inane and inantion and inanity and inanitiated and exhausted and void and lucretius

"Bill, that's inane!" The words still ring in my ears from earlier days. I didn't have to look it up to know that the person speaking it to me was not trying to compliment me; I think he used it, actually, as a synonym of "insane." And, indeed, someone that is inane is "void or destitute of sense; silly, senseless; empty-headed," as the OED says. One could give an "inane and senseless smile." Carlyle says, "We listen..to the inanest hubbub," which is no less true in 2005 than in 1843. We have inane remarks, inane books, inane looks, inane speeches, inane people. It is a great word for our attack culture.

This usage of inane is not the earliest one, and it gives us absolutely no clue as to why inane should be related to inanition (exhaustion), which, of course, it is. Well, to be sure, no one uses the word inanition today, but it is a perfectly good word and one to which I am solemnly dedicating my life to resurrecting. Actually, I think it will take a lot of energy to bring inanition to life.

The Roots of Inane

So, we turn to the OLD. The noun is inane, inanis (neuter), while the adjective is inanis, inanis, inane (forgive the instinctive listing of the masculine, feminine and neuter). Inanis is a relatively rich word in Latin, having 13 definitions, most of them dealing with emptiness. Something inanis contains nothing or is empty. It can refer to a cavity in the earth, an eyeless person, an empty building, an unmanned chariot. Something inanis can be lifeless, dead, or devoid of breath. It is thin or insubstantial. And, then, it can also refer to a person who is empty-headed or foolish. An inane in Latin is an empty space or void. It is the technical term used in Epicurean philosophy (by Lucretius) to describe one of the two dominant realities in life: the void (the other being atoms). Inane in the plural refers to worthless or illusory things or vanities. The verb inanio means to make empty or, in a medical connotation, to drain or evaculate (an organ or the body). Thus, the central idea behind inane is the notion of emptiness.

Coming into English

The earliest attestations of inane in English emphasize this "empty" or "void" notion of the term, especially in philosophy. John Locke wrote, in 1690:

"When one can find out and frame in his mind clearly and distinctly [remember those "clear and distinct ideas" characteristic of British empiricism?] the place of the universe, he will be able to tell us whether it moves or stands still in the undistinguishable inane of infinite space."

Poets then picked up this sense of the word. From Shelley, describing Prometheus, "Pinnacled dim in the intense inane." Or Whittier, "Folly and Fear are sisters twain;/ One closing the eyes,/ The other peopling the dark inane/ With spectral lies." Then Tennyson got into the act, referring back to the philosophy of Lucretius: "I saw the flaring atom-streams/ And torrents of her myriad universe,/ Ruining along the illimitable inane." Thus, the meaning of inane to describe the vast cosmic spaces is not only well-attested but is better attested than inane as foolish or silly. But we can easily see how the latter derived from the former. Someone probably said. 'Look at the vast inane. Methinks it is like your head. Empty. You are an inane creature.' We just don't have the minutes of the meeting where this was first said...

The Term Develops

Inane as foolish then becomes well-attested in English by the 19th century, and it catches on so much that the original philosophical or cosmological meaning of the term drops out. But inanity seems to have come into the language directly from the Latin inanis, and always (since the 17th century) had the dual meaning of hollow, unsatisfactory, vain as well as empty or void. It was only in the 18th century, however, that the sense of inanity as frivolity, senselessness, silliness or an instance of vacuity came to the fore. From 1756: "The Rambler (a publication) calls his works Pages of Inanity." If you want a quotation bashing theologians, you never have to look further than WEH Lecky, the 19th century historian: "The pretentious and verbose inanity of his theological writings." I don't know if it would be useful to try to recapture the "emptiness" meaning of inanity, but I think it is a much richer term than simply a word to describe frivolity. It can even present the idea of idleness or inaction.

Inanition

So, finally we come to the word that seems to be the surd in the equation: inanition. How could inanition have any relationship to silliness or frivolity? Well, it can't. But it can connect quite nicely to the original meaning of inane. We know inanition is "the exhausted condition resulting from want or insufficiency of nourishment." So, it was a medical term in the 18th century: "Fevers proceed from too great Fulness in the beginning and too great Inanition in the latter end of the Disease." But its figurative meaning developed also, to describe the wanness, lack of energy, or exhaustion of a person or movement. "Anarchy..is usually shortlived, and perishes in inanition." But a person who is exhausted is empty or "void." Actually, I think if you have Epicurus' void in the back of your mind as you think of inanition, the concept of exhaustion takes on a whole new (visual) meaning. When one suffers from inanition, one is as vacant and empty as the naked universe, the void, the incomprehensible, vacuous, immense, primordial space. I am so entranced with the word as I leave it today, that I think I want to invent a verb: inanit: to suffer from exhaustion. "How are you today?" "Inanitted." There actually is an attested verb, inanitiate, to express the act of being exhausted. "One so exhausted is said to be inanitiated." Which do you like better? I prefer inanitted. Inanitiated sounds too much like uninitiated. Well, I am tired now, so I leave it here.

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