Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Wondrous Words Wednesday - Shadows Walking



I received the book "Shadows Walking" from Douglas R. Skopp, the author. It is an historical fiction about Nazi doctors that I wanted to read because I have often wondered WHAT they were thinking(!) I finished reading it this week, and I am going to do a full review, but I flagged a couple words for Wondrous Words Wednesday. Wondrous Words Wednesday is a meme sponsored by bermudaonion.net, where we feature new-to-us words and what they mean!

My words were "mensa" and "Boche."

You may be thinking, "I know what mensa is. It is the high IQ society."

And, that is the dictionary definition...along with a definition that, interestingly, has to do with constellations. But, when I google GERMAN mensa it turns out that it is a dining hall for students, which makes sense in the context it is used in this book.

On page 231, a German who has seen combat in WWI flips out and starts screaming, 'The Boche! The Boche!' I looked this one up, and it turns out to be a derogatory term that the French called the Germans in WWI. But, this guy WAS German...so, why would he be using a derogatory term about Germans? The answer might be that he was, literally, stark raving mad.

The good thing is I got this book directly from the author. So, I am going to write and ask him, and I will let you know the answer in another episode of WWW!

UPDATE: ANSWER FROM AUTHOR BELOW!!

Hello, Elizabeth,

Thank you for your kind words about my novel, Shadows Walking. I look forward to your review on your blog.

Yes, Pelcher’s scream, “The Boche!” is indeed what the French called the Germans, during World War I and afterwards.

Here’s a dictionary definition:
“Boche [bɒʃ] n Derogatory slang (esp in World Wars I and II)
1. a German, esp a German soldier
the (usually functioning as plural) Germans collectively, esp German soldiers regarded as the enemy
[from French, probably shortened from alboche German, from allemand German + caboche pate]”

I meant Pelcher’s delusional scream to be an accusation against his own kind, the Germans, a despairing cry from a would-be German physician in a novel about medical experimentation and cruelty. You, as far as I know, are the first one to even pick up on his scream, Elizabeth, and what I intended it to convey. Thank you! But I suspect that it’s too obscure or arcane a reference, among many others of my little efforts to make Shadows Walking a more nuanced rendition of the horrors of World War I and the ensuing era that I describe.

One more point, I went out of my way to never use the term “German” when I believed “Nazi” would be more appropriate. I don’t want the reader to think that I believe that Nazi brutality was just another facet of German civilization, or that all Germans were Nazis. On the contrary, to think in these “racial” categories is to do exactly what the Nazis did when they denigrated, say, the Jews. Such racist thinking led, I believe, directly to the indifference at the heart of Nazi atrocities.

I hope this helps. Thank you so much for your question.


18 comments:

  1. Wow, how great to learn about the usage of boche directly from the author!! Thanks to you and the author for an interesting WWW post.

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    1. Hi Margot! I know - I was so happy that he got back with me so quickly! Wouldn't be great if we could do that with all our books?

      "I will just email Shakespeare and ask him what he was thinking when he wrote that sonnet." LOL!

      Thanks for coming by :)

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  2. Mensa is very interesting. Now I want to know why the high IQ society chose it for their name.

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    1. I don't know...but, if I had to guess I would say that they would meet at the mensa, or dining hall. Do you think that's right?

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    2. I guess that's just coincidence. I always thought mensa (the society) came from Latin mens, mind.

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    3. Hi Kathy,

      The best explanation I could find as to why MENSA was chosen as the high IQ society's name, is this interesting piece on wikipedia.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensa_International

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  3. How cool that you were able to get the final answer from the author! And that you were right about boche. I'd bet you're right about their meeting place....

    Here are my Words.

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    1. Thanks! This has been a fun WWW because I was able to involve the author. I have emailed him back and forth a bit today and he is really a nice person and a wealth of information!

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  4. Interesting: we have the word mensa in Italian to mean just that, a canteen or dining hall. I never knew one could use it in English.
    Boche is new to me, but I'm afraid the author is right in saying that it's an obscure way of conveying what he was trying to convey.

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    1. Hi Scribacchina,

      Mensa is indeed a word of Latin descent and I managed to find this short explanation as to why it was assigned to the high IQ society:

      Mensa is the largest and oldest high IQ society in the world.It is a non-profit organization open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a standardised, supervised IQ or other approved intelligence test.Mensa is formally composed of national groups and the umbrella organisation Mensa International, with a registered office in Caythorpe, Lincolnshire, England, United Kingdom.
      Mensa (play /ˈmɛnsə/; Latin: [ˈmensa]) means "table" in Latin, as is symbolized in the organization's logo, and was chosen to demonstrate the round-table nature of the organization; the coming together of equals.

      Yvonne

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  5. Libby I loved you nature notes discoveries! I couldn't find a place to comment there so I thought I'd leave a not here...those cocoons are really cool, and wow,a blueberry tree??? And so ripe already, you must be in southern Ohio, I can't imagine them being ripe where my husband's family lives in north east Ohio.

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    1. Laura! You are so nice to come over from the other blog! Michelle thinks that that Google ad may have done something to the comment form. Yea, we are really far south - close to the Ohio River! AND, it has been crazy hot! Thanks again :)

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  6. I like this book blog. Will help me pick some interesting books for my collection. Currently, I am reading 'Totto-Chan - The little girl at the window.' The next in line is 'The sun between their feet' by Doris Lessing. :)

    I also was amazed at the photo of the cocoon (Israel bug) that you shared. Such workmanship!

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    1. LOL! Thanks...I liked that cocoon too! I thought we could get two of them and make earrings - LOL! Sorry about my comment form, but it gives you a chance to visit the book blog! I think my favorite series right now is the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series!

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  7. Hi Libby,

    An interesting sounding book, although I am not sure that I shall be rushing out to buy it.

    Boche is a word commonly used amongst the war veterans and the older generation who remember the war, here in the UK.

    I'm afraid that I have only ever heard of MENSA in the context of the high IQ society, although I did track down this entry for the question 'where did MENSA get its name from?'. Now the context in which it is used in the book makes complete sense.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensa_International

    A really interesting post to read and research, thanks,

    Yvonne

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  8. I'm reading a book that takes place in India and have intentionally avoided marking each and every "new to me" word because that would be waaaay too many. After reading this post, I'm sorry I didn't make an effort to mark them all because it might have been fun. But then there would have been weeks of words from the same book because there truly are that many words from this one book.

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  9. Thanks for an interesting post. I've been a bit slow to get to them this week, but I always learn something when I finally get to them. I didn't know either word.

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