Here’s a word that has swept up a lot on its journey to us. Known largely now as the track left by wheeled vehicles…

Ruts in South Iceland

… it still maintains older knowledge. For instance, these ruts, similar to the ones above …

Ruts above Melárett in East Iceland

… are made by sheep. In both cases, they are a…

Rupture, or a sharp cut or Rip in a surface of skin, either the Earth’s or of a human body, and, grimly, rape.

A cow in full rupture cutting a fine figure in Vernon, British Columbia

In some cases, as with a boil or a volcano, we say ruptures…

Erupt, or break from within, rather than from without. Similarly, an animal in…

Rut, explodes into wilder-than-normal behaviour and competition for mating…

Stallions at Skriðuklaustur, Iceland

… which has given us our dear friends, those rippers of wallows and the forest floor, the pigs or porkers, and the German word for their piglets, Merkel, who rip or…

Furrow the land as does the plow, an activity named for the eruptions or…

Perks or Peaks it makes between troughs.

Furrows and Peaks on the Columbia Plateau (Highland School, Highland, Washington)

Each of these peaks is, naturally enough, a …

Perch, a place where a bird can settle (originally a metal bar, or furrow-peak set up for a hawk) and …

Peek and peer to its heart’s content and, as birds will, be positively…

Perky, which is, so to say …

An American Goldfinch Peeking and Peering Most Perkily on its Sunflower Perch

… to live up. Always this upward thrust! And all that from what is normally seen as a depression. Don’t we always say, “well, that place is all rutted up.”

Dagverðará, Iceland

Never do we say, “hey, that’s rutted down, you know.” No way. That’s because, deep down, the language knows which way is up.