More Words from the 2005 Bee Competition

The following 18 words (from the next 39 in the competition) made me stop and pay attention. They are: lyssa, mitrailleuse, anonychia, caudillo, pyrgeometer, dubonnet, bisagre, acetarious, otosalpinx, shogi, Hennebique, debellatio, blepharoptosis, kaolinize, fenestella, choucroute, gbo, and titian. Let's dispose of several very quickly. Mitrailleuse is a breech-loading machine gun using small projectiles. Images abound online. A caudillo is a guerilla leader or political boss (this word was too easy). Dubonnet (NAY) like titian, is a color, the former being very dark purplish red while the latter being brownish orange. One web site, sporting what it calls "The Mother of All Color Charts," has room for both of these. A fenestella is, as its name suggests, a "little window," or a niche in the south wall of a Roman Catholic church where the piscina and credence are also located. A credence has nothing to do with a popular singing group in the early 1970s; rather it is a small table, in the wall's niche, to the right of the Altar (south wall) holding the communion bread before it is consecrated. This could lead us on a multi-word tour of a Catholic Church, but I will restrain myself for now. Moving on, a pyrgeometer (not in the OED) is an instrument for measuring radiation from the surface of the earth into space. I think I see the Greek word for "tower" (pyrgos) in there, but I don't know immediately how it is to be explained. [Here is my explanation from 12/5/07. A pyrgeometer measures the atmospheric infra-red radiation spectrum extending from 4.5 to 100 µm. Because it measures "red," it is calle "pyr" (meaning "fire"). I don't think it is derived from pyrgos at all.]

The Greek word lyssa means rage or madness. Its first attestation in English in 1706 said that it meant "madness, properly of a dog." But then, by the time we get to the mid-19th century, the word also can be associated with pustules supposed to be developed under the tongue in hydrophobia. It might be interesting to know that development, but I will leave it for another person or day. A bisagre is a small, spiny cactus of the Southwest (not attested in the OED; few references in Google). Hence, probably not a good word to use. Of the more than 100 varieties of Echinocactus (the Linnean name of bisagre is Echinocactus horizonthalonius) on one web site, there is no reference to the "E h." Shouldn't that have told our spelling panel something? Well, someone got it right, in any event. Acetarious vegetables are those that make it into your salads, while shogi is Japanese chess played on a board with 81 squares. A debellatio is a complete subjugation of one at war with you (several similar words are interesting), while choucroute is, if my memory serves me right, Alsatian sauerkraut. The otosalpinx is another word for the eustacian tube in the ear. The eustacian tube was named after an Italian physician of the 16th century; hm...maybe the attempt to reGraecize the word indicates a not-so-subtle anti-Italian bias.

We really could take a long and winding digression on the "oto" road, and I think I will only mention a few. Of course, the word comes from the Greek, meaning "ear," so that an otolaryngologist is a guy or woman doctor who does ear-nose-throat things. Let's wander into the "otos." We need not linger on otoscope, but an otosteon is an "ear-stone" or "otolith." But rather than this being something dangerous, like a "gall-stone" in a human, an "otosteon" appears in the labyrinth of the ear of the cod and other fishes. Otopathy is a disease of the ear while otomycosis is the presence of fungi in the ear (so that was what mom was complaining about!). Otoplasty is plastic surgery of the ear, while otopyosis is the presence of pus in the ear. Just so that you will fill out your liberal arts education, the Greek word for pus is puon; the verb puousthai means to suppurate. Otorrhagia is a hemorrhage from the ear, while otopyorrhea is a flowing of pus from the ear. Great. I think I will stop there while I am behind. You see, however, by patiently walking through the suffixes that you can learn to build Greek- and Latin-based words to capture phenomena in nature or in thought.

Returning to our List

Of the four or so words left of the eighteen, I will only say that a gbo, from the perspective of the Unabridged, means a "chain protecting the owner from evil." It is a word from ancient Dahomey in West Africa, but this paper says that gbo is a spirit, a primary source of magic for the people. Let me say a word each, in closing, about blepharoptosis, kaolinize and anonychia. If you realize that blepharon is the Greek word for "eyelid," you must pause and think for a moment-- how many things can really happen to an eyelid? Well, you can have plastic surgery on it, a blepharoplasty. Then, it can become inflamed (blepharitis); and there can be an instrument which fixes the eyelid in a stationary position during operations, which is called a blepharostat. Our word is blepharoptosis. If you recall that a "ptosis" is a "falling" or "prolapsis," you know now that blepharoptisos, which is quite straightforward to spell, means the "falling" or paralysis of the eyelid.

I never thought I would have so much fun on kaolinize as I did. By looking up the definition, to be reduced to kaolin (also spelled kaoline), you tend to think you are on a dead-end road. But then, all you have to do is to look up the etymology of kaolin and it is as if you were reborn in the Holy Spirit. The OED says that it is derived from the Chinese kao, kau-ling, which is the name of a mountain in North China where the material was originally obtained. A French priest, Father d'Entrecolles, wrote a letter in 1712 about the fabrication of "porcellaine" in this region, where the first approximation of the word "kaolin" was used. It is officially known as "a fine white clay produced by the decomposition of feldspar, used in the manufacture of porcelain." By the 1730s the word had made it into English, and the spelling became standardized to kaolin, one of the ingredients of porcelain, by the 1750s. Interesting, isn't it?

Conclusion

Let's end with a word which we could play with for hours: anonychia. It begins with the "alpha privative," meaning "not," followed by "onychia," which is the Greek word for "nail." The Latin word unguis, "hoof" or "nail," gives birth to many English words. But when we go over to the "onyc"-type of words, we have many. An onychopathic condition means to be affected with disease of the nails, as does onychonosos ("nosos" is another Greek word for disease). Onychomancy is a kind of divination by using the fingernails. The jokes we might develop from this practice are pretty considerable... Onychomycosis, on the analogy to otomycosis above means a disease of the nails caused by fungus (isn't this getting fun?), while onychogryposis is a "thickening and curvature of the nails." Gryposis is Greek for "hooking." We could use these terms, couldn't we, when describing some of the fantastic transformations in Greek mythology, described mostly by Ovid? Finally, we should note that the word onyx, the precious stone, is derived from this root. It would take us too far afield to go into the structure and understanding of that stone here. But you see how our little trip through the dictionary can yield dozens of nuggets of beautiful insight, just inviting further exposition.

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