What the H? Sixth Essay

So, we are inching along in our understanding of rare or interesting words beginning with "h." This essay will begin to address the following terms: hamman, hageen, hartel, hatchment, heloma, helepole, hesychastic, henequen, hexiology and hephthemimeral.

1. Hammam is another Arabic-derived word, and means "an Oriental bathing establishment, a Turkish bath." It is also spelled hamam. By the way, when the OED uses the word "Oriental" to define something, it means, in the first instance, something Turkish or from Asia Minor. That was the Orient--in ancient times. The term first arose in English as a result of travel narratives from the 17th through 19th centuries. "We proceeded to the public hummaum [alternative spelling] or Turkish bath..." Here is an article about the etiquette of visiting one, such as the famous Cagaloglu, in Istanbul. Words bring their friends along, and the article tells us that we first enter into a dressing room, called the camekan (not listed in the OED). The steam room is called the hararet, and the antechamber the sogukluk (the last two words are also not in the OED). But we are also told that the attendant in the hammam will give us a cotton wrap calleda pestemal and a pair of slippers, called terlik. Let's just stop here, for we see that the gift of a Turkish bath is to be a word-bringer, as well as a heath-bringer. A logophor indeed.

2. A funny thing happened upon returning to the "H's." Yep, you guessed it. My eye fell on another word or two that just demanded immediate attention. I smiled when I saw harambee, a Swahili term meaning "pulling or working-together; co-operation." The historical note in the OED tells us that it was the slogan of the Kanu government of Kenya at the time of independence. Thus it isn't surprising that our first indication that it is an English word is in 1963: "The farmers..joined him in the shout of 'Harambee'--the rallying call to the people of Kenya." But I first heard the term in 1967-68, when I was a new student at Menlo-Atherton HS in California. Our family had just moved from the WASPish NYC suburb of Darien, CT to an area about 30 miles south of San Francisco late in August 1967, and I was immediately deluged by culture shock. One of the "shocking" things to me was that my high school was integrated. One of the African-American teachers began to sport African shirts; he was a very understanding and genial fellow, and I noticed that he had words on his bulletin board like harambee and Kwanzaa. I didn't change my celebration patterns, but I began to see the world a little differently because of him...

3. But I also had to turn aside to look at haptotropic. It is derived from two Greek words, haptein, meaning "to touch" and tropos, which means "turning." Thus, haptotropism is "the phenomenon whereby plant organs, as the tendrils of climbing plants, exhibit tropic [i.e., 'turning'] movements in response to the stimulus of touch." Some of the usages bring us to clarity. From 1900: "Haptotropism, curvature induced in climbing plants by the stimulus of a rough surface" or, form 1953: "Certain tropic growth-curvatures result from direct contact with a foreign body and are described as haptotropic." Thus, it is a kind of reaction resulting from a sensitivity to touch. We see this all the time in people, don't we...where we brush somebody, draw away quickly, and say, "Excuse me.." But our reaction to touch tells us a lot about us. Are we people who will always, except for the most familiar "contacts," tend to pull away from contact? How haptotropic are we? Maybe we turn towards the touch; maybe touch unlocks all the secrets of our lives. We use the word "touch" in so many contexts that to have haptotropic in our verbal arsenal is a real coup. Don't forget it...Well, just one second. The word thigmotropism, introduced into English within a decade of haptotropism's first appearance (1890s), means the same thing as haptotropism, and has 3 1/2 X as many attestations in a Google search...I don't want to touch further on the issue now...

4. Well, because you have been good, I will give you one more "h" term before returning to my list: harai goshi. It is a "hip throw with a sweep" in judo. Here is a YouTube video demonstrating the technique. If I had used it against my African-American teacher, it wouldn't have been an expression of harambee, for example. Here is a MMA contest where a guy delivers a harai goshi "knockout..."

5. Ok, enough of this fun. Let's return to the "list." I have a need for something "classical" now, so let's go to hesychastic. The Greek word hescychastes means "quieting" or "appeasing." In ancient Greek music is applied to a style of melody which tends to appease the mind. From 1694: "The First of these [Keys] is call'd by the Greeks Diastaltic, Dilating; the Second, Systaltic, Contracting; the Last, Hesychiastic, Appeasing." The Hesychasts were a body of monks living on Mount Athos during the 14th century, and aimed to attain, by the practice of contemplation and ascetisim, "entire tranquility and serenity of mind." It is a mirage, of course, because the mind won't let you go to complete peace, even though you become invested in the notion that that is what you are attaining. Things gurgle up, and indeed, one of the most fruitful sources of productive thought in life is a "gurgling" past. Well, maybe the Hesychasts are striving to get things out of their minds. Possibly, but is the mind, then, an enemy? I can see some very fruitful discussions on this topic someday with a confirmed meditator... But, to return to the word, we all need soothing or quiet-inducing words at times. "His hesychastic words resulted in a lessening of tensions in the company."

6. Oops. One more digressive word (well, what do you expect--it is Sunday morning, and it is my 'day of rest')--hesthogenous. The OED tells us it is "badly formed" from the Greek esthes (clothes) and genes (born), and it relates to birds: "Hatched with a clothing of down." Actually, I love the word, for you just need to have a word descriptive of the utter cuteness of those furry little birds. You can squeal and shriek and say, "How cute!", but I think you will get much further in life if you say, "I just love hesthogonous birds!" You need show no less emotion or eagerness; it is just that you will be revered by those around you. And, though not everyone wants to be revered (indeed, I think that most people would prefer to do nothing to "stand out" from their compatriots), there are enough people out there who have enough ambition to want some recognition--and hesthogonous is the way to do it.

By the way, the OED further defines hesthogenous as "ptilopaedic." That word, spelled also ptilopedic, is also from the Greek. We go from way to way, because the OED tells us that ptilopaedic is "contrasted with psilopaedic." I am glad they said so, aren't you? From 1884: "Probably all praecocial birds are ptiolpaedic, and all psilopaedic birds altricial, but..many altrices, as hawks and owls [are] also ptiolpaedic." [I could write on precocious now, bu tI will have to defere it--perhaps to my essay son Allah's other 98 names...]. The fun never stops, does it? Thankfully, the Collegiate dictionary, the dictionary of the National Spelling Bee, doesn't have either term--phew, we wouldn't want to learn anything, would we? Hesthogenous also is absent... We could go a number of directions here, but let's just return to the OED for the last word of this essay. The word hesthogenous is not only the same as ptiolpaedic [the Unabridged has ptilopaedes, but not ptilopaedic], but it is "opposed to gymnogenous." Well, the gym part means "naked." There you have it--all you gymnogenous creatures...

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