Enjoyed a word from an article mourning the passing of French philosopher and gastronome Jean-Francoise Revel: esculent.

To cite World Wide Words:

"The word comes from Latin esculentus, from esca, food, which derives from edere, to eat. Related words from Latin include comestible, edacious, edible, and obese."

Interesting to note the wide range of etymological associations.

Esculent. You can almost feel the teeth sink into the tomato.

Are there other words as voluptuous?

Succulent, also relating to food, is another.

If one is too esculent, one becomes corpulent.

Asa:

Another fine ...ent word.

Perhaps with your indulgence we might reverse the thought: Among the anthropophages, one becomes esculent when one is too corpulent..

Ohhh, such biting wit!!! Hard for me to swallow, though. Give me a while to digest your idea...

Ahh, I've got it! Johnny's Mum: "Mrs. Boogersmasher, have you seen Johnny?" Mrs. Boogersmasher: "Yes, that lion over there ate him." Johnny's Mum: "Oh, good heavens, do you think he's alright?" Mrs. Boogersmasher: "Oh, I think so - it's just one of those phages children go through."

This message has been edited. Last edited by: <Asa Lovejoy>,

quote:

Originally posted by Robert Arvanitis: Among the anthropophages, one becomes esculent when one is too corpulent..

Johnny! Stop playing with your food!

[Not as good as Asa's phage, though.]

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
Succulent, also relating to food, is another.

Is the word related to succubus? Food as she-devil! That gives new meaning to the term, "Eat me, you devil!"

Close in evocation, if not actual etymology.

Succubus from Latin "succuba," prostitute, itself from sub + cubāre, to lie under.

Succulent from Latin "succus," juice.

So one might appreciate an especially succulent succubus...

(Answers.com)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Robert Arvanitis,

quote:

Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
Succulent, also relating to food, is another.

Is the word related to succubus? Food as she-devil! That gives new meaning to the term, "Eat me, you devil!"

Hmmm. If it is, then would there be an analogous parallel to 'incubus', namely 'inculent' ?

Ranito

As mentioned, the adjectives succubus, -a, -um 'lying under' and incubus 'lying on top of', both have nothing to do with eating (edo), but more with lying cubo. At least in Latin.

quote:

Originally posted by zmjezhd:
As mentioned, the adjectives succubus, -a, -um 'lying under'

I'm familiar with "sub" as "under, but whence "suc?" I must succumb to your greater knowledge.

To zmjezhd, yes, we stray into byways of words. But that's how we get to such delights as succulent succubi.


To Asa, the "b" is elided when "sub" runs into "cumbare."

And as to "reclining" cognates, see especially
here at https://wordcraft.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9326.../131105368#131105368

Asa, the term in linguistics is assimilation. The b in sub assimilates to the c in cubus. Elision usually refers to the loss of a sound. Geminate consonants in Latin (and Italian) are pronounced distinctly from single consonants.

Outstanding distinctions, z...

Interesting side light. Following your url on elision (loss of a sound), I found the antonym epenthesis (insertion of a sound). Now we have a term for the Japanese tendency, e.g. when "beer" becomes "bi-ru."

Epenthesis is common in Spanish, too. Escuela 'school' from Latin schola. It occurs in non-standard English, too: realtor with an epenthetic schwa between the l and the t. The opposite of assimilation is dissimilation: e.g., the pronuciation of the l in colonel as an r. (Note the sounds don't have to be right next to one another, and in this case they are in separate syllables.)

quote:

Originally posted by Robert Arvanitis:
Following your url on elision (loss of a sound),

I thought it was where dead Greek heroes with clipped speech went. One always hears about the Elision Fields.

Need I say that Asa's pun is an illusory Elision allusion?

Or an illusory Elysian allusion. Or an....

quote:

Originally posted by Robert Arvanitis:
French philosopher and gastronome Jean-Francoise Revel

I'm no Francophone, but isn't "Jean" masculine and "Francoise" feminine? I would have expected Jean-Francois or Jeanne-Francoise.

Asa le Confus

You are correct. And I, claiming innocent ignorance (or ignorant innocence), clipped-and-pasted the name.

quote:

Originally posted by zmjezhd:
Epenthesis is common in Spanish, too. Escuela 'school' from Latin schola.

What's it called in French when a word is shortened, and the elided letter is represented by an accent mark? "Fenêtre" is an example, deriving directly from Latin "fenestra.".

The German umlaut serves the same purpose, as when Zuerich becomes Zürich.

(Not to be confused with the same symbol in English, the dieresis, indicated a sounded repetition, as in coöperation.)

I'm not sure what the French grammatical term is, but I'll look through an historical grammar of French I have. (Also, the part about adding an accent, as in the case of the circumflex to indicate an elided s is a product of orthography rather than historical phonology.) It's called elision or loss in linguistics, and it's usually seen as part of a natural process in phonological change called lenition or weakening. You can see both in Spanish where Latin past participial suffix -atum becomes lenited in Spanish -ado (pronounced /aðo/) which in some colloquial dialects is lost in -ao. The change from a stop d to a fricative ð used to be called spirantization. You see it best in Grimm's Law.

Also, epenthesis usually refers to the insertion of vowels, if it's consonants, it's called either anaptyxis or svarabhakti.

The German umlaut serves the same purpose, as when Zuerich becomes Zürich.

The German umlaut, as a diacritic, does stem from a tiny e being written over the vowels a, o, and u. But umlaut, the process, refers to an historical change that took place in German (and other Germanic languages). It is the fronting of either of the three vowels by assimilation to the front vowel of the following syllable: e.g., in English man ~ men, mouse ~ mice caused by the original plural suffix -i.

A similar process is apophony or ablaut: e.g., sing, sang, sung.