dysgenic and dysteleology and dysteleological and dysepulotic and dysphuisticic

One large category of words ignored so far and appearing in the Collegiate are those words beginning with "dys," the Greek prefix for "difficulty" or "hard." There are about 25 or so of those words, ranging from the very familiar (dysentery or dyslexia) to the rather obscure (dysmenorrhea or dysgenic). But I knew there were many more of these terms in English than just represented in the Collegiate, and so I went to the Webster's Third New International (Unabridged) to find some more. I found about another 25, some of which I thought might appear in the Collegiate (such as dyslalia--difficulty in speaking-- or dyspathy--antipathy) while others are clearly obscure (dyschromatopsia--feeble or perverted sense of color--or dyschezia--constipation). Then, I checked the Century, which had about another 11 terms not in either of the two. When I got to the OED, I thought I had "exhausted" the terms for "difficulty" in English because it had only four that were in none of the previous three dictionaries. I love one of them, dysprosody, meaning a speech disorder affecting the "melody of langauge." One of them goes back to 1907, dyspraxia, and describes a developmental coordination disorder.

Thus, I thought I was "home free," with about 60 or so words describing various "difficult" conditions of human life or the animal/plant kingdom, but then I decided to look at two other sources: the big Liddell-Scott (unabridged) ancient Greek dictionary and the Stedman online medical dictionary. What I discovered was stunning. The Greek language had literally hundreds of words (close to 1000 I would say) that could be formed off the root "dys," almost all of which did not relate to medical conditions. Examples include dysphthartos (hard to destroy) or dystenos (unhappy or unfortunate). Believe me, I could write many, many essays using the Liddell Scott on dys.

But then, the online dictionary had more than 100 "dys" terms. Because it is a medical dictionary, it didn't include some of the rich humanistic terms from the other dictionaries, such as dysteleology, meaning purposelessness or a belief in the meaningless of nature, but it also included a variety of highly technical medical "dys's" that describe a debility of probably a very small percentage of the popuation--such as dysstasia, difficulty in standing, or dysmimia, inability to use gestures or imitate another. Rather than simply going through lists of words, I thought it might be helpful to highlight a few of the more humanistic uses of dys terms, so that we might be encouraged to use them and develop others. If there is one thing that the proliferation of medical terms indicates to me, it is that focused attention to the Greek roots should help generate more humanistic examples of the words. In my judgment, the world of humanistic development of language is just in its infancy. Why, for example, shouldn't we have a words such as dysnoetic, or something like it, to express a concept that is difficult to understand? Rather than saying all the time, "This is difficult to understand," we could say, "This is a dysnoetic concept." You get my point.

Some "Broader" "Dys" Words

Well, let me start with a term or two that no one knows, but which are nevertheless attractive to me. Dysnomy, appearing only in the Century, means "bad laws" or "bad legislation." It is not hard to find a use for this term. Dysepulotic is "not healing or cicatrizing readily or easily." To cicatrize means to "scar" or "to heal by inducing a cicatrix or scar." We could say, "the nearly unstanchable wound was symbolic of the dysepulotic damage he suffered to the psyche." Something dysphuistic is "ill-sounding" or "inelegant." The Century gives this example: "Of a Lover's Complaint...I have only space or need to remark that it contains two of the most exquisitely Shakespearean verses...and two of the most execrably euphuistic or dysphuistic lines ever inflicted on us by man." Even the word sounds like what it means. I like those kind of words.

Dysthymic comes from the Greek word dysthymia, which means despair or despondency. Dysthymia has been taken over into English and means the same thing as in Greek. "She was worried that his continued dysthymia was the result not of anything that he faced at work or at home, but was a symptom of general ennui that had been gripping him for the past decade." Dysteleology did originate as a scientific term but has, in my judgment, very promising humanistic possibilities. Invented by Professor Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), founder of the Zoologisches Institut at the University of Jena, dysteleologie originally referred to the apparently functionless rudimentary organs in animals and plants, which Haeckel then argued led to the denial of "final causes" in nature itself. This theory of "absence of purpose or design" fit very nicely with the natural selection theory of Darwin, articulated first in 1859.

Teleology, a foundational principle in Aristotelian philosophy as well as Christian theology, was exposed to its most serious challenge through the work of men like Darwin and Haeckel. Though the term originally had its home in science, I think dysteleology should find a home in humansitic speech today. Most scholars in the academy today are dysteleologists--they don't believe in ultimate purposes in nature or in human life. Rather than referring to people as "agnostics" or "atheists" or "theists," why don't we believe that their commitment to purpose is really the important thing about their belief system? Thus, whether or not they embrace dysteleology may be more revelatory of their inner feelings and more helpfully descriptive of them than whether they believe in God.

Conclusion--Dysgenic

Most of the dictionaries had dysgenesis, which means an abnormal embyronic development of an organ. But something dysgenic is different. Invented in 1915 in response to the word eugenic, coined by Galton in the mid 1880's, dysgenic means "exerting a detrimental effect on the race, tending towards racial degeneration." The familiar example given by W.R. Inge is: "War has a dysgenic effect on civilizations, by eliminating the strongest and healthiest of the population, while leaving the weaklings at home to be the fathers of the next generation." And, it probably is no accident that the word dysgenic was coined in 1915--after the first brutal, senseless and deadly year of World War I. Even as the strongest men of France and Germany were dug deeply into the trenches on the Western Front, the so-called dysgenics were back at home. Ultimately, however, I don't know if I believe that wars have a dysgenic effect on cultures--unless they wipe the culture out wholescale. But it is a good word to have in our quiver of words, to shoot into the midst of the discussion when needed.

Much, much more could be said about dys words, but not by me, and not now.

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