words and thlipsis and thixotrophy and psychopannychy and psychopannychians and thnetopsychism and reformation and arabia

"Thl" and "Thn" are notoriously hard to pronounce. They both build off the Greek theta, which is one letter in Greek and two ("th") in English. We might tend to ignore these sounds because of their difficulty were it not for the fact that each produces an interesting word ("thlipsis" and "thnetopsychism"). Don't be alarmed; the concepts are really quite simple, and it is a good discipline to learn to pronounce these words clearly and effortlessly. On my trip to visit both "thl" and "thn" I decided I would also stop and visit thixotrophy, a relative of the trophy I studied in the previous essay. Here is what I found.

Thixotrophy

I love the concept behind thixotrophy. Derived from the Greek word "thixis," meaning "touching" or "rubbing", it refers to a substance or gel that becomes a fluid when agitated but reverts back to a gel when left to stand. Thus, something that is thixotrophic becomes liquid when shaken and coagulates when left standing. One scientific publication defines it with admirable succinctness as "reversible gelation." As is my wont, I would like to take it away from exclusive ownership of the scientists and bring it into elevated speech about human relationships. Thus, if one has a thixotropic lover, it would be one who "loosens up" only when "shaken" but then returns to his (usually a male) obdurateness when the agitation stops. Women could bemoan their thixotropic partners, as they continued to long for a soulmate who would melt and stay melted right along with them. We all probably have images of someone who fits the bill, so to speak.

Thlipsis

A little further down the road is the thlipsis family. They are quite an interesting breed, much more compelling than their OED identification. That, by the way, is as a medical term meaning "compression, especially constriction of vessels by an external cause." Indeed, the Greek root means "pressure" or "crushing," with the verb being "thlibein," but it was taken over by the early Christians to denote the Great Tribulation that was supposed to happen at the end times. This Tribulation (the "thlipsis") would see oppression, death and slaughter throughout the earth until the Second Coming of Christ. So, why not capture the word for use today in a non-medical way? People's lives are always falling apart, and we need to have some linguistic variety in describing these events. People make far too much use of the words "disaster" or "train wreck" or even "holocaust" to describe their personal losses. Let's bring back thlipsis to describe a personal catastrophe. "The thlipsis I endured was almost more than I could bear." "The thliptic devastation reduced her to tears." Even if the disaster doesn't go away you will at least derive some pleasure from pronouncing the word.

Thnetopsychism

This is much easier than it sounds and looks, and it signifies the belief that the soul ("psyche") dies ("thnetos"=mortal) upon the death of the body but will be recalled to life at the Last Judgment. The OED says that this was the belief of a Christian sect, appropriately known as the Thnetopsychitae, who arose in Arabia in the 3rd century. And it is logical that such a belief arose, for I Tim 6: 16 is an epistolary doxology to the God who alone dwells in immortality. If God alone is immortal, then can't it be inferred that we mortals cease to exist at least between the time we die and God sets all things straight?Though the soul dies in this word, the word itself didn't die but transmuted itself into a softer term, psychopannychy, a belief that conveniently existed in Reformation Europe for the Reformers to attack. Psychopannychy can be colorfully broken up into psyche ("soul") and pannuchios ("lasting all night"), and means the "all-night sleep of the soul," (i.e., from death to Last Judgment) though a strict reading of the word might suggest that the "all night soul" is on an "all nighter" as we might say, either partying or studying or something like that. Nevertheless, beginning with John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, the Psychopannychians became a group, like the Socinians and, later, the Arminians and Unitarians, whom Reformed Christians loved to bash. Yet, the doctrine of psychopannychia has never really died out. The soul might sleep or, alternatively, die for the nonce, but belief in the soul's sleep never slumbers or sleeps.

With that weak attempt at humor, I think I'd better move to something else now.