EcoLit 313

The three terms that I chose to explore in more depth were: Garden, Permaculture, and Anthropocentric.

1. Garden

From Merriam Webster’s Dictionary Online: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/garden

1. Noun

a : a plot of ground where herbs, fruits, flowers, or vegetables are cultivated

b : a rich well-cultivated region

c : a container (as a window box) planted with usually a variety of small plants

2a : a public recreation area or park usually ornamented with plants and trees <a botanical garden>

b : an open-air eating or drinking place

c : a large hall for public entertainment

Verb: to lay out or work in a garden

transitive verb: to make into a garden

2: to ornament with gardens

Adjective: of, relating to, used in, or frequenting a garden

2a : of a kind grown in the open as distinguished from one more delicate <garden plant>

b : commonly found : garden-variety

Origin of the word:

Middle English gardin, from Anglo-French gardin, jardin, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German gart enclosure — more at yard

First Known Use: 13th century

Green
OED:
I. With reference to colour.
1. Of a colour intermediate between blue and yellow in the spectrum; of the colour of grass, foliage, an emerald, etc.
Freq. with prefixed nouns or adjectives denoting a particular shade. apple, bottle-, dark, emerald-, grape-, grass-, lettuce, olive-, pea-, sea-green: see the first element. See also sense B. 4a.
a. Designating growing vegetation, grass, etc.

dictionary.com:
1. of the color of growing foliage, between yellow and blue in the spectrum: green leaves.
2. covered with herbage or foliage; verdant: green fields.
3. characterized by the presence of verdure.
4. made of green vegetables, as lettuce, spinach, endive, or chicory: a green salad.

Miriam-Webster: 
 1: of the color green
2a : covered by green growth or foliage <green fields>
b of winter : mild, clement
c: consisting of green plants and usually edible herbage <a green salad>
3: pleasantly alluring
4: youthful, vigorous
5: not ripened or matured <green apples>
6: fresh, new

Blue 
OED:
1. a. The name of one of the colours of the spectrum; of the colour of the sky and the deep sea; cerulean. 

Sustainable-

Oxford English Dictionary (online): Etymology. It comes from the earlier adjective sustenable and French forms of the word. First used as early as the 1600s

Definition(s): - Capable of being endured or borne; bearable

-          Capable of being maintained or continued at a certain rate or level

Merriam-Webster Dictionary (online): circa1727

Defintion(s):    - Capable of being sustained

-          Of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged

-          Of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods

Dictionary.com: Origin: sustain + -able

Definition(s):   - Capable of being supported or upheld, as by having its weight borne from below

-          Pertaining to a system that maintains its own viability by using techniques that allow for continual reuse

-          Able to be maintained or kept going, as an action or process

-          Able to be supported as with the basic necessities or sufficient funds    

Intereaction-

Know

The Oxford English Dictionary

 ”COUNTRY has two different meanings in modern English:  broadly a native land and the rural or agricultural parts of it.  The word is historically very curious, since it derives from the adjective contrata (L. contra – against, in the phrase contrata terra meaning land lying opposite over against or facing.  Its earliest separate meaning was a tract of land spread out before an observer. (Old English landscipe was a region or tract of land; the word was later passed into English through cuntrée and contrée.  It had the sense of native land and of distinctly rural areas.

 The widespread use of country as opposed to city began with increasing urbanization.

 In its general use, for native land, country has more positive associations than either nation or state.  Country habitually includes the people who live in it, while nation is more  abstract and state carries a sense of the structure of power.  Country can substitute for people in political contexts.  There is also

A specialized metropolitan use, in which all areas outside the city are‘country. ‘ “

 Raymond Williams, Keywords:  A Vocabulary of Culture and Society,

1983.

 COUNTRY . Middle English contre, e, cuntrée.  Late Latin contrata.  That which lies opposite or fronting the view, the landscape spread out before one.  Old Provencal equivalent encontrada, that encountered or met with.

The sight I chose to revisist throughout the semester is the garden beside Perry House and one of the features of that garden also happens to be the photo I chose to be my map of Bryn Mawr.  

This is how I feel about the image that I chose to represent Bryn Mawr. It’s beautiful, yes. It’s descriptive, yes. But it still seems like it only grazes the surface of what the physical campus of Bryn Mawr is to me. By choosing this picture (which is, by the way, not mine- I got it off of tumblr.com and searching “Bryn Mawr”) I have chosen to foreground the part of the campus where I spent much of my freshman year. I lived in the dorm farthest from the rest of the campus, but the trade off was walking to class gave me the best view of campus. Though that was two years ago, the view that comes to mind when I think “Bryn Mawr” is still this one. It feels magical to me- I love the roses, the greenery, and the castle-like dorm in the background. The flowers are fore grounded because I always find anything in nature much more beautiful than structures built by humans (such as buildings.) The terra incognita of the image would be the gym (on the left-hand side) and tennis courts on the right. Since I am more interested in the plants on campus than the man-made structures it doesn’t matter very much to me that the gym and tennis courts are not in the picture.

In hopes that they help guide you on your Wanderings:

VACILANDO

Urban Dictionary: Vacilando is a Spanish term for the act of wandering when the experience of travel is more important than reaching the specific destination.

John Steinbeck (in Travels With Charley: In Search of America, 1962) wrote:

“ In Spanish there is a word for which I can't find a counterword in English. It is the verb vacilar, present participle vacilando. It does not mean vacillating at all. If one is vacilando, he is going somewhere, but does not greatly care whether or not he gets there, although he has direction."

*this is the only accurate definition I could find in English

COEXISTENCE

OED: a. Existence together or in conjunction. b. With special reference to peaceful existence side by side of states professing different ideologies.

Online Etymology Dictionary: mid-15c., "joint existence;" see co- + existence. As "peaceful relations between states of different ideologies," 1954, a Cold War term.

Merriam-Webster: 1. to exist together or at the same time. 2. to live in peace with each other especially as a matter of policy.