Word(s) of the day

Or, new words I discovered at last night's spelling bee:

Dirigibility
[f. DIRIGIBLE a.: see -ILITY.]
The quality of being dirigible; controllability.
1875 Q. Rev. CXXXIX. 137 One most important use of dirigibility would be in facilitating the descent, and in avoiding the many dangers to which the aeronaut, in his present helpless position, is so often exposed. 1902 Westm. Gaz. 25 Mar. 9/2 Proving the dirigibility of the aerostat. 1903 Ibid. 16 Nov. 7/3 Wireless dirigibility experiments. 1908 B'ham Inst. Mag. Jan. 254 The problem of..perfect dirigibility of dynamic flying machines.

What's especially pleasurable about that word is the presence of so many "i"s (it was given to another contestant, unfortunately, so it was not mine to spell.) Also that I had always presumed dirigble meant something like "inflated" although this kind of makes more sense. But we finally have an alternative to words like blimpiness. Time to celebrate.

Enclitic
[ad. L. enclitic-us, a. Gr. -, f. on + to lean.]
A. adj. That ‘leans its accent on the preceding word’ (Liddell and Scott): in Greek grammar the distinctive epithet of those words which have no accent, and which (when phonetic laws permit) cause a secondary accent to be laid on the last syllable of the word which they follow. Hence applied to the analogous Latin particles -que, -ve, -ne, etc., and in mod. use (with extension of sense) to those unemphatic words in other langs. that are treated in pronunciation as if forming part of the preceding word.

1656 BLOUNT Glossogr., Enclitick, that inclines or gives back. 1750 HARRIS Hermes I. v. (1786) 85 note, The Diversity between the Contradistinctive Pronouns, and the Enclitic, is not unknown even to the English Tongue. 1855 BROWNING Grammarian's Funeral, Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De. 1867 RAWLINSON Anc. Mon. IV. iv. 227 The pronouns had in certain cases an enclitic form.

I did get to spell this word, and I got it wrong. The first "i" is long, like "eye," so I dickered a bit with myself and spelled it enclytic, which is perfectly reasonable, just wrong. This is also a word I expect I will never ever use.

Leguminous
(lgjumns) [f. L. legmin-, legmen + -OUS.]
1. Of or pertaining to pulse; of the nature of pulse.
1656 in BLOUNT Glossogr. 1767 A. YOUNG Farmer's Lett. to People 45 Raising leguminous crops like field pease. 1827 H. STEUART Planter's G. (1828) 498 This practice will by no means preclude the cultivation of leguminous crops. 1898 Allbutt's Syst. Med. V. 591 Meat, leguminous vegetables and bread contain the same alkali.
2. Bot. Of or pertaining to the family Leguminosæ, which includes peas, beans, and other plants which bear legumes or pods.
1677 GREW Anat. Plants IV. III. v. (1682) 187 The Cod of the Garden Bean (and so of the rest of the Leguminous kind) opens on one side. 1785 MARTYN Rousseau's Bot. iii. (1794) 39 The greater part of the leguminous or pulse tribe. 1807 J. E. SMITH Phys. Bot. 446 Linnæus..asserts..that ‘among all the leguminous or papilionaceous tribe there is no deleterious plant to be found’. 1830 LINDLEY Nat. Syst. Bot. 88 Myrospermum, a spurious Leguminous genus. 1854 HOOKER Himal. Jrnls. I. ii. 50 A most elegant leguminous tree. 1890 A. R. WALLACE Darwinism 24 Climbing leguminous plants escape both floods and cattle.
b. Resembling what pertains to a leguminous plant.
1688 R. HOLME Armoury II. 97/1 The top [of Goats Rue] is branched, upon each stands many leguminous, or pulse~like flowers. 1725 BRADLEY Fam. Dict. s.v. Sainfoin, They are leguminous Flowers, White and sometimes Red. 1830 LINDLEY Nat. Syst. Bot. 87 Another and a more invariable character [of the Pea tribe] is to have a leguminous fruit.

I love the brevity and obcurity of that definition, mainly because it's use of the word pulse in a manner most of us today are entirely unfamiliar with:

Pulse
Pronunciation: 'p&ls
Etymology: Middle English puls, probably from Anglo-French puuiz gruel, from Latin pult-, puls, probably from Greek poltos: the edible seeds of various crops (as peas, beans, or lentils) of the legume family; also : a plant yielding pulse

It's interesting to note that Pulse, to beat, and Pulse, beans share a similar etymology. I suppose beating or pulverizing beans was common enough to lend the term to the actual plant.

But back to leguminous, not only is it a word that means bean-like, but it reminds me of the words luminous and bituminous, thus it sounds like you're descriping some kind of glowing, exalted, bean.

