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Spider n (Skinner thinks this word softened from spinder or spinner, from spin; Junius, with his usual felicity, dreams that it comes from σπιδειν, to extend; for the spider extends its web Perhaps it comes from speiden, Dutch, or spyden, Danish, to spy, to lie upon the catch Dor, ðora Saxon, is beetle, or properly a humble bee or stingless bee May not the spider by spy dor, the insect that watches the door?): The animal that spins a web for flies Trolmydames n s: of this word I know not the meaning Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (1755)   ***   A tip for users: when choosing the right word to shout at a departing figure, concentrate on how much your throat can handle The door slammed behind you an hour ago, which means I must have been sitting on the bed like this for a smidge over two I’ve only just noticed the spider up there, however, Miss Muffetting a ragtime beat untimidly above the curtain-rail It is making come-hither gestures at me Valiant, I throw the closest thing to hand directly at it The closest thing to hand happens to be your pyjamas which you had forgotten to pack   Aphaeresis is the process whereby a word loses its initial sound or sounds, as in ’twas and knock Sounds are lost from the ends of words through apocope, literally ‘cutting off’: you can see it in the dangling useless b of a tail trailing, dumbly, behind lamb, the silent b of a lame dumb lamb, where b is a tuft of wool left on the wire once the flock’s moved on, a ghost-marker   Apocope comes from a different root than apocalypse, to disclose   The thrown pyjamas got halfway to the spider then crumpled in mid-air They became floor In the same way that when a black cat yawns there is a sudden unexpected new colour and potential violence to the equation of a scene, your crumpled silk pyjamas changed the room They sprawled a glowing chalk outline on the carpet The spider responds to my inroads upon