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| Note: 'twitter-pated' ~ a word uttered by Friend Owl from the story of Bambi |
Once upon a time, a tiny, tall old man, spent his life arranging and re-arranging books in a tiny, tall old library. A thick oaken door opened into the old man’s world. The only light was from tall dusty windows and thick wax dribbled candles placed on heavy oaken reading tables.
Wisps of white hair hovered around his shiny pate. An edge of white dusted his chin. Stooped shoulders were draped long with a dusty brown shawl. Glancing through a slender children’s book, his perpetual muttering abruptly stopped in a "Hmph!”
“Twitter-pated? ............ Twitter-pated?!”
The old librarian set the popular children’s book gently back on the correct shelf in its correct order. Pushing his thick glasses more firmly on his thin nose, adjusting his shawl, his shuffled steps took him to a favourite section of the library. Opening a faded red dictionary, its spine cracking with age, his thin bony finger traced down the page.
“Of course” he muttered "there is no such word."
About to close the dictionary, his sharp eye caught ‘Twitter’ and there in the etymology, he saw what interested him: 'from Middle English twiterin and akin to zwizziron of Old High German.' The definitions were 'chirping' and 'agitation'. Words fascinated the old librarian and a new thought budded. Maybe, 'twitter-pated' was a word born from some need. Quickly he located ‘pate', which he knew was also from Middle English. It meant the crown of the head and from it was born ‘pated’. He quickly dismissed this odd new word he had come upon.
"What does it matter how those two words could be connected? Just seems like silly nonsense to me." he grumbled.
Closing the dictionary, he heard the tiny bell that signaled that someone was entering the library. Turning slowly towards the door where sunlight brightened the gloom that he and his books lived in, he thought he heard an unusual twittering of bluebirds and robins entwined with a light and cheery "Hello-o-o".
As his old eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight, his rigid composure cracked like the spine of the faded red dictionary. This curmudgeonly old librarian was disarmed by the pair of clear blue eyes that met his own hazel eyes. Soft white hair framed her kind oval face in gentle curls. A light brown shawl barely dusted her square shoulders.
Suddenly, and without warning, the old librarian felt the meaning of ‘twitter-pated’ deep in his heart.
"Love is like the wind, you can't see it but you can feel it."
~ Nicholas Sparks, A Walk to Remember
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