Good Old Penelope

I often get the following words confused so I thought it might help to make a list, to settle the matter once and for all:

An epitaph is the message engraved on a tombstone. Here lies, etc., etc. From the Greek, epi (according to the online etymology dictionary: upon, at, close upon in space or time, in addition) + taphos (tomb).

An epilogue is a short essay at the end of a book, or a poem at the end of a play; like a prologue but stuck onto the back. From the Greek, epi + logos (word, speech). To have the last word (my paraphrase).

An epigram is a saying, a nugget of wisdom wrapped tight in wit, such as "Hell is full of amateur musicians" or "If all economists were laid end to end, they wouldn't reach a conclusion" (George Bernard Shaw). From the Greek, epi + graphein (to write). If you have any favorites, feel free to send them to me.

An anagram is a word formed by rearranging the letters of another word; Santa and Satan are anagrams of one another.

An aphorism is like an epigram, but better. From the Greek, apo (from) + horizein (to bound). Horizein is also the word that brought us horizon. So while epigrams are merely amusing, aphorisms are actually supposed to mark off the boundaries of our knowledge; a tall order.

An epigraph is a quotation preceding a literary work that often indicates the theme or mood of the work. For example, one of the epigraph's to my boyfriend's thesis on comic theory and narrative was: "Just because you can't tell jokes doesn't mean they don't exist." (I said that). Also from epigraphein, whence some of my confusion...

An epithet is a descriptive name for a person or thing -- not a nickname -- more like a title that denotes an attribute or characteristic instead of a rank. My favorite author, Anne Carson, calls epithets (or adjectives, their first cousins) "latches of being" in her novel "An Authobiography of Red" because they are used to fix each object to whatever is most true about it, the way that sodium sulfates fix a photograph, the truth of a moment, onto a square of paper.

In high school, my friend dated a girl named Sarah, who shaved her head. This was clearly her defining characteristic in our eyes. She didn't go to our school and so when she came up in conversation, it often took us a moment to remember who she was. "Sarah?" we would ask quizzically. "You know -- Sarah...bald Sarah." someone would inevitably reply. So she became Sarah bald Sarah -- in this case, "Sarah bald" was her epithet.

In college, epithets became even more useful, as it seems everyone I went to school had one of two names: Emily or Mike. So we renamed our roommates, our classmates, and our teammates accordingly: Crew-guy Mike, Squash Joanna, My Emily. The epithets themselves weren't meant to reveal anything about the people they were attached to, but simply to distinguish them when their first names proved inadequate. I think the most interesting thing about epithets is how they fill the space between name and adjective, filling a little of each function.

These days, most of us are introduced to epithets when we read the Odyssey; Homer was a big fan of the device. The other night, during dinner at a local brewpub, a few friends and I were trying to list all of the epithets we could remember from the poem, which most of us hadn't read since high school: rosy-fingered dawn; grey-eyed Athena; cunning Odysseus; the wine-dark sea. Then we came to Penelope and all drew a blank. The best we could do for her was "good old Penelope." I blame the beer.