Additional Words from 2005 Bee--First Round

The words I propose to define and illustrate in these next two essays are the following: baragouin, hafiz, aspergilliform, leguleian, dakhma, sciamachy and pilpul from the Bee, and the following from my own ruminations: daddock, glaum, papilionaceous, tittivate, demivierge, cabotinage, knag, kneiffia, and knemidokoptes.

1. Baragouin, pronounced bar a GWIN (or GWAH) is a French-derived word meaning "language so altered in sound or sense as to become generally unintelligible." It also refers to jargon or, in the OED, "double-Dutch." I hadn't run into the last phrase, but the Wikipedia stub on it defines it as "an idiosyncratic writing style used by Dutch author John O'Mill." John O'Mill didn't sound Dutch to me, and so I discovered his name was Jan van der Meulen (1915- ) and "John O'Mill" is simply an English translation of his name. He is known mostly for limericks and sentences he calls "Double-Dutch," which are a combination of English and Dutch sentences but ones that you can't understand without a knowledge of both languages. Well, I actually discovered a limerick on baragouin, not by John O'Mill, however, but by Mike Scholtes, and here it is:

"A gibberish, babel, and din,
Brays out from the hole by your chin.
Outlandish, estranged,
One might say it's deranged,
When your speech is a base baragouin."

The OED and Century have brief stories about a probably fanciful etymology for the term--originating in a combination of the Breton words for bread and white (or wine), and used as an astonishing cry when they saw these rare commodoties combined. Suffice it to say that it can be used as a synonym of patois. From 1860: "Some horrible patois and baragouin of his own."

2. Hafiz is a simple and straightforward concept but I want to dwell on it for a bit. It is a Persian word, through Arabic, that simply means a "guard." But its meaning became attached to one who "guards something in memory," and that precious thing guarded in memory is the Quran. Thus, a hafiz is one who has committed the text of the Quran to memory. The Century says that it applies to a "Mohammedan" (i.e., Muslim) who has done so, but would a Christian who has done so be still called a Hafiz? Here is the website of a Hafiz Academy in England; classses are taught by a pair of Hafizes. I wonder what a gathering of Hafizes is called? Memorization of texts is a skill that has been lost in most of America today. We teach students "how to learn," but de-emphasize the content of learning. Why? Well, maybe because teachers don't have particularly retentive memories and don't want to be embarrassed by students. But, in any case, I think that we should introduce memorization back into schools. It would be second-order memorization, however, or memorization that arises after you realize what a text is, how to read it historically and critically, etc. Sort of like Ricouer's hermenutical second-naivete but applied to memorization. People have lists of things they would like to do before they die. Most have to do with visiting places around the world. I want to do that, too, but I really want to learn Arabic, memorize the Koran and learn Chinese (as well as know lots of other things). I would like to be a Hafiz at my death...though I don't think I will become a Muslim. Will there be room for that?

3. Aspergilliform brings us to a completely different reality. An aspergillum is a tool used to sprinkle holy water. It consists of a brush dipped in holy water, covered by a perforated metal head and shaken on people or things deemed necessary for this water. The Aspergillus, a genus of mold, was named by Italian priest and biologist Pietro Antonio Micheli in 1720. All of this is derived from the verb asperge (also asperse), which means to besprinkle or bespatter. The asperges, in the Roman Catholic Church, is an antiphon, taken from the Miserere which, as the Catholic Encyclopedia says, "has a most prominent place in the Divine Office." I don't want to go through the various parts of the Mass here, but this part has a priest sprinkle holy water on the altar, clergy and people while intoning the words from Ps. 51: "Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo" ("Purge me with hyssop"). There are comparatively few references to aspergilliform online, but the concept should be clear enough. Something in that form is shaped like an aspergillus. Check out a picture of it or ask your local priest. He would be happy to learn a new word...

4. Leguleian is a negative word that relates to lawyers. It isn't difficult to invent an entire vocabulary of these words, to go along with lawyer jokes, but leguleian goes back to the 17th century. It is a "contemptuous term for a lawyer," and means "of or pertaining to petty questions of law or to law language; pettifogging." I just did an brief foray into the history of pettifogger. It originated in the 16th century to describe an inferior legal practitioner who dealt with petty cases. Such a lawyer engaged in petty quibbling and possibly also employed underhanded techniques. From 1576 we have: "As for this pettie fogger, this false fellowe that is in no credite or countenance." But, as late as 1688 it could be used more neutrally to emphasize just the size of cases a person dealt with (smaller): "Officers of the Palatinate Courts in Chester. Assizes..The Solicitor. The Petty Fogers..." I think it was like saying one deals in "misdemeanors" now. These cases are "simpler" than felonies, but no derogation is intended in the use of the term. Yet, today, a pettifogger is a petty practitioner in any profession. Not only lawyers can be charlatans or pretenders. Ok, back to leguleian. Leguleian has maintained its reference to law or legalism. "His leguleian distinctions indicated a love for the letter rather than the spirit of the text."

5. I didn't know dakhma before this Bee. It is a Persian (Farsi) term for a "tower of silence" (not to be confused, I am sure, with Maxwell Smart's "Cone of Silence"). In the 19th century, when the term came into English, it was spelled dokhma or dokmeh but not until the 1957 Britannica Encyclopedia was its spelling "standardized" as dakhma. The Century, interested in all things human around 1900, defined it as follows: "a receptacle for the dead used by the Parsees, consisting of a low round tower built of large stones, on the grated top of which the bodies are exposed till, being stripped of their flesh by carnivorous birds, their bones drop through the grating into the pit of the tower." You can tell that the anthropological juices of the editors of this volume were flowing; maybe you will find more about the term. But I must leave it and go to the next one in the next essay.

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