pronate and supinate and prescind and abstract from and prorogue

My writing (the "D's") is about 500 pages behind where I am studying in the dictionary (the "R's"). This is primarily because I get caught up in words and cannot keep my writing and study pages aligned. But, at least for this one night, I decided to leap ahead to where I am studying in the Collegiate and play with three words, if I can even get to three. Let's start right away.

Prescind

We may run into a problem with this word, so let's begin with the first OED definition, usually the one that tries to follow the Latin or Greek root very carefully. Derived from the Latin prescindere, meaning to cut off in front, prescind at first meant to cut off prematurely or cut away at once. From 1636: "The brevity of his reigne prescinded many and great hopes of his good government..." Or, from 1718, "Kings ought...if they do fall into Mischiefs to prescind the Occasions of them, as soon as they are discovered." Then it took on the more general meaning of cutting off, detaching, separating or abstracting from something. Here the philosophers begin to use the term (and its use today is primarily in the field of philosophy). Berkeley could write in 1710, "An abstract idea of happiness prescinded from all particular pleasure." Then, the word finally began to attain the meaning of "withdrawing the attention from" or "to leave out of consideration," as in "In what I am about to write I prescind entirely from all theological theories and religious symbols."

Fine so far. Three clear definitions, from cut off prematurely to cut off or abstract from and then to leave out of consideration. Notice that when authors speak of withdrawing or leaving out of consideration, the more "modern" usage, it is always "prescind from." Then I turned to the Century, which defined the term as follows: "to separate other facts or ideas for special consideration." What is interesting about this definition is prescind, according to the Century, separates out ideas so that you can focus on them, and not so that they can be left behind (as in the OED's final definitions). For example, the Century has: "The result of Attention, by concentrating the mind upon certain qualities, is...to withdraw or abstract it from all else. In technical language, we are said to prescind the phenomena we exclusively consider." "When we are said to prescind a quality, we are merely supposed to attend to that quality exlusively." This seems to be almost in line with the 1710 quotation above but rather than leaving an idea to the side, prescind means to focus on it. I suppose we could say the distinction between all usages (except the first two, which seem to be obsolete--prescind as cut off prematurely or immediately--) is that prescind means to abstract or separate a particular idea so that we can focus on it exclusively, whereas prescind from means to leave it aside or not deal with it at all. I actually think this is clear enough and quite helpful. Let's not just leave the word to philosophers, however.

Prorogue

This word has nothing to do with being a professional rogue, but refers primarily to postponing a meeting. But, we need to walk through the definitions closely or we may get confused. The first defiinition in the OED is "to prolong, lengthen, extend (in time or duration)." In this sense to prorogue something means to extend its length. "The truce was eftsoones proroged for a few days." Or "Parliament prorogued his term of office five years." The definitions thus far stress that prorogue means to extend something that presently exists and may soon expire. But then a second definition grew up, seemingly at the same time as the first, to mean "put off" or "defer" or "postpone." From 1494, "Prorouge your said election unto the tyme ye shall have furthre knowledge form us." Or, from Shakespeare, "I heare thou must and nothing may prorogue it" (R & J, 4.1.48).

But notice what is happening. The two definitions are somewhat incompatible with each other. The first stresses a filling up of a gap (five more years), but the second use of the term creates a gap, through deferring or postponing. Despite the seeming inconsistency of these two definitions, I think I see a similarity between prorogue and continue. If a cause of action continues in law, it just keeps plugging away. The common use of the term prevails. But, you can also say that if you want to postpone consideration of something until next month's meeting, you are continuing the issue until that time.

So, here we have it. Under the former usage of prorogue we have "The command of Scipio was prorogued, not, as on previous occasions, for a fixed period, but till such time as the war should be brought to a conclusion." Or, ever so briefly, "Mirth prorogues life." Here is prorogue as extension or prolongation of ruling power for Scipio or of life itself. But, we also have, "The King's journey into Scotland must be prorogued until another year." This usage of prorogued clearly means "deferred" or "delayed."

Thus, both of the words we have considered so far have two very different, and often contradictory, meanings. Since the terms are rarely used by people, the potential contradictions are lost. But what is lost, Bill brings up.

Conclusion

Well, only a word about pronate. It comes from the medical profession and refers primarily to hands and feet. Pronation is where the bones of the forearm are more or less crossed, and the palm of the hand is turned downward (with the thumb being the inside digit). The opposite, supination, has the bones of the forearm parallel to each other with the palm is open, thumb facing out. You can do the same thing for feet. Pronate also means to lie down with the face downward while supinate means to lie face upwards on the back. There is even a usage of supinate in fencing: it is the position of the wrist when the palm of the hand is turned upward.

I think this is enough for one day. Thanks for joining me on this word tour.

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