15. Pages 103-125
Bill Long 4/30/05
As you note, this essay is supposed to cover 23 pages. I began going over 103-114 in the previous essay, but I got too distracted in my writing on things that interested me. I need to "finish" a few thoughts from that essay before plunging into a (briefer) consideration of 115-125.
Bd, an Ignored Combination
There are probably fewer than a handful of Americans who don't study either leeches or ancient rhetoric who know any word in English that begins with "bd." The Collegiate only lists one, bdellium (a gum resin), and even the mighty OED has only three, whereas the 1993 Webster's unabridged has about eight or nine. I want to talk about it, however. I have lived with myself long enough to know that when Billy wants to talk about something, it is best to let him do so, at least for a little while.
As I said, the combination "bd" at the beginning of a word is extremely rare. In ancient rhetoric bdelygmia is a way of expressing hatred of someone else or a situation. It can be translated as "nausea, disgust" or "abomination." The actual Greek word is bdelygma and, if you are keeping score, is used in the Greek New Testament to describe the "abomination of desolation" (Mk. 13:14) which will be set up in the last days. Ok. One usage. Neither the OED nor the 1993 Webster's instances this.
They both focus on leeches. The Greek word for leech is bdella, and several words, as you easily can imagine, are formed off of it. The two that I think are most interesting are in the OED: bdellatomy and bdellometer. The first only has one attestation, from 1868, and is defined as "The name given to the practice of cutting leeches to empty them of blood while they still continue to suck." I can envision it now. The little suckers would latch (or leech) onto the skin and begin gorging themselves in blood. Sooner or later, however, these leeches would get full. Someone needed to split them apart, let out some blood, and put them back together so they could just "keep on suckin'." That worthy task must have falled to a bdellatomist.
But someone must have thought, "Get Real! Leeches in MY operating room? Over my dead body." And so, someone invented the bdellometer, attested as early as 1839 but not really defined until 1874, as follows: "A surgical instrument proposed as a substitute for leeches, and fitted to show the amount of blood drawn." So, the doctor could have looked at his patient with a straight face and said, "Ve not only vant to suck your blood, but this here little machine vill do it for us."
I think that is enough fun on leeches for one day, don't you? Oh, before I leave them, one more thought. I discovered that those who study leeches and other parasitic worms are called helminthologists. It made me pause to want to mention the "ologists" we should have met so far in our study. Someone who studies algae is an algologist or phycologist. A student of mosses is a bryologist. We have seen that a new word for those engaged in the "scientific" study of fat are called barologists (from the Greek word 'barus,' meaning heavy) and those who study ticks and mites are called acarologists. I was saddened to learn that there is not yet an English word for those who study arrows. After all, if you practice belomancy you study the pattern of arrow flight or get your guidance from tying on a wish to an arrow that you shoot toward the horizon. Why shouldn't a person who studies arrows be a belologist? But, then again, maybe no one studies them.
Moving on to some "Be's"
One of the things that impresssed me immensely while reviewing words that begin with "be" is the way that almost every vivid word can be made more vivid by adding a "be" to its front. Or, by adding a "be," you can make a noun into a verb, form an adjective, or give deeper meaning to an underlying verb. Let's pause and examine this great sight, so to speak. Our dictionary has several words that illustrate the phenomenon, so let's start there.
For example, it has, strangely enough, begoggled, a term originating in 1903 and meaning "wearing goggles." No doubt the same Evangelical mother of the previous essay who told her son to come up with another word for bejesus in 1890 probably told him to make sure he was begoggled as he climbed on his new motorcycle 13 years later. But if the rider can be begoggled, the road can be bebouldered, even if the Collegiate doesn't have this word (the OED does). As he rode it he might pass some beflagged balconies on the holiday weekend and see bemedaled veterans parading their finery down Main Street. If the Shriners are there, no doubt there will also be befezzed participants in our holiday parade.
The verb uses of "be" are almost limitless, and I think that a due attention to them will aid eloquence, in addition to spelling, immensely. Something might becloud our judgment or begrime our hands. A difficult problem may bedog or even bedevil us. If we beflatter someone, we give them fulsome (excessive) praise. Something belies if it "gives the lie to" or "contradicts" something else. The Collegiate, for some reason, has an archaic word bedight, meaning to "equip" or "array," though the unabridged adds two other terms to define it: bedeck and accouter. Perhaps the Collegiate didn't think that college people today know those terms. Make sure you refer to the troops as bedighted and not benighted or you might beknocked over the head.
A word from pages 114-125 (which this essay WAS actually supposed to cover) is bewray, a verb which should make us pause. Bewray is another archaic word, and is defined as "divulge, betray." The Unabridged gives a further clue to its meaning. It says it means "to make known" or "to reveal (as a secret) to one's disadvantage often unintentionally" or "to reveal the true character." Thus, it seems to me, bewray is a term of immense psychological depth, reaching both to the fact of something (the telling of a secret) and the nature of that something (a secret that actually accuses or defames the self). Many people might think that the sentence, "he betrayed a confidence" is the worst thing you can say about someone; but maybe "he bewrayed his vulnerabilities when narrating the story of his last breakup" is even more revealing.
Conclusion
Well, this will have to suffice for now. I guess I will need one more essay to cover pages 114-125 more fully. Stay tuned.
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