No Love

Class yesterday fell on Valentine’s Day, and but though I have spent now thousands (okay, two thousands) of dollars and no little time and energy in pursuit, I got no love from the language last night. A C- on the quiz of verbs of motion, the first big evaluation of the term. And this semester, I’ve had more time for study, which I have used, but so far, to little apparent avail. True, last week’s mini-quiz on body parts and articles of clothing, a hundred words, I did ace, missing only the fine distinction between adidasy  (“athletic shoes”) and tenisówki (“tennis shoes”), which, in my defense, was ill rendered by the illustrations we were required to label. But nouns are straightforward—adjectives, too, pretty much—persons, places, things, like a body, ciało, pierś (“woman’s bosom”), biodro (“hip”), udo (“thigh”), pośladki (“derrière,” which sounds so much better in French), the somewhat vulgar krocze, and the more delicate majtki (“women’s briefs”). Nouns are the physical of a language, the matter, the sex; verbs are the love, movement and spirit. I’ve been a reasonably keen student of the former, but the latter, so nuanced, so elusive, I’ve not, what’s the word….