April 2008 Archives
Psychology Words: parapraxis; fugue; syntonic; neurasthenia;
folie à deux; conation; Munchausen syndrome (factitious disorder, hypochondria, malingering)
Noble Eponyms: yarborough; mithridatism;
orrery; Tupperware; pompadour; mausoleum;
Solomon
Book: The Physician:
coracle; metheglin
(infuse, physick, cathartic); haysel; swath; hawk (as a verb, to hawk); aquiline (shagreen); rood
Mistaken Science: cataract; viper; remora; carotid; ether (Ethernet); toadstool; pituitary
Animals as Metaphor: owlish;
leonine (Leonine verse); struthionine;
albatross; ursine;
waspish; coltish
Psychology Words
This
week we’ll look at words of psychology and psychiatry. (I should have saved paranoia
from last week!) Of course, there are dozens of familiar names of psychological
disorders (psychosis; schizophrenia) or mechanisms (sublimation;
projection). But we’ll try to concentrate those that are particularly
interesting, or on other psychological/psychiatric areas.
We
begin, of course, with a word that also fits last week’s para- theme.
parapraxis – a Freudian slip; a minor error, such as a slip of the
tongue, thought to reveal a repressed motive
[para-
+ praxis, act, action]
Appropriately,
our example-quote concerns a famous dictionary-maker.
The last episode in the series, about Samuel
Johnson, was the best of all … . Only one parapraxis suggested a
little lingering Scottish resentment. He pronounced
– NewStatesman, Sept. 2007
fugue [Latin fuga
‘flight’] – psychiatry: a
pathological amnesiac condition; "a flight from one's own identity"
(OED): one is aware of one's acts, but cannot recollect them after returning to
a normal state. Loss of awareness of one’s identity, often with flight from
one’s usual environment. (Usually from severe mental stress; may persist for as
long as several months)
[Agatha] Christie was at the center of her
own mystery in 1926 when she disappeared for 10 days. She claimed to have
suffered a nervous breakdown and a fugue state caused by the
death of her mother and her husband’s infidelity, but many people believed it
was a publicity stunt.
– Connect Savannah (GA) (on-line), March 11,
2008
syntonic – highly responsive (emotionally) to the environment;
having the responsive, lively type of temperament which is liable to manic-depressive
psychosis
[from
Greek for “high-strung, intense” and for “to draw tight” The word has another
meaning, in electrical terminology: “relating to two oscillating circuits of
the same resonant frequency”.]
Most
often seen in the phrase “ego-syntonic”.
Anorexia is considered an "ego-syntonic"
disease, meaning that it is "in sync" with the ego.
– Vibrant Life, Jan. 1, 2007
"They can be clinically treated,"
says Simms, "but they are ego-syntonic, meaning they
usually are consistent with self-image. Those with such disorders often deny
anything is wrong with them and blame others for their problems. As a result,
they may not seek treatment.
– Medical News Today, May 3, 2005
neurasthenia – a psychological disorder characterized by chronic
fatigue and weakness with vague physical symptoms (headache, muscle pain,
etc.); originally attributed to weakness or exhaustion of the nerves
Now
considered an outdated diagnosis – but is it anything other than what we now
call “chronic fatigue syndrome”?
Quoting
from Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber, about some of the personalities of
a woman with multiple personality disorder.
Helen was intensely fearful; Sybil Ann,
listless to the point of neurasthenia. Marjorie was
vivacious and quick to laugh. … Sybil Ann shrank into the consulting room. She
didn’t speak to the doctor, but whispered. … Sybil Ann sat silently, staring
into vacancy. It was as if she was erasing herself from the scene …
folie à deux – delusion or mental illness shared by two people in
close association (siblings, spouses; etc.); ‘shared madness’
A
distinguished biographer speaks of President Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam
War.
Over time, Johnson tacitly developed an
anticipatory feedback system that discouraged views that the President would
not receive favorably … The organization dynamics remind one of a phenomenon in
psychology known as a folie à deux, in which strong,
overbearing personalities are able to make others living under the same
premises accept their own delusional systems.
