FUTPNBCII (Follow Up - The Pedantic Night Before Christmas, Part II)

It’s time for another installment of the follow up to The Pendantic Night Before Christmas.

The next words we’ll get to are plangency, etiology, meiosis and irrupt.

“Out on the lawn there arose such a plangency” – plangency is the noun form of the adjective plangent. Plangent came into English at almost exactly the same time (1822) as Clement Moore’s poem (1823). It came directly from the Latin word plangentem, the present participle of plangere, which is the word used for striking or beating something. But its meaning in English is to describe any loud sound that results from striking something – a bell, a gong, cymbals, or the hard landing of a sleigh with eight reindeer and billions of gifts.

“…all etiological urgency” – etiology is (as the –ology suffix indicates) the study of something. This is a great word for exactly what is described in this line – studying the cause of the plangency. While used primarily in reference to the study of the cause of diseases, ultimately etiology comes from the Greek word aitiologia, a combination of the Greek words aitia, meaning cause, and logia, meaning “a speaking”. The Latin word aetiologia, which the Romans got from the Greek word, is from the English of the 1550s got the word. So if you’re trying to find the cause of something you are engaged in etiology.

“…gave effulgence of midday…” – effulgence is simply a brilliant radiance or a shining forth. It came from Late Latin in its adjectival form in the 1660s from the word effulgentia. Effulgentia is formed from the prefix ex- (meaning out or from) and fulgere, meaning to shine. It took over 75 years for the noun form to arrive.

“…when to my meiosis of mind should irrupt…” – meiosis in rhetoric, which I’m given to, is belittlement or expressive understatement, especially litotes. While this word is not the pedantic version of wondering, I like to use the phrase “my alleged mind” on occasion, and this would be its sense here. Meiosis came to English in this sense in the 1580s from the Greek word of the same spelling that means “a lessening”, which is a form of the Greek word for less or lessen. It eventually (in 1905) developed a biological meaning, but since I presume few cell biologists read this blog, I’ll forego that explanation.

Irrupt is related to erupt. In fact, it’s in a way the opposite of erupt, which describes something coming out quickly and forcibly. Irrupt describes something that breaks or bursts in suddenly. It also is used to express the violent activity or emotion as of a group of people. It could have been formed from the Latin word irruptus. Its first use in its verb form is from in 1855 (so Clement Moore didn’t use it because it hadn’t come to English yet). But since irruption, the noun form, had been used since the 1570s, it’s more likely that it is a back formation of the noun form, which came across the channel from the Middle French word irruption. The original Latin word, however it got to English, is irruptionem, which means “a breaking in or bursting in or invasion” and is formed from combining in- and rumpere, from which we get the word rupture. So next time you’re watching Seinfeld and see Kramer’s traditional entry into Jerry’s apartment, you’ll see an irruption.

That's enough irruption for one day; I hope the effulgence has, even if I'm engaging in meiosis, been etiological.

Smell That?

As regular readers of this blog know, my mind works in its own unique manner. I hear a word and will hear a similar word and wonder if they’re connected by etymology. Today we’ll look at two pairings.

The first pairing, affluent and effluent, are almost identical save for the initial vowel. It is interesting how such similar words can have such differences.

Affluent comes from the two Latin words ad, meaning “to”, and fluere, meaning flow. Combining them gives the word affluere, “to flow toward”. The present participle of affluere  is affluentem, and when the Middle French saw it in the 14^th century they adopted it as affluent and kept the meaning as “flowing.” A century later the English decided it looked like a nice word and adopted it from the Middle French. It still meant flowing; how did it come to is most common current use of having an abundance of wealth, property or material goods? As its meaning shifted from simply flowing to flowing freely, it developed a sense of flowing in abundance, which then translated to not just liquid but other valuables. Now it predominantly means having an abundance of wealth. But if you want to be pedantic, you can still use it to refer to flowing liquids.

