Take a look at the background of ‘umbrage’

At his age the Vice President of Research doesn’t hear ver y well or see ver y well. We do still take regular walks during which he snif fs a lot.

Other dogs worship him by leaving him various messages. He decodes them and occasionally responds.

When the neighborhood where Stately Willard Manor is located was annexed somehow the developer convinced the city planning commission and the City Council that sidewalks were not necessar y. This is a development designed for retired (elderly?) people and dogs. Thus, when one wants to walk for exercise (and other reasons) one must walk in the street.

Curiously, cars and trucks must also use the street, leading to contention for space.

Most neighbors and many who drive through headed for who knows where on a dead-end street are courteous. They drive slowly when they pass a big guy and a little white dog ambling down the street; they move over to give us extra room.

However, there are a few who mistake our street for the Indianapolis 500. They drive fast and show no concern for amblers or moseyers. Mostly they drive large loud pickup trucks — they also tend to be younger males.

When they do this the VP “warf-warfs” them, expressing his displeasure at their lack of cour tesy.

This happened just the other morning when someone (who probably started too late, not our fault) roared by us and the VP gave them what for. When we finished our amble/ explore I told the CEO what had happened and said, “Twoey took umbrage at the truck driver.” She smiled and said “Umbrage?”

She, of course, knows what it means — you don’t get to be CEO of an organization like “Trivially Speaking” without knowing a collection of words.

The first thought that comes to mind is what Mar y Poppins would feel when she was extremely angr y and wanted to take it out on someone.

Naturally, that’s not the origin but it brings a curious image to mind.

Umbrage is not English despite Mar y’s possibility. The word first appeared in the early 15th centur y reflecting “Shadow, darkness, shade” from the old French “ombrage” (“shade or shadow”) and even then it traced back to the Latin “umbraticum” meaning “Of or pertaining to shade.”

The “shady” implications of the word got a shift in the 1600s. In the 1610s, it had the figurative use as a “suspicion that one has been slighted.” Thus by 1670 “to take umbrage at” meant a person believed they’d been slighted or not considered.

In our world, taking umbrage at some person or action typically means the slighted person was insulted or “dissed” in current slanguage.

So, when Twoey “warfwarfed” the truck driver he was expressing his feelings at the disregard for our safety.

I can not print the translation of the “warf-warf” from bichon frise to English because this is a family newspaper. Let me say it has nothing to do with Mar y Poppins.

In a related item, Rudyard Kipling defined politics as

“A dog’s life without a dog’s decencies.”

Jim Willard, a Loveland resident since 1967, retired from Hewlett-packard after 33 years to focus on less trivial things. He calls Twoey, his bichon frisé-maltese dog, vice president of research for his column.