– Doris Kearns Goodwin, Lyndon Johnson
and the American Dream
conation – the faculty of volition and desire; the mental
processes directed toward action or change: impulse, desire, volition, and
striving
I think therapy has made a philosophical
mistake, which is that cognition precedes conation – the knowing
precedes action. I don’t think that’s the case. I think reflection has always
been after the event.
– James Hillman and Michael Ventura, We've
Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy--And the World's Getting Worse
Conation, or drive, is about a
person’s ability and energy to get things done. It is separate from
intelligence, emotions, or personality type.
– Peter Vessenes and Katherine Vessenes, Building
Your Multi-Million Dollar Practice
Munchausen syndrome – psychological disorder in which one
repeatedly seeks medical attention for physical symptoms – knowing that he is
fabricating or exaggerating the symptoms he tells of, or that they are self-inflicted
[After
Baron Münchhausen (1720-1797). A book, The Surprising Adventures of Baron
Munchausen, collected tales the Baron had supposedly told of his fantastic,
impossible adventures. The fellow who named the syndrome in 1951 explained,
“[The patients’] stories, like those attributed to him, are both dramatic and
untruthful.”]
Wendy Scott, who had one of the most severe cases on
record of a syndrome in which people feign illness or make themselves sick to
get medical treatment, died on Oct. 14. She was 50. Miss Scott spent 12 years
traveling from one hospital to another in
Remarkably, Miss Scott recovered from the condition,
called Munchausen syndrome, which many doctors consider
untreatable. In recent years, she tried to help other people with Munchausen
syndrome, communicating with them by mail, telephone and
Internet.
In the last year, Ms. Scott became increasingly ill but
had difficulty obtaining medical care in
– New York Times, Oct. 25, 1999
A
related condition is Munchausen syndrome by proxy: an adult (usually the
mother) knowingly gives the doctor false symptom for a child, either by making
up a story or by inducing the symptoms (e.g., causing vomiting with ipecac).
These conditions seem to be very attractive themes for those who write medical
dramas for television.
Distinctions: Such repeated “faking” of illnes is called factitious
disorder. The patient knows is he untruthful (unlike hypochondria),
and has no recognizable motive for feigning illness (unlike malingering).
Munchausen involves faking a physical illness, not a psychological one.
Noble Eponyms
Our
“psychology” theme ended yesterday with a word taken from a nobleman, Baron
Münchhausen. We follow it with a theme of words taken from names of nobles or
royalty.
yarborough –a hand, at whist or bridge (13
cards) with no card 10 or above: no 10, jack, queen, king, or ace (which is, by
the way, an ungodly bad hand)
[The
Second Earl of Yarborough, Charles Anderson Worsley (1809–1897),
would pay £1,000 if such a hand occurred, against a £1 bet. He made a good deal
of money at it, for the true odds are about 1800-to-1.]
Mrs Clarke, a homely woman in a
mauve two-piece, leaned forward. “Did you see my hand?” she said, spreading her
cards. “Only three points in it. Almost a yarborough.”
The bald-headed Eric nodded
sympathetically. “I have held such hands all my life,” he said.
– David Bird and Ron Klinger, Kosher Bridge
Oh, if one
could only mithridatize oneself against boring people! This comes from
Mithridates VI of Pontus (Mithridates the Great), a remarkable character of
whom you’ve probably never heard.
Mithridates
was a formidable adversary of
His name
survives, in rare words, from his fear that internal enemies would poison him.
Accordingly, he regularly ingested small doses to develop an immunity (a
technique still sometimes used by those who deal with venomous snakes), and he
concocted a general antidote said to be good against multiple poisons.²
mithridate – an antidote against poison,
especially a confection formerly held to be an antidote to all poisons.
mithridatism – tolerance or immunity to a
poison, acquired by taking gradually larger doses of it.
Here’s a
jocular usage:
If you live long enough in
– New York Times, July 23, 1889 (ellipses omitted; note
the variant spelling)
¹ Julius Caesar’s famous message, Veni, vidi, vici, was a succinct report of his later
campaign against Mithridates’ son.
