The Final Re-bar Bee (Essay III)

Let's look at these words, from the list I presented a few essays ago: lynnhaven, arimasp, typhlology, ithyphallic, ectocanthion, melancomous, tonitrous, floraison, exequies, liturate and harquebusier. Other words will enter in either to illumine or enlarge our understanding of these words.

1. lynnhaven is a geographical term for a region in Virginia off highway 60 between Hampton and Virginia Beach (known as Lynnhaven Shores). As this entry shows, there is a Lynnhaven River, a Lynnhaven Inlet, and beyond it is Lynnhaven Roads. Then we have the line that is relevant for our word for the day: "It was once famous along the East Coast of the US for its oysters, which declined through pollution and runoff. It is now being restored by the Lynnhaven River Now restoration project." Ah, I see that their annual oyster roast is this Saturday; sorry I won't be attending. Thus, a "lynnhaven" is an oyster found in these regions. In the Oregon Senior Bee on April 12 we had another geographical term--unakite, a kind of rock found in the Unaka mountains which form the border between Tennessee and North Carolina. Here is a page describing the geology and parks of the Upper Unaka Mountains. In fact, there apppear to be the Upper Unakas, the Great Smoky Mountains and the Lower Unakas. Everything, it seems, can be broken down into more specific categories. Here is a photo of unakite, which is fabled to bring "balance to the emotions." Maybe I should get a supply...

2. typhlology means, simply, scientific knowledge relating to blindness. But the word and its relatives has lots of richness. I spoke elsewhere about Lewis Carroll's invention to aid night writing, the typhlograph, which he later called the nyctograph. But this time around in studying typhlo the most interesting word I found was typhlopegy, the "operation of fixing he caecum to the wall of the abdomen." How does something relating to blindness connect with the stomach? Well, the caecum is the medical term for the first part of the large intestine or the "blind-gut," so called, the OED tells us, "because it is prolonged behind the opening of the ilium into a cul-de-sac." Now we have it.

3. In order to understand arimasp, we have to descend (or is it ascend?) into the world of classical mythology. The Arimasp was a race of single-eyed, warlike creatures, who were supposed to live in far Northern regions, and spent their time trying to wrest gold from the griffins who guarded it. Here is a picture and a page about them. Herodotus, in his Histories (4.13.1.) speaks of a story related in a poem by Aristeas. He was said to have visited the Issedones:

"beyond these (he said) live the one-eyed Arimaspoi, beyond whom are the Grypes (Griffins) that guard gold, and beyond these again the Hyperboreoi, whose territory reaches to the sea. Except for the Hyperboreoi, all these nations (and first the Arimaspoi) are always at war with their neighbors; the Issedones were pushed from their lands by the Arimaspoi, and the Skythians by the Issedones."

Trying to draw an ancient demographic profile of the world can be fascinating and frustrating at the same time!

4.5.6.7. More quickly now, we can define tonitruous as "full of or characterized by thunder, loud noise; thundering." One might have a tonitruous report of guns, or even a tonitruous verbosity. Floraison is simply the French word for "flowering." It refers primarily to the flowering of a bud or the maturing of a (French) wine, but can be used for the "flourishing" of any movement or activity. In ancient texts you often read of someone's life with this abbreviation--fl. ca. 100 CE. This phrase means that the person flourished (floruit) around the year 100 of this era. So we can say that a certain hair or dance style had its floraison at a certain time. Exequies are simply funeral rites. The Latin derivation of the word is interesting. It comes from ex(s)equiae, a nominative plural, which literally means "a train of followers," i.e., those who follow the body or bier to the grave. Those who follow one to the grave then engage in funeral ceremonies. Nice. Melanocomous means "having black hair." In the not-so-subtle, but mostly unintended, racism of the 19th century anthropologists and students of the human body, we have this line: "The melano-comous or dark races..are mostly of the melancholic temperament." Really?

8.9.10. The ectocanthion is the point at which the outer ends of the upper and lower eyelids meet. Here is a diagram to show you. The whole science of measuring heads is also of dubious origin, for the nineteenth century "scientists" who engaged in it were mostly interested in drawing moral or intellectual conclusions from the shape of the head. Thus, measurements between various parts of the head were of great significance. One of the measurements in the linked page is between the occiput and ectocanthion (A26). Can anyone tell me the importance of this measurement? Then we have liturate, which means "to blot out, erase." Derived ultimately from the Latin litura, an erasure, the word is quite rare in our day. A harquebusier is a soldier armed with a harquebus or arquebus. A harquebus is an early type of portable gun, varying in size from a small cannon to a musket. Invented in the 15th century, this firearm was normally supported by a tripod or some kind of stand, in order to keep the shot secure. I guess we can see how this would become obsolete rather quickly, can't we? Imagine saying to your opponent, "Please give me a second while I set up my tripod for the harquebus..." Don't think so.

Conclusion--Ithyphallic

I conclude with this word because it won't appear in any kids bee and no national adult bee. Why? Because of its "r-rated" content. But it is a perfectly good word, and a powerful word if you want to understand ancient mythology. The word is the adjectival form of ithyphallus, which is an erect phallus. Ithus means "straight" or "erect" in Greek, for your information. Ithyphallic is also something "grossly obscene or indecent," but in ancient times it meant "characterized or pertaining to the ceremonies associated with the erect phallus as a religious symbol." Whose festivals were these? Why, of course, Bacchus, the god of the vine. The word could also refer to the meter of Bacchic hymns--an ithyphallic verse.

Let's try to get the rest of the words done in one more essay--it is too easy to become diverted for hours on some of these words...

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