chivalry

Here is a word with origins in the Middle Ages, referring to all manner of gallantry and knightly skill, including obedience to the rules of knighthood. Chivalry has been trivialized in the modern day as merely attention, consideration and politeness towards women. These are certainly laudable virtues, but hardly a match for the comprehensive lifestyle ideally practiced by English knights. The fortitude in battle, generosity and patriotism included in the code would certainly annoy some of the more rabid francophobes in their embodiment in a word of French origin. In any case, one wonders how often, if ever, chivalry in its original form was actually carried out consistently by any knight or man throughout his life in the Middle Ages. Perhaps this is the reason for the diminishment of the word's content; perhaps practice has led to lower expectations.

Last week's theme: Adherence to the form and content of this blog prevents me from being one of those open blogophiles, who links frequently to fellow blogs and raves about their content. Last week I wanted to recognize the blogs of some of my visitors, and I chose to do so at this point because the number of readers I have can only increase or decrease, and while the latter would leave me without much to work with, the former would make the number of visitors too great for anyone to have a shot at guessing the theme. Each word embodied a theme of a recent post of one of the few people who comment here:

sphinx: As noted by Morgen, the Sphinx at Giza was mentioned quite recently in his ongoing chronicle of his trip to Egypt in September of 2001 on his blog It's a Blog Eat Blog World. Aside from that entertaining tale, well-organized with "Extra Egypt" informative entries to keep the main ones from getting side-tracked, Morgen gets extra props for being my first, and for weeks only regular visitor, thereby preventing me from becoming despondent and committing blogocide.

distaste: This word was a reference to ThursdayNext's post about various disliked foods on her blog Eyre Affairs. I love this blog for its thickly literary feel, even when she describes every day events. Her posts are nearly always long and well thought-out, and reader response is major - the comments inevitably quickly fill with addendums from Amy herself and a number of readers. Also, she begins each post with a small excerpt from Jane Eyre. It really ties everything together and reminds us of the power of words. (Leave me alone, I'm obsessed with words.)

vendetta: This was a blatant reference to marty's review of V for Vendetta over at The Sensation Inside. I admit I haven't been reading this blog for very long, but it's steeped in her personality; in her case that's a good thing. For some reason she calls herself an aspiring author, despite the fact that she's already had two books published.

thanks: This word wasn't the main theme of a post, but the title of one of Julie's on Flip This Body. This blog is particularly addictive; between its focus on a goal, its attractive and individual appearance, and Julie's informative and entertaining posts on everything from cover girl touch-ups to a voiceover audition, I check in on this one every day.

Some people just have interesting things to say about their lives and interesting ways to say them, and all of the above are lucky enough have that kind of blog. I'm mildly jealous; there's a reason I only talk about words.