Words and acroa and acroamatic and acroasis and acroatic and acroat and hearing

We really can dispense of achron pretty quickly, even though it seems like it should be able to carry more weight than it actually does. There is only one word in the OED formed off this root, and it is achronism, meaning "timelessness" or "deficiency of time." The OED also lists a term spelled achronical, but says that it is an incorrect form of acronychal, which is built off acro and nyx (night) and not a added to chron.

But the only use of achronism does not have the sharpness or clarity of meaning that I think a word needs to have. It is derived from an 1877 article where someone is criticizing the House of Commons for its poor use of time. The author says, that it (the House) is "smitten, if I may coin a word, not with an anachronism, but an achronism--viz. the absense of time." I suppose what is meant is that the body acts as if it has all the time in the world, that nothing is urgent, etc.

But there is a difference between "timelessness" and "acting as if one has all the time in the world," and that is my problem. One can say, to speak theologically, that the ultimate condition of the saints in heaven will be a certain timelessness because there will be no sense of passage of time, with fullness of life experienced at every instant (I even have difficulty phrasing the concept because my language is "time-bound"). Yet, this is quite different from the way I think the author used the term--to denigrate the inefficiency of a political body.

The only way I could see the word retaining some usefulness is to break up the defintions suggested above into two different categories and to use it: (1) in the sense of timelessness described above, such as the achronistic life of the angels or, more promising, (2) by specifiying that the word is used in an "all the time in the world sense." In this sense it might be useful to describe the inefficiencies that seem to be built into so many things in life. Then we could have an achronistic style, an achronistic attitude, an achronistic process, etc. It would be a word expressing mild frustration that the person or process involved just takes forever. We all have heard someone say, in a life emergency, "money is not an issue." I am proposing that we use the term achronism/achronistic in the sense that "time is not an issue." It could also be a word describing our grudging admiration for someone: "I will never forget his achronistic patience in handling my problem."*

[*We can also use it in a nonsense way, playing on the more popular term anachronism (soemething 'out of time') in the following way: 'it is an achronism to act like he/she does.']

Acroamatic/Acroasis

Whereas the achrom, achron words studied so far are built off the alpha privative and a root meaning color or time, Acroamatic is built off the Greek word for hearing, "akroasis" or, in verbal form, "akroasthai." It is a good thing that there are very few English words built off acrom (derived from acro, meaning extreme end, and omos, meaning shoulder, so that the acromion is "the outer extremity of the shoulder blade") or we might descend into a real world of hurt, trying to keep straight achrom, achron, acroam and acrom.

But back to acroamatic. The noun form, acroasis refers to an oral discourse or a discourse listened to. But the word is often used (if it is used at all) to describe a secret message or the special initiate who receive such a message. For example, Francis Bacon can contrast acroamaticall with exotericall. The latter has to do with a "revealed" method while the former concerns a "concealed" method. In a seventeenth century work on the history of philosophy, attention is drawn to acroatick discourses, where the more subtle points of the philosophy are articulated. Thus, Aristotle's lectures on the more abstruse points of his philosophy can be called his acroatics.

Thus, it is proper to use the word acroamatic or acroatic as synonymous with "esoteric" or "recondite" or "secret." I think it is a useful word, for it emphasizes not just the secretness of the message but the fact that you really need to listen to what is being said in order to hear it properly. So, the discourse itself is an acroasis, while the adjective form adds the "matic" or "tic" ending. "I was an eager auditor at the acroamatic lectures." Or, "The debate over whether Jesus delivered acroatic as well as public discourses goes directly to the heart of who we believe Jesus to be."

One Lingering Problem

But I would like one more word, which the OED doesn't provide. We need a word for the hearers of these discourses. That is, we have the word "disciple" or "hearer" or "auditor" in the language, but why not have a term that tries to capture the fact that the person is listening to a secret discourse? Such a person, it would seem to me, would be an acroat or, in the plural, a group of acroat(e)s. Such a hearer would be an initiate of sorts, one who has been brought across the threshold to the inner court of the mysteries of a subject. There is also another word in Greek for hearing (akouein) but it has yielded very few English words. Thus, I think we should allow for, and even desire, acroats-- people who eagerly listen to every word that we say. Who could ever ask for more?