And now for a word I didn't hear at the spelling bee but just like to carry in my back pocket:

Dithyramb

(dræmb) [ad. L. dthyrambus, a. Gr. (origin unknown). In F. dithyrambe. Also used in the Latin form.]
Gr. Antiq. A Greek choric hymn, originally in honour of Dionysus or Bacchus, vehement and wild in character; a Bacchanalian song.
1603 HOLLAND Plutarch's Mor. 1358 According as Aeschylus saith: The Dithyrambe with clamours dissonant Sorts well with Bacchus. 1847 GROTE Greece II. xxix. IV. 118 The primitive Dithyrambus was a round choric dance and song in honour of Dionysus. 1873 SYMONDS Grk. Poets v. 118 The Dithyramb never lost the tempestuous and enthusiastic character of Bacchic revelry.
b. transf. A metrical composition having characteristics similar to this.
1656 S. HOLLAND Zara III. iii. 153 The Musick having charmed their sences with a Celestiall Dithyramb [pr. Dyrathamb]. [1727-51 CHAMBERS Cycl. s.v., Some..modern writers, have composed Latin pieces of all kinds of verse indifferently..without any order, or distribution into strophes, and call them dithyrambi.] 1859 A. A. BONAR in Spurgeon Treas. Dav. Ps. vii. heading, Ewald suggests, that it [Shiggaion] might be rendered ‘a confused ode’, a Dithyramb. 1860 ADLER Fauriel's Prov. Poetry i. 8 Martial dithyrambs, full of ardor and highmindedness.
c. A speech or writing in vehement or inflated style.
1863 GEO. ELIOT Romola xxxix, What dithyrambs he went into about eating and drinking. 1863 Sat. Rev. 153 M. Victor Hugo, in Les Misérables, has poured forth a rhapsody, or dithyramb, or whatever, under a classical name, expresses exaggerated and inflated nonsense. 1877 MORLEY Crit. Misc. Ser. II. 4 Mr. Carlyle..has reproduced in stirring and resplendent dithyrambs the fire and passion..of the French Revolution.

And frankly, the c. definition brings me back to a word I promised to deliver last week and which means almost the same thing as above:

Bloviate

Brit. /blvet/, U.S. /bloviet/ [Prob. < BLOW v.1 + -viate (in e.g. DEVIATE v., ABBREVIATE v., etc.); cf. -ATE3.]
intr. To talk at length, esp. using inflated or empty rhetoric; to speechify or ‘sound off’.
1845 Huron Reflector (Norwalk, Ohio) 14 Oct. 3/1 Peter P. Low, Esq., will with open throat..bloviate about the farmers being taxed upon the full value of their farms, while bankers are released from taxation. 1887 Amer. Missionary Sept. 258 And this is the New South over which Grady bloviated so pathetically? 1923 N.Y. Times 23 Aug. 14/4 We all like to bloviate against ‘corporations’, and there is no tenderness in New Jersey for the Public Service Railway Company. 1957 Amer. Hist. Rev. 62 1014 Occasionally a candidate makes some great pronouncement or drastic shift of position in such an oration, but more often he merely talks, or, as Harding put it, ‘bloviates’, being concerned more with the political effect of his remarks than with their meaning. 2002 Mother Jones May-June 82/2 Chávez seems enamored of the sound of his own voice, and he has an unpopular habit of taking over Venezuela's TV and radio stations to bloviate about his reforms.

So there we have it. Note that thanks are due to a dear friend who has loaned me a password and ID for an online OED. Therefore many of the links above will not work unless you have your own subscription. And the pronunciation key doesn't cut and paste. But those are minor quibbles.

Word(s) of the Day Addendum

I just discovered the word Suctorial

Pronunciation: "s&k-'tor-E-&l
Function: adjective
Etymology: New Latin suctorius, from Latin sugere
: adapted for sucking; especially : serving to draw up fluid or to adhere by suction


I can see how this could turn into a great bit of rude slang, as in:

"Yo, that chick is mad suctorial!"

Word(s) of the day

I have been thinking of starting a series of posts on words that inhabit the depths of my mind, that occasionally bubble up and float on it's surface for awhile before sinking again into the murk of memory. Many of these words I find sweet and flavorful and I like to roll them around in my mouth, toss them off my tongue, and squeeze them into conversation. My urge to write posts on the subject is hindered by my lack of access to the OED (the first time I have not had access since 2002), but I will make do as best I can. Often words do not come to me by themselves but in alliterative or etymological groupings and so to start off I offer you a trio (let it not raise your expectations too high for future posts.)

Scrofulous
Main Entry: scrof·u·lous Pronunciation: -l&s
Function: adjective
1 : of, relating to, or affected with scrofula
2 a : having a diseased run-down appearance b : morally contaminated

(Scrofula, by the way, is a "tuberculous infection of the skin of the neck, most often caused by mycobacteria (including Mycobacteriumtuberculosis)...by Mycobacterium scrofulaceum or Mycobacterium avium." Symptoms include "painless swelling of cervical (neck) lymph nodes, "(ulceration is rare today,) "lymph nodes may be enlarged elsewhere, fevers, chills, sweats, and weight loss can occur in 20% of individuals.")

