it to be a word of Dr Johnson's own fabrication; but I have since found it in Young's Night Thoughts (Night fifth):
"'Death's a destroyer of quotidian prey.'
"and in my friend's Dictionary, supported by the authorities of Charles I and Dr Donne."
"Summer Shower" by Emily Dickinson from Poems, Series 1 (on Gutenberg.org)
"Summer Shower" by Emily Dickinson on Librivox
Summer Shower.
A drop fell on the apple tree,
Another on the roof;
A half a dozen kissed the eaves,
And made the gables laugh.
A few went out to help the brook,
That went to help the sea.
Myself conjectured, Were they pearls,
What necklaces could be!
The dust replaced in hoisted roads,
The birds jocoser sung;
The sunshine threw his hat away,
The orchards spangles hung.
The breezes brought dejected lutes,
And bathed them in the glee;
The East put out a single flag,
And signed the fete away.
Excerpt from "Rain in Summer" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Full poem on Public Domain Poetry
Audio of full poem read by Levi Weaver - see below
Levi is an accomplished musician and journalist - you can find his numerous recordings on iTunes, and his reporting on the Texas Rangers for The Athletic.