Daedal and Dactylology and Dabchick

The Tough List--Beginning with the "D's"

Bill long 11/27/06

Consider Dabchick, Dactylology, Daedal

I have decided that preparing for the 2007 National Senior Spelling Bee will consist of my making two lists of words: one of 1180 or so words (here), which consist of some tricky but mostly useful words from the Merriam-Webster Collegiate, and other consisting of around 2,000 or so words which I consider are the hard words. This doesn't necessarily mean they are the longest words or even the most obscure ones. They just will be words that I don't know very thoroughly and need to learn well. I will have the list "up" within a few months, but here I will wander through the list as it is taking shape, and pluck out some of the words for reflection. In contrast to my earlier effort with the "D's," I will take more time with each word here, pausing to let it teach me its ways. Deep study of words is the most humbling of tasks. Just when you think you know something about the world, you are plunged, in the very next word, into a universe of which you know nothing.

Dabchick

In this case a picture will be worth a lot. So here is a dabchick.

The dabchick is also known as the Little Grebe, Podiceps minor, a small water bird, found in rivers and other fresh waters, and noted for diving. In the US the dabchick is also applied to another Grebe species, Podilymbus podiceps, but I promise I won't quiz you on this! Etymologically, the word is derived from dop-chick or dip-chick, with the latter suggesting a diver. Cute little guy, isn't he/she/it?

Dactylology

Dactylology is a big word for a simple concept. Derived from the two Greek words meaning "finger" and "knowledge," it means "sign language." Used as early as 1656 in Blount's dictionary, the word was at first spelled dactylogie and meant "finger-talk, speech made with fingers." However, the word which preceded it is chirology or cheirology, "cheir" being the Greek word for "hand." From Urquhart's 1693 translation of Rabelais we have: "Such a fine Gesticulator, and in the Practice of Chirology an Artist so compleat...that with his very Fingers he doth speak..." But dactylology also has a figurative usage, as this 1885 quotation suggests: "They pressed hands at parting...not for the ordinary dactylology of lovers, but in sign of the treaty of amity."

I like the phrase: "the ordinary dactylology of lovers," because in the phrase I can see the lovers' entwined fingers and hands, the writing of love epics in the palms of the other, the tracing of 1000 poems in the sacred places of the other's body. Would Jesus' miraculous work, in which he cast out demons by the "finger of God" (Lk. 11:20), be rightly called "God's dactylology"? And just to show you that the word still has a vibrancy today, I found this web site, describing the heroic efforts of a Tibetan deaf club to compose a "Tibetan dacytology." The Tibetan dactylology comprises 700 basic signs. What made its composition incredibly difficult is that the Tibetan dactylology differs from the Chinese one because the latter consists of Chinese character conversion, while many Tibetans can neither read nor write Chinese. All this, I confess, is Greek to me--but I hope you now have an appreciation for the word dactylology!

Daedal

A daedal is not a Jewish instrument that the little kids play at Hanukkah (laughter gradually subsiding). Were it not for the Greek mythological figure Daedalus, skillful creator of the Cretan labyrinth, we never would have this word. It appears in the OED in both the capitalized (Daedal) and lower-case (daedal) form. The former is the Anglicized form of Daedalus, but it can also be a noun which means a labyrinth. But the far more prevalent appearance of the term is as an adjective, meaning "skillful, cunning to invent or fashion." Edmund Spenser's Fairie Queene (first three books published in 1590) holds pride of place for its first usage. "All were it Zeuxis or Praxiteles, His daedale hand would fail and greatly faynt." The language approximates epic, particularly slow-going for an era that has lost its oral and aural capacity for epic literature. Reference has been made to the "daedale hare," the "daedal harp" of Blind Harry the Harper, or the "daedal hand of Titan." Anything skillfully made can also be called something "daedal," as, for example, the "daedal nets" or the "daedal fancies" in the "quaint mazes of the crisped roof."

There is another meaning of daedal, derived from the phrase "natura daedala rerum" of the 1st Century BCE Epicurean poet/philosopher Lucretius, and in this usage it means the varied or variously adorned nature of things. As Wordsworth could say, "For whose free range the daedal earth/ Was filled with animated toys."

Though one might argue that daedal no longer has utility, I think it does. Indeed, the OED lists seven other words derived from daedal, such as daedaleous, daedalian, daedalous and, my favorite, daedalize, to bring more precision to the word. Space only allows a reference to the verb daedalize, meaning "to make intricate or maze-like." From 1618: "Wee Lawyers then, who dedalizing Law, And deading Conscience, like the Horse-leach drawe." Just as I like the phrase "the ordinary dactylology of lovers" from above, I am drawn to a phrase describing lawyers, "who daedalize law and deaden conscience." That is, lawyers tend to make things so intricate that the gentle voice of conscience is completely swallowed up. And, to think that someone could have made that observation in 1618. I thought that only characterized lawyers in my day. However, just to see that the problem with lawyers goes back very far, recall that Jesus said that the lawyers with whom he contended strained out gnats to swallow a camel (Mt. 23:23-24). Maybe that is enough on lawyers for now. I am starting to feel the heat!

Conclusion

Only three words in this lesson today (four, if you count chirography), but they all have their utility and even elegance. I think you can skillfully, even daedally, bring them in to your speech, whether you engage in dactylology or not.

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