² Pliny’s report of this gave us our phrase “taken with a grain of salt”. Pliny
lists ingredients and directs you to “pound them all together, with the
addition of a grain of salt.”
orrery – a clockwork model of the solar
system.
[after
Charles Boyle, fourth Earl of Orrery (1676-1731), for whom one was made]
In 1771, a college without an orrery was as behind the times as a modern university
without a cyclotron. So, for £229 115. 6d., the
– Time Magazine, May 14, 1951
P.S.
Apparently it still doesn’t work. The College of Philadelphia (now the
University of Pennsylvania), which bought one a few years later, comments with
some glee, “The David Rittenhouse Orrery is one of the University's most
valuable artifacts. Penn rival
In line
with our “noblemen” theme, today’s word, like yesterday’s ‘orrery’, is named
after an earl.
Tupperware – a range of plastic containers,
etc., sold exclusively at ‘parties’ for potential buyers (proprietary name)
[after Earl S. Tupper, company founder. Sorry, folks, I
couldn’t resist!]
Some
interesting uses of this familiar word:
I drove home [from Thanksgiving dinner] with my trunk
stuffed with about ten pounds of Tupperware'dturkey
and stuffing and pie ..."
– Jennifer Weiner, Good
in Bed
It was a shock. She looked awful. Haggard, frowsy,
desperate, like some stressed-out Tupperware hostess or something.
– T. Coraghessan Boyle, The
Tortilla Curtain
"That blond strip club owner with the Tupperware breasts?"
– Shayla Black, Decadent
… women are buying vibrators at a ferocious rate …
especially … in the conservative South, where women who routinely attend church
with their husbands also congregate for "Passion Parties" … — …
"the Tupperware Party of
the new millennium." At these popular women-only affairs, sex toys and
lingerie are sold in impressive quantities, along with detailed instructions.
– New York Times Book Review, February 5, 2006
A reader reports that pistols and other "plastic
guns" (with frames of "space age" polymer rather than metal) are
sometimes referred to by traditionalists as ‘combat Tupperware’.
Thanks, Stu!
pompadour – a woman’s or man’s hairstyle
(like Elvis') with the hair swept up over the forehead
[after
Antoinette Poisson (1721-64), Marquise de Pompadour mistress of Louis XV of
The word
seems to have a connotation of “vulgarly overdone”.
Sixty-something Elena Zanzibar, in a hot fuchsia suit with
black piping and a triple strand of pearls around her neck, wore her hair in a
Texas-sized pompadour.
Numerous diamond rings sparkled on all of her plump fingers. Her papery eyelids
were weighted down with false eyelashes. Her makeup was as colorful as if it
had come from a child’s paint box.
– Nancy Martin, Murder
Melts in Your Mouth
Morrie ran a comb through his dark, Brylcreemed hair,
which swept up in the pompadour style of the time and ended in a
ducktail at the back.
– Bryce Courtenay, The
Power of One
mausoleum – 1. a large stately tomb (or a building
housing such tomb(s)) 2. a gloomy, usually large room or
building
[from
Mausolos, the name of a Persian king of
I walk across the yard, into my studio. It's like a
museum, a mausoleum, so still, nothing living or breathing,
no ideas here, just things, things that stare at me accusingly.
– Audrey Niffenegger, The
Time Traveler's Wife
Solomon – a very wise person. (adj. Solomonic). Wordcrafter note:
I’d say this term often has the implication of “thinking outside the box,”
finding a novel, creative solution.
