Snip. Stick. Sounds dynamic, and precise doesn’t it.
In reality, progress this weekend has been glacial (at their pre-global warming pace) and very, very sticky. There is Pritt Stick tackiness everywhere: on my hands, as residue on the little “snips”, and on the previously pristine piece of paper.
I like words. I enjoy their derivations, changing meanings, and confusions.
While stuck (not physically) in my chair this morning I have been thinking about the word “sanction”. It is a word that has a very particular meaning to people navigating the cruelties of the modern welfare state, as I observe on a weekly basis in my volunteering work at the local branch of a national welfare rights organisation. But it has a directly opposing sense in other contexts, with similar contrasts whether used as a noun or verb. Take these definitions of the noun:
- “a threatened penalty for disobeying a law or rule”
- “official permission or approval for an action”
Try explaining the differences to somebody struggling to survive after application of the first type of sanction. A person cast adrift in the modern world, yet totally, sometimes seemingly inescapably. stuck.
In my snipping of GANTOB’s word art (not, I must clarify, a word cloud), I am hallucinating alternatives. How about “sanction” for the negative meaning, and “sanktion” for the positive: reclaiming a word that should be cause for celebration rather than immiseration. I wonder what it would take for that change in meaning to stick.
I almost snip too far, and sometimes lose count. Luckily, I have the numbers to guide me. I dream of a control-Z function for real life. I have spent too much time typing recently.
I am also thinking about numbers. Not financial sums. But number of cuts. And not the 1,000 cuts of Chinese torture fame, but the ~1,500 cuts required to destroy GANTOB’s monstrous creation. Not Destrukting, which applies to something that you probably want to keep but know that you should give up. But Destroying, which involves obliteration or ruinous damage, whether accidental or intentional. I get stuck back in, the end in sight.
The resulting artefact will be very difficult to reproduce, and a gallery would struggle to preserve it. It is paper on paper, in three dimensions, plus a grotty layer of clotted glue, skin cells and the occasional hair. A prize for one lucky winner to stick on their wall.
THE BENEFAKTOR
8 October 2023
GANTOB blog 