incrassate and laxative and viscous and dilate and restringe and restringement

We often think it is only middle school boys who are obsessed with bodily functions, such as farting, burping, scratching, and picking but if we look at the way that more sophisticated words function in English, we see that many of them owe their origin to basic bodily functions. Thus, something that restringes you affects you with costivenss. Ah, what does that mean, you say? Well, food or medicine which is costive "confines the bowels." Thus, someone who is costive suffers "from hardness and retention of the feces" or is "constipated" (OED).

Restringing occupies the same linguistic field. The earliest attestation of restringe comes from a medical work in 1597: "If the patient be restringed and bounde in his belly, and hath in a long time not binne at stool..." Thus, a restringed person is a restricted individual, one who is bound up, limited, restrained or, literally, "drawn tight." Other words for restringent are astringent or styptic. We all know of the styptic pencil, which immediately causes bloody cuts to cease bleeding. Styptic is from a Greek word meaning "to contract," and so a styptic as a medicinal remedy "contracts" or "binds" the bowels or clots the blood.

But I like the figurative use of these terms. In the earlier days (ca. 1600) figurative use was made of these words primarily by theologians or biblical interpreters. After all, Christian theologians had a ready concept to fit the term restringe: the Jewish law or even the law in general (which would be contrasted with the grace of the Gospel). Picking up on St. Paul's argument in the Epistle to the Romans, a Reformation preacher could talk about the styptic or restringent character of the law. John Milton, in the 17th century, in his treatise on Church Government, could say: "Not meddling with that restraining and styptick surgery which the law uses,..against the eruptions and outermost effects thereof [malice]." And, a quotation from 1671, in trying to differentiate a Non-Conforminst from stricter religious beliefs, said: "Non-conformists..do indeed tell us of the death of our Lord Jesus, not with your ill appropriate and restringent only, but do preach to us always and principally this doctrine of the Cross." Thought the meaning isn't crystal clear, the idea is--one can have a too-narrow or restringent understanding of the Gospel. And, from 1839, we have this: "The fear of hell being found..too little to bind and restringe the bad inclinations of the great majority." Ah, yes, the great problem of the 19th century--people stopped believing in Hell or, otherwise expressed, people stopped believing that the threat of going to hell was a motivation for good conduct.

The Plot Thickens

Along with astringent, restringent or costive, which are words emphasizing the binding of the bowels, there are similar words that stress a thickening of something, such as the blood or the "humors." Some of these words are viscous, thicken, condense, inspissate or incrassate. Oh, oh, I can hear a very long essay coming, can't you? Let's just look at that word incrassate for a minute. It is from the Latin and means to "thicken" or "condense." Connecting incrassate with one of the previous words, we have from Holland's 1601 translation of Pliny's Natural History: "The nature of the seed is astringent: it doth incrassat and thicken humors." Blood can also be said to be incrassated. And, from 1658 we have: "Liquors, which time hath incrassated into gellies." Usually it is fog that inspissates while blood or moisture incrassates. Much could be said about a more negative use of incrassate to mean a dull, gross, or "thickened" mind. From a 17th century biblical expositor: "Their heart is incrassate and grosse." Or, "Their understandings were so gross within them..being fatned, and incrassate with magical phantasms." Wouldn't you just like to pause on that last phrase. You could use it of an opponent. "Well, you, sir are obviously incrassate with magical phantasms."

But what if we wanted to "lighten up" rather than "tighten up"? After all, we are a society that is gradually accepting casual dress, casual talk, casual living. Which words would you use?

Opposites

Let's begin with medicine and bodily parts and functions, since that is where the words originate. The opposite of a restringent is a purgative. From 1799: "Rhubarb will not be a fit purgative, though it be joined with magnesia, which will not sufficiently correct its restringency." We have other words, such as a laxative or something that dilates. Each of these words also calls for comment. A laxative, in medicine, is something that has "the property of loosening and evacuating the bowels" (OED). From as early as 1481: "He knewe...all the herbes..which were viscose or laxatyf." But it can also be used as an adjective. As early as 1546 we have: "Ye would..give me a purgacion. But I am laxative enough." Then, from 1573: "Letise (lettuce) is good to make one laxitive or go to ye stoole." And I thought people ate it for the taste!

But I especially like the way that laxative can be used figuratively. Ben Jonson, in a most arresting phrase from 1601, could talk about "fellowes of practis'd and most laxative tongues." His words must have caught on, for in 1622, another writer spoke of "My owne Countri-men [who] have tongues laxative enough..." A person with a laxative tongue, then, is one whose tongue is always, flowing or, to use our bowel language of much earlier, whose tongue is "loose." Then, the preachers enter in, and one says: "I am of such a laxative laughter, that if the Devil himself stood by, I should laugh in his face." Or, "This sinne proceedeth from a twattling laxative humour causing that a man must vent all he knows and be talking of many things." I like that last phrase: "twattling laxative humour." Something that twattles can be said to chatter, babble or prate.

I have written far more than is necessary, and I still haven't gotten to dilate. Maybe some day...

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