Spintherism and Other Great Words

A Biblical quotation says that a threefold cord is not quickly broken (Ecc. 4:12). The compilers of the CWL inadvertently triggered my thoughts on this issue by listing the following consecutive words in their "Infrequently Appearing" list: hafiz, haggadist, hagiology. Since I am a student of the history of religions, none of these terms made it on my "2700 word" wordlist, but each of them is precious in a different religion, in the three religions for which Abraham is the father. A hafiz, as I have explained in more detail here, is a Muslim who has memorized the Koran. Such a person is an honored figure in that religion. The Koran/Qu'ran is about 2/3 the length of the NT, and is mostly in rhythmic poetic speech. I would never say that memorizing such a book would be "easy," but it is not like memorizing the Vedas... In any case, I would love to become a hafiz before the end of my days.

Come to think of it, I might not mind becoming a haggadist, either. This word, a Jewish one, is derived from haggadah. Haggadah/haggadoth are legends, anecdotes or parables appearing chiefly in the Babylonian Talmud to illustrate law. Thus, the classic distinction in Judaism is between Haggadah and Halachah (also spelled a few different ways). As the first use of haggadah in English (1856) says: "Hagada is not law, but it serves to illustrate law." Thus, a haggadist is one who is learned in or who teaches haggadah. Maybe in my next life I will have the privilege of coming back as a Jew so that I realy have no excuse but to immerse myself in all their wonderful and learned literature.

But, as luck or God would have it, I am a Christian. And so the third word in our trilogy, hagiology, ought to be the most familar to me. Derived from the Greek word hagios, meaning a saint or holy one, hagiology is the literature dealing with lives and legends of saints. It is a synonym of hagiography; and the OED lists at least a dozen words derived from these that describe some relation to the "saint writing" process (e.g., hagiologist; hagiographer; hagiologic, etc.) I think it significant that though there is a word hagiolatry in the dictionary (the worship of saints), the CWL decided on a more "neutral" term for the kids to learn, so as not to call down, possibly, the ire of some religious folk. After all, the Protestants accused the Catholics of hagiolatry--worshipping the saints. The Catholics, in turn, said that they were only "honoring" them or worshipping Christ through the saints. And, by the way, the Catholics retorted that the Protestants were just practicing grammatolatry, which just happens to be a word in the CWL.

Those who are most "progressive" or "current" in the study of religion today speak of the "Abrahamic tradition" in world religions. They do so not only for historical reasons (i.e., these three great traditions owe their origin to Abraham), but in order to try to contributed to a discussion of peace in our day. Surely those with a common father can learn to act like brothers. That is the argument. Come to think of it, maybe we are acting like brothers of a sort...

Spintherism and Morosophist

I left these two words hanging from the previous essay. A moros in Greek is a fool; a sophos is a wise person. Morology is foolish speech, while sophistry is often characterized in negative terms even though the word "wise" stands behind it. The reason for this goes back to our friend Plato, whose negative characterization of the sophists in 5th cent. BCE Athens, as people who could teach virtue for a price and teach you to argue both sides of a question effectively, entered into our vocabulary. Thus, we don't have any good term in English for a wise person, though we have several for fools. Maybe that isn't ironic. In any case, a morosophist is a "foolish pedant or would-be philosopher." The Century defines a morosoph as "a philosophical or learned fool." So, I suppose that a current example of such a person would be someone with lots of book knowledge or pretentions to intellectuality but with little practical sense. Both, it seems to me, are useful in making it in life.

Oh, before I leave this word I have to give you the "dyslexic" version of morosophist: sophomore--also a wise fool. Interestingly enough, morosophist antedates sophomore in English by two generations. The first attestation of sophomore to mean a student of the second year of college is in 1688: "The several degrees of persons in the University Colledges...Fresh Men, Sophy Moores, Junior Soph, or Sphester. And lastly Senior Soph." A reasonable conjecture is this name would be applied to them because of their "foolish wisdom" in thinking that they know a lot more than they actually do--a 'disease' that sometimes hits you at about age 19. However, in our modern "affirming" culture, we will soon be getting rid of names like this. "Freshman" is already fading out at the more progressive colleges, being replaced with the cumbrous "First year student," while sophomore will follow the same pattern, to be replaced by, creatively..., "Second year student." I wonder what is in the works for Juniors. I bet Seniors will never give up that appellation. Next thing to go should be the word "seminar." How sexist. I will be leading "ovulars" in my next life...

Spintherism

Let's conclude with spintherism. Spintherism, not to be confused with spinsterism, is derived from the Greek word spinther, which means a "spark" or "scintillation." Thus, spintherism, which isn't attested either in the OED or the Century, has something to do with sparks. The Unabridged minimally defines it as "a subjective sensation as of sparks before the eyes." But this really doesn't help you at all, does it? I thought it must refer to that cool sensation we have when we close our eyes tight and see all kinds of lights and shooting things and stars in the field of our "dark" vision. Thus, I at first attributed spintherism to something almost imaginative--the range of images we might "see" or conjure up when our eyes are closed.

But my online trip to Dorland's Medical Dictionary disabused me of this notion. It defined spintherism as "synchysis scintillans." Well, what is that condition? Synchysis comes from the Greek word of the same name and means a "mixing together." In Med-speak synchysis is "a softening or fluid condition of the vitreous body of the eye." (It also has a nice meaning in rhetoric, but I don't have time to go down that road here.). Ah, so spintherism is not simply the cool sparks in my field of vision when I close my eyes. It is a medical condition. Well, synchysis scintillans is "cholesterol crystals in the vitreous that develop as a degnerative change following inflammation or other ocular causes." Shucks, medicine has just brought me to my senses. But, come to think of it, there is no reason for not having my first "read" of spintherism be definition 2. Language develops that way...

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