Word(s) of the Day Addendum

Inre: the post below I learned two new terms related to childbirth. I will quote directly from my nursing student friend's email below:

Cheese-like is exactly the way [vernix] was described to me, and in fact, the way it looks in person. Did you know that the later in gestation the baby is delivered, the less vernix it will have? More fun-OB-terminology/fun facts: when the placenta is delivered, they examine it to see how it detached from the uterus. It can come two different ways - with the baby's or mother's side on the outside. These two placental presentations are called, respectively, Shiny Shultze and Dirty Duncan. How weird is that? Doesn't Dirty Duncan in particular sound like some sordid sex act?

Yes, Dirty Duncan does sound like some sordid sex act, like a Dirty Sanchez to be precise. However, in obstetric terminology, I am inclined to suppose that the two phrases have no real importance and are only used as more colorful and easy to remember replacements for up/down or yes/no signifiers.

As an aside. Here is the full OED entry on Placenta:

PLACO- (comb. form) + -, suffix generally forming adjectives. Cf. French placenta (1642 in sense 1, 1694 in Tournefort in sense 2), Italian placenta (1694 in sense 2, 1698 in sense 1), German Plazenta (16th cent. as Placenta in sense 1). In plural form placentae after the Latin plural form.]

1. Anat. and Zool. A round, flat, spongy, vascular organ to which the fetus of most mammals (i.e. those other than monotremes and marsupials: see PLACENTAL

adj. 2) is attached by the umbilical cord, through which oxygen and nutrients pass from the maternal blood, and which is expelled as the afterbirth. Also: a structure having a similar function in other animals, such as certain viviparous fishes, ascidians, etc.
1638 A. READ Man. Anat. Body of Man (new ed.) I. xxvi. 252 About the upper part of the bottom, unto the which the placenta uteri is tyed, it becommeth almost two inches thick. 1667 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 2 510 He giveth a particular account of the double Placenta or Cake, to be found in Rabbets, Hares, Mice, Moles, &c. 1692 J. RAY Wisdom of God (ed. 2) I. 67 The Blood still circulates through the Cotyledons or Placenta. 1728 E. CHAMBERS Cycl., Placenta, in Anatomy, a softish Mass, found in the Womb of a pregnant Woman. 1782 Philos. Trans. 1781 (Royal Soc.) 71 359, 5 women had the puerperal fever, of whom four died. In one of these the placenta was undelivered, and continued so to her death. 1832 London Med. & Physical Jrnl. 68 72, I have observed..many placentæ expelled in natural labour. 1875 C. C. BLAKE Zoology Pref., Sharks bring forth their young alive, and nourish them while in the womb by a temporary structure called ‘placenta’. 1888 G. ROLLESTON & W. H. JACKSON Forms Animal Life (ed. 2) 445 In Salpa the developing embryo is nourished by a placenta formed, in part at least, by follicle cells. 1923 J. M. M. KERR et al. Combined Text-bk. Obstetr. & Gynæcol. xxvii. 390 In binovular twin pregnancy there are, no matter how closely the placentæ are approximated, two distinct chorions. 1986 A. S. ROMER & T. S. PARSONS Vertebr. Body (ed. 6) v. 134 Some lizards and snakes have chorioallantoic placentae, reduced yolk, and other features normally thought of as purely mammalian. 1990 Birder's World Aug. 58/1 They frequent pupping grounds of seals, feeding on the feces and placentas of the seals. 2002 R. PORTER Blood & Guts i. 7, Immunities passed via the placenta or mother's milk provide infants with some defence.

2. Bot. The place or part in an ovary where the ovules are attached. Also: (in ferns and fern allies) the point on a leaf where the sporangia arise.
1681 N. GREW Mvsævm Regalis Societatis II. iii. 233 The seat of the Placenta, black; which reaches almost half round the Bean. 1682 Anat. Plants IV. III. vii. 191 The Seeds stuck all round about upon the Ambit or Sides of the Case; or upon a great Bed or Placenta within it. 1727 R. BRADLEY Family Dict. s.v. Flower of Parnassus, A Membranous fruit..having..one cell full of seeds, fastened to a placenta which is often very square. 1750 Philos. Trans. 1748 (Royal Soc.) 45 565 Every Seed is fastened by its Point to the Placenta, as to a common Centre. 1830 J. LINDLEY Introd. Nat. Syst. Bot. 75 Its ovarium contains, instead of three ovules adhering to a central placenta, one only, which is pendulous. 1865 G. BENTHAM Illustr. Handbk. Brit. Flora p. xxx, Placentas are axile, when the ovules are attached to the axis or centre. 1875 A. W. BENNETT & W. T. T. DYER tr. J. von Sachs Text-bk. Bot. 395 The sporangia arise..from some of the superficial cells of the placenta or part to which the sorus is attached. 1914 F. E. FRITSCH & E. J. SALISBURY Introd. Study Plants xix. 245 In an apocarpous ovary the carpels are folded so that their margins meet, each edge usually bearing a number of seed-rudiments or ovules..and being generally somewhat swollen to form a placenta. 1965 P. BELL & D. COOMBE tr. E. Strasburger Textbk. Bot. 580 At the base of the submerged leaf [in the Salviniaceae] are several globose sporocarps..; these enclose the sporangia, which arise from a columnar placenta. 1998 Jrnl. Torrey Bot. Soc. 125 272/2 Placentae range in size from small bulges to prominent protrusions within the locules.


