Brevi-words

I got into this digression because of the prefix brevi, meaning "short." I ended the previous essay with a few words about the Breviary, a RC devotional book for those in Orders. I learned also that in pre-Reformation England there was a similar book known as the portiforium or portass, though I don't know the contents or "shape" of it. But, as you know by now, one of my reasons for loving words is that they open up worlds. You learn one, and then you follow it down a rabbit's hole and you may never return to the life you were once living. Indeed, in the past 20 minutes or so I have taken another detour, having looked up portiforium and portasse, and being taken into the deep things of Roman Catholic prayer books. I am safely extricated from them now, though some might think that I ought to spend more time there.

Scientific Usages of "Brevi"

The OED is admirably spare on this one. It simply has a few examples like breviped (short feet or legs); brevipennate (short-winged) or brevipen (an "abbreviated" word for short-winged) and brevirostrate (we met it in the previous essay as brevirostrine...picky, picky). But the Century won't let us go quietly into this night of "brevis," and it gives us a few more. Some are as follows: brevicaudate, which means "having a short tail. But another synonym for brevicaudate is brachyurous. Something very interesting is happening here between brevicaudate and brachyurous. The former is composed of two Latin words to express "short tail," while the latter is composed of two Greek words to explain the same thing. But don't go to brachyurous, at least in the Century, or you will sucked into dozens of words and insects, animals and other things that have short something or other. Then, of course, you might get drawn into the question of why the Latin rather than the Greek term should triumph in usage. I don't frankly know, but there must be a story there. Probably two independent researchers coming up with things with different words. Or, even more interesting, perhaps two researchers who knew each other's work but because of petty jealousies or something like that would just use another language to express the same concept a colleague was trying to get adopted. Well, we also have other examples of this phenomenon. A vegetarian who eats fish could be called either ichthyophagous or piscivorous. You may want to call them neither. But now you know that if you really knew Latin and Greek, you really could play with English endlessly.

Well, we have just taken a turn off the road marked brevicaudate. What are some other examples of the "brevi" prefix used for scientific terms? A breviductor is not a guy who takes your tickets in his underpants on the train--it is, rather, "the short adductorial muscle of the thigh; the adductor brevis." A breviflexor is a short flexor muscle (rare), while brevifoliate means a plant that has short leaves. Don't you think that you would immediately be ushered to the head of the class if you were on a high school or college field trip, handled a plant with seeming professional skill, and then muttered something about "brevifoliate" branches? Try it. Brevilingual does not mean that you don't talk much (that word is breviloquence), but means "having a short tong, whoops, tongue"--I inadvertently shortened the word. Apparently there are creatures called Brevllingues (group of birds including the hoopoes and kingfishers, according to Merrem's 1813 classification) though I haven't yet run into them.

I still have a few more things to say about "brevi" before I return to the list of 50 or so final words from the 1997 Bee. The Century tells us that a brevier is "a size of printing-type measuring 112 lines to the foot, next larger than minion and smaller than bourgeois." All those words for styles of type--reminiscent to me of Sherwin-Williams' color chart of paints. Too many for me, for now.

But we ought not to leave brevi without mention of its connection to the word brief, brevet, and breve. A legal brief, as we know, is a very long document. But, seriousness aside, breve is different from brevi. The former has to do, as a verb, with writing something or, more elegantly said, "inditing" something. A breve, then, is something that is written down, especially an authoritative document. By the 16th century a breve could be a papal letter. But, a breve could also be a summary or short code of instructions (as well as a musical note). A brevet was also an official document, sometimes from a religious authority or, more usually, from a sovereign or government. Most usually, it was used in a military context to describe a document conferring nominal rank to an officer, but giving no right to extra pay. Thus "Six Majors ...to be promoted by brevet to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel."

Finally, you should know that there is a stone called brevicite. There are so many rocks and minerals today that you marvel that there are enough people or towns to name them after. Brevicite was first named in 1836 after Brevig (now Brevik) a town in Norway. Here is the first attestation: "Brevicite. This name has been given by Berzelious to a mineral sent him by M. Strom, from Brevig, in Norway, which appears to have filled up an amygdaloidal cavity in a trachyte-looking rock." Don't you just love the way that other words are brought to bear here to clarify a concept. Oh, brevicite is defined as "natrolite," a term that goes back to 1805 ("Klaproth..gave it the name Natrolit, on acount of the great quantity of natron which he found it to contain..").

Conclusion

I truly believe that if you study words long enough, being patient with yourself to follow various detours when you encounter them, that you will live a full, rich and interesting life. Who knows what, if anything, you will "accomplish" in life, but you may just find that the journeys you take are those that can only be described by poets. At last, that is my hope.

At long last, let's return to the 1997 final words. See what words do to me, and I hope, you? Let's end with the Scriptures, in Latin, of course. From Is. 59:1: "Ecce non est adbreviata manus Domini ut salvare nequeat neque adgravata est auris eius ut non exaudiat.." Good thing the Lord's arm is not "abbreviated."

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