Mama is versing a hail storm tonight. Am I singing Our National Anthem at a Rangers' game in Arlington? No. Am I doing a dramatic dance with filmy scarves about that fundamental theme of literature, Man vs. Nature, as taught to me by Miss Madsen on a day when she wasn't throwing dictionaries? No. Were the Mamas scheduled to play the Storm before the game was rained out? Is this the Old Mama and the Sea? No:
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air...
The sky is yellow-gray here, not red. I'm watching o'er the back fence instead of the ramparts or the backstop as the hail pounds down. True, there's not as much water gallantly streaming down my furnace as there was during Friday night's storm, but it's still a bigger condo roof leak than acceptable.
The kids on the playground were talking about the soccer teams they'll be "versing" this weekend. It's one of those mangled usages that makes Collage Mama more volatile than any Texas hail storm--in the same category as people chewing toothpicks in public, and men wearing hats indoors. What they do in their own trailer homes is their concern, but out here in the wide world they better cut it out before Collage Mama shows up on Doppler weather radar. We're talking Eye of the hurricane versing Hell hath no fury!
versing
To describe an athletic contest between two teams, particulary if it involves a Mets team, or a college football team.Who are you versing tonight in the baseball contest? competing, playing against. Derived from the common term "vs." in video games where choices are either 1 Player or 2 Player (commonly listed as "vs."). This usage, while considered incorrect by many, is extremely common with young people due to their familiarity with video games.The Lions are versing the Packers on Sunday.
verse
c.1050, "line or section of a psalm or canticle," later "line of poetry" (c.1369), from Anglo-Fr. and O.Fr. vers, from L. versus "verse, line of writing," from PIE base *wer- "to turn, bend" (see versus). The metaphor is of plowing, of "turning" from one line to another (vertere = "to turn") as a plowman does. O.E. had fers, an early W.Gmc. borrowing directly from L. Meaning "metrical composition" is recorded from c.1300; sense of "part of a modern pop song" (as distinguished from the chorus) is attested from 1927. The English N.T. first divided fully into verses in the Geneva version (1551).
versus
1447, in legal case names, denoting action of one party against another, from L. versus "turned toward or against," from pp. of vertere "to turn," from PIE *wert- "to turn, wind," from base *wer- "to turn, bend" (cf. O.E. -weard "toward," originally "turned toward," weorthan "to befall," wyrd "fate, destiny," lit. "what befalls one;" Skt. vartate "turns round, rolls;" Avestan varet- "to turn;" L. vertere (freq. versare) "to turn;" O.C.S. vruteti "to turn, roll," Rus. vreteno "spindle, distaff;" Lith. verciu "to turn;" Gk. rhatane "stirrer, ladle;" Ger. werden, O.E. weorðan "to become," for sense, cf. "to turn into;" Welsh gwerthyd "spindle, distaff;" O.Ir. frith "against").
anniversary
c.1230, from L. anniversarius "returning annually," from annus "year" (see annual) + versus, pp. of vertere "to turn" (see versus). The adj. came to be used as a noun in Church L. as anniversaria (dies) in ref. to saints' days.
Don't you dare forget your anniversary while you are versing Cletus in the watermelon spitting contest! And don't stanza close to me.
One of the most common manifestations of stanzaic form in poetry in English (and in other Western-European languages) is represented in texts for church hymns, such as the first three stanzas (of nine) from a poem by Isaac Watts (from 1719) cited immediately below (in this case, each stanza is to be sung to the same hymn-tune, composed earlier by William Croft in 1708):
Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal condo.
stanza
"group of rhymed verse lines," 1588, from It. stanza "verse of a poem," originally "standing, stopping place," from V.L. *stantia "a stanza of verse," so called from the stop at the end of it, from L. stans (gen. stantis), prp. of stare "to stand" (see stet).
Not to be confused with:
Hold me closer, Tony Danza; count the head lice on the highway.
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