The etymology is intriguing and bears no relation to the etymology of place or placid. However, the word Placent has two meanings, one, an adjective, means eager to please. The other, a noun, while being both obsolete and rare, means a flat cake or tablet. I can find no other word in common use sharing the same etymology as placenta. Kind of a shame, nu? This is why language can be endlessly disappointing, even while we enjoy its riches we are also struck by how rich it could be and is not.

I am tempted here to explore the meanings of puerperal but better stop.

Word(s) of the day

My posting tempo has been slowing down. No good reason, but my apologies.

I have a new niece! The very first niece in my immediate family (there are already three nephews.)

And to celebrate, I have three nifty words concerning childbirth and newborn imps:

Meconium

2. Med. and Veterinary Med. The dark, greenish-brown sticky contents of the intestine of the mammalian fetus in the later stages of gestation, forming the first faeces of the newborn.

1706 Phillips's New World of Words (ed. 6), Meconium,..the Ordure of a young Child, which sticks to the Entrails after the Birth, so call'd from its Colour, resembling that of Poppy-Juice. 1732 J. ARBUTHNOT Rules of Diet iv. 404 All of them [sc. newborn infants] have a Meconium, or sort of dark-colour'd Excrement in the Bowels. 1844 H. STEPHENS Bk. of Farm III. 913 It [sc. colostrum] has a different composition from milk, and acts as a purgative to the new-born calf,..removing the sticky sort of dung called the meconium, from its bowels. 1890 J. CAGNEY tr. R. von Jaksch Clin. Diagnosis vi. 165 The term ‘meconium’ is applied to the substance discharged from the rectum of the child immediately after birth. 1952 D. M. STUART Daughter of Eng. 328 The passage of meconium led to the suspicion that the child might be dead. 1968 New Eng. Jrnl. Med. 7 Mar. 530/2 Severe meconium staining was seen with the birth of the buttocks. 1989 J. A. B. COLLIER & J. M. LONGMORE Oxf. Handbk. Clin. Specialties (ed. 2) ii. 128 Meconium (passage of babies' bowel contents) is seen in 13% of labours of >38 weeks' gestation.

In other words, meconium is baby shit that is usually expelled during the stress of birth. I have heard too that mothers also occasionally shit during birth, they're trying to strain every darn muscle down there, so it kind of makes sense. The etymology is interesting as it's greek and is the same word as used for the poppy or for a particular variety of poppy, and then for the thickened juice extracted from the poppy. I can only imagine (but will try not to) that the thickened juice of the poppy is somehow similar to a baby's first shit. Think about that the next time you're shooting up heroin.

Vernix

or, in precise terminology, vernix caseosa

2. Med. In full, vernix caseosa [mod.L. casesus, f. L. caseus cheese]. A greasy deposit covering the skin of a baby at birth.
1846 DUNGLISON Dict. Med. Sci. (ed. 6) 785/1 Vernix caseosa. 1882 W. T. LUSK Sci. & Art of Midwifery iii. 75 In the fifth month the surface of the fetal body is covered by the vernix caseosa, a whitish substance composed of..surface epithelium, down, and the products of the sebacious glands. 1956 Nature 18 Feb. 330/1 The specimens [of amniotic fluid] were centrifuged and the vernix and supernatant fluid removed. 1978 Jrnl. R. Soc. Med. LXXI. 212 Copious vernix caseosa is often present. 1980 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 25 Oct. 1138/1 With difficulty but determination she gave birth to an enormous child coated in so much vernix that it seemed to wear a cream cheese pack.

What's neat about this is trying to envision the exact texture of a material that is consistently referred to as cheese-like; I particularly like the phrase "cream cheese pack" in the usage example above. The word is straight from the medieval Latin for varnish.

