New Free Rice--Essay 16 (We Could Go On For Ever)

1. Let's finish the words from the previous essay. I begin with cultch because it is such an unusual-sounding word. You almost want to clutch something when you hear it. The OED tells us that the origin of the word is uncertain, but it was first used in the 18th century to describe rubbish or refuse. From 1736: "Culch, rags, bits of thread, and the like, such as mantua-makers litter a room with..it means, I find too, any rubbish." By the way, this article tells us all about the profession of mantua-makers. Mantuas were classy long garments from the 17th to early 20th century. Here is a picture. Thus, "mantua-makers" were women's dressmakers. Back to cultch. It also could apply to human beings and mean someone who is a disgusting individual. From 1891: "This word, when applied to human beings, has a secondary sense of disgust. 'He's a mean old culch!' The epithet is the worst which can be used." But an older usage of cultch is the "mass of stones, old shells, and other hard material, of which an oyster-bed is formed." As with many words that are obscure to most of us, however, this word is trivially simple to those in the oyster business. "Deploying cultch is a technique widely used to manage oyster fisheries."

2. The Latin word behind strumous is struma, which means a scrofulous tumor. The verb struere means to "pile up" or "build." We get the word "structure" from this verb. The Latin word scrofula means "swelling of the glands." Therefore the word in English means "a constitutional disease characterized mainly by chronic enlargement and degeneration of the lymphatic glands." It is also known as the "king's evil," so called because it was, in medieval times, supposed to be curable by the king's (or queen's) touch. Though its first meaning has to do with the swellings or tumors on the body, it also took on a figurative meaning of "morally corrupt." Browning could write in 1842: "Or, my scrofulous French novel/ On grey paper with blunt type!" Later in the century we have: "Holywell-street was re-named 'Booksellers'-row' because of its scrofulous reputation." Thus, strumous could also describe someone of morally depraved habits. From 1891, we have: "When Shakespeare spoke of holding the mirror up to Nature, he surely did not mean so holding it that it reflected only the base and strumous." I think the word has a lot more viability if used in this "morally degenerate" way. It won't take much imagination to use the word well.

3. One would normally think that pituita had to do with functions of the pituitary gland. If you thought this, you would be right, but in a way that you never imagined. The pituitary gland, a pea-sized gland at the base of the brain, has three lobes each with different functions. One function is as a growth hormone (perhaps the most common way we use the term today--a "pituitary case" is a very tall person); one is the stimulation of milk production after birth. In fact, the pituitary serves to stimulate adrenal glands, the thyroid, ovaries or testes and other things. It is, as this web site says, "the master gland of the endocrine system." However, when the word pituita was first used in English in the 17th century, it described "of the nature of or producing mucus or phlegm; spec. designating or relating to the pituitary gland, as formerly believed to secrete nasal mucus." Thus, the word pituita, in the freerice.com word test, means "mucus or phlegm."

4. There is such a complete Wikipedia article on tikoloshe (I first learned it as tokoloshe) that I don't need to repeat it here. The tikoloshe is a figure from Zulu mythology who is a mischievous and evil spirit. I like the obviously "colonial-style" quotation from 1959: "Witchcraft has never lost its grip on the African native. Whereveer you go, from Algiers to Cape Town..you will find black millions who are still fuled by the fear of djinns and demons,...ngogwe and tokoloshe." Ngogwe, well there is a new one for me. The more you learn...

5. Tarsitis takes us back to the human body. You would think it would have something to do with the tarsus--the ankle or the foot, but a second definition of tarsus in the OED is "of or pertaining to the tarsi of the eyelids." The Greek word tarsos means "the flat of the foot between the toes and the heel" or "the rim of the eyelid." The eyelid is called the palpebra, so the tarsus is the upper rim of it, just below the hard bony area popularly known as the "eye socket." Thus, tarsitis is an inflammation of this part of the eyelid. It would be great if there were easy-to-find online maps of the eye that would show this...

6. Let's conclude with spagyric, a word coming from Paracelsus' vocabulary of alchemy, but largely unknown in the "modern" world. It was originally spelled spagiric, as evident in these late 16th century quotations, and used to describe the "science of alchemy or chemistry." From 1593: "Yet who such monarches for Phisique, Chirurgery, Spagirique..as some of these arrant imposters?" And, in the same word by Gabriel Harvey, "The greatest Empiriques, Spagiriques, Cabalists,..and occult Philosophers." The skepticism of the spagyric art continued into the 17th century: "Can the spagyrick by his art restore, for a Space, to the dry and withered Rose, the natural Purple and Blush." One could be referred to as a "cunning spagyric" or "spagirist," yet the Rev. Jeremy Taylor could use the term positively: "It was a huge diligence and care of the Divine mercy that discovered to man the secrets of spagyric medicines." Thus, it seems as if it could have a broad connotation--referring to chemistry--or a narrower one, alluding to the (generally despised) Paracelsus. In any case, I am glad I ran into it....

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