Some More Unusual Words--Focusing on the Bodily Parts

As is often the case, a funny thing happened to me on the way to disposing of (my discussion of) a few bodily parts (dactylion, akropodion, pterna/pternion). I ended up looking at a few anatomical maps of the body, or portions of the body, and decided I needed to clarify for myself a few more words. This essay, then, is dedicated to explaining some of the following words: nasion, pterion, phalangion, stylion, stomion, acromion. I think I will be able to clarify these terms; I am still confused about the difference between gnathion and pogonion. The reason that gnathion confuses me is a defintion like this one, which is from medical dictionaries no less. The gnathion is called the most "outward and everted point" on the curvature of the chin (Dorlands Medical Dictionary) and the "most inferior point of the mandible in the midline" (American Heritage Medical Dictionary). The everted point is the most outward point; the most inferior point is the inward point. Any help on that one? Until clarity comes forth, I will consider gnathion and pogonion to be synonymous, and both point to the middle of the mandible--in the dimple or the rounded part, depending on the individual's curvature of the chin.

A Few Review Words--On the Foot

Recall from the previous essay that our dictionaries are confused on the word akropodion/acropodion, but that I am using akropodion to refer to the tip of the toe, while pternion or pterna refers to the point of the heel. The Latin term calcaneum is synonymous with pterna/pternion--the bone of the heel. The Latin word for heel is calx, calcis. Here we must take another short digression, because the Latin word for lime is also calx. The Century tells us that the underlying Latin means "small stone," and perhaps that is the connection between "lime" and the "heel." Lime, or chalk, begins as a small stone that is eroded while the heel bone can appear, to the eye, as if stone-shaped. The Latin word for shoe is calceus, or something that goes over the heel.

Perhaps we should pause on the calx, calcis, calceus triad or constellation for a moment. Though words like calcareous or calcarious (much more frequently calcareous) pick up on the "lime" meaning of calx, and mean "of the nature of lime; composed or containing lime or lime-stone," other words are interesting. Calcate (rare) means "to trample or stamp under the heel" and calceiform means "shaped like a shoe or slipper," while calciform means "oxidized" or "in the state of calx." Another word for calceiform is calceolate. Thus, if you have the additional "e," after the second "c," you are in the "shoe" territory. In the history of Christianity you have the Carmelite friars, known either as the "calced" or "discalced," depending on whether they wore shoes. So, it won't always be clear by looking at the word whether it has its origin in the "lime" meaning of calx, or the "heel" meaning of the same word, or even whether calce underlies the word--and thus suggest a "shoe" connection.

Bact To Other Bodily Parts

Let's leave the heel/foot for a moment and go to the brain. Care should be used to distinguish the pternion, the tip of the heel, from the pterion, which is in the brain. The OED defines it as "the region of the side of the skull where the sutures between the sphenoid, parietal, frontal, and temporal bones are located, typically arranged in a pattern resembling the letter H." Notice the root here is pter, which means "wing," while the root for pterna/pternion is ptern, which is the Greek word for "heel." I think we need a picture of the pterion, don't we, this part of the skull in the "wings" of it? Here is a picture showing what the diagram calls the "spheno-parietal suture," conecting the sphenoidal and parietal lobes of the brain. The pterion seems to refer to whole region where these sutures come together, a sort of "H" or "goalpost" shape, while the sphenoparietal suture is the "crossbar" of the "goalpost." Fun, fun, fun.

The Rest of the Terms

Let's finish this essay by going "top to bottom" on the remaining terms listed above. These don't exhaust the words describing the bones of the body, to be sure, but they get us started nicely. The nasion is defined as the "median point of the nasofrontal suture." A better way to view it is through a picture, here. As we notice, the nasion is the lowest part of the upper nasal structure, right between the eyes. If we went much further upwards, we would come to the smooth part between the eyebrows, called the glabellum/glabella. Let's continue down the body slowly. The stomion is the place in the mouth that is the midpoint of the lips when the lips are at rest. I say "mouth," because stoma is the Greek word for "mouth" or "entrance." Indeed, the most frequent appearance of stomion on "Google Images" is the mouth or entrance of an ancient tomb. The word was first used this way in 1934: "Three chambers..roughly circular, or oval in shape with horizontal floors, and steeply sloping tunnel-shaped stomia." The OED only has this definition for stomion, but it is incomplete.

Next we come to the acromion, which is the tip (acro/akro) of the shoulderblade. Sometimes it is also referred to as the clavicular-acromion or something similar. Then, descending further toward the hands, we have the stylion, or the wrist bone on the thumb-side, and the phalangion, which is the beginning of the finger bones, between the fist or open part of the hand and the digits themselves. The phalangium is also a genus, with 30 species, of "harvestmen," which are eight-legged invertebrate arachnids. I think this just about covers the terms I wanted to introduce.

Now, with that long digression out of the way, let's move back to some unusual words...

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