Miscellaneous Words--Mostly Classically Derived

Every time I seek out one word, it seems that I meet all the neighbors of that word and, often, find the neighbors more interesting than the word originally sought. For example, I was really interested in sephiroth, the series of 10 emanations from God in medieval Jewish Kabbalah. But, in order to "get there," my eyes fell upon sepelition, the act of burial. That triggered the Greek equivalent in my mind--taphos, which itself led to several words. Then, while I was minding my business at taphonomy/tapho(e)phobia, my mine wandered down the page, and I ran into Tapleyism, which is where I will begin today.

Tapleyism is another one of those terms coined by Charles Dickens or, to put it more accurately, Mark Tapley was a character invented by Dickens in Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-44), a man who was optimistic in the most hopeless circumstances. He always decided to remain "jolly." Thus, Tapleyism is a sort of unrealistic optimism, even when situations are bleak. From 1857: "I have a good share of Tapleyism in me and come out strong under difficulties." You probably would get stares, at best, and a flogging, at worst, if you used this word today.

Latin-Derived Words

I have been trying to get my Latin back of late. It has been delightful to work through ancient stories (the Labors of Hercules; the story of Jason and the Argonauts) in relatively simple Latin. Yet, often I come across a Latin word and say to myself, 'that ought to have come into English.' Often it really hasn't. For example, peritus means "experienced, expert," and is a common word in Latin. Yet, it only has a specialized meaning in English--"a theological adviser or consultant, esp. one attending the Second Vatican Council (1962-65)." The New Yorker most recently used this term in 2002: "Voice of the Faithful has developed its own legion of periti--the experts who wrote the Vatican II documents and guided them toward promulgation." I believe it would be useful to try to breathe new life into this word, by using it synonymously with "expert." Perhaps the legion of consultants "out there" (of which I am one!) would be more impressive to third-parties if they/we started billing ourselves as periti.

Erudition/Eruncation/Erugate

When you realize that erudite/erudition is taken from two Latin words, one meaning "out of" and the other meaning "rude or untrained," scales fall from your eyes. An erudite peson is one who is "trained" or "well-instructed," or, literally, one who has been "led out of his/her rudeness." The original meaning of rude, like vulgar, has little to do with being "fresh" or "impolite." Rather, the emphasis is on being "uneducated; unlearned; ignorant." From an 1865 description of the early days of Christianity: "The new religion was first promulgated by rude men unacquainted with learning or rhetoric." Maybe that should be our goal--to be brought out of our ignorant and unlearned state, and come to learning. It takes quite some effort, which is probably why so few pursue it with diligence...

While rooting around near "erudition" I came upon words that I had already dealt with (eruct/eructation/erucator), but then my eye fell on eruncate and erugate. The former, like runcation, simply means "to weed out" or "extirpate." The underlying Latin words, runcatio (weed) and stirp (stem or stock of a tree), yield us these words. But I think we need two good words in English to describe our "rooting out" or destroying something. Both eruncate and extirpate help. By the way, when I was in my law school trusts & estates class, we talked about various forms of inheritance. One of them was per stirpes ("by branch"), which meant that each family branch of a group of beneficiaries would receive the equal portion of an estate.

Let's go one step further and get to erugate. It means "to remove wrinkles from; to smooth." Something that is rugose is marked by rugae (sing. ruga) or wrinkles. The word rugose normally finds its home among botanists, and most frequently appears with "leaf" or "mosaic," but can easily be lifted from that context and refer to a face or other wrinkled or corrugated surface. If an "old-time" medicine could be called an elixir, why can't we call something that removes wrinkles be called an erugor? Erugate can also be an adjective meaning "smooth." I think the word has possibilities...

Erumpent, A/Egritude, Erumny

Words connected with "rump" or "romp" are so prevalent in Romance languages (with the meaning of "breaking" or "bursting forth") that I was astonished to discover that we have no words for breaking things in English beginning with "rump.." The closest we have is words beginning with "rupt..." Then we can go to erumpent, a word little attested in English, which means "that bursts forth." I suppose we also have the verb erump, from erumpere, which means "to burst forth." Botanists think the word belongs to them, but again I think it a word belonging to the great masses of people. If flowers, and other things (like human lives) can effloresce, why can't certain things also erump?

Even more rare are egritude and erumny which, if you know a little about them, are interesting. Words, to that extent, are like your neighbors. You may think that some of them are weird and not very useful, but when you actually sit down and listen to them, you shut up and realize that they have loads to offer you. Erumna, derived from the Latin aerumna (when do you drop the initial "a" in a Latin word? Thus, is it esthetic judgment or aesthetic judgment?), means "calamity" or "hardship." And, egritude is derived from the Latin aeger, aegris, which means "sickness." In fact, the OED has it as aegritude and the Century as egritude (why isn't erumna then aerumna?). The Unabridged and Collegiate face the question squarely by not listing the word at all. Quotations of the latter mix the spelling, as the following illustrate. First, from 1532: "We have augmented our aegritude and distress." Then, from 1610, "That sorrow which Tully (Cicero) had rather call egritude and Virgil dolour."

But, however you slice it, we have the word aegrotant as a "sick person, an invalid." An aegrotat (lit. "he/she is sick") is, in the English universities, a certificate that a student is too ill to attend a lecture or examination. In our universities students just call it cutting a class or "getting a note" from the doctor to excuse you from the exam. I much prefer the aegrotat. The Century even has the euphonious word egrimony (accent on the first syllable, which I think may now be called the preantepenult), which means "sickness of the mind; sadness; sorrow."

Be sure to differentiate all this from agriology, which is the study of the customs and history of primitive/uncivilized people (from the Greek word agrios).

Conclusion

That is all we have time for today. I look forward in fact to "finishing" the list in the next essay.

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