[from King
Solomon of ancient
A thought
about the situation of
This was the first time that
– Manila Standard, Apr. 7, 2008
The Physician, by Noah Gordon
I’ve
enjoyed The Physician by Noah Gordon. The protagonist, orphaned as a
young boy in the year 1021, first works with an itinerant sideshow medicine man
and then travels to
coracle – an ancient type of boat, small, light,
rounded and maneuverable, made of wickerwork covered with a watertight
material, and used with a paddle
[from
Welsh. Used by the ancient Britons, and still used in
‘Have you lived in
‘I was born in this
house. In 70 A.D., five young Jewish prisoners of war were transported from
metheglin – a drink of fermented honey and water (also called
‘mead’), esp. when spiced or medicated
The
traveling medicine-man peddles a potion to his audiences. He calls it the
Universal Specific.
The barber-surgeon told them the Universal
Specific was an Eastern physick, made by infusing
the ground dried flower of a plant called Vitalia which was found only in the
deserts of far-off
Bonus words:
infuse – 1. to pervade; fill 2. to instill (a quality)
into 3. to soak (tea, herbs, etc.) to extract the taste or heal
qualities
physic; physick – a medicine or drug, especially a cathartic
(for constipation) (also, the art of medicine)
As
a further example, the epitaph of Doctor Isaac Letsome:
When people's ill, they come to I;
I physics, bleeds, and
sweats 'em.
Sometimes they live, sometimes they die.
What's that to I? I. Letsome.
haysel – haymaking season.
swath – 1. a strip (from the specific sense: a mowing-path the
width of a scythe-stroke, or the cut grass or grain in such a path)
The village wasn’t large enough to support a
tavern, but haysel was in progress and when he stopped at a
meadow in which four men wielded scythes, the cutter in the swath
closest to the road ceased his rhythmic swinging long enough to tell him how to
reach Edgar Thorpe’s house.
Idiom:
to cut a swath – to create a great stir, impression, or display
hawk (as a verb, to hawk) – to clear the throat noisily (to hawk
up – to bring (phlegm) up from the throat)
Rob’s
travel to
The wind carried sand and salt that burned
his skin like flakes of hot ass. Thee air became even heavier and more
oppressive. He dreamed. Then he awoke, hawking and spitting
drily. There was sand and salt in his mouth and ears.
aquiline – eagle-like (usually referring to a nose like
an eagle’s beak)
shagreen – an Eastern untanned leather with many small round
protuberances, especially dyed green (also, shark-skin)
Meeting
the local king, in the East:
The man was dressed in a plain red calico
coat quilted with cotton, rough hose, shagreen shoes, and a
carelessly wound turban. He was perhaps forty years old, with a strong build,
erect bearing, short dark beard, aquiline beak of a nose, and a
killer’s light still in his eyes as he watched his beaters pulling the dead
panther.
Extra notes:
Webster
tells us more about shagreen: “Used for covering small cases and boxes.
The characteristic surface is produced by pressing small seeds into it hair
side when moist, drying; then afterward, when dry, scraping off the roughness
left between them, and then soaking to make the portions compressed or indented
by the seeds to swell up into relief.” (slightly edited)
As
I understand it, an aquiline nose is a strong and noble one. But apparently it used to mean “an hooked
or Aquiline nose” (1646). Does the following suggest how the word might have
gotten conflicting meanings?
Italian scientists have made a
reconstruction of the face of the poet Dante and have found some surprises,
particularly about the supposed shape of his famous aquiline nose. It was pudgy rather than pointy and crooked
rather than straight, almost as if he had been punched. Popular conceptions of
the face have always been dictated by artists’ renditions. [But] The team of
scientists based their work on calculations made on Dante’s skull made in 1921,
the only time it has been removed from its crypt.
– Reuters, Jan. 11, 2007 (text and picture)
rood – a crucifix symbolizing the cross on which Jesus died (esp.
a large one in a medieval church, above the rood screen or rood beam)
[The
term is also used as an old unit of measure.]
Rob had thought Aire’s Cross was so named
because it marked a ford on the River Aire, but the priest said the hamlet was
called after a great rood of polished oak within the church.
Mistaken Science
Surprisingly
many ordinary words are rooted in the mistaken science of our predecessors.
We’ll sample those words this week, beginning with one from last week’s The
Physician.
