WordRustler

The attempted terrorist attack on the flight into Detroit—and even the toppling of the Pope by a crazed Swiss woman—seem blissfully far away in our edition of quotidian, everyday Rome.

It rained on and off for most of the day.  Thousands of blackbirds hovered above us, chattering, then roosted in the sycamores along the Tiber.  An American kid asked his friend: “Are they mini vampires?”

A few parishoners at post-Xmas mass in several churches, but not many.  Don’t have the impression that Romans are all that pious, now.  (Not many for Midnight Mass, either.)

Somewhere, a seagull yodels and wails.

Gismo/Gizmo (Origins)

Gismo also gizmo, n. slang.

A mechnical device or part whose name is forgotten or unknown.  The origin of the word ‘gizmo‘ is unknown, according to the American Heritage Dictionary.

That would make the word, gizmo, itself, a lexical gizmo.  The word is, in other words, an example of what it means.  Signified and signifier, while separate, are joined by a thick band of connective flesh.  Like Siamese twins.