Words and Thoughts – August 8, 2024

Hello again, alleged readers. As you know I spend a lot of time making noises. Some calculated, some random; almost always intentional though. “A constant chittering” several co-workers, and one veterinarian, described it as. If you’re not spending most of your day making inane background noise for the physical landscape you’re currently occupying, then are you truly living? At the very least you’re missing out on the transcendental catharsis that comes with bellowing “Glormorb!” a bunch of times in a row while you wait for the coffee to brew at the office.

Yesterday, I happened upon the sound, “yarb“. Yarb has a lot going for it. Succinct, concise, satisfying, and versatile. Yarb almost sounds like it “fits” a normal conversation. Yarb can be a response, yarb can be an exclamation. Yarb’s just out here almost being a real word. Yarb!

Well, dear alleged readers, it turns out that yarb is an archaic form of the word “herb”. Imagine people in the archaic times going about life getting to use “yarb” in the parlance of their times. What a world that must’ve been!

“Oh good morrow Victoria, I’ve returned from selling our potatoes at the local castle, and now I’m going to bathe, pray thee tell, have we anymore of the Yarbal Essences shampoo, or must I settle for Pantene?”

“Hast thou tried burning hemp in the Snoop Dogg Yarbal Vaporizer? Didst thee enjoy Snoop’s Yarbal Vaporizer?”

“Doth the yarb, cilantro, taste like soap to thee?”

Yarb!

But what then, would the archaic folk have noised in place of yarb, if yarb was an actual word? The obvious choice here is “herb” before herb was a word, but I don’t think that’s how society worked back then. They lacked logic, see. Case and point: they thought bloodletting was an acceptable treatment for headaches, which I think they also thought were caused by goblins. Obviously, most headaches probably aren’t caused by goblins. We know this because society has advanced to a point where yarb is no longer a word.

We could spend a whole workday trying to think of what non-word-noise would’ve taken the place of yarb back in the day, and while that would be a fun, and productive, use of a workday, frankly people back then made a lot of weird noises that were a part of language. Remember Shakespeare? That guy was all over the place. Now, most academics that I talk to consider the Muppet versions of Shakespeare to be the superior iterations.

It’s times like these that I consider myself lucky to be living in these current times. Yarb is no longer a word. The Muppets have clarified everything. And now we can sell our potatoes to the headache goblins at places that aren’t the castle.

They had “yarb,” but we have the here and now. However, we can still say “yarb” if we want. This is the American dream.