20 Weird Words--Third Essay

I will devote an entire essay to limerence (spelled limerance in the online list); here I will go rapidly through the rest of these words. I say rapidly, because some of them, like scopperloit, are quickly disposable (or is it deponable?). A scopperloit is a time of idleness or play-time. The OED suggests that a possible origin to this may lie in scobberlotcher--an idler, but hardly anyone uses either word, and I can't easily be convinced that anyone really used the word much in the past. Let's let it rest.

The OED has four different noun entries for mungo, but none of them is a "dumpster diver," which is the online definition. So, I am a little nonplussed, and am hesitant to credit the online definition unless someone can tell me more about the word. Can you? I first ran into the name when I was researching European explorers to Africa/Arabia in the 18th-19th centuries, and I came upon the Scotsman Mungo Park. It is listed as a proper name in the OED, though also, and first of all, listed as "a black person, esp. a slave."

Something erinaceous is "like a hedgehog." An Erinaceus is the typical genus of the subfamily Erinaceinae. So, look for pictures of them, and you will never forget erinaceous. Lamprophony is easy to dissect as long as you know the two Greek words underlying the word. Lampros means "bright" and phonos has to do with "voice" or "sound." Thus, lamprophony, a term introduced in 1855, is a "term for a clear an sonorous state of the voice." A lamprophoner--an instrument for increasing the intensity of sound--is one form of an early microphone. Indeed, we have this from 1897: "In the Indiana Institution (for the deaf) experiments are in progress with the 'lamprophoner,' an instrument which..increases the intensity of sound." So, back to lamprophony, would it be correct to say that Stentor, in the Iliad, spoke with lamprophony or had a lamprophonous voice? The word has its uses.

Selcouth et al.

If we take apart the word uncouth, we can easily understand selcouth. Couth, as an adjective, means "known, well-known, or familiar." Something uncouth, then, was in the first instance something unknown, unfamiliar, unaccustomed or strange. This word evolved into "unusual, uncommon, strange," or, with respect to people, "awkward and uncultured." Selcouth is comprised of "seldom" and "couth," and therefore means something "unfamiliar, unusual, rare." As a noun, selcouth means "something wonderful; a marvel."

Inaniloquent consists of the word inanis (empty) and loqui (to speak), and means "full of empty or idle talk." I devoted an entire essay to the words inane and inanity, and my point was that we needed to rediscover the extent of this wonderful word, especially the "emptiness" of the word. We usually stress the "idle" or "dumb" aspect of the word, inaniloquent suggests to me someone who is speaking empty or useless words. Note also that the word is not inaneloquent; the Latin of the first word (inanis) controls.

Another word with easy Latin roots is pulveratricious. The Latin underlying it means "powder" or "dirt," but in this instance we have a rather colorful meaning for it. It has an ornithological significance relating to a group of birds which "drive dust into the plumage and shake it out as part of feather maintenance." Thus, a pulveratrix is a bird which so maintains its plumage. The former Linnaean name for these birds is Pulveratores; but, unfortunately this name has long disappeared. Too bad; I think that this kind of vivid connection makes the study of the natural world even more alluring. The word can also mean "dust-colored."

When we come to phenakism, we have an obscure word which is derived from a Greek term, and it arose in the midst of some 19th century theological conflicts in England. The Greek word phenakismos means "deception," and so the word phenakism means "deception, cheating, trickery; equivocation." Of course, you can imagine the context in which it emerged. Someone didn't like what someone else was doing or thinking, and so he invented this big word to try to soften the blow (apparently) in attacking his foe when, in fact, he wanted to lower the boom. In fact, in this 1843 miscellany from Dr. Whately, he talks about his acuteness to smell out various kinds of deception, even though he might, in general, be rather dull. The specifics of what he is smelling out are immaterial for my concerns. Let's just quote how he introduced the word phenakism:

"Now, the detestation I have long and earnestly cultivated of all double-dealing, equivocation, trickery, disingenuousness, and, in short, in the modern phrase, phenakism, may have caused me sometimes to smell it out before others of generally superior acuteness."

One note--Whately apparently wrote his essay in 1843 or 1844, while the OED says that it only originated in the 1860s, when his essay was published by his daughter in his miscellanies. Let's move on...

Conclusion--Pronk and Rastaquouere

Pronk is both a noun and verb, but the noun is either a leap performed by a springbok or other antelope or a fool, idiot or ineffectual person. Actually, since the verb is the act of leaping by the sprinbok or antelope, you would think that the person posting the list of 20 weird words would have selected that meaning of the term, but the author/poster chose the "fool/idiot" definition. As a "fool/idiot," the word pronk only emerged in 1959: "No one is going to...try to blackmail me with that crazy old mixture of threats and congratulations that a pronk like you falls for." Actually, I much prefer the meaning of pronk as "leap," which only originated in 1913--modeled on an Afrikaans word. I am so glad we have another word than prance to describe the bouncing, jumping movement of the antelope.

Finally, let's close with rastaquouere, a word that is, in fact, very difficult to spell. A rastaquouere, pronounced ras ta KWER, is "a social intruder or upstart of exaggerated manners or dress, esp. from a Mediterranean or S. Amer. country." Thus, it is a derogatory term to describe a "dashing but untrustworthy foreigner." Though the immediate derivation of the term is from the French, it originally comes from the Spanish rastacuero, which means "upstart." There are very few attestations of the word on Google--most of them refer to Lola or Billy Rastaquouere. The word was first attested in English in 1883: "He was the typical rastaquouere, a man of finished manners, and unknown antecedents." I don't believe you will hear this term very often, but it has its real uses--to describe a person you don't much like, whom you want to keep in the dark about your feelings...

That completes this "page" of essays; thanks for joining me.

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