And finally, and perhaps most perverse:

Lanugo

Fine soft hair or down, or a surface resembling this; spec. that covering the human foetus.
1677 Phil. Trans. XII. 904 The lanugo seen upon a Peach, Quince, or the like. 1766 Misc. Ess. in Ann. Reg. 192/1 A Monchinel-apple falling into the sea and lying in the water will contract a lanugo of salt-petre. 1871 DARWIN Desc. Man I. i. 25 The..so-called lanugo, with which the human foetus during the sixth month is thickly covered. 1876 DUHRING Dis. Skin 33 Very fine, soft hair, called lanugo, found upon the face, trunk, and other regions.
attrib. and Comb. 1891 W. A. JAMIESON Dis. Skin i. (ed. 3) 4 The small lanugo hairs seem as if dependents of the sebaceous glands. 1897 Allbutt's Syst. Med. III. 686 A tuft of delicate lanugo-like hairs.

It's interesting that the etymology of lanugo stems from "lana," the Latin word for wool and from which must derive the word lanolin. (Lanolin merges Lana-wool with olin, stemming from oleum, the Latin for oil and from whence comes oleo, and oleaginous)

So there we are. Three good reasons why giving birth is kind of disgusting, yet provides us with three very nifty words.

Word(s) of the Day

So I came in second in the Spelling Bee seasonal championship last Monday. This was typical but I was pissed, though I was also trying hard not to be pissed. Firstly, even if I hadn't gotten the one word wrong that I shouldn't have gotten wrong (as opposed to the words I got wrong that were entirely reasonable to get wrong) I likely would still not have won. Secondly, half my annoyance was at the fact that the prizes I received were fairly useless. I hate being an ingrate, but it seems like a natural condition. My wife always commented on it, how hard I found it to be simply gracious.

Anyhow, as prizes I got a six-month or year membership to the Brooklyn Museum, something of almost nil value to me since I can get in free anyway. I also received two free tickets to the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, a musical I've wanted to see. Except I had already gotten free tickets from the previous bee and I haven't used them yet as I can't find anyone to go with, don't want to go with a stranger (and I don't have even casual acquaintances who want to go) and I'm not so mercenary as to bother auctioning them off on Craigslist. I also got a pair of earmuff/headphones, but I have never owned a portable music player in my life nor often felt the need to. Finally, I received a gift certificate to a bakery that is reputed to bake some pretty fine cupcakes. I hope to make use of that, at the least. I don't mean to sound bitter; it's simply that there seems to be something deeply buried in me that greatly resents the imperfect gift.


But that is all by the by. The word I misspelles that I should have gotten correctly was:

Saltimbocca

A dish consisting of rolled pieces of veal and ham cooked with herbs. Also in Comb., as saltimbocca (alla) Romana.

1937 M. MORPHY Good Food from Italy 89 (heading) Veal and Ham à la Romana [Saltimbocca alla Romana]. 1959 Good Food Guide 224 Escalope Cordon Bleu, ‘rather like a Roman Saltimbocca only deep fried in batter’. 1960 Harper's Bazaar Oct. 154/2 Saltimbocca combines paper-thin slices of veal with prosciutto and a sage leaf. 1969 G. GREENE Travels with my Aunt I. xiii. 126 He put a lot of saltimbocca Romana into his mouth. 1977 C. MCCULLOUGH Thorn Birds xvii. 447 I'll have pâté, some scampi and a huge plate of saltimbocca. 1978 Chicago June 237/1 [There are] half a dozen veal dishes (Saltimbocca alla Romanawith prosciutto, butter, herbs, and marsalais a specialty), [etc.].

I knew that the crux was one c or two; and I was leaning towards two. But my natural inclination is for one (is it Italian or Spanish in which the word for mouth is "boca"?). But the official pronunciation of the word is with a short o, as in bocce, (to me, as in Vacca, that seems to invite two cees, but someone in the crowd yelled out that it should be a long o, as in boat. That made me reconsider, incorrectly of course.

But I was pleased with some other words I had to spell. I forget the challenging ones that I ad to guess at, but one of the fun ones was

Arachnophagous
A word I can't find in the dictionary but means, of course, spider-eating; phagous or phagy being my favorite Greek root. The word makes me laugh not because of it's meaning but because whenever phagous is used as a suffix I am reminded of Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street. As if he had siblings with even odder names. And then the word is easy to spell.


And that was that, below are some words I will not bother at the moment to define or discuss but which tweak my consciousness occasionally:

Avuncular
Avoirdupois
Adipose


Toodle-oo