aroint and shakespeare and argillaceous and clayey and arefaction and arenaceous

Before plunging in to appressorium and other words from ap-ar, I want to retreat and pick up a few words that are too good to miss, even though they don't appear in the Collegiate. I think it was the word anserine that got me thinking. The Latin word anserinus means "goose," and so something that is anserine partakes of the character or nature of a goose. The word anserous is a synonym. A secondary meaning of the term, analogous to asinine (which for some anserine reason made it into the Collegiate) is "stupid" or "silly," though the OED helpfully points out (in parentheses) that this conventional belief is erroneous. I think if I was the goose lobbyist in Washington D.C. or elsewhere that I would propose a bill placing a more positive construction on anserine. Oppression of geese in deed follows readily from oppression in speech. At least that would be my argument.

I note that anserated refers NOT to geese, however, but is a heraldic term relating to serpents. An anserated cross, which the Century nicely depicts, is one in which the extremities terminate in heads of serpents and, subsequently, heads of eagles, lions or other animals. I suppose the serpent-headed cross was so popular that some medieval entrepreneur came out with other models. Can't you just hear the shopkeeper. "And, ma'am, if you don't like the anserated cross with serpent heads, we have two in stock with turtledoves on the ends. Just for you."

And then, before returning to the "reality" of the Collegiate, I found myself going over every word in a few columns of the OED and richly creating an inner world as I went. There was Anschauung, which I spoke of previously, and then Anschluss, which made me think of Christopher Plummer in the Sound of Music, whose cool demeanor was only shaken slightly when news of Hitler's Anschluss with Austria was announced. I began singing "The Hills are Alive" for a little mental break.

Then there was Anselmian and Anselmic and I returned in my mind immediately to my religion classes at Brown University in the early 1970s where Anselm's ontological argument for the existence of God was on the table. I wondered for a minute whether I could imagine something greater than which nothing could be conceived. Because I couldn't immediately do that I left Anselm, breezed through anserine, and then got hung up on the next word, an sich. All of a sudden I returned in my mind to theological seminary where a professor was vainly trying to explain Immanuel Kant and the Ding an sich. For some reason I was taken with his fumbling effort, and decided that I needed to spend several years immersing myself in German thought, which I did until about the mid-1980s. Opps. I quickly realize that I am getting out of control again, and I need to return posthaste to the Collegiate.

Finally, 61-70

I am determined only to have this one essay on 61-70. Let's rip through the words that I need to learn. After appressorium, the thickened tip of hyphal branch, I looked at aprotic, apterous, apyrase, aquarelle and aquilegia. The Century has a great quotation for aquarelle, which is drawing in transparent watercolor. It says, "They [Frenchmen] despised it [water-color] when it was called aquarelle; they bowed down to it when it was called peinture a la fresque." We probably aren't much different in a lot of areas. Arachis has to do with peanuts, and arachnid, as we all now know, pertains to spiders, but the Collegiate only has the Greek-derived term for someone who studies spiders, an arachnologist, while ignoring its less pretty Latin counterpart, araneologist. An arbutus, pronounced ar BYU tis is a strawberry tree, and is improperly used in the following sentence: "I am going to kick your arbutus."

Make sure to distinguish between words that are formed off of arche, like archenteron, and archi, such as archidiaconal or archimandrite. Then we have several useful words and a few useless words that I needed to learn. Let's begin with the useful ones.

A Few Useful "Ar's"

First we have the adjective arcuate, meaning bow-shaped. Isn't that a useful word? Rather than saying "warped" all the time, when we are describing something, why not call it "arcuate"? Then the Collegiate only gives us one word built off arena, arenaceous, meaning "sandy," but the OED has several. I didn't know before studying the word this time that it derived from the Latin for "sand," and referred to the sandy floor inside a hippodrome or enclosed gladiatorial space. Soon the word swallowed the whole and the building became an arena. Something arenicolous lives in sand. Arefaction doesn't occur in the Collegiate but means the state of being dry ('arid') while something that is argillaceous contains clay, as the Latin word for white clay is argil. So something argillaceous is clayey, which itself might trip up someone. Then we have one of the omnipresent French terms, arrondissement, which is the largest administrative division of a Department. I have always been interested in social structures, but I think I will delay consideration of the French administrative world for now.

Less Useful "Ar's"

I suppose that utility, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, so I will just list several words I needed to learn. If you want to know the definitions, by all means, look 'em up. First there is arepa and then argali, arkose, aril and aryl, the former an exterior covering of seed and the latter having to do with hydrocarbons, arugula, arroba (an old Spanish unit of weight) and arum. I finish with the Shakespearean word aroint, which you meet immediately upon entering Macbeth. Most scholars think it means "begone" but no one really is sure. Isn't that just like the Bard?

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