Scabrous
Pronunciation: 'ska-br&s also 'skA-Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin scabr-, scaber rough, scurfy; akin to Latin scabere to scratch -- more at SCAB1 : DIFFICULT, KNOTTY
2 : rough to the touch: as a : having small raised dots, scales, or points b : covered with raised, roughened, or unwholesome patches
3 : dealing with suggestive, indecent, or scandalous themes : SALACIOUS; also : SQUALID


And finally,

Scurfy
Main Entry: scurf
Pronunciation: 'sk&rf
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English, of Scandinavian origin; akin to Icelandic skurfa scurf; akin to Old High German scorf scurf, Old English sceorfan to scarify
1 : thin dry scales detached from the epidermis especially in an abnormal skin condition; specifically : DANDRUFF
2 a : something like flakes or scales adhering to a surface b : the foul remains of something adherent
3 a : a scaly deposit or covering on some plant parts; also : a localized or general darkening and roughening of a plant surface usually more pronounced than russeting b : a plant disease characterized by scurf
- scurfy /'sk&r-fE/ adjective

So you see how my mind runs. I like these words not only for the somewhat gross mental pictures they invite but also for the moral taint attached to them. Such poisonous tincture falls perfectly in line with pre-modern equations of illness and sin and points to issues discussed at length in Sontag's Illness as Metaphor and elsewhere. They become grouped together in my mind because they have similar meanings and similar sounds and I marvel at how frequently that coincidence occurs in English. In these cases particularly, the s, c, r, b and f sounds seem particularly suited to the meanings.

So if, in the future, you feel inclined to describe some dastardly fellow with bad skin who peddles porn, the words above should come in quite handy.

Note that in lieu of the OED I will be making greatest use of Merriam-Webster, to whom all the links above will lead you. Despite the annoying pop-up ads I like Merriam's inclusion of etymologies.

My next post, unless I become preoccupied by other words, will be a dilation on Bloviate and like terms.

A brief paean to PBS...

I had another Saturday evening in this weekend and after the Cardinals-Tigers baseball game ended I switched it over to channel thirteen. Ever since coming to New York I have enjoyed Saturday night movies, commercial free, on PBS. I have picked up lots of films I never would have seen otherwise, at least until the arrival of Netflix. Although quite often the selection of movies doesn't interest me particularly, and they do have a habit of replaying some movies too often (but when those repeats are films like Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story, it's hard to complain.)

On Saturday though it was three great films. I caught most of Sweet Smell of Success for the first time and it's truly a kick-ass film that I hope impressed those European auteurs when it first came out. The ending shot is so absolutely devastating. You see Kirk Douglas looking over a balcony onto all New York in the morning having just lost what he was trying to save through the whole movie, his sister is walking down the street having just made a sorrowful break in her life, and Tony Curtis, who served as engineer of all of Douglas' machinations is getting punched by a cop and kicked in the gut on the sidewalk. Fantastic.

Then it was The Defiant Ones with Tony Curtis and Sydney Poitier; another film I've wanted to see for awhile and equally strong and bleak in outlook. And then, beginning around 2 in the morning, Night of the Living Dead. A film I've seen before, luckily, because I fell asleep in the middle of it.

So in tribute to the joys of late night programming I have only this to say:

They're coming to get you Barbara!!!

In the news

Cheney admits premature optimism
I think someone just got a facial, and you know how it just ruins the moment.

So last night...

...I had a dream where I discovered all my lost socks, as if they had been hiding, and I had no more unmatched pairs.


It was a very good dream.

My past is haunting me

So I've been out of high school for nigh upon seventeen and a half years. Lincoln park high School, I remember it quite fondly. (It has no connection to the similarly named band, thank god.) In that time, I have randomly run into acquaintances from school on the streets of New York, been tracked down by others, and found myself on the mailing list of the alumni newsetter (the school's alumni association was only started about five years ago, so my class has never actually held any reunions.) But most of those run-ins happened well in the past and for all the people I've met here and ther wo have grown up in or around Chicago, none have ever been alumni of the school or had any great familiarity with it.

But this summer, when I was in Washington D.C. for an archivists conference, I fell into conversation with a friend of a friend who, it turned out, had actually gone there about four years after me (we might have overlapped one yer; and then he went on to get a library degree at the same place I did.) He also revealed that he had dated the younger (and very cute) sister of one of my classmate, one who I had a crush on but hung out mainly with older years. So we had actually been in the same house near school.

Very odd. but this weekend I went to a wedding and was introduced to friends of the bride from Chicago and, lo and behold, he went to my high school! A bit more recently but we still could spend a few minutes chatting about teachers.

And then this morning the Today show did a feature on difficulties of applying for colleges and they used three "model" teens and their families to illuminate the stresses and one of them was from my high school. They even had film of the student roaming the hallways and outside. It was all very surreal.

So I've been wondering if I should find any significance in these (apparently) coincidental events. And if so, what possible significance can be found?

I'm open to suggestions.