inaffable and inagglutinable and inadhesion and adherescence

Words that entered into my thinking for today are inadhesion (and its relatives), inaffable, inaffectionate, inage/enage, and inagglutinable. I think I will begin by joining inadhesion and inagglutinable.

Inadhesion

Three words appear in the OED that relate to each other: inadherent/inadhesion/inadhesive. Let's begin with inadhesion. It is defined by the OED as "the fact of not adhering; non-adhesion," and the Century example is helpful: "Porcelain clay is distinguished from colorific earths by inadhesion to the fingers." Something that is inadhesive doesn't have the property of sticking. "Composed only of lapillo, pumice, and other substances of an inadhesive quality..." Inadhesive seems to be used mostly in a ceramics context, to discuss the texture of various sands or clays, but I think it has great psychological potential. "He determined that her problem was related to an inelastic disposition and an inadhesive personality. She had difficulty forming attachments."

The OED has 13 "adhere"-type of entries. Adhere is itself a prefixed word, derived from "ad"-meaning "to" or "towards," and "here" from "haereo," meaning to "stick, hold on tightly, to cling, to cease to flow, to make no progress." The verb adhere means not simply to cling to an object but also to cleave to an opinion, practice or method. Thus, an adherent, is a partisan, follower or supporter. "He had a lot of trouble trying to differentiate the adherents of Sunni from those of Shi'a Islam." I wonder if an inadherent would be an unbeliever, then? There is no attestation for that in the OED, but I think we can declare that it means that! Of the 13 "adhere"-type words in the OED the most pleasant sounding is adherescent-- "tending to adhere; adhesive." "The subdivided parts of the masking tape tend to lose their adherescent quality after lying around in the sun."

Inagglutinable

Well, let's move to another word that has something to do with sticking--or not sticking--inagglutinable. It means "incapable of being agglutinated (by)," according to the OED. Normally it appears in medical contexts: "Every individual whose corpuscles were inagglutinable by the A and B sera..." So, to probe this word, we have to retreat to agglutinate, agglutinable and related words. Agglutinate means "united as with glue; glued or cemeted together." But there is a philological meaning of the term that shouldn't be missed. Agglutination is "the combination of simple or root words into compound terms, without material change of form or loss of meaning." Philologists and linguists know that there are two basic types of language: agglutinative and inflected. As Coleridge says, "Platt-Deutsch was a compact language like the English, not admitting much agglutination."

So, now we have two rich terms, expressing connection or inability to connect, that I hope will stick to our minds.

Inaffable

There is a great difference between inaffable and ineffable. Something that is ineffable cannot be expressed or defined in language because it is too great for words. The name of God, in Jewish theology, is ineffable, and therefore is often written G-d. The Hebrew letters yud, he, waw, he, which form the word "Yahweh," are pronounced, by the religious Jew, "adonai" (Lord). However, someone inaffable is discourteous or "not affable." The word is said to be obsolete but I think it has a perfectly clear sense and utility. "He was disliked for his inaffability." The word affabilis, which stands behind this in Latin, gives us a clear picture of its meaning. The verb affor means to speak to or address. The suffix "bilis" means "ability to" or "skill in." Therefore, an affabilis person is one who is "easy to talk to or approach, courteous" or "manifesting or expressing sympathy or friendship." Someone inaffable is the opposite. I think the range of meanings for the term could reach from someone who doesn't speak easily to someone who is actually discourteous. Context could explain, or it could be one of those great somewhat ambiguous terms that you really don't need to define completely.

I think this suffices for a day, so let's call it quits.

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