AN ODE TO EIGHTY-EIGHT

by Jim Freund

© 2022

It’s a weighty date when you reach eighty-eight.

In fact, it’s four score and eight, which, is one year more than the

four score and seven that Lincoln used in his Gettysburg Address

to mark the interval between the Declaration of

Independence and the middle of the Civil War.

I could just let the birthday pass – but I’ve decided to ruminate,

before I further deteriorate

Don’t worry, I’ll try not to pontificate

or overstate or even evaluate

And although certain things do frustrate

and even aggravate

I don’t intend to berate –

Now, in order to fully appreciate what eighty-eight is like,

I’ve decided to assign a word to each year elapsed;

and for this purpose I will use

the marvelous panoply of words

that rhyme with eighty-eight.

Don’t worry, it won’t take too long –

I’ve already assigned ten to my slate –

oops, that’s 11.

I’ve found in my research that,

although a number of these rhyming words

convey positive connotations like validate,

even more of them paint a negative picture

(such as perhaps the worst word of all, hate).

My personal favorite choices, as we’ll see,

lie in between these extremes.

Let’s start with the good ones – like cultivate and stimulate,

exhilarate, rejuvenate and resuscitate

I’m also partial to educate and liberate.

And here too are the three stages of romance:

fascinate, captivate and infatuate.

And finally my favorite positive word of all, titillate.

Now for the bad guys – the worst ones first:

contaminate and exterminate

detonate, devastate and liquidate

One that I really don’t like is amputate.

But the worst of them all is annihilate.

As a bonus, here’s ten more that  make the bad guy list:

alienate and intimidate

agitate, violate and manipulate

insinuate and retaliate

dissipate

and finally, the twin final solutions,

incarcerate and excommunicate.

Enough of that – now how about some neutral words

like equate and placate

or even stuff that can vacillate or fluctuate.

My favorites are words that express the hope

of remedying a rough situation –

like negotiate, mediate, and arbitrate,

or best of all, conciliate.

By the way, have you noticed that

virtually all the words I’ve used

are verbs, like hibernate.

A few are adjectives, such as overweight

– no comments, please, from my food-police wife –

And several are nouns, like heavyweight.

But here’s the thing –

a surprising number of the verbs

can easily be converted into nouns

(albeit nouns that no longer

rhyme with eighty-eight),

without changing the spelling –

just by pronouncing it differently

and emphasizing separate syllables,

so that the “ate” sound at the end is more of an “it”

So, for instance, the verb to advocate

can become the noun advocate.

The result when you estimate is an estimate.
If you choose to affiliate with someone,

you’ll become his affiliate.

Subordinate someone and

he becomes your subordinate.

You can use the same

technique to convert verbs into adjectives:

moderate becomes moderate,

approximate becomes approximate,

and articulate becomes articulate.

Well, you’ll be happy to know,

here’s my final category:

Words that suggest an activity being undertaken –

in the mind, or by what you say, or by what you do.

So for instance, in your mind, you can

meditate, calculate and innovate

The actions you can take by word of mouth are:

to narrate, to translate,

and, vis-à-vis a colleague, to imitate or impersonate

The activities you can actually perform

are all over the place.

You can donate money,

you can abdicate a position of power,

you can demonstrate on behalf of a cause of your choosing.

You can help nominate a candidate,

you can orchestrate a musical score,

you can confiscate bad stuff,

you can eliminate mistakes,

and you can commiserate with a friend.

Well, counting up, that comes to

72 rhymes for 88 –

we need 16 more –

No problem.

How about –

complicate, compensate, consolidate, excavate,

isolate (which, by the way, is

the covid-related term I prefer to quarantine)

punctuate, accelerate, accentuate, renovate,

reverberate, accumulate, appropriate, communicate,

evacuate, incorporate and illuminate –

Hey that’s four score and eight,

I’m 88, and

Now let’s CELEBRATE –

Oops, that’s 89* – well, let’s preserve it for a decade from now.

_____________

* There are, of course, dozens of other “ate” words that could be used. When I tried this exercise out recently on a small group, each member had several additional selections. The topper one of the group came up with was an edgy trilogy of bodily functions that I wish I’d thought of – copulate, fornicate and ejaculate . . . .