Good Words, Solid Words

The words that interest me today begin with a very rare one, go to five words having to do with the human body and then return to six or seven words of general usefulness. Let's list them in categories: (1) anacampserote; (2) splanchna, viscera, exanthema, sclera, smegma; and (3) typothetae, typtology, typocosmy, sciurus, cucurbit, scleragogy. Let's begin with the rare (and fun) one: anacampserote.

The Greek verb anakamptein means "to bend back" or "to reflect." Something that is kamptikos is liable to bend. The related words come into English as anacamptic or anacampserote. The first usually is used in connection with sounds: anacamptic sounds are those that reflect or "bend back," such as echoes. But if we add the word "eros" to the mix, relating to love, we have anacampserote, a herb feigned to restore departed love or, in the quaint language of the 1611 definition "a certain herb whose touch reneweth decayed love." Is there such an herb? Most lovers and those who have lost love would love that to be the case. "Oh God, may this meal, may this potion, may this green be to me the desired anacampserote."

On the Body...

Viscera, smegma, splanchna, sclera, exanthema these five. What do they mean? The Greek word smegma means "unguent" or "soap" and is normally associated with what is known as "prepuce smegma," a cheesy substance accumulating under the prepuce and around the base of the glans. From 1876, "In the newly-born infant, the smegma serves a valuable physiological function." Actually the word splanchna doesn't appear in the dictionaries, but splanchnic does. It means "situated in, connected with, the viscera or intestines." I have written on splanchnic elsewhere and argued that it is a good word to recapture today for the humanities: to refer to a deep-feeling response. The viscera therefore are the intestines or the "internal organs of the trunk; the entrails or bowels together with the heart, liver, lungs, etc." You know what an exanthema is if you look at the Greek ex meaning "out" and antheein, meaning "to blossom." It is a rash or eruption on the skin, such as takes place in measles or small-pox. The plural is exanthemata. From 1766: "Some few persons of gross habits have...been seized with putrid fevers, attended with exanthemata." Finally, we have sclera, the hard or sclerotic coat of the eyeball. Let's turn to some other terms, beginning with scleragogy, derived of course from sclera.

Scleragogy

The Greek agoge means "conducting" or "guiding." If pedagogy is the "guiding of youth/children" in education, scleragogy has to do with some kind of "hard" guidance or leading. In fact it is "severe discipline or training; hard treatment of the body; mortification." Ascesis, similarly, is the practice of self discipline or, as Walter Pater memorably said, the "serious girding of the loins in youth." Though most dictionaries call it a "rare" word, a sentence like the following should encourage us to use it: "Not our reformation, but our slothfulness, doth indispose us, that we let others run faster than we in temperance, in chastity, in scleragogy, as it was called." We believe in discipline today, in so many fields. Thus, the presence of these three words: ascesis, mortification, scleragogy to express human discipline is a threefold cord that will not quickly be broken.

Sciurus/Sciurine and Others

We have already seen sciurine in my "ine" essay; it means "squirrel-like." But I decided to return to it not only because Sciurus is the Linnaean genus of the Sciuridae, the arboreal squirrel, but because of the two Greek words standing behind the word. A skiouros (squirrel) is made up of skia (shadow) and oura (tail). So a squirrel is a "shadow tail." I suppose this means that the tail is so large that it casts a shadow--a picture that we cannot quickly forget.

Let's move to some "t's" for a moment, beginning with typtology. The Greek behind it is typtein, meaning "to strike." Typtology is an old word signifying the study of or theory of "spirit-rapping" in spiritualism. Most would contend these days that there is no theory of it--that the "rappings" were manufactured by the mediums. Nevertheless, the word remains, as does typtologist, which refers to the "producer" of the rappings.

Typothetae is a word that appears inordinately frequently in spelling bees and is often spelled incorrectly. So, let's get is straight here and you never will miss it again. It means "master printers collectively." The word only originated in 1825, though the NY Times had this in an 1865 article: "At a recent general meeting of master printers of this city, it was decided to organize a permanent association for the general benefit of the trade and the improvement of the typographic art. A constitution was adopted and the name of 'Typothetae' was given to the new association."

The final "t" is typocosmy, a rare word in any one's book, but useful nevertheless. Here the Greek word standing behind it is typos-- a type or model. Thus, a typocosmy is some kind of model or type to "set the world in order." Or, specifically, it is a method or system, intended as an aid to learning, in which words or terms are grouped according to types or classes. Bacon first used the word in 1605: 'Such was the travaile of Raymundus Lullius, in making that Art, which beares his name; not unlike to some Bookes of Typocosmy....beeing nothing but a Masse of words of all Arts." So, any kind of organizational system to explain a field, discipline or "world" can be referred to as a typocosmy.

Conclusion--Cucurbit

A cucurbit is a chemical vessel originally shaped like a gourd, but with a wide mouth and used in distillation. It forms the lower part of an alembic. Or, it can also be a gourd. You would think that there would be an English word such as cucurbitiform or or curcurbitaceous (the latter is a word, but it doesn't mean "gourd-shaped") to express gourd-shaped. I guess we will have to invent our own term. Let's just call it cucurbitine.

This is enough for one meal of words. Thank you for joining me.

3252