Unlike the last word I took note of on this blog, today’s word is not archaic. I came across it in a magazine article I’m reading on-line. Here’s the quote.

Annabel Patterson, [her section], in her [article], explores the “peculiar ontological status of letters as texts, as generic modifiers, or as members of a distinct and in some ways unique genre,” arguing that the correspondences of [three old Englishmen] a natural Ciceronianism.”

The article I’m reading has to do with collections of letters. Having just done my talk on collections of letters to the Northwest Arkansas Letter Writers Society, my urge to read more about the topic has not yet run its course. Hence, I did a search for “letter collections” on JStor, and this is one that popped up.

The definition I find for ontological is:

1. relating to the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being: “ontological arguments”
2. showing the relations between the concepts and categories in a subject area or domain:

   “an ontological database” · “an ontological framework for integrating and conceptualizing diverse forms of information”

I gotta tell you, that doesn’t help a lot. The study of “being”? I don’t really know what that is. I looked up ontology and got this for a definition:

In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.

Which wasn’t any help.

All of which suggests to me that I’m reading the wrong things.