There's no better way to start a Saturday morning than to peruse Michael Quinion's weekly newsletter. Today has a weird word, or two, from one of English literature's more eccentric writers, Sir Thomas Urquhart:

quote:

He used it as a scathing epithet for academic types, gown-men, who were very happy to believe the assertions of their predecessors and were prepared to take all things literally on trust and without examination. So far as anybody knows, Sir Thomas was the only person who ever used it. It did appear in an issue of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in 1817, but that was in a caricature of Sir Thomas that had him refer to "those shallow and fidimplicitary coxcombs, who fill our too credulous ears with their quisquiliary deblaterations". (link & link)

Urquhart is best known for his sublime translation of the works of Rabelais. He also is famous in conlanging circles for an early proposal for a universal language, Logopandecteision (link). The book is really a pretext to rant against his creditors. Oh, and fidimplicitary is defined by Quinion as "[p]utting one's faith in someone else's views".

quote:

quisquiliary

- Any insights into this word?

- Any insights into this word?

Quinion: "Quisquiliary is merely Urquhart's variation on quisquilian, meaning worthless or trivial".

Me: from Latin quisquilliæ 'refuse, trash, junk, odds and ends'. One of the Latin etymological dictionaries I looked at opined that it might be related to the Greek κοσκυλματια (koskulmatia) 'leather cuttings; scraps of flattery', a reduplicated form from a PIE root *(s)kel- 'to cut' (link).

That sounds like a reasonable explanation. What a complex word for such a simple item (perhaps representing a larger concept). I feel enriched. Thank you for sharing this.

quote:

Originally posted by zmježd:


Me: from Latin quisquilliæ 'refuse, trash, junk, odds and ends'.

Etymologically, wouldn't "miscellany" be closer? "Odds and ends" seems a better match than "refuse" or "trash."

miscellany

Miscellany is ultimately from Latin misceo, miscere, 'to mix'. Latin miscellanea meant 'a hash of different sorts of broken meat, a gallimaufry, hodge-podge', mixed.

re: fidimplicitary

here's what I found back when I researched this wonderful wwftd: fr. Eccl. L. fid-es implicita , implicit faith + -ary