106. REDD

When I lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I became accustomed to a dialect I hadn’t experienced, before or since. I grew up in eastern Pennsylvania, went to college in central Pennsylvania, but Pittsburgh was different. And I lived in Butler, which was north of Pittsburgh and more rural. I had good friends there, they were down to earth people, who said they would leave Butler in a pine box. They were simple and proud of their town, and they weren’t going anywhere. They also referred to straightening up their house, or a room, or the kitchen, in that they needed to redd up the house, the room, or the kitchen. I’d never heard that expression and saw it in my mind as “rett” because that’s how they pronounced it. I left Butler twenty years ago and haven’t heard that expression since I left. So, lo and behold, I come across it while reading Jane Eyre!

“There, sir, you are redd up and made decent. Now I’ll leave you: I have been travelling these last three days, and I believe I am tired. Good-night.”

Jane says this to Mr. Rochester towards the very end of the book. The reader is directed to the back of the book to a note defining “redd” as “tidied (dialectal).” In the dictionary, redd is defined as to put in order, make (a place) tidy: usually [used] with up, a colloquialism that comes from North England and Scotland, and somehow made its way to Pittsburgh. I’m sure with enough research it could be explained.

Suffice it to say, I didn’t expect to come across the word not only used in Jane Eyre, but spoken by Jane herself. Kind of cool. As rural as Pittsburgh was, it had its classy aspects. Roots in Jane Eyre no less.

105. REFULGENT

I think my favorite words are those that sound like what they mean. Some words don’t sound anything like what they mean, and although they’re not my favorites, they could be seen as ironic I guess, and I like that aspect of them. But I still prefer onomatopoetic words. Some examples are tinkle, buzz, chickadee, even stomp (especially if you say that word loudly!).

So I came across the word refulgent, continuing in my reading of Jane Eyre. Mr. Rochester uses it as he describes a “refulgent dawn” in the most poignant chapter of the book. At least I believe it’s the best chapter of the book, since I couldn’t stop reading until I’d concluded it: Volume III Chapter 1. I can’t tell you what you find out or it would need a spoiler alert tag. And, word to the wise, if you get the Penguin Classics edition, don’t read the notes per chapter (at the end of the novel), because the editor seems to assume that you’ve already read the book or you don’t like being in suspense. (I do.)

Refulgent means shining, radiant, glowing. Mr. Rochester tells Jane about a “refulgent dawn” under which he walked, that awakened his senses and gave him renewed purpose. He was going to shoot himself due to how far he’d fallen, but as the “refulgent dawn of the tropics kindled round me – I reasoned thus, Jane – and now, listen; for it was true Wisdom that consoled me in that hour, and showed me the right path to follow” (347).

A synonym given in the dictionary for refulgent is resplendent. That’s the word I would have chosen to describe such a moment: in the midst of a resplendent dawn.

Now that’s a resplendent dawn! Maybe it’s the poet in me, but refulgent just doesn’t adequately describe such beauty.

104. AQUILINE

I’m reading Jane Eyre right now, the classic novel by Charlotte Bronte, and although I’ve stumbled over words here and there that I don’t know and have to look up, most of them are not frequently used today. One that I liked, though, that we don’t hear in common usage but that made me laugh as Jane described a visitor at Mr. Rochester’s estate was aquiline:

“For a handsome and not an unamiable-looking man, he repelled me exceedingly: there was no power in that smooth-skinned face of a full oval shape; no firmness in that aquiline nose, and small, cherry mouth; there was no thought on the low, even forehead; no command in that blank, brown eye.” (p. 215)

Basically dear Jane, with that mushy aquiline nose, he’s no Mr. Rochester, right? Isn’t that what you’re saying? Aquiline means of or like an eagle, curved or hooked like an eagle’s beak, and supposedly it’s meant as a compliment. I’m not sure how one can have “no firmness” in an aquiline nose, but Jane implies that she prefers a firm aquiline nose. Obviously, Mr. Rochester must have one.

According to Google, this is an aquiline nose, an “attractive” one:

An aquiline nose seems to exude firmness. That unfortunate man just wasn’t Mr. Rochester, and Jane wasn’t having any of it, that’s for sure.