Salient
I always hear
this
‘is a salient point’
And that
‘is a salient point’
if I had to guess
I would guess that salient means important
But I wasn’t completely sure
So I wrote this poem
It turns out that I am basically right
Essentially salient does mean important
Which makes me wonder why people use it
Instead of important
Is it just to sound smart?
Maybe
In defense of salient and those folks not being so concerned about
Looking smart (I do this all the time)
Salient also seems to be a little more concise than important
Especially if you pronounce it sal-YENT and blur the second and third
Syllables
Compare that to important
Which has three hard syllables
Let’s turn now
From syllables to history
Heraldry history in particular
Salient derives from heraldic terms
Meaning those terms used to describe coats of arms
and other ways military men coated their armor
in medieval days
Which is kind of interesting because salient can also be used as a military term to describe
Sticking out or in front on a battlefield during military conflict
Like an army acting as a peninsula or promontory during a battle
But enough geography
Let’s get back to heraldry
Which in laymans terms are those two-dimensional animals like lions and dragons and bucks and bears
On shields and stuff
When they have their front legs in the air
on a shield
and they are leaping with their front legs
they are, in Latin, salire,
the animals are leaping or springing
Eventually the word salire becomes salient
But that meaning of springing and leaping sort of stays in the definition
In modern English
With that in mind
I think of salient as not just one of those words that you package with
Salient point
Salient feature
Salient characteristic
I think of it as the important fact
that leaps above the rest of the facts
The way a stag- a male deer- would on a shield
Think house Baratheon
In Game of Thrones.
That is a salient stag
Which means springing or leaping
Which means when you have a point
That you want to make
And you think that point leaps above most other points
Then it is a salient point
And if it is a point that leaps above all other points
Then it is the MOST salient point
Applying this to an example on my website
boyledown.com
It is a salient point that the phrase “boil down” means
To condense
To summarize
However
the MOST salient point, in my opinion
is that the phrase “boil down”
Is a play on words with my last name
oboyle
together you get boyledown.com
kind of clever, no?
how is that for marketing?