As I turn the corner from Smith Street onto my short block in Brooklyn on a late winter afternoon just a few months after moving to the neighborhood, I notice that the sky somehow seems very different here. To my left and right the buildings take a few steps backwards, like cancan dancers on a stage, kicking their legs with lifted arms. After discovering the almost obsolete welkin, I know there is a single word I can use to describe this celestial beckoning.
Why would such a grand word become so obscure?