What junk email do you receive? Among the plethora of posts sent to me every day is WordDaily, a newsletter that provides exactly what it says it does. Each morning at about 6 AM a new word appears in my inbox accompanied by its definition, pronunciation, and etymology. A few descriptive quotes complete the page.

Sometimes I recognize the daily selection (xiphoid, auteur, emeritus) even if I don’t have a precise definition at my neural synapses. Other times I learn a new word (perdurable, precatory, yare), and the belt reigning in my mental dictionary can expand by a notch.

Yesterday’s word was”phlegmatic.” It’s a word I have seen, but never used. I have always assumed it is related to “phlegm” and conceived of a phlegmatic person as someone suffering from a stuffy nose or a congested chest. And phlegmatic does have that derivation and can mean that. But that is not the definition that WordDaily gave and not the definition that interests me.

What definition did the newsletter present? Having an unemotional and stolidly calm disposition. After the definition, Queen Elizabeth II was given as an example of a phlegmatic person. WordDaily missed the boat. For “unemotional and stolidly calm” WordDaily should have looked at a living person, one of its subscribers…me!

I am as stony as the Rock of Gibraltar. The last person to see me cry was the obstetrician who slapped my butt at my delivery, and I barely got out a squawk before they rushed me into a newborn incubator. When unexpectedly severed from my pathology group, I left the room without raising my voice or losing my cool. I may give a fist bump to a partner after they make a great pickleball shot, but I am the first to try to cool down heated tempers after a blown line call or other on-court shenanigans.

There are a few times that I come close to letting loose. I almost danced a jig after my third par in nine holes last week and came dangerously close to hurling my phone at the TV screen during President Biden’s disastrous debate the week before. I am sure Barb can find a few other examples of times when I failed to be cool, calm, and collected. She would undoubtedly begin with the chair celebration at our son’s wedding.

Is preternatural calmness a good quality? It was an asset when I was the Board of Education president, especially when negotiating contracts. Throughout my life it has kept me from any bare-knuckles fights with their accompanying broken bones or screaming matches with their accompanying broken relationships. On the flip side though, I might have missed some adrenalin rush thrills and emotional purges.

But that’s who I am. I’m glad WordDaily gave me “phlegmatic,” the perfect word to describe myself.

Hey, today’s WordDaily just came in. The new word of the day is Epigrammatic: Of the nature or in the style of an epigram; concise, clever, and amusing. Maybe THAT’S me!

What do you think? And who and what are YOU?

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