Trego's Mountain Ear

I read a line from an old poem – “Utterly whelmed was I” and realized I had never read or heard the word ‘whelmed’ when it wasn’t part of ‘overwhelmed’ or ‘underwhelmed’.  I found these 3 phrases online under the definition of whelm:

• To cover with water; submerge.
• To overwhelm.
• To cover with water or other fluid; to cover by immersion in something that envelops on all sides; to overwhelm; to ingulf.

Obviously, a word that was specific to being covered with a liquid has changed.

Another word, out of a history of the Napoleonic wars in Europe was ‘advert’ – a word I know from what appears to be its expansion ‘advertise’.  The online dictionary gives the answer:

advert

intransitive verb

• To turn the mind or attention; to refer; to take heed or notice; — with to.
  “he adverted to what was said”

I can see how it relates to advertisement – but we have lost a powerful word sometime in the last couple of centuries.  The online definitions went on to suggest that in England, the word advert is now becoming short for advertisement.

As I drove into the school parking lot the other day, a word that confused me 40 or more years ago came to mind as I saw a red Jeep parked in the lot.  Years back I had been told to watch for “ an old heapdero by the turn.”  When I got to the turn, I recognized the blend of English and Spanish that confused me – the Spanish J is pronounced as the English H, so the jeep was a heep.  De simply means of, and rojo means red (and the second syllable was slurred).  Consequently the heepdero was actually a jeep de rojo – a red jeep.  Later I heard of a heep de azul – but that was easier to understand as a blue jeep.