Getting the right word

This morning – a bright, clean, cool morning in Cape Town – offered a chance, after dropping Cleo off at daycare, to sit down with a book I’d been anticipating with some pleasure: Virginia Danielson’s ethno-musicological study of Umm Kulthum, the famous mid-century Egyptian singer. It didn’t disappoint, offering a useful series of comments on the remarkably diverse oeuvre of Kulthum, who sang popular songs, courtly poems set to music and, especially in the turbulent 1950s, a tapestry of nationalistic anthems. Kulthum was widely celebrated, too, as an icon of Egyptian authenticity – she hailed from a small village in the Delta – and she inevitably packed the house for concerts that often began at around 10 in the evening and lasted until 3 or even 4 in the morning.

Particularly interesting, though, were Danielson’s comments on the aspects of Kulthum’s voice that were most often praised. Specifically, her voice was said to feature a laudable ghunna: a sweet nasality, that is, which is distinguished by Arab experts from khunna, a nasal intonation that is by contrast unpleasant and musically uncultivated. Too, Kulthum was also said to sing with bahha – with a reedy hoarseness, that is, is said to be a natural color in a strong, healthy voice. Sure, she was known for her phrasing, too, and for what Danielson calls her stern artistry, but precise terms such as ghunna and khunna point to a deep interest in the exact contours of Kulthum’s majestic voice. Connoisseurs brought an efficient vocabulary, in short, to their attempts to explain exactly what brought so many Egyptians to a halt when they heard her sing.

In a somewhat similar vein, I challenged L. a few days ago to come up with some words that describe, in exact terms, Cleo. There’s not doubt that she’s her own person now – but in what ways, exactly? And what sets her apart from the average two-year-old? In other words, I wanted something more individual than stubborn, or pint-sized. After a few days of staccato thought, we came up with several candidates. Deliberate, suggested L., and that’s right: Cleo tends to approach tasks – such as diapering, and re-diapering, her dear stuffed monkey George – with a patient focus and a willingness to repeat. And repeat, and repeat. Along the same lines, I’ll throw in fastidious: for a toddler, she’s remarkably neat. We often set her up with a bowl of yogurt and a spoon, and don’t even bother with a bib: at the most, she may drop a blotch or two, but most of the yogurt ends up right where it’s supposed to. And, finally, I might add something like intimate, for Cleo thrives in small groups, but seems to freeze up when in a party of more than five, or six. In fact, a Cleo connoisseur might turn to the Dutch term gezeelig here: as Marieke de Mooij notes, the word suggests “sharing your feelings… in a very personal and intimate way while being together in a small group.” Ask Cleo to say hi to L’s students, and she’ll bury her face in your shoulder; sit down alone with her, and ask her what she wants for dinner, and she’ll soon ask for a spoonful of peanut butter – which she’ll then eat deliberately.

Bahha, gezeelig: neither term, I’ll freely admit, is very common blog material. But if you’re committed to your subject, you have to be willing to reach for the right word from time to time.