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Books to Awaken, Delight, & Educate

"The Gist of It" -- Paul Dry

gist of it, paul dry books

I once asked one of our authors, Eva Brann: "Who do you write to?" "Myself," she answered, and added, "I write for readers and for myself. In both cases, thinking about what I'm trying to say, I want to get to the gist of it." This answer intrigued me. And it prompted me to wonder, "What is the gist of a matter?"

I turned to the OED, where gist has three separate entries, as if it were three separate words. The first two are noted as obsolete. The third lists two current usages:

   1. In law, the real ground or point (of an action or indictment).

   2. The substance or pith of the matter, the essence or main part.

Eva must have had this second meaning in mind. But I wondered about the obsolete usages, so I looked at them:

    1(a). A stopping place or lodging, also plural, a list of stopping places or stages in a monarch's progress.

    1(b). Said of birds and their halting places.

   2. Refreshment.

Refreshment as an older meaning of gist resonates with the sense of substance or pith. The conjunction of these meanings packs a wallop. Gist is the lodging place or ground for an important person (or birds) or an idea. It's also the refreshment one finds at that place. Hence, writing that gets to the gist of the matter—the writing that Eva Brann aspires to—can be both the place of nourishment and the nourishment itself.

We like to think our books "get to the gist of it."

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