prill and psephologist

I don't think I would have guessed before I began working through the Collegiate, but I discovered that the letter "p" has more words in this edition than any other letter of the alphabet except "c" and "s". It has almost 9% of the words in the dictionary. In this essay I want to look at some other words beginning with "p," which you may find instructive. Let's begin with some words you might not have occasion to use.

Psephology

This word looks so strange that you know it has to be derived from Greek, and indeed it is. In the next three weeks the psephologists will be as thick as flies at a picnic. Why? Because the mid-term elections are going to be contested on November 7. Psephology is the study of public elections and the analysis of voting trends. The word was only invented in 1952, however, and was a product of British, rather than American, politics. From 1952 we have D.E. Butler saying, "It..seems appropriate to preface this book (on the British General Elections of 1951) with a discussion of why elections merit study and an examination of how much has been ...learnt from psephology (Oh, the "p" is silent). I am indebted to Mr. R.B. McCallum for the invention of this word...It is derived from "psephos"--the pebble which the Athenians dropped into an urn to vote." Well, isn't that cute? Rather than just looking at oneself as a politico or a party hack, people who follow and explain election numbers can call themselves psephologists. Only thing is, I don't know of anyone who gives himself this appellation. The London Times picked up the term and became its most studied supporter, and even Time magazine used the word in 1977. However, I think the term has faded from our speech, and writing. The NY Times, for example, has only used the word three times since 1980, and one of those usages was in a list of obscure terms used by William F. Buckley on his TV show Firing Line. A sepulchral future for psephology.

Other P's

I love the words psyops and gaydar. The first, of course, is the only one "officially" a "p," but since it is a portmanteau word, I was reminded immediately of gaydar, the only other such word that made me laugh out loud when I saw it for the first time. The OED doesn't have psyops, thought the Collegiate does. They may be defined as psychological operations--military moves that seek to influence emotions, motives and ultimately the behavior of governments, groups or individuals. Leafletting territories with notices saying that bombing is to begin if people don't immediately surrender is an example of "Psyops." But gaydar, a combination of "gay" and "radar," is an ability to "spot a gay person." The OED only defines this as an ability possessed by another gay person, but the quotations belie that specificity. First used in 1982 by the Village Voice, the term has really taken off and has been used in publications small and great. From the NY Times Magazine in 2001: "I've had conversations with a number of women who've said their 'Gaydar" doesn't work anymore. They can't figure out what a guy is." Hm...maybe all this guy interest in fragrances and scarves is messing up the women. Long live gaydar.

Ptyalism is the scientific term for the day. Derived from the Greek word for "expectoration," ptyalism is "excessive secretion or flow of saliva; salivation." But we need not stop there. Another synonym for it is through the Latin word for salivation, whence we get sialorrhea. Isn't that a mouthful? The OED has sialorrhea and defines it very medically. The first appearance of the term was in 1846 in the phrase "idiopathic sialorrhea," a fancy word for just an individual's brand of slobbering, I think. But we also have "flushing" and "lachrymation" and some other words to describe discharges from the facial region. It is unusual, however, that an instrument that induces the flow of saliva is a sialagogue and not a sialogogue. I bet that would trip up even some very good spellers.

A Few More P's

The remaining words I want briefly to mention are prill, puerilism and punditocracy. Let's begin with the last one. We have lots of lots of new words to express cutely special groups of people. The glitterati are celebrities, for example. I think I should coin a new term in honor of the blogosphere--the bloggerati are those who use that form of communication with the world. But the word punditocracy was invented in 1987 by the Wall St. Journal to refer to what was earlier called the "Fourth Estate"--elite journalists.

I ran across the little word prill, and decided to stop on it. The Collegiate has something about a process with minerals/rocks, which the OED mentions, but I love the verb definition of the word: "to flow, spirt, purl." And then we get into purl, and we have visions of streams and wending water and whirling motions.

So, let's close with puerilism. It can mean either the state or condition of behaving like a child (for an adult) or the stage of development preceding puberty. But the term was quickly wrested away from the medical folks by none other than the great historian J. Huizinga, who said, in 1936: "This quality I have ventured to call by the name of Puerilism, as being the most appropriate appellation for that blend of adolescence and barbarity which has been rampant all over the world for the last two or three decades."

And, come to think of it, why stop it at 1936?

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