Effluent also refers to flowing liquids. But the original Latin prefix was not ad-, but ex-, which means “from” rather than “to”. Effluere’s present participle is effluentem, which made for an easy adoption into English around 1450 as effluent. By 1600 the noun form effluence had developed. If affluent refers to an abundance flowing toward, and effluent an abundance flowing away from, it’s primarily meaning in the dictionary, how did it come to be associated with sewage? It took a while. It wasn’t until 1930 we find the first use of effluent to refer to liquid industrial waste. But it makes sense. After all, runoff from rain goes into the sewer, which flows away as effluence, so anything that flows away as useless liquid can be called effluence.

The second pairing of words is redolent and indolent. These have very different meanings without any apparent connection, so why do they both end with –dolent?

Indolent means having a disposition to avoid exertion or work or movement. But it also has a nefarious medical sense of feeling no pain or sensibility. Where did the word come from? Latin. 

The prefix in- being a negative prefix that creates the opposite to what follows. And what follows is dolere, which means “suffer pain.” To get from indolere to indolence you need to pass through the present participle which is indolentem to the noun of action which is indolentia into French (which happened about 1500) as indolence, then into English about 1600 as the noun indolence, then wait 60 years until someone decided we needed an adjective form and settled on indolent.

A couple other points on indolent: 1. Jerome, when translating the New Testament from the Greek into Latin, used a form of the word indolentem to translate the Greek word apelgekos that Paul used in his letter to the Ephesians.  2. In 1710 the avoidance of pain came to also mean laziness, which could most easily be accomplished by those with sufficient resources to live on “easy street”, so it developed meanings both of laziness and living easily. One word, three used.

Redolent has two Latin word roots that are very different from indolent. The Latin prefix re- intensifies what follows, but what follows is not the word dolere, but the word olere. Olere means to give off a smell or have an odor. In fact, the Latin words odor and olere probably have the same source, with the different spelling being blamed on the Sabines, a people of central Italy who were conquered by the Romans in the 290 BC. Apparently they preferred the letter L to the letter D. Odor referred to the scent itself in Latin, while olere seems to have referred to the act of emitting the scent. (Latin scholars feel free to weigh in on the point.)

The Old French had adopted the Latin word and developed redolent to mean “emitting and odor”, and the English decided around 1400 to include it in their lexicon. It still means “having a smell of,” with an expanded meaning “reminiscent of.” As we know now, smells are some of the best conductors of memories, so it makes sense it would develop that meaning.

Occupy Wallstreet

Another television moment (carried over from last week due to space): I couldn’t believe my ears. Someone on a reality show on television, I think it was a police officer or border patrol agent, while intending to say cache instead pronounced the word cachet. Cache is identical in sound to cash (and you can have a cache of cash; I wish I did). Cachet is two syllables, the phonetically written as ka-shey.

A cache is a hiding place, especially in the ground, and also is used to refer to that which is placed in the hiding place. It actually came from a French-Canadian slang  word that developed in the 1660s and is still used to describe a shed elevated on poles that provides safe (from animals) storage of food and equipment.  As a back-formation of the French word cacher, which means hide or conceal, it can be traced back to the Vulgar Latin word coacticare, which means store up or collect and is obviously the frequentative form of the Latin word coactare. It came to English in 1797 to describe a hiding place and by the 1830s cache was used for anything that is stored in a hiding place.

Cachet is from the same French word but a completely different path to English. Coactare was adopted into an Old French dialect as cacher, with a meaning “to press or crowd.” At some point in time (at least by the 16^th century) it came to refer to the seal that was used on a document and was spelled cachet. It became widely used as part of the phrase lettre de cachet, referring to a letter under seal of the King. Because of that it developed a sense of prestige, a sense it maintains today. It still refers to that seal or stamp or official impression on a document, but also means superior status or prestige.

Last week I mentioned occupy and occur and said I’d get to them this week. Is the occu- start to each word reflective of a similar etymology?

Occur either came in the 1520s from the Middle French word occurrer (happen unexpectedly) or directly from the Latin word occurrere, which means to run to meet or present itself. It was formed by combining the prefix ob-, which means against or toward (as used in obstacle, for example) and currere, which means to run (from which we get current, as in a river).  How do you get from “against a current” to happen? As you meet the obstacle, it presents itself, and appears in front of you, and happens.  It presents itself in the course of events, according to etymonline.com. The idea of occur referring to “coming to mind” didn’t occur to anyone until the 1620s.

