peri and periapt and perfuse and perovskite

Now that I have a lot of pictures and interesting words out of my system, I think we can go much more quickly through the pe's. Today I will look at perfusion, peri, perapt, perique, peripeteia, perovskite. Let's get right to it.

1. Perfusion. If the word perfuse or perfusion is used at all today it is in the sense of pouring, diffusing, or causing something to flow through something. It can suggest permeation or suffusion of one thing by another. Something spread over a surface can also be said to be perfused. I like a quotation from 1775: "Leave to others the active parts of the perfusions, detersions, etc. Of course, a detersion (not in the Collegiate), is a cleansing action. A more modern usage is this: "The backfiring of trucks and buses, and the whistling and groaning of brakes..all to the accompaniment of a perfusion of essence of gasoline exhaust fumes." The word also has a theological significance, relating to baptism (i.e., pouring or sprinkling, in contrast to immersion). Take care to distinguish it from profusion, which means a great quantity of something.

2. Peri. Pronounced PIR ee, this is just the kind of word I slip up on. I find that I am vulnerable to shorter words, especially foreign words. I don't know how many times I have misspelled zori, easy as it is. Zori, zori. There, I think I have that one. But a peri is a supernatural being in Persian folklore descended from fallen angels and excluded from paradise until penance is accomplished. But the word can also be used to described a beautiful or graceful fairy-like individual. I am enough of a student of world mythology (and peri comes from Persian literature beginning in about the 10th century) to know the plasticity of terms and elfin figures in most mythologies. Thus, peri imports a world into which we cannot now go. I wonder sometimes if I will ever have time to learn Farsi. Languages are now "lining up" for me to be learned. Italian is this year; Chinese begins later this year; Arabic will be after I have a "sense" of Chinese (at least that is the plan). And when will be the time for Sanskrit? And Farsi is definitely behind them--sort of in the same category as Russian, Portuguese and Serbo-Croation, I imagine. At least I have a good foundation in 10 others...Oh, the Century has another definition of peri (now pronounced pe REE, (In heraldry) "reduced in size: generally equivalent to couped. Can't comment further without returning to that fascinating study.

3. Periapt. If you know the Greek, this word not only is easy but it makes sense. Literally meaning "hung around," a periapt is an amulet or a charm worn around the neck as a defense against disease or mischief. A slight digression is in order. The Greek words behind periapt are "peri" ("around"--e.g., perimeter) and "haptein" ("to touch, grasp or fasten"--rough breathing over "a"). There is an English word haptic, which I think is very useful. It is wonderful that the Collegiate even has the word. It means "relating to touch" and is most useful for those interested in educational theory. One has "haptic" or "visual" or "auditory" learners. From 1964: "Sight becomes such a preponderant source of information as the child grows, that even those who are basically haptic types come to have a secondary dependence on visual imagery." You know, if I was ever to return to teaching (my gig as a law school professor is ending in December 2006), I might want to teach young children. I think one of the first questions I would ask them would have to do with the kind of learners they are. Wouldn't it just be wonderful if an eight year-old would go home to his mother and say, "Mom, I just discovered today that I am primarily a haptic learner"? Dream on, Bill. So, one sentence using periapt is from early last century: "He wears..a gimcrack thing round his neck that he calls his 'periapt'--charm, I suppose he means." Oh, oh, I can see an essay on gimcrack, but not here..

4. Perique. I can do this really quickly. This word, meaning a Louisiana tobacco, is supposed to be derived from the nickname of Pierre Chanet (b. 1758), a Louisiana tobacco grower. Thus, perique tobacco is a strong, dark tobacco from Louisiana, curied in its own juices and usually mixed with other tobaccos. From 1992: "Full moon and the night scented with the smell of his perique and latakia pipe tobacco." Oh latakia is a "highly aromatic Turkish smoking tobacco." I really don't know my tobaccos very well..

5. Peripeteia. The Collegiate merely defines this as "a sudden or unexpected reversal of circumstances or situation esp. in a literary work." But, there are going to be problems with this word. The chief one is that its spelling is not an agreed-upon spelling. For example, the Century has it as peripetia ( a "turning round" or "sudden falling around"). But we will learn it as peripeteia. To show how this word opens all kinds of worlds, all I need do is quote from Sterne's Tristram Shandy: "It has its Protasis, Epistasis, Catastasis, its Catastrophe or Peripeitia (he changed the spelling in 1769 to Peripeteia) growing one out of the other in it, in the order Aristotle first planted them." Thus, though the concept emerges from ancient Greek drama, the terminology is Aristotelian, and it would really need to be learned in combination with other Aristotelian terms as well as fairly full knowledge of Greek drama. Dream on again...

6. Perovskite. Let's finish with this word, which means "a yellow, brown or rayish-black mineral consisting of an oxide of calcium and titanium and someetimes contianing rare earth elements." Named after a 19th century Russian statesman (Perovski, 1792-1856), the element was first known as perowskite or perofskite, but it assumed its present spelling by the 1930s. Ah, minerals..

Now, moving on...

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