Starting with Stich---

Yesterday, when I was searching out terms for eccleasiastical garments, beginning with the sticharion, I got stuck on stich. That is, I let my eye rest for a second longer than it should on some of the near-neighbors of sticharion, and then I was useless for the rest of the day as I wanted to follow these words to see where they would lead me. Let's begin this essay that way, and then morph into other lesser-known but useful and fascinating words.

Stich...

When I was writing on mallemaroking, and noting with Simon Winchester that it was amazing that we in English had such a word for such a limited human activity, I also noted a word, beginning with stich, like that. It is sticher. Defined as "to catch eels in a particular way," the Century has this sentence: "'Stichering,' a Hampshire method [of catching eels], is perhaps one of the most amusing." Well, can we take this any further? We learn that a sticherer is "one who stichers," but this doesn't help much. Then, under stichering (the OED has this word, but not the first two; the Century has the first two, but not this one), we have this precise description, from the Saturday Review in 1885:

"'The only apparatus used is an old sickle,...tied firmly on a light pole about 12 ft. long. The object of the sticherer is to thrust the sickle under the eel's body, and, with a sudden hoist, to land him on the bank."

Everyone supposes that the origin of the word, though obscure, is from "stick." Any article you read on Hampshire, located on the South Coast of England, emphasizes its long and distinguished maritime tradition. No doubt the authors have stichering in mind.

While on obscure words, we might as well rest on stichel for a moment. It is said to be obsolete, of obscure origin, but is "a term of reproach, applied especially by parents to children." The OED has it as stitchel, though it also could be spelled stetchel and stichal. Sounds like too much trouble for me, but an early 19th century quotation gives us an amusing insight: "This term, which in some places has Bub prefixed to it, appears to be a word of reproach, used to children principally by their parents...e.g., 'Get out of the way, you bub-stichal'; and, 'what a young stichall he must be to bring such a message!' [You can see that spelling conventions weren't rigidly observed, even in the same sentence].

Stuck on "Stich"

But before leaving this syllable, we should pause on stich (pronounced "stick") and see what it teaches us. Derived from the Greek word stichos, meaning a "row" or "line," a stich means the same thing in English--a portion or division of prose or verse writing. From 1723: "In some ancient Greek New Testaments, at the close of the epistles, there were some numeral letters added, signifying how many Stichs were in the epistle..the Jewish and Christian writers have computed these Stichs in scripture books, and added them at the end of each book." Most verses of the Psalms, for example, have two stichs; some have more. Stichometry is "the measurement of a manuscript text by stichoi or lines of fixed or average length into which the text is divided.

I have written about stichomythia here (a back-and-forth dialogue in classical Greek drama), and can't improve on it. We can go a bit further on "stich-type" words. Something stichic (I love the sound of it--"stickick") pertains to a verse or line; composed of lines of the same metrical form throughout." I was taken aback at first when I read in the Century that the opposite of stichic is systematic, but then I realized that systematic verse, in antiquity, was composed of a group of lines/strophes/periods as opposed to one line or a few lines, which is the stichic interest. This difference might be the basis of further thought--the "systematic" approach to life seeks to see the "overall" picture, but the "stichic" view is not satisfied unless all the "lines" are examined. Both are needed, and both are extremely hard to do...

Stichomancy

Then, as a little bonus to us for our hard work, is stichomancy--which is defined as "divination by lines or passages in books taken at hazard; bibliomancy." When I was in my Evangelical days, we used to have a joke directed against those who just picked a verse from the Bible at random as guidance for their lives. We told the story of a person who did this, and came upon the verse: "Judas went out and hung himself." Not content with the implications of this, he continued his bibliomancy. The next verse was: "Go and do likewise." Finally, in desperation, he selected a third verse at random: "And whatever you do, do it quickly." We all got a good laugh from that, but I never knew that the "elegant" word describing this practice is either bibliomancy or, preferably, stichomancy. Now, I will know...

Concluding with a Few Neighbors

I looked over the fence at stib.., and I saw a few interesting things, with which I shall close this essay. First, the word that is generative of many words beginning with stib, is stibium--antimony or "black antimony." It is a trisulphide of antimony calcined and powdered, used as a cosmetic for blackening the eyelids and eyebrows. Something stibious is, for example, antimonious; stibic also means antimonic. But then, just when you think you known all your stib-neighbors, you come across stibogram, which is a written record of footprints, of all things. Well, a stibos in Greek is a footprint, and a few medical books from the end of the 19th century used the word stibogram, as well as some other fascinating words, in their works. Here is a longish paragraph from Wood's Medical and Surgical Monographs, vol. 2 (1899), pp. 584-85.

"To measure the thorax the kyrtometer is useful, as also analogous instruments constructed like hat machines. To register simple cross-sections, the apparatus of Stark...may be resorted to. In many instances of deformity of the foot [here it comes....] it is advisable to obtain an outline of the plantar surface, a pelmatogram (pelma, sole). The patient is made to tread with blackened foot on a sheet of paper and thus a picture of the sole is obtained; the patient can be caused to walk on the paper and thus his manner of placing his foot down when walking is obtained (a ichnogram or stibogram)...."

Just makes you want to keep studying, doesn't it?

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