Occupy is older, from the mid-14^th century, and you also have the choice of your preferred etymology. One option is that it originated from the Latin combination of the aforementioned prefix ob- with the intensive form of the Latin word for grasp or sieze: capare (from which we get capable). The resultant word is occupare and was adopted directly into English. The other option is to run it through Old French, which had a word for grasp or sieze, occuper, that also had a sense of taking up space. If you choose the latter option, realize it would have been “irregularly borrowed” from the Old French word. (Whatever that means. Did they give it back at some point?)

An interesting historical deviation of the word occupy was its use in the 16^th and 17^th century as a euphemism for sexual intercourse. (Which reminds me – did you ask about the joke about the Priest and the Nun who got stuck in a blizzard?) It prevalence during those centuries resulted in its avoidance in polite usage for several hundred years.

I suspect it is the 16^th and 17^th century use of the word occupy that the protesters had in mind when they chose the appellation “Occupy Wallstreet.”

A Priest and a Nun Got Stuck in a Blizzard….

This week we look at a couple of comments on television that are ripe for use in this space.

While watching the successful new Sherlock Holmes show entitled Elementary Holmes uses and Watson repeats the word haptic. In the blog that is hyperlinked to haptic I mention that haptic is similar to tactile and tangible but not the same. Ironically, it’s time to follow up on that coincidence because I have gathered a cache of words with some cachet.

Tactile and tangible are similar to each other; one could say they are haptic, in that they touch each other. Tactile means pertaining to or endowed with a sense of touch. The emphasis is on the quality of the touching entity, to the sense itself. Tangible means capable of being touched, therefore real or actual as opposed to imaginary. But it can also mean definite as opposed to vague. The emphasis is on the object of the touching, not the sense itself. If neither touching entity is acting on the other (or both are), use haptic.

Tangible came to English first, in the 1580s, from the Middle French word with the same spelling. The Middle French got tangible from the Late Latin word tangibilis. Tangibilis means “that which may be touched.” It didn’t develop any non-physical meaning until 1709.

Tactile came to English in 1610, from the French word tactile, which the French got from the Latin word tactilis. Tactilis also means “that which may be touched.” (Why Latin had two words for the same thing I couldn’t discover.) For the first 40 years after its arrival in English the word had the same meaning as tangible. Then in 1650 it developed the meaning we have now.

Another recent television show, Castle, had Richard Castle, and author, compliment Kate Beckett, the police detective, on her discriminating use of coincidence instead of irony (or vice versa). These two, even before the Alanis Morissette song became popular. (One site  has even gone so far as to parse the lyrics and score the irony:  Attempts at describing irony: 11, Successful attempts: 2.5, Confusion of irony with "poor sense of timing": 6, and Completely missing the term: 3.)

Coincidence is related to the word coincide, which means occur at the same time or occupy the same space. (I wonder if occur and occupy have similar etymology or is it just coincidence that they both begin with occ-?) It came to English about 1600 from the French word coincidence. Within a century of its entrance into English it developed a sense of happenstance, of the occurrence being by chance or unplanned. What’s interesting but not coincident is that the word coincide didn’t come to English until 1715, again from the French (coincider), which they got from a Medieval Latin word, coincidere. Coincidere was an astrological term that mean “to fall upon together”.

Irony has a meaning that isn’t difficult to understand. If the use of the words conveys the opposite meaning of what the words mean, or if the outcome of event is opposite of what was expected, that is irony. The drippingly ironic and rhetorical question “Well, isn’t that just wonderful?” when I give my wife some bad news is one example. So is the joke about the priest and the nun that ends with the punch line (many punch lines are ironic, hence the humor) “get up and get it yourself” is ironic because it is the opposite of the event that is expected. If you want the joke, you’ll have to ask me for it.

I still have the cache of words for next week: cache, cachet, occur and occupy. Stay tuned.