All wisdom is rubbish

Funny where your mind wanders off to when you're performing some mindlessly tedious task.

Disclaimer I'm not implying that your mind wanders to any of the places that mine does or that mindless tedium is in any way bad, quite the reverse. It can give your mind a brief respite from the constant demands you place upon it.

Aynho, as I was ironing four kingsized bed sheets and the same number of pillow cases, the word inscrutable drifted centre stage in the theatre of my mind. A noun, or perhaps a verb, sandwiched between a prefix and a suffix. Then a few other variants appeared. Scrutiny, scrutinise. What is this scrut anyway? Usually when you -ise something you transmute one thing to another. Vaporise - to turn something into vapour. Pulverise, to turn something into powder, glamourise to make something glamorous, you get the idea.

We certainly do Awa Rich. And your point is?

Scrutinise, to turn something into scrut. Well, when you scrutinise something you examine it closely, put it under the microscope, get the knowing of it. So scrut must be knowing or information or wisdom.

Enough conjecture, look it up Awa Rich.

Alright already! Say the madjicke word.

Witch one Awa Ritch? They're all madjicke!

Wordflex!

This is one of my favourite apps on the iPad. I used to have a hefty Grimoire called The Oxford English Dictionary. 

Int a Grimoire a book of spells Awa Rich? It certaily is, if you want to know how to spell something you look it up in the Grimoire. Deary me! You should wright The Book of Smells then you'd be Stinking Rich! Ah, The Book of Smells. The little known sequel to The Book of Kells. Er, you were saying? Oh yes.

I would spend hours pouring over this tome, as one word pointed toward another and and then another and so on. Now I can carry all that around with me.

Wordflex is the OED and a thesaurus. Enter a word to search for and it blossoms into animated flower patterns (mind maps, spider charts, yadda yadda) showing synonyms, antonyms, definitions, origins and syntax. It will even speak the words if you don't know how to pronounce them.

Meanwhile, back at the plot Awa Rich.

This is what it showed me for scrutiny. Look at the origin - from Latin, scrutari - to search. Originally to sort rubbish - scruta.

Aren't words brilliant! Iwl yes with that Awa Rich! Anything to eat?