New Free Rice Word Essays--Essay XVIII--Problems Emerge with Dictionary

I learned early in life not to be afraid of making mistakes. The reason? Because from my mistakes I could potentially learn a lot more than if I "got it right" all the time. This doesn't mean that I tried to make mistakes or introduce error into my work; far from it. I have a desire for precision that often baffles others. But I learned two things: (1) that all learning is provisional; and (2) that it often is very valuable just to point others 'in the direction' of truth rather than to wait and get the 'complete' story before you put pen to paper. You may never get that story or, more likely, the debate will go in other directions while you are trying to track down the last witness, source or comment on the issue. This is certainly the case with the words in this essay. Freerice.com has been bold enough to suggest them, even if some of their definitions don't really do justice to the words. But the use of the words at least makes me want to track them down and do a more thorough job with them. As a result, I learn more and, I hope, so do you.

1. Let's begin with jook. Free Rice defines it as "poke," but that isn't its meaning. It means "to bend or turn the body with a quick adroit movement" or "to dodge; duck." If you get out of the way with such a movement you might go out of sight; hence a second definition includes "to hide oneself by such action; to skulk." The original meaning of "skulk," then, was not "to malinger" (its present use) but "to hide" or "conceal oneself." Thus, a boxer might jook to the side to avoid the blow from his opponent. As Robert Burns wrote in 1785: "I jouk beneath Misfortune's blows As weel's I may." I remember this word from my youth; my parents told me not to "jook around" but to "hold still." They didn't use the word improperly...

2. Then, there is saburra, which the game defines as "bad breath." This definition, though close to being correct, misleads. It is, in fact, "foul granular matter deposited in the body, esp. in the stomach." A 1772 quotation brings us yet another word, "The terms Cacochylia and Saburra are used to denote the general accumulation of offensive matters in the alimentary canal." Chyle is a white milky fluid formed by the action of the pancreatic juice and the bile on the chyme. The prefix "caco" means "evil" or "foul." But the word saburra is derived from another root--the Latin word sabulum or "sand." Something sabulous is not simply "fabulous with an 's';" it is sandy or, in big words, "arenaceous." An arena is so called in English because it was, at first, made of sandy floor. Thus, we have words such as sabulosity and sabulose to describe a sandy condition. But saburra gave birth to such words as saburration, which is "sand-bathing" or "arenation," and saburrate. Thus, let's keep it as a granular or slaty matter in the stomach, rather than make it something like "bad breath." Though, I gladly admit, I wouldn't have gone on this linguistic journey had freerice.com not used the word.

3. Abroach, as a verb, means "to pierce (a cask, etc.) so as to let the liquor flow out." It is from the Old French brocher, meaning "to prick." When we "broach" a subject, we are "piercing" it or "probing" it. The rather focused meaning of piercing a cask could be supplemented by "to give vent or utterance to." Thus, Chaucer could write: "Thilke tonne that I schall abroche." Shakespeare used the word, which also means to disseminate or propagate, in 2 Henry IV: "What mischiefs he might set abroach." But freerice.com defines it simply as "open." Surely this isn't wrong, but it isn't very precise either.

4. Then there is a problem with a word like spiloma because it doesn't appear either in the OED or the Century. It is a "birthmark." The Greek word underlying it is spilos, which is a spot or blemish. But the usual English word for birthmark is naevus/nevus. This word goes back to 1684: "Naevi, Moles are certain native Spots, and are two-fold, either plain, or protuberant." The 1797 Encyclopedia Britannica had under naevus: "A mole on the skin, generally called a mother's mark." I don't mind using spiloma for birthmark; I think, however, that it ought to have some attestation in a dictionary.

5. -6. Segnity, a rare word indeed, is derived from the Latin segnis, which means "slow" or "sluggish." Thus, segnity means negligence, slowness, slothfulness. It is a very rare word, and the only reason there are 28,000 Google "hits" for it is that it apparently is the name of a kind of television in East Asia. Let's finish this essay with traject. The "right" definition was "transmit," but the Century had "throw or cast across," which was the meaning I guessed and got wrong. Newton, in his Opticks, used the word: "If the sun's light be trajected through three or more cross prisms successively.." Well, the OED gave the definition which the freerice.com people were looking for: "transmit." I wonder, really, what the difference between "transmit" and "throw across," since the OED uses gives as one of its examples of the "transmit" meaning of traject a quotation from Newton's Opticks.

Well, that is enough for now. Let's continue on our journey..

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