Time shapes everything, and English devotes many words to its effects. Ephemeral beauty, like cherry blossoms, fades within days; the nascent industry is just beginning to develop; the quiescent volcano has slept for a century. Inchoate plans remain half-formed, awaiting detail. Burgeoning companies grow rapidly, and inexorable forces, rising sea levels for example, cannot be stopped once set in motion. Kinetic art draws its energy from movement itself, from the dance of bodies or the swing of a mobile. Each of these words fixes a different position on the timeline from birth to dormancy.
Change can also be forced or fought against. To ameliorate a situation is to make it more tolerable, while to exacerbate it is to make it worse. Mitigation reduces severity, as when a helmet lowers the risk of injury; enervation and debilitation drain strength, leaving runners or patients weak. Desiccation dries fields under the sun, and effacement slowly erases inscriptions on old tombstones. Coalescence, by contrast, is the gathering of scattered pieces into a unified whole. Fortuitous accidents, like a chance meeting at a conference, often redirect the course of a life, while deleterious effects accumulate quietly until they cannot be ignored. Exigent circumstances demand immediate action, while dilatory tactics deliberately postpone it.
Some things resist change altogether. The immutable laws of physics do not bend, and the intransigent negotiator will not budge. Inured workers have grown accustomed to what once disturbed them, and anachronisms, wristwatches in a film about medieval knights, stand out as obviously misplaced in time. Presage is the language of warning: dark clouds presage storms, and certain signs presage the conflicts to come. Absconders leave quickly and secretly to avoid detection, and their sudden departures presage the investigations that follow. Perfunctory apologies, carried out with minimal effort, rarely convince anyone, and mendacious claims cannot withstand incontrovertible evidence. The nadir of a career is its lowest point; debacles mark sudden, complete failures. Indefatigable fundraisers persist until the shelter is built, even when every setback might suggest surrender. Together these words remind us that the world is always in motion, but some elements hold firm while others shift dramatically.