bentham and phthisozoics and pediculous and sessile and pedicellate

I thought I was going to return to much more rapid-fire lists of difficult words to spell, but I find myself getting tied up and occupied with individual words which cry for clarification and understanding. I began my study with pediculous, but found that it lead me back to pedicels (pedicles; peduncles) and the Latin root pediculus. Join me on my journey, if you will.

Pediculous

The Collegiate defines the term pediculous as "infested with lice; lousy." Fair enough. Dictionaries in general simply identify things. They do not really satisfy curiosity. But then I began to search. As I was looking at the word further in the Century, I noted that the word next to it was pediculus. Both are derived from the same Latin word. Pediculous means "full of lice," while the latter means a "footstalk" or "the same as pedicel." I had to go back to the Oxford Latin Dictionary to sate my curiosity, and there it is. Two separate entries for pediculus, one of them meaning either "a little foot" or "a footstalk, pedicel" and one of them meaning "a louse, a sea-louse." What is interesting is that both words are attested with different meanings in Pliny's Natural History. So, the same word meant two different things from the beginning.

I decided to go find a picture of a pedicel so that I would forever know exactly what is meant by the term.

Isn't this a wonderfully simple and clear picture? The pedicel is the stem connected directly to the bract or base of the flower. It is thus called a "flower pedicellate." I also learned the meaning of sessile, too, by this picture. The OED simply defines sessile as "having no stalk." The first English appearance of the word was in Chambers' 1753 Cyclopedia, Supplement. "Sessile Leaf, one which rises immediately from the stalk without any pedicle" (the word is sometimes spelled pedicle, too).

Returning to Pediculous

Thus, I am interested in the pedicel which is a louse and not the pedicel which is a stem. As the Century says, pediculous means "lousy; infested with lice; affected with phthiriasis." Every year, it seems, someone in the Spelling Bee falls to a word beginning with "phth" because it is only pronounced "th." Fortunately phthiriasis is not in the Collegiate, even though it is a perfectly good word, though phthisis and phthisic appear in it. By the way, phthiriasis is defined as "the presence of lice on the body with the irritation produced thereby and its effects; the lousy disease, formerly called morbus pediculosus." Ok. Clear enough.

Sorry, a Digression

Oops, I can see another digression/distraction coming, and here it is. When I looked up phthiriasis in the Century, I took a moment to study the other "phth" words (recall that the "ph" is silent). For example, I ran across "phthongometer," which has nothing to do with women's underwear but relates to "an instrument used for measuring vocal sounds." But the word above phthongometer attracted my attention. It is phthisozoics. My first reaction is, "Oh my, this looks like either a Rabelesian or Benthamite word." Rabelais, of course, made up all kinds of hapax legomena from nonsense words that he simply put together. Bentham was not much better, though his made-up words attempted to describe present realities in life. And, indeed, I was correct. Bentham invented phthisozoics. If you understand that "phth" stands for phi and theta, and the combination of these letters in Greek means that a word dealing with destruction is coming, then phthisozoics is Benthams word to describe the "branch of science that deals with methods of destroying pests." Here is Bentham's actual quotation, from his Chrestomathia:

"From two Greek words: one of which signifies to destroy; the other, an animal...:--the art of destroying such of the inferior animals as, in the character of natural enemies, threaten destruction or damage--to himself, or to such animals from which, in the character of natural servants or allies, it is in man's power to extract useful service."

I think the key to Bentham's genius was not that he attacked Blackstone in his first major work at age 28 in 1776, where his utilitarian idea was already expressed, or that he gave us treatises on ethics or evidence, but that he invented new words, most of which never "stuck" (e.g., 'post-prandial vibration'). It is this inventive genius that shows the quality and character of his mind. Whenever I think I am working hard or that I am coming up with brilliant ideas, I simply read Jeremy Bentham, and see his great mind (though not a historically-oriented mind) at work.

The OED lists Bentham's quotation from 1816, and then gives two further attestations of the word. From Southey's work Doctor (1843) comes this: "A science which Jeremy the thrice illustrious Bentham calls phthisozoics." Then, less tongue in cheek, from 1978 in the Journal of the History of Ideas, we have: "Under Hygiastics were included...Phthisozoics (the art of destroying noxious animals)." Hygiastics, for your information, is the science of things relating to health or hygiene. Well, I am imagining now a future advertising campaign for a company which kills vermin. Would it be to their advantage to portray themseves as "Pfirst in Phthisozoics"? Only if they wanted to file for chapter 11 in the near future...

I'll have to return to pediculous and other words in the next essay.

1856