More Unusual Words--Returning to the "lists"

I have to begin this essay with another discovery I made last night regarding a word trivially easy word to spell but with a story I had not previously known. It is "culprit." I was looking for a synonym for the word, and decided to check it out in the OED. To my delight and surprise, I found this story. The word only originates in 1678, and was not originally a word but was a chance combination of two words from law French, which was the official written legal language of the era. When a person was taken into custody and asked how he pleaded, he would normally say, "Not guilty." Then, the state, in the person of the Clerk of the Crown, would respond with a statement of the state's position--"Guilty; ready to pursue or aver our indictment." That is, the state would be saying that it was ready to begin with the process of indictment and trial. But the law French of this would be:

"Culpable: prest d'averrer nostre bille..."

When written, the language became abbreviated, and so the process became known as "Cul.prist." When law French fell into disuse in the ensuing decades, this "cul.prist" was seen as "culprit," and was then associated with the defendant. As said above, the first use of the term was in 1678, in a volume of state trials. The Clerk of the Crown is addressing the defendant, in this case the Earl of Pembroke (what was his problem?) The Clerk says the following to the accused:

"Are you guilty or not guilty?" The answer was "Not guilty." The Clerk then said, "Culprit, how will you be tryed?" To which the Earl resonded, "By my peers."

I couldn't resist following this thread for a bit; it shows a likely origin for the word. This story is, I believe, a more probable origin for "culprit" than Tillotson's 1694 suggestion that hocus pocus, common juggling words at the time, rested on a corruption of hoc est corpus, an imitation of the priests of the Church of Rome in their saying of the mass.

Back to the List--On Noises

Let's begin with fritiniency. The Century has the word fritinancy, but the OED has the former. The Latin is fritinnire which means to "twitter, chirp, as a small bird, cicada, etc." From 1646 we have: "The note or fritiniancy [of the Cicada] is far more shrill than that of the Locus." Blount, in his Glossographia called the wod either fritiniancy, fritiniency. I suppose that is why the OED editors chose the latter. When we enter the world of fritiniency we also enter the world of gestures or noises that have their own vocabulary. For example, stridulate means to "make a harsh, grating, shrill noise." I would like to know which species are stridulous and which display fritiniency.

Then, opposite to these, we have the word psithurism or psithurisma, which means "whispering; a whispering noise." The Greek word underlying it is psithursma, of uncertain origin but meaning "whispering." From 1856 we have: "A murmurous laughter of mocking winds arose at times, and rustled on, and died away into the psithurisma of Theocritus."

Ah, now we have to digress for a moment on how the work of Theocritus might be considered a psithurisma. Theocritus was a 3rd cent. BCE Greek poet, the originator of pastoral or bucolic poetry. His extant poems are generically known as the Idylls, and they convey an impression of timeless pastoral life in the hills of Sicily and South Italy. They also contain laments and descriptions of Syracusan women preparing love charms. As this source says, his style is "polished, natural, and graceful." He describes the simple rustic life with fresh little pictures. I suppose this is where the word "idyllic" derives. Theocritus, then, sets a tone, a gentle, peaceful, and alluring tone. His tone then could accurately be called "whispering" or, more technically, a psithurisma. Then, to put this subject, and word, to rest, we have from 1883: "The popularity of our new hexameter with simple readers who know little of the Homeric roll, the Sicilian psithurisma, or Virgil's liquid flow, has been demonstrated." So, the primary use of the word was to describe the literary style of Theocritus; its possible use today might be extended to include any kind of rustling or whispering sound. Why not speak of the gentle psithurisma of the leaves, of the wind on the chimes, of countless murmuring sounds that we often ignore in our day-to-day lives? We will be more apt to listen for the whispering if we have another word, like psithurisma, to assist us.

We need an essay on gestures (pandiculation, osculation, oscitation), but not here and now....Check here to start on jactitation, nictation, osculation, et. al.

Concluding

I am finding, to my delight, that the more unusual words I write about (and hence "dispose of"), the more unusual words appear. Let's conclude with one other "new" one: recumbentibus. I just couldn't wait on recumbentibus because of its humorous connotation. I suppose because it is humorous, the Century doesn't have it: no humor in that scientifically-precise dictionary. But the OED has it, and says that it goes back to 1400 and means "a knock-down blow." "He gaff the kyng Episcropus Suche a recumbentibus, He smot In-two both helme & mayle." From 1675: "A good whirret Bebrix gave him,...Which Rebumbendibus..." I didn't know that a whirret was a "slap" or a "blow." From a 19th century work:

"I forthwith went, he following me at my heels, and now and then giving me a whirret on the ear...."

The OED now has the word as wherret, which is also the spelling in the Unabridged for the word meaning a slap, though the Unabridged as wherret/wherrit for a "tease." Thus, we shade off into uncertainty at the end, don't we, though it seems that wherret is the only approved spelling now for a blow or slap.

The OED tells us that another humorous word, built on the model of recumbentibus, is circumbendibus, but I don't have time to go there now. Maybe tomorrow..

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