A personal note: When I started to prepare this theme I
expected difficulty in finding as many as seven words. To my surprise there are
far more than seven; the difficulty was that so many are extremely common,
everyday words: protein; leopard; hysteria; vitamin; oxygen; atom; lunacy;
mammoth; disaster. Perhaps we’ll return to this theme in some future week.
cataract –
1. a large waterfall [from Greek for ‘down-rushing’]
2. a medical condition in which the eye’s lens becomes
progressively opaque, causing blurred vision
He was interested in Al-Juzjani’s lecture
about the opacity that covered the eyes of so many people and robbed them of
vision. 'It is believed such blindness is caused by a pouring-out of corrupt
humor into the eye,' Al-Juzjani said. 'For this reason early Persian physicians
called the ailment nazul-i-ah, or "descent of water," which
has been vulgarised into waterfall disease or cataract. Most
cataracts began as a small spot in the lens that scarcely interfered with
vision but gradually spread until the entire lens became milky white, causing
blindness.'
By
the way, OED doesn’t share Al-Juzjani’s etymology. An obsolete meaning of cataract
is “portcullis” (strong bars making a grating that descends to block the
entrance to a castle). OED says the optical sense of cataract is
“apparently a figurative use of the sense “portcullis”.
A
certain snake was once believed to bear its young alive, rather than from eggs.
Hence it was named from vivus "alive, living" (akin to
‘vital’) + parere "bring forth, bear".
viper – 1. a poisonous snake with large hinged fangs 2.
a spiteful or treacherous person
In
the second sense, usually used in the plural, as in our quote.
Important people suggested that the military
be brought in to wipe out this nest of Nazi vipers …
– Bryce Courtenay, The Power of One
remora – a certain fish, with a sucking disk it uses
to attach itself to a ship or to a shark, whale, etc.
[The
ancients believed the fish would retard a ship to which it was attached. Hence
the name: re- “back” + mora "delay" (as in “moratorium”).]
In the main, the Arawaks [in the
– The Gleaner (
I couldn’t control my buoyancy. I kept
putting too much air into my jacket or too little, bouncing between ocean floor
and ceiling in slow motion. Finally, when I had used up all my air, the guide
offered me his extra breathing source. Mortified, I shared his air, clinging to
his tank like a remora.
– New York Times, Apr. 8, 2007
It
was once thought you could put a person into stupor by pressing on either of a
certain pair of arteries. Accordingly, the plural of the Greek word for ‘drowsiness,
stupor’ was used to give a name of those arteries. That Greek plural-word is karotides.
carotid – relating to the two large arteries carrying blood to the head
and neck
[N]one of us thought Beck was going to
survive the night. I could barely detect his carotid pulse, which
his the last pulse you lose before you die.
– Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal
Account of the
Today’s
word comes from Greek aither ‘upper air’. In ancient and medieval times
it meant the element that supposedly filled celestial space above beyond the
moon. From about 1700 to 1900 it meant, in physics, a supposed all-pervading
medium through which light and other electromagnetic waves traveled. Today this
word has two air-senses (in addition to chemical ones).
ether – 1. literary: the clear sky; the upper regions
of air (adj. etheric) 2. the internet [not in dictionaries, but
see quote]
Derivative:
Ethernet – the dominant system for connecting computers into a local area
network (trademark, but sometimes used generically)
Experts say the Internet gives kids, and
even adults, the false impression that what they send out into the ether
is anonymous. [but v]ery little about what you do on the Internet is
unfindable. … Kids can damage their reputations by posting embarrassing photos
or videos of themselves and their friends.
– News Tribune (
[T]oday's students scoff at the ordinary
Internet access most Americans know. They crave speed to such an extent that
they ,,, refuse to attend any college that doesn't offer it. Consider the
suffering they endure when they go home for break and have to plug their PCs
into plain old phone lines that are hundreds of times slower. "You go
through ethernet withdrawal. … Your computer sits there and you
don't want to use it. You eventually find other things to do."
