Minding Your "Q's" II

The nine remaining "q" words from the previous essay that require comment are quintal, quintan, quintant, quintillian, quintroon, quipu, quisutsch, quoddy and quokka. Let's listen to the story that each wants to tell.

Quintal

We are plunged into relatively massive problems with this simple-sounding seven-letter word which means a hundredweight in various systems of measurement. The problem is evident in the OED definition: "quintal: a. A weight of one hundred pounds; a hundred-weight (112 lbs.). b. In the metric system: A weight of 100 kilograms." Well, those two simple definitions give three distinctively different weights. A brief look at the word's origin, however, shows that there is also Arabic in the word's past--qintar, which is Anglicized as kantar or, the Unabridged tells us, cantar or qantar. Confused yet? Well, here is the etymological saga, at least as I understand it. Standing behind the word quintal is nothing relating to "five." Rather it originates with the Latin centenarius (100), which then, in medieval Greek, became kentenarion. From this the Arabic became qintar, Medieval Latin quintale, and Old French quintal before becoming the English quintal. It can also be written kental or kintle (in the OED and Century) but not, however, in the Unabridged or Collegiate. The last two just have quintal. The Wikipedia article also says that quintal is synonymous with centner, derived directly from the Latin centenarius. The corresponding German word is zentner, the hundredweight used predominantly in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

So far so bad. We see in this "word struggle" a kind of struggle for both consistency and uniqueness. Consistency emerges because all of the meanings relate to "100" of something, but the "something" is different in most cultures. Thus, the quintal could range anywhere from 100 livres (France), about 49 kg, to 100 kg in India. With each country or empire having its own system of weights and measures, care was needed either to seek standardization or to have precise conversion scales so that merchants wouldn't become "shorted." I can see tons of instances of fraud in this... Thus, quintal inadvertently tells a story, one that is much too complicated for me to explore here. Where is an expert on the history of weights and measurements when you need him?

Quintan

Now we are comfortably back in the realm of "five," though the word is a bit more complicated than this. The literal meaning of "quintan" is "fifth," or something that occurs after four others. The Century tells us that it means to occur every fifth day, with both end days being counted (Sunday and Thursday are a quintan). But the OED defines it simply as "of a fever or ague: Having a paroxysm every fifth (=fourth) day." Well, I recall from my earlier reading (was it Treasure Island?) of sailors complaining about the "quartan fever" or "quartan ague." I suppose we here have the quintan fever. This web site tells us that five days is the characteristic duration of trench fever. Quintan fever is borne by body lice and was first recognized in the trenches in WWI, when it afflicted nearly 1,000,000 men. Though it only seems to last five days, recovery from it can take as long as a month. Thus, we enter into the world of infection with this one...

Quintant

A quintant is a kind of sextant, but since I am not sure exactly how a sextant worked, I might not be too helpful defining the nature of a quintant. The OED only defines it as "the fifth part of a circle," while the Unabridged defines it as an instrument similar to a sextant but with an arc of 72 degrees and capable of measuring angles twice that size. A sextant is furnished with a "graduated arc equal to a sixth part of a circle." I found online this fascinating advertisement for an "immaculate early 20th century Quintant Sextant.." What is unique about this quintant, according to the seller, is that it has a "rarely seen three circle (Vermesserung) frames." This kind of instrument wasn't even pictured in the standard history of sextants. I didn't know there even was such a work, but I really am not surprised.

The Rest of the Words

As usual, I am going much too slowly to make much headway but I have hereby resolved to finish all the rest quickly. Quintillian presents a little problem. It isn't capitalized in the Unabridged, which defines it as a Montanist sect of the 2nd Century CE. The OED doesn't have the word, but the Century does, and capitalizes it: "One of a body of Montanists, said to have been so called from a prophetess Quintilla." Well, this plunges us back into the fights over orthodoxy and heresy in earliest Christianity. I think the reason that the Unabridged even has the term is because the Century does, and the Century, published about 100 years ago, was very interested in summarizing the results of 19th century scholarship in its pages. The "Montanists" (named after the "zealot" Montanus) were an ascetic Phrygian group expecting the coming of the heavenly Jerusalem in Pepuza in ancient Phrygia. But no one really talks much about the Montanists anymore, and even less the Quintillians. Therefore, there really is no reason the Unabridged should have the word. It really is useless.

Actually, a word that every dictionary should have that no dictionary does have is quintilian (one "l"). Such a word would be either a noun or adjective and named after the famous Latin teacher of rhetoric of the 1st Century CE. Thus, a quintilian would either be an effective teacher or user of rhetoric, sort of like a chrysostom though in Latin. That is, if we have the following words, taken from the Bible, in English, we ought to have at least quintilian. We have, for example, the following biblical terms: jeroboam, iscariotic, ananias, dorcastry, jorum. Why not have quintilian to mean someone well-trained in rhetoric? If we can have thrasonical, named after a bragging soldier in Terence's Eunuchus, why not quintilian? I hope I haven't confused you. The Unabridged only has quintillian; that, then, is the word that must be learned.

Faster Now

A quintroon is defined as the child of a white person and a quadroon. Oops. It gets more complicated, and I just have to take it slowly. A quadroon, according to the OED, has two definitions: (a) one who is the offspring of a white person and a mulatto--hence, someone who has 1/4 Negro blood; or, rarely, (b) one who is fourth in descent from a Negro (I guess this means a great-great-grandchild of a Black person?). These definitions are confusing, and this confusion seemingly stands behind the confusing nature of race-definition in the 18th and 19th centuries. A quintroon is a person "fifth in descent" from a Black person--or one who has 1/16th Negro blood. Thus, as another dictionary could say, a quintroon is the offspring of a white person and a quadroon. But isn't this an octoroon? Well, how does the classification system work? White, then mulatto (1/2), then quadroon (1/4) then octoroon (1/8), then quintroon (1/16)? But this doens't seem right. It seems that quintroons should just be one step further removed from a quadroon. But not according to the dictionaries. Well, I think that the system of dividing people, only of interest to the slave power, is itself caught on the unclarity of its language. And, of course, when language is unclear, it allows unscrupulous people to swoop in and declare everyone a slave. I don't know if it is possible to sort this out further; not here, however.

Conclusion

We,, we just are not going to get to quipu, quisutsch [the silver salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch--the word quisutsch is, the Unabridged tells us, Kamchatkan)], quoddy [another problematic word--it is said to be a "sailboat" but I can't find any references to it as such] and quokka [a small macropod]. This is now your task.

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