Now, we return you to our regular blogging. Buckley used the word velleity – the lowest level of volition. My dictionary has the definitions as: 1. the weakest kind of desire or volition, 2. a mere wish that does not lead to the slightest action. It also says it comes through Middle Latin (velleitas) from the Latin word velle, which means “to wish”. The site www.word-detective.com gives it a negative meaning, to describe a person who only wishes and never acts. It also says that it first appeared in English in the 17th century.
Contumacious – I admit I was surprised to find that I haven’t blogged on this word. It’s a word I use with regularity, and often used when our children were young. It is an adjective meaning obstinately resisting authority, insubordinate, and disobedient. (Any parent can understand why I would find this word useful. It is not only perfectly descriptive, but it can also be instructive and helpful in getting children to use a dictionary.) It is a form of the Latin word contumacia, which came to Middle English as contumacie. Delving into the Latin roots is interesting (at least to me – you may be bored to death by now). Contumacia comes from contumax, which is formed from com- (an intensifying prefix) and tumere, which means “to swell up.” So when a person gets swelled up and keeps swelling, that’s contumacy.
More from Buckley's essay book review:
Supernal – see the July 14 blog. This is the only one in the review excerpt that I’ve already covered.
Psephologist – one who studies election returns. It is also in my dictionary, as psephology, the statistical evaluation of election returns or political polls. The first known use of psephology in English is 1952. According to Wikipedia, historian R.B. McCallum coined the term in the United Kingdom. Its etymology is from Greek, psephos meaning pebble, and logy being a suffix referring to the study of a subject. Why pebble? In ancient Greece elections were done with two different pebbles (now we sometimes use marbles in the same way). According to Sir William Smith in his book “A dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities”, the pebbles were placed in a cadiskoi
“when they gave their votes on a trial. There were, in fact, usually two cadiskoi: one, that in which the voting pebble was put; this was made of copper: the other, that in which the other pebble, which had not been used, was put; this was made of wood….The pebbles were distinguished from one another by proper marks….Sometimes, also, the dicasts had only one counter each, and there were two cadiskoi, one for acquitting, the other for condemning.”
As a side note, eventually white pebbles or balls were used as a vote in the affirmative, black ones were a negative vote, using the latter description of voting above. (Hence the origin of the phrase “black-balled”.) Our word ballot comes from the Italian for little ball, the diminutive form of the word balla.
And finally, in our consideration of Buckley’s words as listed in a review of an omnibus of his essays: palinode – an ode or song retracting something in an earlier poem, a formal retraction. This noun is formed starting with the Greek words for “again” – palin (I’m sure you will find a way to use this in reference to Sarah Palin over the next two years) and ode or song – oide. The full Greek word from which we end up at palinode is palinoidia, which by Late Latin was spelled palinodia, then went through Middle French as palinod before getting to English in the 1590s. While some are hoping for Palin Odes, others are looking for Palin palinodes.
And you're probably looking for the end of the blogging on the review of the Buckley book. Congratulations, you've found it!
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