Word Nerd Wednesday: The Things She Sees
Happy Word Nerd Wednesday! This month’s story is about a fabulous woman named Maya.
Maya is a particularly skilled person. She has excellent attention to detail, often noticing tiny details other people overlook. Her work is always pristine, rarely an error anywhere, and she expresses her thoughts with meticulous precision. Her mastery of detail is so strong, a friend of hers once joked that Maya would notice an ant in a trench from fifty yards away.
“Trench ant” = trenchant (TREN-chunt), meaning perceptive or astute. It can also mean effective or articulate, and sometimes even forceful. It’s a multi-purpose word, really. It originates from a French word that means cutting. Maya, with her extraordinary attention to detail and precision, certainly fits one definition of trenchant. She’s perceptive, astute, and incisive. She isn’t easily distracted, cutting right down to the details that need attention.
It’s so easy sometimes to be distracted by the mess, to drown in the noise. And there’s always plenty of noise. The detail-oriented focus Maya has is far too rare, but it’s something to be admired when you see it. People like Maya contribute to this world in a whole host of ways, able to cut through all the chaos to the heart of the matter. It can be unnerving at times to be around someone with such perception, but it’s also an incredible gift.
If you have a Maya in your life, treasure them. Appreciate their unique abilities and the way they see the details of the world, right down to an ant in a trench.