The Final Rebar Spelling Bee--with a few Bonus Terms

With the dulcet strains of Strauss' Blue Danube Waltz playing in the background (from the site for Lippizzaner/Lipizzaner horses), I write this piece. So, let's begin with that word that can be spelled two ways: lippizzaner/lipizzaner. The OED and the Unabridged differ on which is the preferred spelling. [Indeed, it looks like there are three acceptable spellings, depending on whether you double the "p" and "z"; the only unattested one is lipizan]. Nevertheless, if you know something about horses, this word is probably not unfamiliar. Here is a website on this noble breed. Though the name is derived from a location in modern-day Italy, the origin of the horse breed goes back to Spain during Moorish time and became most popular during the Hapsburg Empire. As the web site claims, "over the years twenty-three million poeple throughout North and South America, Great Britain, Europe, Australia and Hawaii have seen this internationally acclaimed spectacle." I suppose if such number has seen the horses, that a few people can spell the name of the breed...

Gremio/Gremial

While our mind is temporarily on the Iberian Peninsula, then, let's look at gremio, a word not appearing in the OED, though its near-neighbor gremial does. Gremial is derived from the Latin gremium, meaning the lap or bosom, and so something gremial is either pertaining to the bosom or lap or, with respect to a friend, "intimate." So, John Donne, in a 1631 sermon could write of "Centricall Gold, viscerall Gold, gremiall Gold, Gold in the Matrice and womb of God." A 1659 quotation speaks of Caesar's entreaty of a gremial friend. But I also noted two other definitions of gremial, which beg to be explored. First, it refers to dwelling within the 'bosom' of university or society, or a resident. "Gremial masters of arts were allowed to wear silk in their gowns and hoods." But the word also had an ecclesiastical connotation, and was a piece of cloth, originally a towel of fine linen, later a piece of silk or damask, often adorned with gold or silver lace, and placed on the lap of a bishop during mass or ordination to protect the vestments from consecrated oil. A similar vestment used by the Pope is called a subcinctorium. This is enough on this subject, as it gets us into the world of eccleasiastical garments which is almost as confused and extensive as the world of medieval heraldry. Let's give it a rest, though you can go here if your craving for these words is unslaked.

So, we are on good grounds for thinking that the word gremio has something to do with an intimate friend, society or garment. Indeed, it was any of the organized guilds that were found by men of the same craft during the Moorish occupation of Portugal from the 8th-13th centuries. Often these people lived on the same street in a given city. Guilds had patron saints, banners, parades and other things that gave them an identity. Here is an entry in a book that talks about the power of the fish-buying gremio in Portugal. Guilds protect their members. In America we have had an assault on "guilds" (known here as unions) in the last 30 years under the name of "economic efficiency." The assault has largely been successful, especially in the private sphere, if by success you mean the ability to break the hold of the unions in contract negotiations and demands for benefits.

Chevrotain

The OED/Unabridged also listchevrotin as a possible spelling. It is "the smaller species of Musk Deer, found in SE Asia and the adjacent islands." Oliver Goldsmith, in his 1774 Natural History, was the first to refer to it by this name in English. Other names used historically for the chevrotain are palandok and napu. An alluring study would be to understand how names of animals have evolved, as well as their classifications. For example, I think there was some confusion for a long time as to which family this deer belonged. Now it is agreed that the four species of chevrotain make up the family Tragulidae. Pictures of this little humpbacked creature with pencilly-thin legs, are all over the net. Here is one.

By the way, I think I need a digression here on the word tragus, now that we are nearby. I don't know if you know, but the tragus is the fleshy prominence on the inner side of the external ear, in front of and partially protecting the opening to the ear. Thus, it is a small, but sturdy, flap of protective skin. Why is it so called, when the Latin word tragus, derived from the Greek tragus, is a "he goat"? What do he-goats have to do with human ear flaps? Well, the tragus is a goat so named on account of the bunch of hairs that it bears. And, as anyone knows with men, especially as we age, we tend to develop individual hairs or tufts of hair in places just as the hair disappears in others. Hairs seem to grow out of the tragus.

Two final comments on this word. First, the names of parts of the ear, including the helix, lobe, tragus, and antitragus, go back to Rufus of Ephesus, a 1st century CE lexicographer. Then, you should also know that the word tragedy, originally a genre of drama in ancient Greece, is derived from the words meaning "goat-song." Many theories of the origin of this word have been suggested, such as the winners had to down goat skins or the goat was the totemic animal of tragic demonstrations, but there doesn't seem to be a regnant or accepted theory of the origin of the word tragedy in our day.

I see I haven't made as much progress as I want (small wonder). Let's finish these Re-bar essays now.

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