Imbellious and imbosk and imbrate and imblemish

The OLD has imbellis and imbellia, "not suited for warfare," and mentions also that the terms can be used in a derogatory way, as if the person is not "up to" the rigors of battle. The English faithfully takes over both significations: "Ignoble and imbellious Spirits" or "The voluntarie subiection of this their imbellious Countrie." Rather than using the word "pacifist" all the time, why don't those inclined to this philosophy call themselves "imbellious"? I think the issue of what constitutes "peace" is such a can of worms that they should begin to characterize themselves as those who are "not warlike." I am one who doesn't really believe that peace, between people or in societies, is possible or even desirable. However, the absence of peace doesn't necessarily mean the presence of war. It could just mean you are thinking. I feel much more comfortable characterizing myself as imbellious than as a pacifist. Thus, I am slightly changing the meaning of imbellious from "not warlike" or "cowardly" to "not committed to war." "His consistent imbellious stance set him at variance with his more conservative friends."

Quick Hits

Then there are lots of words I can mention quickly. Imbastardize may have more utility than I originally imagined. It means "to render bastard or degenerate," but Milton's quotation brings it leaping off the page: "Imbastardiz'd from the ancient Nobleness of thir Ancestors." I can see a synonymous future with imbecilitate. Rather than just saying that a conversation with X had rendered him a babbling idiot, one might say it imbecilitated and imbastardized him, though the latter word, on second thought, may have more utility when speaking of generational degeneracy. "For every Algeresque story of climbing out of the muck of economic or educational deprivation there is another one of desceding back to the mud, of imbastardization, of familial or personal decline."

Then we have imbear, meaning "to make or lay bare," as in "the tornado threatened to imbear the entire neighborhood." (Why isn't it imbare?) Or, a word that I like a lot that isn't well-attested is imbib. Imbib is not imbibe, a word which every college student knows. Imbib means to put a bib on someone. "There he sat, the President of a Fortune 500 company, ready to dip into his elegant Alaskan crab dinner, with roseate smile and gleaming features, imbibbed and seemingly anchored to the Hepplewhite chair, looking like the child-king that he imagined himself to be." One can imblemish something by damaging, injuring or defacing it, though if one imbrates it, one has defiled or polluted it. Though one can easily see ways to make use of the former, the latter is illumined by a 1598 quotation: "The thinges of this State semith to be fowle imbratid by corruptid factions." Ah, sounds very modern, doesn't it? I think one of the significant issues in the next 10 years is how historians and other scholars will point out how the current Administration in Washington has imbrated not simply the culture of government but the role of America in the world. Crooks have always proliferated within the Beltway and, I suppose, as long as money and power are at stake, they will continue to do so. But, I think also that the revelations of misjudgment and poor judgment, as well as possible criminality, are just beginning to surface.

Imbosk

Let's close this essay with a word that has caught my fancy: imbosk. There is no Latin correlate; indeed Classical Latin does not have the sound imbo. We have to go to the Italian to realize that imboscare means "to enter or goe into a wood, to take covert or shelter as a Deere doeth." A bosco is therefore a wood or forest. Un bosco fitto is a thick forest. To be nel profondo o fitto del bosco means to be in the depth of woods. You might think that Dante would have used this word as he begins his Inferno, but alas, here are his words:

"Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita/ mi ritrovai per una selva oscura/ che la diritta via era smarrita."

I promise you that if you memorize these first three lines in Italian, you will be hailed as a genius in your undergraduate school, no matter where you go, and will almost immediately be ushered into a doctoral program in medieval thought, comparative literature or romance languages. People just don't realize how little you have to know to make people think you are brilliant. Try it, you'll see.*

[*Wandering here. When I focused on the word bosco, my memory took me back to my early days in Connecticut, where one of my favorite chocolate drinks was "Bosco." I think it has nothing to do with woods or forests, but I loved swirling that chocolatey flavor around the milk. I only was permitted to do so about once a year. I think my parents both couldn't afford it and were, as unreflective heirs of the Puritan tradition, thinking that if I experienced too much pleasure I would become a worthless and dissolute person. Well, you can judge that one...Oh, I checked to see if Bosco was still sold. It was, in most states, but not in Oregon. I guess I will have to buy it over the Net or wait for one of my readers to send me some.]

So, to embosk means to hide or conceal oneself. "Scanderbeg went as secretly as possyble, to imbosque him selfe neare to that place." Perhaps its most familiar usage in English came through the English translation of Cervantes' Don Quixote in the 17th century: "Sancho...requesting him to depart..and imbosk himself in the mountain." But I am partial to the figurative use of the term. "He cares not ..what contradictions he maintains, so he can but imbosk himself handsomely in them." That is the way I will use the term--to describe the myriad situations in life where we want to hide ourselves. "In his grief, he imbosked himself in the deep dungeons of the mind." I think we use the term "bury" with "grief" far too often. Why, indeed, do we say that a person "buries" herself in work or grief or a task? I suppose this would suggest the level of dedication and the possibile invisibility of the person after the "burial." But I think that the notion of hiding, of escaping, of concealing the self is probably a word more fitted for our day. "He imbosked himself in the folds of his garment, hoping that they might provide him protection from the world that he so eagerly sought."

I see at this pace that it will take me quite a while to get through the "ims." Pity.

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