The Dog and God Problem

Vidkun Quisling

You may have been rendered speechless by recent history. However everyone has words that are lifesavers, islands of civility amidst the decline of everyday speech. Take morganatic referring to royal bastards or quisling named after the Norwegian Nazi mole. Vergangenheitsbewaltig is a nice German compound word for those who feel they're carrying the weight of the world in their shoulders. Samizdat is a fun Russian word that comes in handy when you're trying to figure out why people don't read poetry anymore. People like what they can't have. Not to impugn intrinsic greatness, but there's no doubt Ossip Mandelstam profited from being a forbidden commodity. Know emordnilap? It's palindrome spelled backwards. LOL is a palindrome, but dog is the emordnilap of God.

read "Died Young" by Francis Levy, The Brooklyn Rail