Some Random Words Relating to the Body

After several days writing on John Milton and various films, and researching the so-called Munchausen Sydrome by Proxy in preparation for writing a big memo on it, I decided to come home again to words. There is nothing like a fresh bunch of words, derived from freerice.com, my dictionary readings or lists of words I pick up here or there, to make me realize how broad the world is and how much I need to be attentive to as much as I can. Let's begin this essay with words describing parts of the face, and then conclude with a special word or two.

The Eye

For some reason, I am fascinated by the eye and its environs tonight. Whereas the ear, or auricle, has the tragus--the fleshy flap covering the opening--and anti-tragus, the "gulf" just under the tragus, as well as the concha--the deep valley going into the ear-hole--, the helix, which is outermost curved member of the ear, the scapha, the next member in from the helix, the anti-helix, the inside member above the concha, and the lobule; the eye, too, has a lot of words that should interest us. I have written about the ectocanthion previously, which is the point at the side of the eye where the eyelids meet, but I also here want to mention the supercilium, palpebra, the process of mydriasis, and the glabellum and philtrum. We all know that a supercilious person is a proud and arrogant person. Literally that person raises the "eyebrow," for the original meaning of supercilium is the area "above the cilia," or above the eyelashes. The next time I think of a haughty person, I think I will raise my supercilia.

A palpebra is an eyelid, from the identical Latin word. The term is, as expected, mostly used in "med-speak," such as this 1855 quotation: "The swelling...is so protruded as to cover entirely the lower palpebra." But I think we can use the word in a phrase such as "palpebric flutterings" or the "moon-shaped tent like a protective palpebra over the tired sleepers." A 1943 quotation bridges the gap to another one of the chosen words: "The animal begins..to show..typical sympathetic and motor reactions: hyperpnea, salivation, mydriasis and widening palpebrae.." Mydriasis is dilation of the pupil of the eye. The derivation is a bit of a "stretch" for us to understand today, but is from the Greek word mudros, which is a "mass of red hot material in a forge, or from a volcano" and iasis, perhaps so called because the puil is particularly bright or sparkling when dilated." That is the explanation of the OED, at least. We have this sentence from the 1850s: Mydriasis..renders the individual more or less presbyopic. This last word was the final word I spelled correctly at the Oregon Senior Bee last month--it simply means "near-sighted," and has nothing to do with Presbyterians.

But let's go back to one other word from the 1943 quotation just above: hyperpnea. The word doesn't appear in the OED, but it means an "abnormally deep or rapid breathing." It is "hyper" breathing. Let's finish the two or so "near-eye" terms. The glabellum, from the Latin word for "small smooth place," is the small space in the human forehead between the eyebrows and immediately above a line from one to the other. The word came into English in 1598 with this quotation: "The space between the eyebrowes, the Italians call glabella." Something glabrous is smooth. Interestingly enough, glabrous can be used as a scientific term for "destitute of hairs" or it can be used humorously for "smooth." As OW Holmes Sr. wrote in 1860: "Two or three notabilities of Rockland, with geoponic eyes, and glabrous, bumpless foreheads." By the way, geoponic literally means "relating to the cultivation of the ground" or "agricultural," but also means, humorously, "rustic, countrified" [The word ponos is from the Greek verb meaning "to labor"]. Lowell, in 1848, burlesqued Carlyle in the following line: "A brown, parchment-hided old man of the geoponic or bucolic species."

Thus, we see how way leads to way, and that close attention to facial features will bring us not only more precise words but also humorous ones. I guess I still have one word to go: philtrum. In ancient Greek a philtrum was a love potion, charm or spell but, in Hellenistic Greek, could also refer to a dimple in the upper lip. This is the way the word has been used in anatomy since the 1650s: "The vertical groove between the base of the nose and the border of the upper lip." It is a notoriously difficult region of the face to shave, and has led to many a cut by young men tyring to learn that task.

Conclusion: One "Bonus" Words

Before turning in the next essay to some classical terms of poetic meter, let's close with a word close to meter: metier. It is a French-derived word, pronounced meh tee EH, and at first (in the late 18th century) means an occupation or profession, but now has come to mean "one's forte." From 1987: "Ms. Scott has found, if not her metier, then a field she clearly enjoys. Or, from Rolling Stone in 1993: "Filmmaker Jim Blashfield's metier is an extremely painstaking one." Sometimes it takes us most of our creative life to find our metier, but when we discover our sense of what that is, life falls in place as never before. We no longer have to act like the quidnunc, or busybody, or the dilettante, or dabbler in things. We can take a deep breath, look at the world as it is presented to us and then decide that today, each day, will be a further opportunity to explore that thing we do best. We need a word for that, a word stronger than "love" or "occupation" and a better word than "obsession" or "focus." Metier fits the bill.

Let's turn now to some poetic terms.

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