With all the old stuff I read (18th and 19th century English stuff) you’d think I would run into new words regularly. But that’s not the case. Those older documents tend to use the same words we do now, but with different shades of meaning. I’d have to go back another century to find large numbers of unknown words.

But I ran into four new ones in the last few days for my work, two in floodplain computer program manuals and two in technical magazines. The latter two first:

pollutograph – I didn’t have to look this up. Surely this is someones attempt to say “this graph contains data plots related to pollution. I’m not sure we needed a new word for that, but I suppose it doesn’t hurt anything.

sonication – This was used in the context of biofilms on surfaces, and how, in some study of biofilms as pollutants, after they scraped as much of the biofilm as they could from a concrete surface they removed more by sonication. Now that seemed if must have to do with applying sound waves as a means of dislodging a film from a surface. I did look this one up, and I was right from the context. So, I need to use these two in a sentence.

“The pollutograph was more accurate after they added the data generated from removing the biofilm by sonication.” Not bad. Now, the two from the manuals.

thalweg – This one threw me. Given it was used in the manual of a computer program for analyzing floodplains, it obviously has something to do with water flow. I had to look it up: “1. a line, as drawn on a map, connecting the lowest points of a valley; 2. the middle of the main navigable channel of a waterway that serves as a boundary line between states.” There’s other definitions as well. Basically it’s the low points of a valley/river from source to mouth.

dendritic – This one threw me worse than the last. The sentence I first saw it in was: “The Hydrologic Modeling System is designed to simulate the precipitation-runoff processes of dendritic watershed systems.” The dictionary definitions include: “formed or marked like a dendrite; of a branching form, arborescent; any of the short, branched, threadlike extensions of a nerve cell, which conduct impulses toward the cell body.” Well, what does that have to do with floodplains? It’s used in the manual for the program that calculates runoff rates from precipitation. When you think of a watershed map, with only the boundaries shown and the flow channels all merging to one point, it kind of looks like a nerve cell. So I guess engineering has borrowed that from biology.

Time to use these last two in a sentence: “The dendritic watershed of the Mississippi River results in variable runoff, the forces from which are constantly modifying the thalweg of the river.” Not a great sentence, but I’ll stand by it.

All of which has very little to do with the main purpose this blog, my snail’s-pace attempts to become a writer. I suppose learning new words are part of a writer’s work, but I can’t imagine using any of these words in any of my works now in progress or contemplated. No, not even Ronny Thompson, college education in agricultural engineering, is going to say to his less-educated dad, “Gee, Dad, did you ever notice how our farm resembles a nerve cell, dendritic as it is.” Or “That big spring rain relocated the thalweg of our drainage ditch.” AGH—ain’t gonna happen.

But it’s still fun to learn a few new words, especially work related, in contemporary documents.

I don’t know that they are bees. They sound like bees, although they over in place. We get them this time of year. They come out in the evening, just when it’s cool enough for my evening walk. The hour before it’s dark enough to call it dark, and even later up until it really is dark. They hover about 18 inches above the asphalt pavement on our quiet, country-like roads.

Once you get accustomed to looking for them, you can see them 30 feet ahead. Sometimes you can change course and not disturb them, except they usually seem disturbed and move—sometimes away from you and sometimes right at you, circling up near your head. In the past I used to swat at them; this year, the few times evening temperatures have been cool enough to walk, I’ve ignored them. Until last night.

I went out about 7:30 PM, a little earlier than usual. The temperature was still 90 deg F, but I decided to go earlier to get out and back before the black bees came out for their evening whatever-it-is-they-do-when-they-hover activity. I wasn’t early enough, however. Just as soon as I got on Scalloway Circle I heard one, I think, but wasn’t bothered by it as it moved off somewhere out of sight. On the next street, 600 feet of Scalloway Drive, I encountered no bees. On the next street, Sherlock Drive, I was attached. I heard one buzz near my head before I saw it. It buzzed me four or five times, circling and circling, retreating and advancing, usually staying out of sight. I couldn’t stand that and swatted at it with my…handkerchief and my hands. I kept grabbing my collar in back and shaking my shirt, lest that pest light on my back and sting me. I must have walked out of its range, for it left me. On the return walk I was not accosted by any black bees, though at the same place I saw one leave its hover and fly away.

I say “bees”, but what are they? They have a cigar shaped body, thin and maybe 2 inches long, and a wing span about the same length. They are all black so far as I can tell. They come out after the sun has set, but seem to disappear after dark; at least I never hear them on later walks. They hover 18 inches above the pavement, and seem to prefer lighter color pavement to darker. Scalloway Drive was just oiled a couple of weeks ago, and is very black. The other two streets were not oiled and are lighter asphalt. The “bees” seem to be on the lighter streets. I’ve seen as many as three of them hovering ahead of me on the street. They never fly off into the woods. The one tonight flew into a back yard, not the woods. They buzz like a bee; hover close to motionless like a hummingbird, and fly in a fairly straight path.

What are these things? I’d like to know. Possibly they don’t sting at all and are just a nuisance I can blissfully ignore. Why do they just appear in late July and August? Are they out in the morning as well, in the lightening hours, or just the evenings? I never see them in the morning. I’m tired of them ruining a month of evening walks.