–
toadstool – an umbrella-shaped mushroom, typically a poisonous or
inedible one
Toads
were believed to be highly poisonous, but the word-authorities are coy about
whether that belief led to the ‘toadstool’ name. As to the ‘stool’ part, I wish
I could report that it refers to ‘stool = feces’, so that a ‘toadstool’ would
be what grows from the droppings of the poisonous little beastie. Alas, the
‘stool’ seems to come from ‘stool = a seat’.
A
poem by Oliver Herford:
Under a toadstool crept a wee
Elf,
Out of the rain to shelter himself.
Under the toadstool,
sound asleep,
Sat a big Dormouse all in a heap.
Trembled the wee Elf, frightened and yet
Fearing to fly away lest he get wet.
To the next shelter—maybe a mile!
Sudden the wee Elf smiled a wee smile.
Tugged till the toadstool
toppled in two.
Holding it over him, gaily he flew.
Soon he was safe home, dry as could be.
Soon woke the Dormouse—"Good gracious
me!
"Where is my toadstool??"
loud he lamented.
—And that's how umbrellas first were
invented.
A
certain gland was thought to channel mucus to the nose. Therefore, in roughly 1615,
it was named from the Latin for (as OED puts it) ‘glutinous mucus; phlegm’.
Only later was it found that this gland is in fact the “master gland” that
directs other glands. But the old name, from Latin pituita, has stuck.
pituitary gland – a small gland, at the base of the brain,
whose secretions of which control the other endocrine glands
pituitary – 1. relating to the pituitary gland 2.
of or secreting phlegm or mucus
The
broad function of the gland can cause medical confusion.
… pituitary tumors are often
misdiagnosed because of the confusing array of symptoms they present.
"Conditions such as osteoporosis, sexual dysfunction, depression,
infertility, or growth disorders can be the result of abnormalities in the pituitary
or "master" gland. Many times this association is overlooked. These
types of tumors are generally not malignant, but they have many different and
highly variable ways of making their presence known.”
– Science Daily, Apr. 29, 2005, quoting
neurosurgeon at
Animals as Metaphor
The human
animal sometimes uses other animals as metaphors for their traits. This week we
share some instances.
Sidebar: Our first quote
describes the host of a weekly TV news-interview show. It comes from a novel by
the son of William J. Buckley, who hosted such a show, The Firing Line. Did the novelist model his character
after his father? I give you a bit more of the quote, so you can decide.
owlish – 1. like an owl, especially in seeming solemn
and wise 2. (of glasses or eyes) resembling the
large round eyes of an owl
Banion looked owlishly into the lens through his
tortoiseshell eyeglasses. He seemed perpetually on the verge of smiling,
without ever giving in to the impulse. He was in his late forties, but could
have been any age. He had looked this way since his second year at
– Christopher Buckley, Little
Green Men
leonine – of or like a lion
Major ______ de Coverley was a splendid, awe-inspiring,
grave old man with a massive leonine head and an angry shock of wild white
hair that raged like a blizzard around his stern, patriarchal face.
– Joseph Heller, Catch-22
There is
also Leonine verse, which
Ambrose Bierce explains, with typical humor, in his Devil’s Dictionary:
Unlike a menagerie lion. Leonine verses are those in which a word in the
middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end, as in this famous passage from
Bella Peeler Silcox:
The
electric light invades the dunnest deep of Hades.
Cries
Pluto, 'twixt his snores: "O tempora! O mores!"
It should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake to teach
pronunciation of the Greek and Latin tongues. Leonine verses are so called in
honor of a poet named Leo [12th c., in Paris], whom prosodists appear to find a
pleasure in believing to have been the first to discover that a rhyming couplet
could be run into a single line.
Just for fun, here’s an extremely obscure word.
But a useful one. Have you known someone who, faced with an unpleasant
situation, “buries his head in the sand” like an ostrich? That is, refuses to
face it, pretends it doesn’t exist? And thus, by letting it fester unattended,
usually makes it worse?
Shouldn’t there be a word for it? Sure – and you’re about to meet that word.
struthionine –
ostrich-like
We have nothing but contempt for the struthionine conduct of a Government that is unable
to see and refuses to be taught.
