Words and similar words and anacephalaeosis and epiphonema and epiphoneme and epanodos and onomasiology and orismology

I will have to confess that as a word-nerd I like to pay attention to shades of meaning between words, both words of common usage and more obscure terms. If I can show how two seemingly overlapping or identical terms, neither of which anyone knows, actually differ in meaning, I feel I have done my part in helping to bring a deeper level of knowledge to the universe. So, in this mini-essay I investigate one pair and one triplet of obscure but seemingly similar terms.

Onomasiology and Orismology

When studying words relating to "name" (onoma, see mini-essay on 'ass and names'), I came across onomasiology, a term that is easy to define but rather hard to conceptualize at first. It means, literally, the "study of the principles of nomenclature." OK. That is the definition, but the meaning of 'principles of nomenclature' doesn't just leap at me off the page. So, I found an online journal appropriately called Onomasiology Online ("OO"), which began publication in 2000, and which defines the term as a "branch of lexicology that asks for the names bestowed on a concept by different speech communities." Getting warmer. Then, I turned to one of the past editions of OO and found an article on the naming practices of witches in Baltic fairy tales. Ah. Now it is clear. Onomasiology is, primarily, a comparative venture in which linguists investigate the names and reasons for difference or similiarity in names for the same concepts in different cultures.

When I first came upon orismology I thought I had a precise synonym. Derived from the Greek word "horizein" ('horizon' or 'boundary'), orismology is "a name for the explanation of technical terms" or, simply, "terminology." So it seems to be the study of terminology. At first this doesn't help me, but knowing the earliest use of the term (1816) clears it up. Two British scientists were offended by the inelegance of the word "terminology," because it combined a Latin root and Greek root in the same word. Thus they invented orismology which means precisely the same thing as terminology, though now with the more linguistically pure, from the perspective of 19th century British speech, roots. Not unexpectedly, terminology has triumphed over orismology in our speech. While both orismology and onomasiology, therefore, study the words we use to name things, the former is just not worth spending any effort on--it simply means terminology--while the latter is very rich in its comparative, historical, and geographical significance. Glad I cleaned up that one.

Three Rhetorical Terms

One of the pleasures of listening to speeches is knowing that they will soon end (except, perhaps, if you are a Presidential Candidate at the party's convention). It wasn't always so, of course. For example, on the cold November day in which Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address, he spoke for only a few minutes but the "main orator" of the day, Senator Edward Everett, spoke for more than two hours. When you speak that long you need to be able to summarize or conclude well. Even those who speak shorter, like preachers, need techniques to "wrap it all up." The Greek rhetorical tradition has at least three terms to help us out here: anacephalaeosis, epiphonema and epanodos. Focus on each will help sum up this mini-essay.

Anacephalaeosis sounds a lot worse than it is. Once you learn to pronounce it, you can walk around town all day repeating it to yourself. With the accent on the "lae," the word has a rhythmic quality to it that almost makes it sing. In it we see the Greek word for "head" (cephale) and the preposition "ana," meaning "again" or "up." So, it is a summing up, or in the words of the OED, a "recapitulation or summary of the principal heads of a discourse." There is attestation in English for the very anacephalize (to recapitulate), but I would urge caution in using this one too often lest people think you are talking about sexually-transmitted diseases.

The second is epiphonema or, Anglicized, epiphoneme. This is derived from the verb "phoneo," meaning to "call out" and "epi" meaning "upon." The voice in Greek is the "phone" from which we get a bunch of English words. A catchy use of the term comes from the Renaissance rhetorician Puttenham when he says, "The wise man...in th'ende cryed out with this Epyphoneme, Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas." The just-quoted words are from Ecclesiastes, and though they appear at the beginning of the Book of Ecclesiastes rather than the end, an epiphoneme has to appear at the end. An epiphoneme is an "exclamatory sentence or striking reflection, which sums up or concludes a discourse." Ah, there is the shade of difference from anacephalaeosis. The epiphoneme usually has a striking rather than a mere summative character. A writer from 1659 says, "Witness that solemn Epiphonema, 'His mercy endureth forever' [citing, {by mistake,} Ps. 145:17]." Almost all examples of the use of this term are derived either from the Scripture or Scriptural commentators; perhaps an additional distinction, then can be drawn between the "summing up" in a speech (anacephalaeosis) and the striking summary in a commentary or the text of Scripture (epiphoneme).

Then, a word on epanodos. It is a rhetorical term connoting two things: either a return to the main portion of an address following a digression or an 'inversion,' in which several terms are discussed in the reverse order in which they are introduced. A biblical example of the latter is from Genesis 10, where the three sons of Noah are introduced as Shem, Ham and Japeth, and then the sons of Japeth, Ham and Shem are introduced as the chapter progresses. If you keep the root words of epanodos clearly in mind, you can't go wrong. "Epi" is "upon," "ana" is "again," and "odos" is "road." I always hear Willie Nelson singing "On the Road Again," whenever I think of the word epanodos. Maybe that--returning from a digression--should be its leading meaning today, in honor of Willie.