New Free Rice--Essay XIV--more Words

The creators of the freerice.com idea and website are to be commended for enlarging the scope of words to 60 levels, making levels 50-60 more difficult and introducing far more words to the list of words they test. It took me a few days to get to level 60 consistently; now I am writing on many of the words (some obscure) that they list along the way. My hope is that all of our vocabularies, as well as our appreciation of the world, will be enhanced by this.

1-3. Let's begin with three words describing various kinds of hats for men: billycock, trilby, toque. I could describe them each with an OED-type definition, but why not create a link to a picture? So, a website devoted to historical haberdashery has this picture of a guy in billycock. So, it is a "stiff, round, low-crowned felt hat." Now, the history behind the word trilby is a bit more complex. It is the title of an 1894 novel by George du Maurier, and its first usage had to do with a reference to the foot. From 1895: "An American paper has spent its energy of psychological investigation on the foot (I beg pardon, the trilby)." But also, by 1895, the word could be associated with a hat, a "soft felt hat, esp. one of the Homburg type with a narrow brim and indented crown." How so? Well, according to this article, du Maurier's book was soon made into a play, and in the first London production a hat was worn on stage--which became associated with the name of the play. Trilbies are similar to fedoras, but with a narrower brim. Indiana Jones wears a fedora. Finally, a toque (or tuque) is a tapered knitted hat, originally of wool but often now of synthetic fibers, that is designed to provide warmth in winter. Here is a picture. It is sometimes called the national hat of Canada. So, we know five hat terms--Homburg, trilby, fedora, billycock, toque--all of which actually are useful.

4-6. Let's look at three words relating to Eskimo or Russian boats--oomiak, bidarka, kayak. An oomiak is a skin-and-wood open boat used by the Inuit (formerly Eskimos) to move goods from one place to another. A not-so-great picture is here. The kayak, in contrast, is the "canoe" of the Greenlanders and Inuit, made of a framework of light wood covered with sealskins sewn together; the top has an opening only for a single kayaker. A bidarka is defined as "a portable canoe for one or more persons; a kayak." The word is derived from the Russian word which itself is the diminutive of a word meaning "oomiak." This website tells us that the original Eskimo kayaks had one or two holes, but when Russian traders came to Alaska in the 19th century, they had Alaska Native people make three-hold bidarkas. The center hole or "cockpit" was reserved for traders, explorers or Russian Orthodox priests who were on the move. If the hats take us to England, France and Canada, the boats take us to the extreme North country. Great.

7-8. Carminative and carmalium. We seem to have a little problem with the word carmalium, since it is attested nowhere other than the freerice.com test. They define it as a "microscopy stain." Well, if you search out various staining agents you run across carmine, for microscopy, as well as carminic acid, for microscopy, but that is the closest I can get. Carmine is the name of a color-a beatiful red or crimson pigment obtained from cochineal, and is the coloring matter of carminic acid. So, if anyone can tell me whether carmalium is a true word, I would be grateful. But, carminative comes from the Latin carminare, which means "to card." The verb card means "to comb, or open, as wool, flax, hemp, etc., with a card, for purpose of disentangling the fibers, cleansing from extraneous matter, etc." Thus we see the different roots of these two words, though they are very similar. Well, a carminative helps you "cleanse" your system. It has the "quality of expelling flatulence." Thus, I suppose it induces flatulence in order to purify or cleanse. The original thought behind the word, as the OED tells us, is derived from the theory of four humors in the body. The object of the carminative was to expel wind, but the idea was that they diluted and relaxed the gross humors in the body from whence wind arose, "combing" (i.e., carding) them out like knots in wool. Very fascinating, even though I think we use the word laxative instead of carminative today. No reason, however, to expel the word...

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