saprobic and saprophile and pasilaly and pasigraphy

15. Ophelimity. I think I ran into this term in an economics course I took long ago, but it took my review for the bee to bring it back to mind. It was invented by the radical Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923). Consult this page for an overview of his life and work. He coined the term ophelimity, the desirable thing, in the context of a utilitarian philosophical climate that argued that when people make economic decisions, they are guided by the "well-being" of themselves or a larger society. Pareto argued, however, they are guided by what appears desireable for them, regardless of whether it corresponds to their well-being. The word first appeared in English in 1896: "The term utility, for example, has its ambiguities; and Professor Pareto (in Lausanne at the time) substitutes the word ophelimite, meaning capacity to satisfy any want, whether rational or irrational.." The term is still in use today, though I am not sure to what extent Pareto is looked upon as more than an interesting historical figure these days.

16. Pasigraphy. One can take a most delightful tour of this ancient relic, an attempt by scholars from the 17th -19th centuries, and still desired by some, to express a universal language through writing. The word goes back to 1796 in English: "Pasigraphy, from pasi, to all and grapho, I write, will not explain the sounds of any known language but the sense of the words of every language, even of that which people have never learnt." In his 1870 Pasigraphical Dictionary and Grammar, Anton Bachmaier defined it as follows: "Pasigraphy teaches people to communicate with one another in writing by means of numbers, which convey the same ideas in all languages." But one is not confined to using numbers to convey information: hieroglypics or ideograms will do. Though this idea, which a theologican might call a "Babel-reversal," posits the existence of such an international writing language, there is no corresponding pasilaly, or universal speech language. In researching this topic, I was fascinated to discover that though the word pasigraphy only goes back to 1796, the concept in English is much older. Witness the title of the 1657 work by Cave Beck:

The universal character, by which all the nations in the world may understand one anothers conceptions, reading out of one common writing in their own mother tongues; an invention of general use, the practice whereof may be attained in two hours space, observing the grammatical directions, which character is so contrived as to be spoken as well as written. (Available from University Microfilms).

Hm. I can see a long project in the offing..

17. Saprobic. It is derived from the Greek sapros, meaning "putrid" and bios, meaning "life" and is of 20th century coinage. A saprobe (word first used in 1932) is "any organism that derives its nourishment from decaying organic matter." The word became useful very quickly, since so much of nature, such as fungi, live on dead matter. Thus, the word signifying decay spawned several other living words. For example a saprophile is "a bacterium inhabiting putrid matter," even though the word "phile" would suggest something that "loves" something else. To be saprophagous means that you eat decaying matter, and a saprophage, though unattested, must be a saprobe. Something saprogenic either causes putrefaction or is produced by putrefaction. By the way, I love the sound of the word "putrefaction." It is almost as if you are spitting when you say it, as if the putrefied substance itself is resident in the very breath you expel. Saprobiology is the study of saprobic enviornments, and a saprobiologist is a guy or girl who studies such environments. I wonder if any philosopher has first been a saprobiologist. What view of life might you adopt if your experience is always with organisms who draw their life from consuming decayed matter?

Though almost every quotation in all the sapro-type words has to do with the natural sciences, there is one humanistic one. The OED only gives a tantalizingly brief partial quotation from a 1934 work: "a little saprophile of an anonymous politic-ploughboy setting him off.." I am glad that someone has tried to open the door for the sapro-words to be used in political or general humanistic discourse. I can think of nothing so arresting as to describe one's opponent as a saprobic tyrant, or something like that. I was disappointed in doing my internet search to find that the words saprobic person or saprobic individual never occurred (NOW they do!), but there are hundreds of references to saprobic fungi. Here is another instance where we can be instructed by science--not simply in how to use the word to describe a fungus, but how to "save" the word for general humanistic usage.

I need one other brief essay to finish this.

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