Words taken from the Book on Reading the OED

6. Acnestis is a very rare noun, even though the notion that it points to is humorous and very common. Derived from two Greek letters/words, the alpha privative (meaning "not") and knestos (meaning "scratched"; the verb underlying this is knaein, meaning to "scratch, scrape"), the Greek word aknestis means "the spine" or "backbone," i.e., that part of the back that cannot be scratched. Thus, acnestis is that part of the spine in quadrupeds which can't be reached to scratch. Just as "gnaw" is onomatopoetic for the way we chew with our teeth, so I think knaein is onomatopoetic for the sound made by scratching ourselves with paws/fingernails. Even though acnestis thus creates such a beautiful picture for us, it isn't well formed or easy to pronounce, and thus will not "make it" in the 21st century. I suppose if I said to someone today, "Please let me scratch your acnestis," I might be received with something other than the biblical holy kiss...

7. In order to understand bespawl, first should look at spawl and then realize that the "be" prefix is connected to our Germanic heritage, and means to "make something happen." We have "grime," which means "dirt," and then "to begrime" something is to make it dirty. So, if we only knew what spawl was we might quickly figure out bespawl. The Century tells us that spawl is saliva or spittle thrown out carelessly; slaver. To spawl is to eject spittle carelessly. Dryden, in his translation of Persius' Satires, has this quatrain:

"A new-born infant from the cradle takes,
And first of spittle she lustration makes;
Then in the spawl her middle finger dips,
Anoints the temples, forehead, and the lips."

Now we can see how bespawl fits into this perfectly. The OED defines it as "to bespatter with saliva." Ben Jonson used the word in 1602: "Bespawls/ The conscious time, with humours, foam, and brawls." So, if we really wanted to characterize someone in a derogatory fashion, we might say that when s/he speaks, s/he bespawls the audience. "Don't get too close to the platform; it is not his charisma but his saliva which will bespawl you."

8. The word kankedort isn't a good one, both because its etymology is "unascertained" and its definition is preceded by a question mark. The Century lists it under cankerdort, and says that it means "distress," while the OED opts for "a critical position; an awkward affair." Both are trying to figure out the meaning of one line from Chaucer's Troylus: "Was Troylus nought in a kankedort." I am going to leave it here.

9. I have already written on petrichor, so let's move to prend. It also shouldn't be on the list, because it means just what comprehend or apprehend mean: to grasp, take or understand. Both dictionaries tell us that a prender (noun) is a legal term meaning the "power or right of taking a thing without its being offered." Well, you might just think this is also called "stealing," but it is the right of a Lord going back to medieval times. Some things are said to "lie in prender," and other things "lie in render." Law, of course, was interested in nursery-type rhymes. Thus, a prender is a taking of something before it is offered; a render is the offering of the thing to the one called the cognizor (defendant) by the cognizee (plaintiff). The distinction, if you really wanted to know, is as follows: "Rent is said by the ancient lawyers to lie in render (i.e., what is owed), in contradistinction to other corporeal hereditaments which lie in prender." If you want to know more--go to law school, or just look up "corporeal hereditament." It isn't as bad as it sounds... Then, there are incorporeal hereditaments....

10. If you see competence under the word incompetible, you are on the right track. Something incompetible is "not competible" or, "not within one's competence or capacity, inappropriate." Sometimes, because of the latter definition, the term has been equivalent to incompatible. But incompatibility and inappropriateness aren't really the same thing. Thus, this really isn't a very useful word for us today. But here is an example of its use from the past. From Burnet, in 1684: "The characters of the New Jerusalem...are very hard to be understood: some of them being incompetible to a terrestrial state, and some of them to a celestial." Here the meaning appears to be "inappropriate" rather than "incompatible," though the other can't be excluded. With all the problems in Darfur and Zimbabwe and other places, I don't think that this is one I want to take on...

11. Repertitious has nothing to do with repeating oneself. Rather, it is derived from the Latin verb reperire, meaning "to find," and means something "found by chance." The OED also has repertition and repertite, but these words are related to "partition" or dividing and not to finding. I don't see much hope for this word's being rediscovered any time in the near future.

12. The one really nice word on the list is vicambulist. We see the "walking around" nature of the end of the word. Someone who is ambulatory gets around on feet. A vicus is simply a street in a town, whereas a vicarius (lying behind the word vicar) is a substitute. In fact, a vicus is a village, or group of dwellings. It is the smallest unit of ancient Roman municipal administration. From Stubb's 1874 Constitutional History of England: "The unit of the constitutional machinery [in Anglo-Saxon England] was the township, the villata, or vicus." So, a person who is a vicambulist "walks around" the town. Now in our day of health consciousness, when people of all ages and sizes are taking up walking, we might say that there are all kinds of vicambulists around us. If we started talking like that, people might raise their eyebrows, but a quick explanation would dispel all fears. But, you never know. In this age where we seem to be glued on terrorism, and tend to interpret all things through that lens (or at least that seems to be government policy), someone from the TSA who hears the word vicambulist in a crowded airport might just think that the speaker had said too much.

One more essay will finish this list of fun, obscure, and sometimes very useful words.

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