Interesting origins of words
It's a perfect toilet tank book. Flipping through it, I found out there's a word for a self-destructive belief I've been suffering with in silence my entire life -- resistentialism: "The theory that inanimate objects demonstrate hostile behavior towards us." (Here's the Wikipedia entry on resistentialism.)
LinkDid you know:
There’s a word for the pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell? Petrichor, combining petros (Greek for stone) and ichor (the fluid that flows in the veins of Greek gods).
An illeist is one who refers to oneself in the third person.
There’s a word for feigning lack of interest in something while actually desiring it: accismus.
For any aspiring deipnosophist (a good conversationalist at meals) or devoted Philomath (a lover of learning), this anthology of entertaining etymology is an ideal way to have fun while getting smarter.
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Etymology's been one of my secret passions for a while now. Every time I hear a word, something pops up in my consciousness that wonders where the word came from. For a seasonal example, why is the traditional dish in the US this time of year turkey? What the hell does that have to do with Turkey (the place)?
http://www.etymonline.com/ is the answer.
But I guess I can come out of the closet now.
This post seems to be missing some links. Here is the Wikipedia entry for "resistentialism":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistentialism
And as the book cover indicates, Anu Garg, the author, is the creator of the website A.Word.A.Day. He also contributes to it often. Check out today's word:
http://wordsmith.org/words/today.html
Also, thefirstman, don't live in the shadows! Etymology is way cool! Etymonline is a fun and very informative site.
I love Anu Garg, and I've been on his mailing list for years, but I gotta say, I think things like this are sort of a crock.
In German, there's a word for "The big white automobile". It will never appear in any dictionary, though, because they already defined the words for "big", "white", and "car". It's a feature of the language that you can chain modifiers onto nouns.
Likewise greek, you can mix all sorts of root words together a variety of ways... So what is Anu's justification of what makes a particular combination a "word"? It's certainly not based on common usage. I'm betting it's just "someone used it in print". So what?
I imagine that when the word "deipnosophist" was used for the first time, the guy who said it didn't realize he was coining a word, and the people he said it to didn't need a definition.
Sorry I'm rambling- my point is this: If we just wanted a list of funny greekish words that nobody's ever heard of, we'd just write a simple algorithm.
Knodi,
Thanks for your comment for and for raising this question:
So what is Anu's justification of what makes a
particular combination a "word"?
Every word featured in this book or in A.Word.A.Day can be found in at least one general-purpose English language dictionary.
Anu Garg
I look forward to getting this in my Solstice stocking!
Also my favourite Bday gift last April,
"The Meaning of Tingo and Other Extraordinary words from around the World" by Adam Jacot deBoinod (Penguin Press)
If we all 'just' wrote algorithm, we'd become code bound and communication'd become meer data, without expression of our sensorium and its impact on our mind and emotions.
Our language has been largely defined and annotated by writers/koiners of of a koin incomparable in its precision.
For us word lovers, now saturated/mediated, I think that blogging will greatly affect our koin ... yay!!
BTW, what IS German for 'girlfriend's pink Cadillac'?
I am an illeist.
Philomath is also the name of a town in Oregon. It's cool that the name actually means something so lofty.
"Sorry I'm rambling- my point is this: If we just wanted a list of funny greekish words that nobody's ever heard of, we'd just write a simple algorithm."
Not so. There has to be a human mind (or a humanish mind) immersed in a particular culture to understand what words mean.
For example, I don't think that if a person actually intended to make up a new word, they'd resort to using an algorithm that would place consonants and vowels in such-and-such a manner so that the resulting "word" would be pronaounceable in the language for which it was written.
I'd argue that there's a very close cultural push behind a word's creation. Look at any disease name. There's some that, concievably, could be attributed to an algorithm. However, the roots, the prefixes, and the suffixes, are all grounded in either Latin, Greek (displaying the western origins of modern medicine) or chemical.
And let's face it, most of the names of the chemicals have roots extending far before their discovery.
I just learned a new, exciting (in the worst possible way) word today: "crowdsourcing". Thanks slashdot, you're a pal. The point is, you immediately recognize what two roots are combined in that word. You know there's an intelligence behind it who wants to tell you something. And they do in in an explicitly cultural way.
This is why etymology fascinates me. Look at a word. Look at turkey! All of a sudden you get a backstory about how trade worked in 1524! That's all packed into one 2-syllable word.
The first word I looked up: It's on the bottom of the screen: Archives:
1603, from Fr. archif, from L.L. archivum (sing.), from Gk. ta arkheia "public records," pl. of arkheion "town hall," from arkhe "government," lit. "beginning, origin, first place" (see archon). The verb is first attested 1934. -etymonline.com
You can see the evolution of a concept. It's a family tree of ideas. "Public records" being a plural of "town hall"? This fascinates me.
I'm kidding. It's 'Pink Cadillac der Freundin'. German is agglutinative, not inane. (When spoken properly. Afternoon talk shows are a different story.)
Post scriptum:
Hehe, nice.
Nex is not an illeist.
Mollyesther@7:
Philomath is referred to in 'Can't Get There From Here' by REM. Hmm, the Wikipedia entry for the town doesn't mention it. Better fix that.
Why would I spend my money on a book of definitions of words I'll never use? "Accismus"? Give me a break.
Albie -- You pretend not to want the book, but you secretly desire it.
resistentialism: "The theory that inanimate objects demonstrate hostile behavior towards us."
Dude, that's not a theory, it's a fact.
Petrichor has a flavour :)