Words and sphygmology and sphyraena and sphyrapicus

I think if we meet these three more guys and girls it will suffice for our treatment of SPH for now. The first deals with the concept of a "pulse" and the second and third make use of the Greek word for "hammer." Let's try to hammer out some meaning now.Sphygmology. The Greek word for pulse is "sphygmos" derived from the verb "sphyzein," meaning to beat or throb. When you add "ology" to it you have the "study of," even though we saw in the previous word (sphragistics) that you don't need "ology" to indicate a formal study. But here we have it, the study of the pulse. Sphygmology has tons of kids and lots of relatives living in the same house, and so we can add an "ical" to it (sphygmological) to mean "relating to" the pulse or "sphygmograph," an instrument recording the movements of the pulse or "sphygmometer," an instrument for actually measuring the pulse rate. Ah, here is where we have a problem with the word, which we will encounter in a slightly different form in the ass/name story in another essay. When Greek words come into English, and you wanted to add a "measure" (meter) or "divination" (mancy) suffix, you would have to append it in some way to the stem. But, what if the stem ended in the same letter with which the suffix began ("m")? What would you do? Take our word: sphygmos=pulse. We want to form the word for the instrument measuring the pulse rate ("meter"). So, it is sphygmometer. And so we have the English word. But, what if you wanted to add another thought, that the instrument that measures the pulse measures something "thin" or "elastic," like the beating of a pulse? The Greek word for that is "manos." Thus, we have the word "manometer" and English then developed the term "sphygmomanometer" which ends up meaning the same thing as "sphygmometer." It seems a bit of a waste, doesn't it, to have two words, neither of which anyone uses, to mean the same thing? It is like having two vacation homes that you never visit, though you know they are there (not a problem I personally have, however).But I have my hand on the pulse of sphygmological scholarship and so I want to tell you that sphygmology was known not only to the Greeks but also to the ancient Chinese. In a third century A.D. book entitled Classics of Sphygmology (isn't the title a bit of an oxymoron?), Wang Shuhe identified 24 different kinds of pulse, from a floating to hollow to smooth to full to rapid to running pulse...you get the idea. In that classic work sphygmology was connected to its cousin hemorrheology (the flowing of the blood), though I suspect that hemorrheology only calls sphygmology on major holidays. The words sphygmology and sphygmograph have a utility even today, however. When some earnest au courant person claims to have taken the "pulse" of the culture, you can calmly ask him or her about the nature of the sphygmometer used. Or, you can ask with a quizzical look on your face, did she or he use a sphygmomanometer instead to ascertain the pulse.Sphyraena. There is no good reason why I should even try to claim the word for intelligent discourse. But Ms. Sphraena is a nice woman, and she has a cute kid named "sphyraenoid," even if I usually expectorate on her while pronouncing her name. The word is derived from "sphyra," which is the Greek word for hammer, and it denotes in English a pike-like fish or barracuda (genus Sphyraena). I guess that makes sense; the fish has a long and slender body and a rather elongated and pronounced head. But why should we leave the word with a few icthyologists? Since it is derived from "hammer," how could we use it? We couldn't use it really as a verb, as when first-year lawyers at big firms say "I am being hammered with work this afternoon." It just wouldn't work to say "I am being sphyraened by work." Nope. But, let's try it as an adjective. The form, then, would be sphyraenic, and we could use it in the phrase "sphyraenic tone," either of speech or writing. Maybe we could agree that it rhymes with irenic, to which it would then be opposite. So, we could talk about the "sphyraenic [hammering] argument of Justice Scalia," which occurs almost every time he dissents from the majority of his brethren and sistren on the High Court. In this regard we could distinguish it from "splenetic," a great word that educated people know. The latter would emphasize the "splanchnic (see Billphorism 58)" nature of the attack, while "sphyraenic" would stress the intensity and unremitting character of it. So, we have one more word, from a most unlikely source. Ms. Sphyraena graciously thanked me after I explained how in this way she could play a vital role in public "discourse" of our generation.Sphyrapicus. Though this is getting long, and the beer and hot dogs are almost all gone, we have to introduce Mr. Sphyrapicus before we leave. Actually, he is a wily one. He doesn't even appear in the massive Oxford English Dictionary but does show himself for some reason in Webster's 2nd International (Unabridged) from 1950. The college I work in sometimes is challenged to keep up with modern scholarship, so the 1950 version of the dictionary is on the stand in the library--you know, the dictionary stand where the current unabridged, which is rarely touched, is supposed to be opened continually to page 1138? But, the benefit of an out-of-date dictionary being on the stand is that sometimes it has more obscure words in it that have fallen out of usage--certainly not the message this chic and hip school is trying to communicate to its socially well-adjusted students, though, of course, no one gets the message.Back to Mr. Sphyrapicus. "He" is a woodpecker, but he combines a Greek and a Latin word in his name. We have "hammer" from Greek, but "picus" is the Latin word for woodpecker. "Picus" can also mean an imaginary bird, but Mr. Sphyrapicus is no imaginary guy, let me tell you. So, it is almost as if he double hammers us, so to speak. He has "hammer" in his name and "woodpecker" in his name, and we get the impression that he just keeps slamming and pecking away at things. Why not invent the word "sphyrapicic (or "sphyrapic)" then for the relentless beating and pecking that many people have experienced from a spouse or other loved one. Indeed, the word may have a special resonance in the area of family relations. Why not instruct little Johnnie to tell little Amber to keep her sphyrapicic nose out of his business? Multiple other examples come to mind.

Let's leave this block party now and go elsewhere.