Have you been woolgathering lately? Today’s Dictionary.com Word of the Day entered the English vocabulary in the 1500’s, literally meaning the gathering of the tufts of wool shed by sheep and caught on bushes. It is also associated with indulgence in idle fancies and in daydreaming and absentmindedness.
B.A. Phythian explains the connection between the word’s literal and figurative applications in A Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1993): It was an activity for poor people hoping to gather enough fragments to weave together, entailing a certain amount of haphazard rambling among hedgerows and fields by women and children. This rather random wandering has been a metaphor for dreaminess since the 16th century.
For additional understanding, here is Merriam-Webster’s definition:
Woolgathering once literally referred to the act of gathering loose tufts of wool that had gotten caught on bushes and fences as sheep passed by. Woolgatherers must have seemed to wander aimlessly, gaining little for their efforts, for in the mid-16th century “woolgathering” began to appear in figurative phrases such as “my wits (or my mind) went a-woolgathering” – in other words, “my mind went wandering aimlessly.” From there, it wasn’t long before the word woolgathering came to suggest the act of indulging in purposeless mind-wandering.
I don’t know that I have ever heard this word used, but most of us are not exposed to the literal activity of woolgathering in this day and age. Perhaps a better metaphor for 21st century woolgathering could be TwitterTrolling. Hmmm…I like it. “Her twittertrolling caused her to miss the boarding call for her flight.”
Woolgathering and twittertrolling, are considered indulgences in this modern era where time is money and we are constantly working to do more with less to satisfy some shareholder’s bottom line. If you do engage in occasional woolgathering it is a good idea to do so with one ear open and your wits intact so you don’t miss something important.
Here is my Haiku then…playing a bit with the sheep reference. Have a great Friday!
Those who are naive
minds adrift, woolgathering
are easily fleeced.
kat ~ 22 July 2016
