JusJoJan – Seldom Used Word

Participating in Linda Hill’s Just Jot it January is new for me this year. It is good on mornings like this when my brain is as foggy as the woods outside my window. The weather really impacts my head and mornings like this can induce a bout of vertigo if I am not careful.

Working words into my writing that I do not normally use lends itself to more stream of consciousness writing and on days like this that is not a bad thing. So without further ado let me introduce you to the word of the day: poke.

The first thing that popped into my brain was  conjugating a verb. Do you remember those exercises in school?

I poke.
I poked.
I have poked.

Of course, that is the simplest form of conjugation. It can be so much more complex. Thinking about high school, I also remember diagramming sentences. I loved going up to the blackboard and drawing the diagram on the board and dissecting a sentence into all its parts. I may be the only person to ever have loved this.

The second thing to come to mind was the song “Polk Salad Annie”. I am the queen of misheard lyrics and always thought Tony Joe White was saying ‘Poke Salad Annie’. Oddly enough, I always liked this song. Maybe I will get an opportunity to research it on an upcoming Song Lyric Sunday post.

Poke is also another name for a bag or a sack although I do not recall using it in my southern vernacular. What I do remember was a little store across from the small bowling in the nearby town. They sold a Pig in a Poke. They were simple paper bags with an unknown treasure inside, tied up with twine and sold for five or ten cents apiece. Mom and Dad seldom let us buy one, though. A major disappointment in my young life.

My parents also tried to dissuade us from ‘poking fun’ at people. To make fun of someone would lead to severe admonishment from our parents or grandparents. If the truth be known, we must have learned it somewhere. Just sayin’…

Facebook has this weird feature (if it even still exists) of poking your friends. Never understood its purpose. It was most likely a contributor to their early algorithms helping them determine who our closest friends were. It was always weird to me to see some FB friend had poked me. Such an odd word to use. It felt like a virtual elbow jab in the ribs.

That’s it for me. If Linda had not given me fuel today, I would still be poking along trying to decide what to write.

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If you would like some writing motivation for the month of January, check out Linda’s post. We are only three days in. You can jump in any time.