More New Free Rice Words VII
Bill Long 8/18/08
Beginning with Carking
I still am not able to extricate myself from words surrounding carina. A carking sitaution is distressing or perplexing, used primarily in the phrase carking cares. Then, there is the word carkled, which means "crumpled, wavy." The OED doesn't have the word, even though it appears in the Century. From Blackmore's Lorna Doone, we have:
"And the blades of grass that straightened to it turned their points a little way...yet before their carkled edges bent more than a driven saw, down the water came again."
You can almost hear the object crinkle as you say the word "carkle."
Let's redeem this discussion, to a degree, by finishing here with the word carl. It is a proper name, of course, but in Anglo Saxon the word mean both a man and a churl. In early English history a churl was one of the lowest classes of freemen. He was a person working on the estate of his lord. It could also suggest, by extension, a coarse, rude, surly or sullen person. Thus, returning to carl, we understand the two distinct, and somewhat contrary, meanings. First, it is simply a man, "a robust, strong or hardy man." But, on the other hand, a carl can be a "rustic, boor, clown." Spenser, in the Fairie Queene, used the word in this way:
"Therein a cancred crabbed Carle does dwell,
That has no skill of Court nor courtesie."
And Burton, in his monstrouly huge Anatomy of Melancholy, coined the term carl as a verb (to act like a churl):
"They [old persons] carle many times as they sit, and talk to themselves; they are angry, waspish, displeased with themselves."
Retreating to Cascara
One of the familiar trees in the Northwest of the USA is the cascara buckthorn, the Rhamnus purshiana. Here is a picture of the alternate leaves, with the distinctive multi-color berries. When I was doing my "tree-hikes" at the U of Oregon last year, I ran into several of these but didn't think any further about it, since I was just in my "identification of trees" mode. Yet, what I didn't know is that cascara sacrada, or "sacred bark," comes from this tree and is a laxative. As this web site says, "The anthraquinones stimulate the bowel, leading to evacuation after approximately six to ten hours." I am no herbalist, but this seems to be a popular laxative for those who want a milder treatment...
Moving to Cascalho and Carbonado
While in the cascara neighborhood of the OED, I couldn't help but move to some other words that were new to me. Let's continue with them. Cascalho is a Portuguese word, and it represents a deposit of pebbles, gravel and ferruginous sand in Brazil, containing diamonds or gold. The word was first used in English in 1812: "The gold lies..in a stratum of rounded pebbles and gravel, called cascalhao." Portuguese words in English are often difficult to spell because of the addition of an "h" somewhere near the end. For example, I missed ipecacuanha in the National Spelling Bee in June.
Just remember that many Portuguese words end in an "ha" or "ho," even if the "h" is silent. From 1957 we have: "Carbonado..is found almost exclusively in the state of Bahia in Brazil, where it occurs in the cascalho or diamond-bearing gravel." By the way, carbonado is a black diamond. In 1957 we may have thought that it came exclusively from Brazil, but the Wikipedia article says that carbonado is also found in the Central African Republic. Then, in this Jan. 10, 2007 online article, a journalist quotes the work of a few American scientists who claim an extraterrestrial origin for carbonado diamonds. The modern technology known as "infrared synchrotron radiation" was used to discover the diamonds' source.
What I didn't know about diamonds is that "conventional" diamonds are mined from explosive volcanic rocks (kimberlites); thus the unique crystal structure is preseved. About 600 tons of conventional diamonds have been mined since 1900. But, as one scholar says, "Not a single black or carbonado diamond has ever been discovered in the world's mining fields." Thus, this leads to the extra-terrestrial hypothesis. But why did they land only in these two places in the world--Brazil and the Central African Republic? Well, you just see that the subjects for investigation are fantastically numerous...
Caschielawis/Caschilaws
Two words that describe medieval forms of torture are faleste and caschielawis. The former is described almost nowhere, except in a legal dictionary that is published online; it refers to a kind of punishment/torture in which a victim is tied to a stake by the side of the sea at low tide, and the tide gradually comes in to drown him. Someday, perhaps, I can report more specifically on that (when applied? What process allowed it, etc.).
But caschielawis is described by Cosmo Innes in his 1861 Sketches of Early Scottish History. No one is quite sure of the word's origin, though the Gaelic word for handcuff (glas-lamh) may lie behind it. It is an instrument of torture, said to have been invented by the "Master of Orkney" in 1596. I think this story may have bequeathed the word to us. In brief, in the late 16th century Alesoun/Alison Balfour of Stenness (the standing stones of Stenness stand to this day--or else they would have been named differently, I suppose) was implicated in a plot to murder Patrick Steward, Earl of Orkney. His brother, John, Master of Orkney, was supposed to be behind the plot, through the person of his servant, Thomas Paplay. So, Paplay was kept 11 days and nights "in the caschielawis [word only appears in the OED]." The online story defines it as "an iron frame which was gradually heated till it turned into the flesh to extort a confession." The OED, however, says that this form of torture "appears to have been" an action by which the torturer forcibly drew together the "body and limbs of the victim, and held him in this cramped position."
Well, Paplay "confessed," and implicated Balfour, a notorious witch, in the plot. She was tortured with the caschielawis, but she didn't confess. Her 81 year-old husband likewise was tortured, but didn't give in. Finally, her seven year-old daughter (how did the ages work here??) was put in the pilliwinks and the mother confessed to witchcraft. While being put to death she denied her confession, saying only that she confessed to save her daughter from torture.
It is experiences like this with torture that should have burned deeply into the Anglo-American consciousness the notion that torture to exact confessions often may get them, but may also get them only because the person tortured or the loved one of the person tortured wants the affliction to stop. It may have nothing at all to do with guilt. The OED tells us that there was really no "legal" justification for caschielawis. "The assumption that it was in legal use is equally baseless; all the references are to legal proceedings against those who were charged with applying this cruel torture." What the OED overlooks, however, is that there were lots (and remain lots) of "unofficial" forms of abuse that "officials" direct at others.
Conclusion
I had high hopes for getting to many of the new free rice words this essay but, as usual, was waylaid. I hope, however, that these word journeys delight you as much as they do me...
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