– Ivor John Carnegie Brown, Having
the Last Word
A large number of people have, in the face of bewildering events and issues,
adopted a struthionine
practice; that is, burying their heads in the sand (the adjective struthionine which I have used has a certain polite
and esoteric aura, deriving from the Latin struthio = an ostrich).
– Earle P. Scarlett, Archives
of Internal Medicine (1966)
(as quoted in Managed Care
Success: [etc.]by James W. Saxton and Thomas L. Leaman
albatross – metaphorical: a burden or encumbrance, particularly a
marker of guilt, etc. (literal: a
very large white seabird with long narrow wings) Etymologies given after the
quotes.
Dare I give some recent political examples, if I strive for neutrality and list
them alphabetically by candidate?
Hillary Rodham Clinton's albatross is not her sex, or her once-wayward
husband - but her record on the
– New York Post, March 12, 2008
[McCain’s supporters are] all white and nearly all male. Such has been the
inescapable Republican brand throughout this campaign … For Mr. McCain, this albatross may be harder to shake than George W.
Bush and
– New York Times, Feb. 17, 2008
But still, Wright for the past few days has hung like an albatross on Obama's neck …
– Black Enterprise, March 22, 2008
Etymology:
The “burden” sense alludes to the bird in The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner by
Coleridge (1772–1834). “Water, water, everywhere, / Nor any drop to drink.” The “bird” sense is from Sp./Port. alcatraz ‘pelican’ (influenced by Latin albus ‘white’). That, in turn, is probably
from Arabic, either al-ghattas‘sea
eagle’ or al-qadus 'machine for drawing water, jar'
(Greek kados ‘jar’), noting the pelican's pouch.
[Notice that this was a false splitting. The Arabic al-, meaning ‘the’, was thought to be part
of the word.]
An obscure meaning, in golf: one
under par is a birdie and two under par is an eagle. A bigger bird for the
greater achievement. So naturally, three under par is named for an even grander
bird. It is called an albatross.
The Yorkshireman chalked up an albatross at the par-five 14th after holing a
three wood from 248 yards. Garbutt said: "It's the first time I've ever
had an albatross although I've had 11 holes in one.”
– Sportinglife, March 13, 2008
ursine – like a bear
The door opened to reveal two Russians, enveloped in a
– Christopher Buckley, Little
Green Men
[Yes, this
is the same work I cited a few days ago, for owlish.
So sue me! I liked the book, although I enjoyed the author’s Boomsday even more.]
waspish –
1. like a wasp (sharply
irritable, or showing irritation)
2. like a WASP (disparaging:
of the power elite or the social elite of White Anglo Saxon Protestants)
For the former sense, we enjoy Shakespeare’s breathtakingly bawdy banter
between Petruccio and Katherine.
For the latter we use the another oft-bawdy source, the Harvard
student-newspaper.
Petr: Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you
are too angry.
Kath: If I be waspish, best beware
my sting.
Petr: My remedy is then, to pluck it out.
Kath: Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.
Petr: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his
sting?
In his tail.
Kath:. . . . . . .In his tongue.
Petr:. . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .Whose tongue?
Kath: Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell.
Petr: What, with my tongue in your tail? nay, come
again,
Good Kate; I am a gentleman.
– Shakespeare, Taming of the
Shrew
Pheasant Creek will have neither pheasants nor a creek, and Aspen Grove will
have no trees at all, at least in the first few years of development. Once
you’ve found a subdivision that sounds like a WASPish
– Harvard Crimson, Nov. 8, 2006
Now, on to
today’s word, coltish. The
dictionaries err. (To prove this, I’ve give far more quotes than usual, the
first three are particularly clear.) They say define it as “energetic but
awkward” or as “lively and playful; frisky”. But actual usage shows that the word is almost always used for an
adolescent girl, with sexual implications. How odd,
since a colt is by definition male.
coltish – with the
enthusiastic awkwardness of youth (almost always applied to a female, with
implications of budding sexuality)