Re's and Rh's

I still have a few words left over from the previous essay. They are rectrix (rectrices), redan, remiform (and some remex-words in general), and rente (plural is rentes). The new words I introduce are rhaebosis, rhampoid (also rampoid in the Unabridged), rhapontic, rheum, rhexis, rhigosis, rhipidate and rhotacism. I have already discussed rhyparography elsewhere, and I need not reiterate that discussion. Of the nine "rh" words listed here, the Collegiate only has rheum. Now that is what I call a dictionary!

Finishing Some Re's

Redan is a more interesting word than I could ever have imagined. The word is derived from French, and has reference to a fortification--where two adjoining walls are built in a V-shaped form and come to a point against the advancing enemy. A picture is here. The theory of the redan is that its jutting head allows attacks against the enemy and obviates the need of building a bastion. So far so good. But then, if you are alert, you notice the association of redan with golf. How so? Well, the story goes that one of the British officers (John White-Melville) in the British capture of a Russian-held fort in the Crimean War came home and described the 6th hole (now the 15th hole) of the North Berwick West Links golf course as like a formidable fortress or redan he had run into at Sebastopol. Now, according to the Wikipedia article, there are golf-course architects who design "redan-holes," usually shorter holes (under 200 yards) where the hole is at the point of the "V" and then the green tapers off rapidly downhill to bunkers behind the hole. They design it after the North Berwick course. The redan iron is the 3-4 iron, one that is calculated to get you to such a green in good shape--if you know what you are doing.

When we enter the world of rectrices and remiges, we are in the bird domain. This great article on bird feathers pictures and describes them. Let's take them one at a time. The word rectrix (queen, in Latin), is pluralized to rectrices, and describes "the strong feathers of the tail in birds, by which their flight is directed." The name is appropriate because they are the "governing" feathers. The remiges, in contrast, are "one of the principal feathers of a bird's wing, by which it is sustained and carried forward in flight." The singular of remiges is remex, derived from the Latin word remus, meaning "oar." Indeed, the earliest attestation (1674) of remex in English was in the singular and was used in a rowing context: "If one Remex or Skuller move [a boat of]...3 inches draught 12000 feet forward in 3600 seconds: then 4 like Rowers etc..." The word remex/remiges is a fruitful mother of children--i.e., there are several "remi-type" words that are formed off of it. One can begin with remiform, , something that is "oar-shaped." But what, pray-tell, is oar-shaped unless an oar? Do we really need the word? I think I will try to use it in conversation today. Then we have remegial, which has no relationship to remedial. Remegial means "serving to propel," or, in ornithology "of or pertaining to the remiges of a bird's wing." The adjective is usually used in such phrases as "remegial architecture" or "remegial feathers." If a remex is a principle feather of a wing, a remicle is "a small outermost primary wing feather in some birds."

A rente, plural rentes (pronounced rahnt) is a French government security paying interest or the interest so paid. John Galsworthy used the term in 1920: "She had, he knew, but one ambition..to live on her 'rentes' in Paris." Or, one could say, "I need to get a job; I can't simply live on my rentes." If the word is given in a spelling bee, please ask whether it is singular or plural; it makes all the difference.

Moving to the Rh's

The eight new Rh's above can be dispensed with much more quickly. I love the sound of "rh" words. You can pronounce them rapidly, with an initial "ru" sound or, if the fancy strikes you, you can pronounce it "hrh" or something like that. For example, Rhadames is a character in Verdi's Aida. In one of the arias, someone sings the name with great fervor. I remember walking around the house pronouncing the name with as much "Hrh"-ing as I could. It provided several moments of diversion before I had to get back to work. Well, we have words like rhabdomancy, which is "magic by the stick" or using a divining rod to get some wisdom. A rhapsode was an ancient Greek poet, and he bequeathed his name to everything from a rhapsody to something rhapsodic. Psychology also gets into the act. Rhathymia is a word used, since the 1930s, to describe a person who is carefree or light-hearted (derived from the Greek rhathymia). But none of these "easy" words are on my list. Instead I have some more obscure ones. Let's join them.

Rhaebosis is very rare, occurring in no general dictionary that I have found, but is said to mean "curvature" or "bandiness." It is derived from the Greek rhaibos, meaning crooked, and it refers to the crookedness of a normally straight body part. When I broke my toe in college and refused to have it set properly, it became crooked (as it is to this day). I guess that would mean I suffer from "rhaebosis of the toe." I suppose it could be worse.

Finishing Up

The word rhampoid has exactly five appearances in all of a Google search. It is normally used in the phrase "rhampoid cusp," and it refers to a cusp at which two branches of the curve lie on the same side of the common tangent. I think I need a picture.. My, I think I found something. There are various kinds of "singular points" in geometry. An isolated point, x2 + y2 = 0 is called an acnode. There are also crunodes (the point where a curve intersects itself so that two branches of the curve have disctinct tangent lines) and tacnodes. A spinode or cusp is a singular point on a curve, where it comes to a point, such as in the formula x3 - y2 = 0. A rhampoid cusp is also called a tacnode, as in the formula x5 -y2 = 0. I think I have gone too far on this point already, don't you agree?

Let's finish, then, with rhapontic, and thus have a little left over for our next meal. It is a species of rhubarb, Rheum rhaponticum, or its root. Well, we also have rheum here, don't we? Rheum, the only word of the bunch in the Collegiate, is "watery matter secreted by the mucous glands or membranes..." Here is a nice picture and brief description of the Rheum rhabarbarum, the "pieplant" or "rapontik" or "rhapontic," described first by Linnaeus in 1753 (related to the rhubarb). It was found in China and Southern Siberia and named after the river Rha (the ancient Greek name for the Volga River) and then, since the Chinese were "barbarians," the second word became "rhabarbarum." I guess we see that the Linnaean descriptions and names, no matter how "neutral" in Latin, are really "western-oriented." Can't you see an Asian person objecting to the name of "rhubarb?" Oh, one more point. The word rhapontic is actually taken from "rha Ponticum" or "Pontic (the ancient name for the Black Sea--into which the Volga empties) rha."

That's enough for today. Thanks for joining me.

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