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Experiment 2: Strengths Finder 2.0
"The hills are avive..."
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Why isn’t there a word to differentiate between being alive as in, “I’m a sentient being” versus, “I’m alive but i’m a vegetable that uses CO2 and photosynthesis to grow my cell walls?”
This was one of the many topics that were tossed around at Jannine’s birthday dinner at Penang Restuarant. Why not differentiate between the vegetable and the animal?
Sensing that the English language has been lacking this very word for centuries, i put my Mensa-level brain to the task...and came up with....
This word has both Germanic and French roots. Well, actually, it’s mostly a bastardization of the word “live” and the French word “vive” which...well, which means to live. So let’s face it, I stole it from the French but just made a new meaning. Vegetables alive = Veg - alive = v-a-ive = AVIVE
GENIUS!
This can be easily conjugated into many other parts of speech. “Viving” (pronounced with a short ‘i’) as in “All viving plants need water.” “Vive” (long ‘i’) can be used like this - “Vive plants somehow use soil without depleting it.” And how insulted would you be if someone said to you, “Buddy, you’re so brain dead that you’re barely AVIVE much less alive!” oooh, that one stings!
So make sure you add this to your vocabulary! I’m going to go have a nice little chat with Merriam-Webster now…