When I Learned a Big Word

Yesterday, on my tear-off word-a-day calendar, antediluvian turned up. It's yet another word  I can remember learning in a specific way--though I might have learned it earlier (I should have!) than 1968 when the popular singer Donovan released that song "Atlantis." In March 1968, you see, I was already a teacher of English (was well into my second year!) and would turn ... twenty-two ... that year. (And I did not meet Joyce until the summer of 1969.)

Donovan (Philips Leitch) was from Scotland and is just two years younger than I (as I type this, we are both still alive). His "Atlantis" was an odd popular song for the day--and it was popular: It reached #7 on the U. S. charts. The song, you see (or remember!) was full of talking. No not rap. Plain old talking, Well, not really "plain." Artful. And written by Donovan himself. (See lyrics at the bottom of this post.)

I remember then, hearing that song many times on the radio, how strange it was: The Beatles, Otis Redding, Cream, The Temptations, The Delfonics--these and many others were popular in 1968. Donovan did not sound like them.

Here's a link to the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AUEjzVQwKo

It was long, too--over five minutes (also unusual for the day--though The Beatles would soon transform that, as well.)

As I said, I should have known antediluvian (before the Flood and Noah). My father was an ordained minister as was my grandfather Osborn, as was my uncle Ronald Osborn (he taught at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis--on the campus of Butler University). I even toyed with the idea when I was in college, majoring in religion and philosophy for a couple of terms (then decided I'd rather read novels and poems than dense works by Aristotle, Nietzsche, Locke, et al.--the same reason I eschewed law school even after I was admitted about a third of the way through my teaching career).

Still, I have no memory of antediluvian before Donovan.

Surely, I had heard it? Surely I had "learned" it in the countless Sunday School classes I attended, the endless hours of Vacation Bible School, the conversations among my father, uncle, grandfather?

If so, I don't remember it--at all.

I'd like to say that after 1968 I plopped that word out on the conversation plate when I was talking with my dad or Uncle Ronald  (Grandfather Osborn died in 1965, before "Atlantis"). But I didn't. I'm not sure, even now, that I've ever spoken the word in public. (I have written it in articles.)

Now, of course, I'm starting to feel somewhat antediluvian myself. Every time it rains, for me, it rains no pennies from heaven. Instead, I look to see if some neighbor is gathering lots of wood, if animals are parading, two by two, down my street to his house.

And I also sit here wondering, "Why did Donovan know that word and I didn't?

Lyrics to "Atlantis":

“Atlantis”

Donovan

 

The continent of Atlantis was an island

Which lay before the great flood

In the area we now call the Atlantic Ocean

So great an area of land, that from her western shores

Those beautiful sailors journeyed

To the South and the North Americas with ease

In their ships with painted sails

To the east, Africa was a neighbor

Across a short strait of sea miles

The great Egyptian age is but a remnant of The Atlantian culture

The antediluvian kings colonized the world

All the gods who play in the mythological dramas

In all legends from all lands were from fair Atlantis

Knowing her fate, Atlantis sent out ships to all corners of the Earth

On board were the Twelve

The poet, the physician, the farmer, the scientist

The magician and the other so-called gods of our legends

Though gods they were

And as the elders of our time choose to remain blind

Let us rejoice and let us sing and dance and ring in the new

Hail Atlantis!

 

Way down below the ocean

Where I wanna be, she may be

Way down below the ocean

Where I wanna be, she may be

Way down below the ocean

Where I wanna be, she may be

Way down below the ocean

Where I wanna be, she may be

Way down below the ocean

Where I wanna be, she may be