Where will you most easily find a maelstrom?
The word maelstrom is likely to be used today to describe a bustling office, downtown traffic or hurricane winds. Turbulence, chaos, bustle and similar notions are linked to a maelstrom.
Originally, however, way back in the mid 1500’s, it had a specific meaning which put it on the map, so to speak. The Dutch cartographer (map maker) Mercator, who has given us today’s commonly used map, the Mercator Projection, located a specific maelstrom off the northwest coast of Norway.
So, where will you most easily find a maelstrom? On an ancient Dutch map. Well, you might be lucky to ever find one anywhere else, since they are hardly common.
A maelstrom is a huge whirlpool. It comes from the linking of grinding/swirling and stream or waters. Grinding, swirling waters make a maelstrom.
Movie-goers will most easily find a maelstrom in the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Computer animation creates a vast maelstrom, even called such by the sailor who first spots it. So if you’d like to get the sense for a maelstrom in action get to your nearest video shop.
Because of the upheaval and destruction caused by a maelstrom it becomes an appropriate metaphor for intense activity and swirling destruction.
May your life be spared the maelstroms of nature, society and personal upheaval.
Logophile – A spot test
How good is your command of English words?
Here are a few questions about words which you have probably heard. Do you know what the words mean or where they come from? Answer all the questions before checking your answers. Note your answers. I will post the answers, one each day for a week – so you will have reviewed them all in a week’s time. If I have piqued your interest to do your own word searching that’s fine too.
What colour is a verdant vesture?
From whom would one normally expect an afflatus?
To what does halcyon best refer?
Which sense identifies what is canorous?
Where will you most easily find a maelstrom?
Where is xenophobia normally directed?
Which substance is behind the word aplomb?
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