impost and interpenetration and continuous impost

I am coming back to the "ims" after a few weeks of meandering in the "ins." Actually I am doing so because my eyes fell on lots of "im"-words today, all of which are somewhat or very familiar, but which, upon closer inspection, turned out to have some fascinating dimensions to them. For example, I became interested in impose and imposition, and this led to impostor, imposture, impost and impostumate. I began to see that unless I patiently examined these words, I might lose them all. So, let's begin with impost.

Impost--The Noun 1.

The first and most familiar usage of impost is "that which is imposed or levied; a tax, tribute, or duty." The OED says that one scholar (Cowell) has suggested that impost properly denotes a duty on imported goods while custom is on goods exported. This usage may even, at first glance, derive some support from the US Constitution. Article 1, Sec. 10 provides: "no State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports...and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any State on imports or exports..." Note, however, that there is some ambiguity in this provision, for if the constructions are parallel then an impost may either be an import or export. And, the OED recognizes this when it says that Cowell's distinction is repeated by later dictionaries (including the Century), "but there is no evidence that it was ever in accepted use."

The word impost, derived from the Latin ("to place upon") first appeared in English only as recently as 1568 and 1570, and those usages don't support a distinction between imported and exported goods. From 1568: "He never put any tribute, impost, or tax upon his subjectes." And, from a 1570 statute: "Customs, Subsidies, Imposts, or other Duties within any Port of the Realm." But a key to its earliest meaning might be found in a quotation from Sir Walter Raleigh (1618): "The great taxe upon wine is still called Impost, because it was imposed after the ordinary rate of payment had lasted many years." Thus impost may have been originally used as a sort of added tax, an additional assessment that was later placed upon objects.

But a figurative meaning of impost may obtain, as in the sentence: "Smiling faces and optimistic observations were the impost on students who were invited to attend the Presidential reception."

Impost--The Noun 2.

But then there is a very suggestive and visual meaning of impost, beginning in the 17th century, from the field of ecclesiastical architecture. The OED defines impost as "the upper course of a pillar or abutment, frequently projecting in the form of an ornamental molding or capital, on which the foot of an arch rests." The Century is a bit simpler: "the point where an arch rests on a wall or column." Thus, the impost is traditionally marked by a horizontal member into which the arch seems to plunge at the lowest point of the arch. But, as with everything architectural, there were several types of imposts, the two most popular of which were called the shafted impost--where the arch molding seems to spring directly from the capital and be of different form from the flutings in the column below--and the continuous impost-- where the arch moldings continue down the pillar that supports the arch without any discernible point to mark the "impost-point" (where pillar or pier stops and arch begins). But then the Century, as it so frequently does, directs us to another word. It simply says: "See interpenetration.

Wandering Over to Interpenetration

So, I decided to see what the dictionaries say about interpenetration. Sure enough, the second (third in the OED) usage is from medieval architecture. [I should note, however, that though the term describes a 15th century architectural phenomenon, the term itself only emerged in the 19th cenutry]. I prefer the OED definition: "The intersection of two forms; spec. an independent continuation of moldings or other members past their intersection, so that the identity of a member is preserved after it has partly coincided with another or has been altogether swallowed up in it." Identity is preserved, even as it might be "swallowed up" in the other. That means that the curve of the wood, which began in the pier or pillar, has become the curve of the arch. There is no identifiable impost point where one can say, "the arch starts here..."

This visual image of the word interpenetration is far more rich, in my mind, than the first usage of the term by Coleridge in 1809 to describe something non-architectural: "That union and interpenetration of the universal and the particular, which must ever pervade all works of deciced genius and true science." So interpenetration, or continuous impost, may be described as an insensible or imperceptible shading of something into something else, such as light into darkness or city into country. Or, could it possibly be that people who love each other as their own soul might be interpenetrated with the other? You might never really be able to say where one "stops" and the other "begins." You would know this is the case if a man, looking longingly into his beloved's eyes, would say, "You, my dear, are my continuous impost," and she, to her credit, would know what he means...

Aren't you glad that I paused for a moment on a "familiar" word?

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