A.Word.A.Day drabble – 6/10/10: “shambles”
A Word A Day by Anu Garg
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shambles
PRONUNCIATION: (SHAM-buhls)
MEANING:
noun:
1. A state of great disorder.
2. A scene of carnage.
3. A slaughterhouse.
ETYMOLOGY:
From oak to acorn, from a little piece of furniture to a slaughterhouse. The word known today as shambles started out as scamnum (stool, bench). Over time the word's sense evolved to "a vendor's table", more specifically, a butcher's table. Eventually, the word came to be applied to a meat market or a slaughterhouse. From the state of disarray of such a place, today we use the word metaphorically to denote a place of complete disorder. That's the story of a slaughterhouse. To know what became of a fish market, see billingsgate.
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A little continuation of a previous drabble.
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The house was a shambles, even though the kids didn’t live there anymore. His wife—no, ex-wife—had taken them with her to Phoenix when she’d gotten transferred there. He supposed he was filling up the house with crap now so that it didn’t feel so empty. If you recognized the insanity, that meant you were still sane, right?
His life was also a shambles. In an attempt to prove his wife—ex-wife—wrong about his being gay, he’d started dating a lot of women. Dating them, fucking them, because getting off with women that meant you weren’t gay. Right?
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