bucranium and buchmanism and buddleia and bruxism and bedlam

Sometimes you wonder why the Collegiate has the words it does. If it is a nonscientific term that appears obsolete, why is it there? For example, the term brummagem, meaning tawdry or spurious, doesn't have an attestation in the OED more recently than 1886. Yet, there it is in the Collegiate. There is a colorful story behind it, and I wouldn't want to lose that. Apparently Birmingham, in the Midlands, was a place where counterfeit groats were coined in the mid-17th century. In addition, a "Birmingham Protestant" was the name given to the supporters of the Exclusion Bill of 1680, which would have precluded James, brother of Charles II (and a Catholic) from attaining the throne after Charles' passing. If you mumble "Birmingham" quickly, it sounds like "brummagem," just like mumbling "Bethlehem" can result in bedlam, a term designating a tumult but, originally, an insane asylum (St. Mary's of Bethlehem, London). Then, if you identify the result, brummagem, with the value of the object rather than the object itself (a groat), you have the meaning spurious or tawdry. I can't imagine anyone using it today, except, that is, if you are in a spelling bee.

Some More Fun

Then there is another great word, bruxism, that is neither in the OED nor the Century, but is in the Collegiate. It means "grinding" or "gnashing the teeth" especially when nervous or during sleep. Bruxism is derived from the Greek verb brucho or bruchaomai, which means to eat greedily or gobble. One of the earliest attestations is from Hippocrates, the 5th cent. BCE physician. He uses it with "tous odontas" (the teeth), so that grinding of the teeth was seen as a medical problem almost as far back as we have medical treatises. An interesting use of brucho with "the teeth" occurs in the New Testament. One of the earliest preachers of the risen Christ was Stephen. He spoke about the Christ with great power, angering many who heard him. In order to silence him they "ground their teeth" on him and stoned him to death (Acts 7:54). I wonder if my mother should have said to my younger brother when we were growing up, "Bob, stop your bruxism," rather than, "Bob, stop grinding your teeth." It probably would have had the same effect. Or, maybe she should have made a poster saying, "I will brook no bruxism." Maybe she would have been committed to "Bedlam" as a result. The noun brygmus, derived from the same Greek verb, also means gnashing of teeth during sleep.

And we can have more fun, before returning to "the list." I ran across the word Buchmanism in the OED, and it brought back memories from 30 years ago. Derived as a sort of derisive word for a movement beginning in the late 1920s around Oxford (more popularly known as "Moral Re-armament"), Buchmanism was named after Frank Buchman and was a movement that supported unilateral moral rearming while international debates proliferated about weapons disarmament. Those who supported this movement were what we would call Liberal Christians today. I recall being solemly warned in the early 1970s by my Evangelical pastor, who came of age in the late 1920s and early 1930s, to avoid the perils of Buchmanism and Buchmanists. However, since Frank himself died in 1961, I doubt whether there were more Buchmanists in the US than there were Black Panthers in Fargo, ND.

Continuing with the fun. I ran into bunkum or buncombe, which is abbreviated as bunk, and means "nonsense." "That's bunk," or "history is bunk," are popular uses of the abbreviated word. Buncombe is a county in North Carolina, and the word was bequeathed to the English language as a synonym for empty clap-trap oratory as a result of speech given by the US Congressman representing this county during the December 1819 debate over the Missouri Compromise. Rising in the middle of the debate, Congressman Felix Walker told the crowd that they need not heed what he was about to say because he would only be speaking to and for the voters of Buncombe County. Hence to "speak to or for Buncombe" became synonymous with speaking exaggerated or superflous lines to curry the favor of voters back home. Buncombe then became associated with this kind of speech.

One more word, very briefly. I ran across bucranium in the Century today, and it is too good to lose. It is merely the transliteration of the Greek word meaning "ox head." Drawings of two bucrania, from Roman antiquity, appear in the Century. A bucranium is an ornament, often sculpted, frequently with adornment of wreaths or other decorations, on the frieze or entablature of Ionic or Corinthian orders of architecture. Nothing more arresting than a festooned ox-head.

Back to "The List"

The buccinator is a muscle forming the wall of the cheek. I wish the Collegiate would have had buccal, the basic word, meaning pertaining to the mouth or cheeks. Its sole attestation is in the medical context, but I think it has real possibilities in other realms. Then there is buddleia, a genus of shrubs, budgerigar, a small Australian parrot, bugloss (first syllable pronounced BYU), a coarse plant, bulbil and bulbet, meaning small or secondary bulb, bulbul, a songbird in Persian poetry, bulgur, cracked wheat, bullace, a European plum, burbot, a freshwater fish, burgon, an oatmeal gruel, burin, an engraver's tool (there is a nice picture of it in the 1993 Webster's Unabridged), and bushing, a removable cylindrical lining. I am bushed, so I think I will stop right here for now.

The next mini-essay will be even more of a detour, on one word, burgonet, that implicates a ton of other words in the study of medieval armor. Let's take that road for a moment.