splanchnic and splancha and splanchnology and viscera and reins and king james version

The rallying cry of the first generation of modern Evangelical music was a question posed by Christian musician Larry Norman in 1977: "Why Should the Devil have all the Good Music?" The brief answer to Larry Norman's question in 1977 was, "Because you Christians play such god-awful stuff." Now, 27 years later, I use his question to formulate my own complaint, "Why Should the Doctors have all the Good Words?"

You know what I mean by the question. Whenever you go to the doctor, he or she fills your ear with terminology describing your situation, diagnosing your complaint, summarizing your care. Even if they don't know what you have they can say your condition is "idiopathic," which means that they don't know what you have. But I was thinking that one way to redeem the English language is to take it away from the doctors or, better said, to use some of the language that rolls off their tongues like nursery rhymes to help normal people speak better and think more clearly.

Splanchnic

While thinking these thoughts, I decided to explore one of my all-time favorite terms, splanchnic, and see if we can bring it back to life. I first made acquaintance with this term when I was a student of the Greek New Testament in my early 20s. I loved the term immediately because I enjoyed saying the initial sound over and over --SPL. College students are often at emotional wits end and are always worried about things going "SPLAT" in their lives, so I think that was the original reason for liking the sound.

However, on looking at the word more closely, I became enamored of its meaning. The Greek word is a neuter noun, which generally appears in the plural (splanchna) and refers to one's "inner parts." I love the occasional King James Version rendering of it: the "bowels" or the "reins." It is not meant to be an exclusively medical term, though it has medical attestation from Greek antiquity. In the New Testament, Paul will appeal to his hearers by the "bowels of Christ" or the "bowels of mercy." The verb form can be translated as "having mercy." Thus, the word is used to express the deep inner feelings a person might have, what we might (wimpily) refer to as a "heartfelt" concern.

The Medicalizing of Splanchnic

But then the doctors took over the term and it went downhill from there. It began to refer generally to the "viscera" or collection of vital chest and stomach organs including the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and intestines. In 1706 the word splanchnology was introduced to mean the "scientific study of the viscera." Then, in the early 19th century doctors began to refer to a large white nerve which descends to the diaphragm as the "great splanchnic" or simply the splanchnic nerve. Because many doctors knew Latin and Greek in the 19th century, they began to do what Germans do so well--combining words to form even bigger words. Thus, by the beginning of the 20th century one could have splanchnocranium, splanchomegaly (enlarged viscera) or splanchnotomy (where something of the inward parts gets cut out). We the People were being robbed of our heritage.

Reclaiming Splanchnic

I propose to reclaim splanchnic and have it refer to something deeper than "heartfelt" and something less connected with anger or immediacy than "visceral." It would be a word that is perfectly attuned to our feeling-oriented culture and would suggest a depth of feeling, a total absorption, an all-encompassing inner sense or reaction to a certain situation. We could make an adverb out of it: splanchnically-- as in the sentence, "He spoke to the crowd splanchnically" or, in more elevated prose, "The furrowed brow, the perspiring hands, the slightly flushed countenance were all indications of the splanchnic effect of the news on her."

One reason to bring the term into regular spoken English is that I can already see how the word can be abused or misused. When a word can be misused it definitely belongs in the language, much as a friends' ability to get mad at you shows that you may have entered into a depth of friendship that hitherto had been marked only by surface civilities and pleasantries. Here is an example of misuse. Worker comes up to boss, "What do you feel about my taking a lunch break early?" Boss responds, "Splanchnically-speaking, I don't give a damn."

Perhaps, however, we ought to begin with use of the term; abuse will quickly follow.