Looking at Patulous and Patent/Patulous

I have written on a few of these prefixes/roots already. Here is an essay on pend, where I look at the meanings of "hanging" or "weighing" and the words created by the prefix. Then, here is an essay looking at pand, especially in the word pandiculation, a gaping or yawning look. The focus of this essay will be on the Latin verb patere, to "lie open," but especially the useful words it has brought in its wake to English, such as patent, patently and patulous.

Patent and Patulous

We talk about patents all the time. Does someone have a "patent" on that medicine or has its patent expired and it has become a generic medication? If so, then the price plummets. From this common usage, we would think that the word patent has something to do with protection or limitation of usage, but, in fact, it means just the opposite. Patent in English is derived from the Latin verb patere, participle patens, patentis, which means "open, lying open, unobstructed, wide, broad, clear, obvious." You get the picture. So, how is something "closed" to everyone, through a patent, really "open?" It goes back to a historical practice, originating in Anglo-Norman phrase lettres patentes (end of the 13th century), which were "open" (i.e, unsealed) letters sent out by the Crown throughout the realm (hence letters patent) to inform everyone that Merchant X had the protection of the Crown to develop a product. From 1891 we have this explanation: "The Letters Patent were..written upon open sheets of parchment, with the Great Seal pendent [i.e., hanging] at the bottom...[while] the 'Litterae Clausae', or 'Letters Close',..being of a more private nature, and addressed to one or two individuals only, were closed or folded up and sealed on the outside." This provides a very nice visual image, doesn't it?

Now we understand the adjective patent and the adverb patently. Something patent is clear, evident or obvious. CP Snow could write in 1951: "This was the humility and honesty of his heart. It was so patent that no one challenged it." Or, with patently, one has: "Brown asserts her legitimacy as a 'psychic detective' with claims that range from the vague and unverifiable to the patently false." Naturally, the term, as a noun or verb, also refers to the process or result of securing protection for one's artistic or mechanical inventions, but attention to the "lying open" or "obvious" part of the meaning makes the word fall neatly into place.

Patulous and a Slight Digression

Almost without exception, the word patulous refers to trees, bushes or other objects that have a "spreading" crown or branching pattern. The Latin patulus means "wide open or gaping," and so our meanings pick up on that. The first usage, however, was humanistic. From 1616, we have: "The eare yet heares more, then ever the eye saw; and by reason of the patulous admission, derives that to the understanding, whereof the sight never had a glance." However, by the 18th century, medicine had taken over the term. "By elasticity the proper patulous condition of certain canals and outlets [of the body] is secured." It rarely refers to flowers or spreading leaves, but try this on for size. From 1657: "Of Fennel..It is a kinde of ferulaceous Plant..; its muscary or top, round, patulous, broad, and circulated." By the way, a muscary, now obsolete, is derived from the Latin "muscarium, fly-brush, or an arrangement of branches resembling a fly-brush, an umbel."

A Short Digression on Flies

OW Holmes Sr. invented the word muscarium to be mean "a place where flies are kept." "Here is my muscarium, my home for house-flies." So, Musca is the genus name for flies and the Musca domestica is the common house fly, a pest of sorts. I eagerly looked up the Musca domestica and discovered, not unexpectedly, that its conservation status is neither threatened or extinct. Didn't think so. By the way, this article on the Musca domestica lists the Linnaean classification all the way from the Kingdom (Animalia) to the species (Musca domestica). When I was growing up there were 7 steps from Kingdom to Species. But, as a reflection of the complexity of our world, the Linnaean system now has superfamilies, sub and infra orders, etc., so that there are now 18, yes 18 steps from the Kingdom to the Species, at least with respect to the Musca domestica. Never has so much care to identify, it seems, be expended on something so little worth the time...

While searching on Musca, I ran across muscae volitantes, which actually is a quite useful term. Literally meaning "flying flies," the term muscae volitantes comes from ophthalmology and points to "small moving spots in the field of vision representing a normal or sometimes pathological phenomenon usually caused by opacities in the vitreous humor of the eye." These "floaters" or "flying dots," then, are those types of things we see with our eyes closed after being exposed to bright sunlight or sudden light. From 1786: "A dark spot is seen resembling the shape of the sun, or other luminous object which we last beheld. This is the source of one kind of the dark colored muscae volitantes."

Conclusion

There are still a few words from the earlier quotations I have to define before I put this essay to bed. Recall above we had: "Of Fennel..It is a kinde of ferulaceous Plant..." Well, the Latin word ferula means "fennel" and so the word is defined by the thing it is. Finally, we have, from 1986: "The smaller veins irregularly pinnatiform, their branches forming a patulous reticulum." Isn't that a great sentence? A patulous reticulum is a "spreading net," and we can easily envision that. But what is pinnatiform? Well, it is shaped like a pinna, which is the Latin word for "feather." Pinnate is the more common term today. I think it is high time to recover patulous and perhaps apply it to a person of large heart or personality, who has an inclusive desire to bring others into his/her confidence. Such a patulous person can be hurt by others, but by developing a protective system that also enables a "spreading" personality, one has a very attractive result.

3843