In 1989 Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter and George Carlin starred in a low-rent time-travel comedy called Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Making a virtual institution out of slacker-dude subculture — and providing an indelible lesson in how not to pronounce “Socrates” — the surprise hit generated two B&T sequels: Bogus Journey (1991) and Face the Music (2020).
It also led to an even more unlikely revival of Samuel Beckett’s classic 1952 play Waiting for Godot — now running on Broadway, with Reeves and Winter as patient but perplexed protagonists Estragon and Vladimir.
Here at Weird Words, we’ve been honoring this theatrical run with oddball vocab from the play — as Beckett shows his love of linguistics while translating his own work from French into English.
Here are more unusual words from Godot:
Blather (pronounced like gather; noun) – Sure, most folks know this means foolish or nonsensical talk (it’s also a verb for speaking that way). But I’ve included it anyway because it’s fun to use — and also because it basically sums up the play. As Estragon puts it: “Yesterday evening we spent blathering about nothing in particular. That’s been going on now for half a century.”
This comical line recalls my own principal advice to anyone puzzling over the play: “It’s funny; just try to enjoy it!”
Caryatid (care-ee-A-tid [A as in bag], noun) – A sculptured female figure used as a supporting column. Estragon applies this to both himself and his pal when holding up the weakened Pozzo; since it’s a essentially a statue, this term also reinforces the play’s recurring line, “They do not move.”
Cod – Though it’s pronounced like its homonym referring to a fish, cod is used here in its lesser-known sense — as a British slang verb meaning tease, fool, hoax or trick (“He wants to cod me”). The origin of that sense is uncertain — perhaps from codger.
In similar fashion, the play also makes a verb of the British slang bollocks, which Beckett renders as the nearly unreadable ballocksed. Perhaps now best known from the title of a Sex Pistols record — and the origin of a long-ago word we covered here (bollix) — this has a crude meaning that you can look up on your own.
Congener (CON-juh-ner, noun) – “A member of the same taxonomic genus as another plant or animal” (Merriam-Webster); or more simply, anything in the same class as another.
Dudeen (doo-DEEN, noun) – “A short-stemmed clay pipe” (American Heritage); originally Irish Gaelic — from Beckett’s native land.
Farandole (FAIR-un-dole, noun) – From the Provencal area of France, this is a lively dance “in which men and women hold hands, form a chain, and follow a leader through a serpentine course” (again, from Merriam-Webster).
Gonococcus (gon-uh-KOCK-uss, noun) – Several types of bacteria that cause gonorrhea; like morpion and spirochete below, this is used as an insult in the play, reflecting Beckett’s fondness for scatological humor.
Grampus (GRAM-pus, noun) – Another name for “Risso’s dolphin” — or for smaller cetaceans like the killer whale. Related to both “gravity” and “Pisces,” it literally means “fat fish.”
Half-Hunter – At one point the newly arrived Pozzo (“POT-so”) consults his watch, which is a half-hunter. This is a pocket-watch with a protective, spring-loaded cover — designed so huntsmen could check the time with just one hand, leaving the other free for weaponry.
The play’s discussion of timepieces also includes the odd word escapement, which is part of a watch’s inner mechanism. As with so much other vocab in the play, the inveterate punster Beckett uses both terms to comment ironically on the action: Our two protagonists are only “half” seeking their quarry (Godot) — and they cannot seem to escape from their predicament.
Morpion (MORE-pee-en, noun) – Synonym for crab louse (also used in the play). This is, according to Merriam-Webster, “a sucking louse infesting the pubic region of the human body.”
(Trivia note: “louse,” of course, is the singular of “lice” — being made plural in the same way as “mouse”; and that’s where we get the adjective lousy, for anything of poor quality or condition.)
Slaver (SLAVE-ur, noun) – Though this generally refers to someone who keeps slaves, in the play it’s a synonym for slobber or drool. But then again, this is on the mouth of the ill-named Lucky — who just happens to be Pozzo’s poorly treated porter. So again — another Beckett double entendre.
Spirochete (SPY-ruh-keet, noun) – Spiral-shaped bacteria that are often pathogenic to humans and animals (Random House Collegiate).
The Reeves-Winter Godot runs through Jan. 4. YouTube also has — for free, in its entirety — a fine stage version directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg.
No codding.
