parure and pasquinade and fauteuil and parterre and paronymous and paresthesia

After getting lexicographic wanderlust out of my system through the three essays on ectomies or words that won't appear, I thought it best to return humbly to page 900 and go through a few words from the Collegiate that are both interesting and useful. I think I can only get through six in this essay.

1. Paresthesia. The word isn't particularly difficult to spell, but is a fascinating one and is one you ought to learn. It means, "the abnormal sensation of tingling, numbness or burning, usually in an extremity." The point is that we suffer from paresthesia when we have this "tingling" feeling without objective cause. The Century defines it as "abnormal sensation, as formication." Oh, that is interesting. Formication has nothing to do with fornication; if you know that the Latin word for "ant" is formica, then formication has to do with feeling that ants are crawling on you. Who hasn't had that feeling. Just sitting there, minding your own business and then, whack! You slap yourself because you are sure that an ant is crawling up your.....leg. Well, next time you do that, recall that you are suffering from paresthesia. But we have a slight problem. The Collegiate spells the word paresthesia (as does the OED), while the Century has it as paraesthesia. Come to think of it, there really is no problem...if you are a relativist.

2. Parietal. This has nothing to do with growing different types of grapes (varietals), but has everything to do with a large quadrangular bone in the skull or visiting hours at Ivy League dorms. You may ask what these have in common, and I would at first be hard pressed to make a connection, unless it is that Ivy League men have especially thick skulls. But the connection really comes through the origin of the term--"walls." The parietal bone is a "wall-like" bone, and "parietals" (a term introduced at Harvard in 1847) have to do with keeping up the "walls" between men and women in dormitories (thus limiting visiting hours to each other's rooms). I kid you not....in my first dorm meeting at Brown in 1970, a topic of discussion was whether we wanted parietals. I still remember the discussion because no one knew what they were and the RA had to explain the word to us. We looked at him as if he was from Mars. In 1967 the Ivy League schools still had parietals. In 1970 the suggestion to have parietals seemed like it came from another universe. Those who say that 1968 saw among the most dramatic shifts in American cultural history are not far wrong.

3. Paronymous. A wonderful word which describes words that derive from the same root but have different endings. Paronymous words are cognates. Example are "wise; wisely; wisdom; or man; manhood; mankind." The first attestation of the term in English illustrates the meaning. From T. Stanley in 1656: "Terms are of three kindes, Homonymous, Synonymous, and Paronymous.. Paronymous have denomination from the same thing, but differ in case or termination."

Now that I am thinking about Bees, I hae a comment. Here is how an adult Bee should differ from a kids' Bee. In an adult Bee, many of us know either the story of the words we are asked to spell or the way we can use them in a sentence or in speech. There is nothing like that in the kids' Bee. There they just learn massive lists of words with little understanding of what they are doing. In that regard, I sympathize with characterizations of the kids' Bee as analogous to child abuse while the adult Bee ought to be a mind-enhancing experience. Back to the list.

4. Parterre. This has two meanings, though the Collegiate only picks up on the second. A parterre is either a "level space in a garden occupied by an ornamental arrangement of flower beds" (you can get pictures of this on the Net), or it is "the part of the ground floor of a theater in front of the orchestra." In other words it is the "front and center" section of the theater. One diagram I saw had the parterre directly in front of the podium with the fauteuil (another good word--French for armchair) surrounding the parterre. Be that as it may, I don't think it is a widely used word in our language.

5. Parure. The Century defines it nicely as "a set of ornaments intended to be worn together, or matching with one another: as, a parure of jewels. Thus, a necklace, earrings and tiara can be called a parure of jewels. Oops. My eye wandered to the next word in the Century, and I can't help myself. It is paruria, which has to do with difficulty in urination, or, in the elegant definition of the Century, "disordered micturation." I actually love the sound of the word micturation (the verb "micturate" is in the Collegiate); it sounds so much more sophisticated than peeing, doesn't it? I suggest you try to find several instances in your life this week where you can use the term.

6. Pasquinade. This word can either be a noun or a verb. To pasquinade means to satarize or lampoon someone, while a pasquin or pasquinade is the satirical poster. The English word pasquin derives from the Italian pasquino, which originally was a statue so called, and in the words of an early modern writer "an old statue in Rome on whom all satires, pasquins, rayling rimes, or libels are fastned and fathered."

That's enough for one night. I look forward to doing more tomorrow.

1851