eructation and anhelation and tissique and psthisic and claudication and theological use of words

I have been patiently holding myself back but I can do so no longer. When you get to the "De's" in a dictionary, you have lots of very interesting verbs, verbs that tend to undo ("de" means "from") the action contemplated in the verbal root. I will get to five of those in this mini-essay, but as I do so I will wander afield, stopping and smelling the delightful odors.

Defecate

Well, I have to admit it. This doesn't seem like a delightful odor, does it? But let's look at the word. Actually the sense that it is exclusively known today, "to void the feces," only originated in 1864, according to the OED. For example, an 1878 quotation has, "The patient should not be allowed to get up to defecate." [One wonders if the word 'bed pan' originated around this time...nope, it seems to go back to 1678, even though it wasn't until 1883 that the redoubtable Florence Nightingale could write, "Bed-pans should have Carbolic powder in them lavishly." Go Flo!] But the original meaning (1575) of defecate was to "clear from dregs or impurities" and, from the 17th century onward it was used figuratively to mean "to purify from pollution or extraneous admixture."

Thus, its original meaning suggests something opposite of how we think of the verb today. And, it seemed to have a particular appeal in theology. From 1621: "Till Luther's time..who began upon a sudden to defecate, and as another sun to drive away those foggy mists of superstition." That is, Luther is being praised here for his defecatory actions. Interesting indeed, especially to those who read Luther closely, since he is a theologian who doesn't mind speaking of flatulence, farting and other noises relating to bodily elimination! Again, from 1648: "To defecate (i.e., purify) and Exalt our Conceptions." Ah, defecation has never smelled so good...

Related Verbs

But, after this little history of defecate I have to confess that I was eager to look into more verbs descriptive of aspects of human behavior. Four others that drew my attention were deglutition, claudication, anhelation and eructation. Yes, I know, they are not all "De's," but once I get on a theme, you really should let me finish. Deglutition goes back to 1650 and is the act of swallowing. Simple as that. But William Paley's* quotation from 1804 brought

[*Paley's Natural Theology went through several editions and was the staple text in early American colleges to try to explain how processes of nature supported a belief in the existence of the Christian God. Darwin and the doctrine of natural selection, coming to the states after the Civil War, so obliterated the philosophy behind Paley's work that he is only remembered now by those apologists for traditional Christianity who are trying to reconstruct a lost world].

me to another word. "In a city feast what deglutition, what anhelation!" So, to anhelation it will be. Anhelation means "a breathing with difficulty, panting; shortness of breath." Shortly after it was first attested in 1623, it took on a figurative meaning. Once again, John Donne is at the ready: "Our Anhelation and panting after the Joyes of the Kingdom of Heaven..." Because the Scriptures are full of images of "panting" after God, a theological use of anhelation was thereby explicable. Then, out-Donning Donne, from 1695: "When his exhaling Soul to Heav'n aspires, In sacred Anhelations, and inflame'd Desires." Ready for the second verse?

Oops. I just can't help myself. Henry Cockeram, who first attested anhelation in his 1623 The English dictionarie, or an interpreter of hard English words, defined it as "The Tissique." What? Ok. A little detective work was in order. There was no OED entry under "tissique." But there was under tissick. Actually, the tissick entry points us to tisick and phthsic. Tisick is defined as, "phthistic or asthmatic quality," and the earliest quotation, from 1533, equates Tisiknesse and shortness of breath. A later (1825) entry has "Tissick, a tickling faint cough, called also a 'tissicky cough." I wanted to pause on the phthsic part of the definition, however, because that was a word that stumped my Oregon colleague Tobie Finzel at the 2004 National Bee.

Two More Verbs

I can see now that I am moving through the dictionary at the speed of glacial encroachment which, since they are all melting, means that I am not moving very quickly. Well, claudication means "limping," and is derived from the Latin "claudicare." The word goes back to 1555 but already by the 17th century it has been spiritualized by a Bishop John Abernethy (A christian and heavenly treatise containing physicke for the soule) when he said, "The claudications and haltings of the saints are not diseases, but in part." By the 19th century, however, the medical profession had taken over the term. Who knows, maybe theology will have a 21st century resurgence in its use of eloquent terminology.

Finally, a word about eructation. The verb, to eructate, is almost onomatopoeic for it means "to belch" or, as the OED puts it in such Victorian language, "The action of voiding wind from the stomach through the mouth." Can't you just imagine a high schooler apologizing to his teacher for improperly engaging in an action voiding wind from his stomach through the mouth? Yes, it happens nearly every day, I am sure. By the 17th century cabbage was identified as the culprit producing eructation. "Cabbage..is greated accus'd for lying undigested in the Stomack and provoking Eructations." But, I hasten to add, there is also a figurative use of the word eructation, which I simply must mention. From 1645, "Oft the soul lets flie Such unexpected eructations," or, even better, from 1683, "They have Mental Prayer, and Spiritual Eructations." I suppose this must be in reference to a prayer that, as St. Paul says, is "too deep for words." Hm.

That's enough for today. Happy eructations.

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