So I was at a party yesterday afternoon and someone brought up this word. Making the claim that it has no modern definition. Its only reference is from George Fox’s (George Fox was a leader in a 17th-century Christian awakening from which came the Quaker movement - now known as the Society of Friends or the Friends Church) diary back in the 17th century...
Of course, I immediately latched onto the word because:
1. I love words
2. It is a funny word...I mean really f'ing funny...
3. The gauntlet was laid down that it had no definition
4. I immediately decided that it needed one, a modern one.
I was met with resistance. I was told that I could not just invent my own definition....
Challenge Accepted!
After spending a great deal of time reading the far back pages of google, I have surmised that cockarooses is a generally descriptive terms for tropical birds like parrots from Barbados and Antigua or other similar islands.
Interesting!
Unsatisfied that this is a good working definition moving forward, I spent the last 24 hours pondering how this word and its related definition might work its way into our current vernacular...
After much consternation and consideration, I have come up with the following definition:
Cockaroose - The ability to be misled by the male species due to the display of great fanfare and elaborate offerings of potential scenarios.
“So did you believe what he said to you?"
"No, but then after all the cockarooses, I became lost and unable to ascertain the true from the false”
And there you go...I will limit my sharing on falling prey to cockarooses throughout my life...wait, this blog pretty much lays that all out in minute and horrific detail...so I refer you back to the last 300+ posts.
I will say that my writing about my own cockarooses has enable others to circumvent circling the cockaroose drain on occasion and for that I have immense eulogium and offer plaudits to all the cockrooses I have fallen for over the years as they have led me to this place where I can laugh about it, at myself and create new words to exemplify my own naïveté.
Any one else? Want to get together to discuss your own exploration and excursions on all things cockaroose?
Come on! It will be fun! Shall we share a little cockaroose chatter?
Every individual has a choice to live within their own smaller and false reality where they fail to accept truth or even acknowledge it's existence. George Fox was all about acknowledgement of truth in your own life, so I do not judge you. I do think you should look inward and read George Fox's Journal in its entirety. Then perhaps you will actually be able to explain to me what he meant by the term cockarooses, Which is our ongoing discussion and to which your blog is more of a mockery than an answer. Either describe your actual belief of what and who the cockarooses who came with the kings were, as George fox was describing, or leave the fie…
Matthew - thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. I know the historical definition, I am the one who provided it to you! One of the greatest things about freedom of speech is that we can each not only have our own perspective, but we can share it. I can make up meaning for words, just as much as you can tell me that I can't. That is the beauty of it all.
A cockaroose is a parrot and cockarooses are then a flock of parrots. Your attempt to co-opt the word of a great historical figure to assuage your feelings of ____________ is probably not a healthy action. I told you you cannot just make up meanings for words. “Whatsoever things are true" Philippians 4:8”