A Few More "Slash" Words--and then Many Others

I begin here with my final two slash words from the previous essay and then move on to callid, nunquam satis, stukach, mentonniere, tirage, tirailleur, subsultus, lunula and termitarium. As you see, this is a varied harvest but one which, I hope, yields tasty crops.

5. Let's begin with carphology/floccillation. I am sure you are relieved to discover that they are synonymns, derived from different classical languages. They have to do with grabbing at the sheets or bed covers when one is delirious. Galen, the Greek physician, used the word karphologia, derived from karphos (twit, straw, bit of wool) and legein (to collect). At first glance carphology looks like the "study" of something, but the final syllables aren't derived from the Greek logos. So, it is "a movement of delirious patients, as if searching for or grasping at imaginary objects, or picking at the bed-clothes." Be sure you distinguish this from carpology, which is the study of fruit (Greek carpos is "fruit"). Well, floccillation is defined the same way, and was first used in 1842 in English. The Old French floc and the Latin floccus mean "a lock, tuft, particle" (of wool, etc.). This tuft can be used for quilting garments, and stuffing beds, cushions and mattresses. We have all kinds of good and interesting words in English beginning with "floc," such as floccule (a little tuft), flocculate (to aggregate into flocculent masses), as well as flocculent, flocculous and even flocculency." Putting these words together, and adding another, yields this sentence, from an 1866 medical textbook: "Subsultus, carphologia, and fumbling with the bed-clothes.." (why didn't he also use floccillation?). I suppose when you go into the bedroom of someone whose covers are scattered all over the place, you only need to look at the person and intone, "Hm. Floccillation again, my dear?"

By the way, subsultus, coming from the Latin word meaning "to leap under," is a term meaning "a convulsive or twitching movement." It predated both carphology and floccillation in English by more than half a century. From 1806: "The febrile actions are proportionately increased, attended by Subsultus of the Muscles and occasional convulsions." Now we have three additional words for twitching, delirium, tugging at things (why not also allow these to include tugging at clothes, one's body, etc?). Finally, on this word, we should pause for a moment to look at floccinaucinihilipilification, only because it is "there." Many people have written on this rather useless word, probably invented by bored 18th century schoolboys at Eton, to mean "the action or habit of estimating as worthless." Michael Quinion tells us that it is a word formed by stringing together four Latin words for "worthless" or "insignificant" in a schoolboy grammar. That is the definition--not the word. In any case, the earliest attestation, from 1741, is: "I loved him for nothing so much as his flocci-nauci-nihili-pili-fication of money."

I am going to leave off the final "slash" word: "Recolet/recollection" until another time.

6. Even though I know what a termitarium is (a colony or nest of termites), I wanted to put it here, just so these gnawing creatures won't feel overlooked. Here is a web page explaining a little about the termitarium. There must be some kind of joke we could come up with using this word...

7. Tirage (tee RAHZH) is a word that I hadn't seen until I was looking up tirailleur (below). It is defined as "a pulling or reprint of a book, from the same type or stereotype." Thus, it is distinguished from an edition. The word is from the French and means "to pull" or "to draw," and this site tells us that in France's wine industry, it is a word meaning "to draw from the barrel" and refers to bottling a wine. A tireuse is a bottling machine. Next time I visit a nearby winery, I will ask if they use that term in the US. I suppose that there are exponentially more people interested in wine than in book-binding, and thus the word, if remembered at all, will be used in its viticultural significance. What is the book connection? Well, apparently, every time there is a reprint, often with some additions (such as an errata page), one used to have to "pull" a lot of old things from the press. Pulling, in printing, was defined as "the removal of the cover, boards, end papers, tapes, and any lining material which, with the softening of the threads, are necessary stages in the preparation of the book for rebinding." It isn't crystal clear to me how a reprint is a "pulling," but I think this suggests that some things have to be "pulled" from the press in order to do the new "run."

8. Tirailleur comes from the French term "to shoot in independent firing" and came to mean "one of a body of skirmishers employed in the wars of the French Revolution." Since they weren't "regulars," they were "skirmishers" or soldiers trained for "independent action." I guess "irregular" would capture the meaning. But I would like to go for higher stakes here by suggesting a figurative meaning--as a loner, a "lone-ranger," a person who "shoots on his own." I think this word is much more suggestive than "loner" because it emphasizes not simply the isolation or independence of the person but the fact of his/her work. "Loner" just stresses the solitary character of the person, while tirailleur would emphasize the independence of the person and his/her "shooting" or engaging in a task. "He tried to be a cooperative sort in planning the operation, but ultimately he was a tirailleur and had to conduct his own fight against his own enemies."

9. While on French terms, we might as well do mentonniere, a piece of medieval armor. Well, it protects the menton, which is the point on the furthest protuberance of the chin. Though the French term went back to 1373, the first English usage of the term (i.e., making it an English word) wasn't until 1824. The mentonniere could either be attached to the helmet or to the upper part of the body armor. I was surprised that the Century really got into this--there is a cut of one, and the definition talks about which centuries this piece came about (the 15th) and how it was actually secured around the neck. Someday, if I ever join the Society for Creative Anachronism, I will ask for a sample mentonniere.

I see I have run out of space on this essay, and so let's turn to the next one, to pick up the remaining words and then to launch us on some words beginning with "s."

3865