More Terms Beginning with "R"

Let's "finish" my treatment of the "ra's" in this essay. Let's begin with ramoneur, a big word for a chimney sweep. It is derived from the French ramoner, to sweep, and ramon (broom). Ultimately it derives from the Latin ramus, a branch. We have loads of words in English that are "branch-type" words, such as ramose, ramulose, ramuliferous, etc. Well, the meaning of ramoneur is actually a little broader than just a chimney-sweep. It can also be a machine which cleans the chimneys as well as a color, soot brown. In fact, the first attestation of the word in English (1835) was in this sentence: "Velvet and satin hats of a new color called ramoneur (it is a dingy shade of brown, approaching nearly to black)." This use of ramoneur is evident in this web site, which speaks of various colors in 19th century French design. It says:

"Ramoneur prints are polychrome flowers on a dark brown ground. The earliest were block printed and made from around 1780 to 1850. Dark brown dye was easy and affordable to make and it hid the dirt well, therefore many dress prints and furnishing prints were made in the ramoneur style, for men and women's clothing.."

Much as I loved Dick Van Dyke and his singing in Mary Poppins, I just can't imagine him changing the words of "Chim Chim Cheree," to something like, "Ram ramoneur, Ram ramoneur, ram ram onee, A ramoneur's lucky as lucky can be...." But, maybe in Mary Poppins II, or a subsequent version, someone might be tempted to do it.

Let's move more quickly now. I love the sound of the word rangiferine (accent on the second syllable or, to be snobby about it, the antepenult). It is derived from the medieval Latin (why doesn't the Oxford Latin Dictionary, which is supposed to be the "Bible" of Latin, even have words that are "medieval" or "new" Latin? I think it bespeaks a prejudice concerning what is "high" or "genuine" Latin that is insupportable in our day. Where are we going to find a comprehensive dictionary of Latin, pray tell?) rangifer, which means "reindeer." So, the genus Rangifer is the genus containing reindeer/caribou. Here is a picture of two Rangifer tarandus standing around posing on a highway in Denali National Park in Alaska. The rangifer even made it into the celestial constellations at least according to an 18th century Frenchman, Pierre-Charles Le Monnier. The celestial reindeer was placed near the north pole in Johann Bode's 1801 Uranographia. This web site tells the fascinating story of the development and annual growth of the caribou antlers. I didn't know that antler development is the quickest-growing tissue in nature (about an inch a day). Antler development is 3-6 months out of phase between the sexes, with the males developing in Spring and early Summer, shedding the antlers in November, while the female grows her antlers in the Summer and Fall, keeping them throughout the Winter.

I discovered that there is an arctic fungus called the Cladonia rangifera or, more popularly, the "reindeer lichen." It is known as this because it is the primary source of food for reindeer/caribou beyond or above the tree line in the far north. This page explains these fungi. It also says something that I didn't know: that one of the first indications of the nuclear fallout from the Chernobyl reactor in 1986 was that the lichens began absorbing the nuclear fallout--which accumulated in the milk and meat of reindeer. As a result, thousands of Scandanavian reindeer had to be destroyed. Well, not to go too far afield--the word we need to know is rangiferine; remember that.

A ranula is a mucocele or cyst found on the underside of the tongue and caused by the obstruction of a duct of a salivary gland. There are all kinds of pictures of it online, but it really isn't the most edifying viewing, as you can imagine. Because the word in Latin means "little frog," etymologists have speculated on how it became associated with the cyst under the tongue. Two suggestions are that the swelling is an imaginary resemblance to a frog or that the patient makes a kind of croaking noise when s/he is suffering from the ranula.

You would think that ranunculaceous, a near neighbor of ranula, and derived from the same word, has something to do with frogs. Wrong. It has to do with buttercups. My understanding is that Pinly the Elder so named the family of buttercup plants because they grew where frogs abounded. And so, the name stuck--to the family of flowering plants known as the buttercup family or technically known as the Ranunculaceae. It consists of about 2500 species, the most important of which are the Ranunculus (600 species), Delphinium (365 species), Thalictrum (330 species), Clematis (325 species) and Aconitum (300 species). Thus, something that is ranunculaceous belongs to this family of flowers.

Something ravissant is ravishing or delightful. Thackeray could speak of "the most ravissant(e) little Marquise in the world," but two centuries before him a theologian spoke of "The ravissant happiness of the blessed Angels." We have the words "rapturous" and "ravishing" in English, but I think that life has its moments of such sheer delight that we ought also to make sure that ravissant has a role to play in it.

Some Words on Ratten(ing)

The Dictionary of Difficult Words has the verb ratten, defined as "compel to obey trade union by damaging or depriving of machinery, tools, etc." Though the OED has the verb, it defines it in terms of the noun. That is, it defines ratten as "to molest (a workman or employer) by rattening." The most helpful dictionary in getting to the bottom of the word is the Century, which quotes from the "Report of the Royal Commission" to define the word as "the abstraction of the workman's tools, so as to prevent him from earning his livelihood until he has obeyed the arbitrary orders of the union." The system was chiefly confined to Sheffield and Manchester in the mid-late 19th century. Perhaps derived from the verb "rat" or, as we would say today, to "out" someone, rattening was a pure power tool (pun intended) used as a means of enforcing compliance to the union. Unions, of course, did that. Does Capital also do that? You bet your life. The only place I have found where a worker is not a merciless pawn of either capital or labor is either to work for yourself or to get a tenured position which is protected from the hard edges of labor's or management's whims.

Conclusion

In my reckoning I still have the following terms to define: ramie, rampion, ramson(s), rana, rapparee, rappee, ras, rasorial and ratafia. What is a word-lover to do? Well, I will just have to keep studying my flowers and plants to understand rampion and ramie and ramsons; I will need to realize that Rana and ras are terms for leaders or ruling dynasties (Nepal); that something rasorial scratches the ground for food (I think this word has possibilities today in describing some people I have known...); I will study my liqueur's (ratifia; pronounced ra ta FEE uh) and my tobaccos (rappee), and then I think I will take a break from this.

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