It's an odd word. I saw it used in a Twitter explanation.
Basically, you'd use it to say that you've been heavily thinking or calculating about something....usually over an extended or prolonged period, and it suggests that you can't come to a happy solution.
How you'd use it? You would say: I spent the entire afternoon....trying to ruminate about the problem.
A new term? No.....the word people suggest this goes back to 1533, where some guy needed to explain something....and he likely pulled this word out of thin air to get the problem across to his associate.
The general problem here with ruminate....in most problems, you can throw the mess on a white-board, and in three minutes....draw some kind of conclusion or end-point, with a rational list of solutions.
The minute you insert a money limit, a manhour issue, a potential failure ending, or a benefit-gained scenario....then you enter the world of ruminate. That five-minute pause to think will twist and turn into an hour or two.
To be honest, if you polled folks....a majority of people have never entered the stage of ruminate, and probably have never wasted more than 15 minutes in their life over thinking about a problem.
17 comments:
To ruminate is to carefully think something over, ponder it, or meditate on it. It can also mean to chew over and over again, as is done by ruminant animals, (chew the cud). In psychology, the term means to obsessively repeat thoughts or excessively think about problems. In all cases, the process of ruminating is called rumination.
Ponder, Meditate, Muse, Ruminate; mean to consider or examine attentively or deliberately.
PONDER implies a careful weighing of a problem or, often, prolonged inconclusive thinking about a matter.
MEDITATE implies a definite focusing of one's thoughts on something so as to understand it deeply.
MUSE suggests a more or less focused daydreaming as in remembrance.
RUMINATE implies going over the same matter in one's thoughts again and again but suggests little of either purposive thinking or rapt absorption.
In contrast to over thinking there is Rumination syndrome. Rumination syndrome is a condition in which people repeatedly and unintentionally spit up (regurgitate) undigested or partially digested food from the stomach, rechew it, and then either reswallow it or spit it out. Because the food hasn't yet been digested, it reportedly tastes normal and isn't acidic, as vomit is. Rumination typically happens at every meal, soon after eating.
"Shut up, she tells her monkey mind. Please shut up, you picker of nits, presser of bruises, counter of losses, fearer of failures, collector of grievances future and past."
Leni Zumas, Red Clocks
"But it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, which, by often rumination, wraps me in the most humorous sadness."
William Shakespeare
"It would be much better if I could only stop thinking. Thoughts are the dullest things. Duller than flesh. They stretch out and there's no end to them and they leave a funny taste in the mouth. Then there are words, inside the thoughts, unfinished words, a sketchy sentence which constantly returns...It goes, it goes ... and there's no end to it. It's worse than the rest because I feel responsible and have complicity in it. For example, this sort of painful rumination: I exist, I am the one who keeps it up. I."
Jean-Paul Sartre
"To ruminate upon evils, to make critical notes upon injuries, and be too acute in their apprehensions, is to add unto our own tortures, to feather the arrows of our enemies, to lash ourselves with the scorpions of our foes, and to resolve to sleep no more." Thomas Browne
"Sealed off from enchantment, the modern buffered self is also sealed off from significance, left to ruminate in a stew of its own ennui." James K.A. Smith
"We don't ruminate during a fight. Maybe in a bath, or driving a car, or as we take a walk. But not right smack in the middle of a dramatic moment." Dani Shapiro
"Speak to me as to thy thinking, As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts
The worst of words" William Shakespeare
Here is a blog filled with humorous ruminations: ruminations.aaronkaro.com
Thanks Ripley, I have successfully spent the day in deep rumination, ruminating the word "ruminate."
Do not even get me started on "COGITATE" versus "EXCOGITATE"!!!!!!!
"Cerebrate", now that is a word to think about!!!!
Something else to ponder; The goal of a goal-keeper (goalie), is to successfully prevent a goal from being successful.
"RECURRING" versus " REOCCURRING", Oh boy, what a can of worms that is!!!!
Are there any synonyms for "SYNONYMS"???? Possibly "metonym" , "polyonym" or "poecilonym"??? Possibly there are no true synonyms at all, as every single word carries a different shade of meaning. The meanings of two words may be the same or nearly the same, they almost never are the same in connotation.
It does seem quite apparent that possibly more than 15 minutes has been largely spent over thinking words.
Where in the sands of life is the line of demarcation drawn, that thin separation of thoughts and over thinking?!?!?
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