bezelless

Alana doesn’t like this word, but I do.

What does it signify, bezelless? Is it a cross between a gazelle, a wildebeest, and a lioness? (No… and I’m not sure how that would work… sounds like a gory scene in the Okavango delta.) Is it a busy buzzy little demon, a minion of Beelzebub? (…n… …o…) Is it your friend’s German friend who joined you for the local Oktoberfest and was unimpressed? (Probably not… and that might seem a transgression of Gesellschaft.) Is it the word bevel as seen reflected in a pond with ripples from a dropped stone? (Well… maybe…)

What it is for sure is the kind of sports watch I prefer.

No, it’s not a brand. It’s just that I used to have a sports watch with an angled metal edge that was responsive to touch, but it was also responsive to any moisture that got on it, which made it pretty annoying under a great variety of sportsing circumstances. I got a new one without that angled metal edge and it’s waayyyyy better. Not just because it’s bezelless, but that sure helps.

Bezelless? Yeah. It doesn’t have that angled metal edge. Which is a bezel. A touch bezel, in this case. So it’s bezel-less because it has one less bezel than a watch that has one. Bezel-less? Bezelless.

Look, it looks cool, OK? Of course it’s open to misreading. I wouldn’t use bezelless if I were being paid. But I’ll use it for free!

A bezel is an angled edge, as on a chisel or a diamond; it’s like a bevel, and the word bezel is very much like the word bevel, but they’re not related. In fact, it’s not quite certain where bezel comes from. French, yes, and the modern equivalent in French is biseau. But before that? There are ideas. One is that it’s a variant of bijou, ‘jewel’, which in turn was quite possibly embezzled from Breton.

Oh, embezzled. That’s another similar and unrelated word. It’s formed from bezzle, a word we get from French and don’t use in raw form anymore, but it meant to abscond with a large quantity of property or especially food and drink. You know, to guzzle someone’s booze until you’re sozzled. Until “bezelless” is how you say business.

And regardless of embezzlement, that’s likely the only bezelless you’ll encounter in business, especially if Alana is editing. This word may be a diamond in the rough, but some kinds of writing need more polish… and less runaround or vexation for the reader.