repand, Oaxaca Journals, Panderus, Troilus and Cressida, O'Horten

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repand (Latin re- again, pandas bent)   [re pand’] adjective, having a slightly undulating margin.   

     I love the subtle, almost intimate distinctions of definitions.  This adjective is a biological term, botanical actually. and gently recalls the beauty of my favorite Oliver Sack’s book, Oaxaca Journal, in which he traveled to Mexico with the New York Fern Society.   I have seen graceful illustrations of repand leaves with a ‘gentle’ undulation of the margins, as opposed to the more vigorous, seaworthy ‘undulate’ margins of other leaves.  Even more boisterous are the serrated leaves, the Nordic Vikings of foliage.  I myself am a repand pisces.  

     As a pediatrician, just today I saw a gentle young Latino girl who proudly showed me a large red rash that I noted had a repand edge…although I didn’t know it was a repand rash at the time.   As an artist and poet, I often appreciate the gracefulness of the presentations of illnesses despite their obvious pathos, ala the surgeon Richard Seltzer.’s essays.   I collect some strikingly beautiful medically related poetry and will try to quote them later for you.

    Some thoughts on repand and the concept of being ‘bent’  into a curving edge.   Its seems to be a fit philosophical and poetic metaphor. 

  I took a break from thinking about this surprising word tonight and started to read my very last Shakespeare play, Troilus and Cressida.  At my age, with the passage of time, each milestone is bitter sweet, tinged with ‘sweet sorrow,’ (Romeo and Juliet), intimation of my having been bent from my original state of grace.  I actually ambivalently am excited and simultaneously dread the reading of the last paragraph after reading every word of Shakespeare.  In any case, in the play, Cressida’s Uncle is Pandarus…an ironic coincidence with the similar “pand” element.  Perhaps there is a similar etymology here, as Pandarus bends his niece’s affections towards a romantic relationship with Troilus.  As he thinks of his role in encouraging this couple to get together, he says, “Let all pitiful goers-between be called to the world’s end after my name: call them all panders.” 3.3.202-204.  

    And speaking of ‘bent,’ my favorite movie director and producer is the Norwegian Bent Hamer (of “O’Horten,” my favorite movie).   I will have to look up a Norewegian dictionary of etymology.  

    Pandemonium, pandemic…all with the root “pan” as opposed to “pend.”       Panda?  A Nepalese derivation. 

     I do love the connotation of life’s gentle ‘bending’ of our soul, of our character.  As a wise soul who helped hurricane survivors was quoted recently, ‘If we don’t know our weaknesses, we would never know our strengths.”  Biblically, I am trying to ‘honor my gray hairs.’  No hat for me.  Give me the ancient oak tree with its crooked branches and intriguing bifurcating bark as opposed to the young sapling.  

        

renaissance, nascent, Shakespeare, journals in Seattle

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renaissance (Latin  re - again, nasci to be born) a period in Europe from the 1300’s to the 1600’s, beginning in Italy.  It bridged the period from Medieval times to modern times and saw the rejuvenation of humanistic pursuits; a flourishing of the arts and literature.  Literally a ‘re-birth.”’ 

     Similary, nascent means a rebirth, a re-emerging. 

    I am reading all of Shakespeare now and am in mourning that I have come to my last play;  Shakespeare wrote in the late 1500’s and into the beginning of the 1600’s…a renaissance of literature and also my own personal renaissance/re-birth of my passion for literature.   Who among us is not striving for a renaissance of our spirit, our heart, our intellect?  

     For me, my sojourns during travels nominally to pediatric conferences culminates in days and nights of walking the cities and gardens of Portland, Seattle and San Francisco with a book and 

a journal in my backpack, in search of that spark that re-ignites my soul.  

refrigerate, Frigga, frigorific, refulgent, regisseur, remorse, Inspector Morse, A. E. Houseman

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refrigerate (Latin, frigor cold) 

     This leads to the word frigorific, causing cold, chilling

     Note that the Norse goddess Frigga is, ironically, the goddess of marital love.  I had mentioned previously that a marriage therefore could be Frigorific (cold, unemotional) or “Frigga-rific.”  

refulgent (Latin, fulgere to shine)  brilliant, radiant, a resplendent quality of radiance.  

     I think that I like this word because it includes “resplendent” in the definition.  

regisseur (French)  \rah gee sour’\  a director responsible for a theatrical performance, such as a ballet.  

     How many of us have the opportunity to use this word?  The emotional power and beauty of “the ballet” is unmatched.  I have witnessed and experienced this…to the point of being speechless and overwhelmed.  

remorse (Latin re- + mordere to bite)  gnawing distress from a sense of guilt

    Never has an etymology hit the nail on the head as this one does.  Even if you haven’t read MacBeth, the experience of this ‘gnawing’ sensation is universal.  I love the PBS series “Inspector Morse” and one of my favorite episodes was the finale, The Remorseful Day.  Morse quotes a beautiful poem titled “The Remorseful Day” by A. E. Houseman, with its exquisite images and emotions.  Colin Dexter, as mentioned in his obituary, was planning on writing a biography of this poet, his favorite, but someone had written it just previously.  

reduviid, hemptera, pterygoid, cicadas, shellac, lac bug, Flintstone vitamins

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reduviid  (Latin reduvia  fragment, or hangnail)  \ri dyu’ vee id\  a large family of insects that are blood sucking hemipterous insects comprising the assassin bugs.

     This definition is worthy of a John Le Care novel.  I’m not sure how we go from hangnail or fragment to the reduviids.  (Actually it is part of the anatomy of the abdomen.)  This family of insects, hemiptera, includes 50,000 to 80,000 species…and I wonder what budding young Darwins,  or graduate students in entymology, categorized all these species.  

    So…hemiptera (Latin, ptera wing) \hem ip’tera\   These insects have two pairs of wings and also mouth parts for sucking fluids.  The ‘wing’ denotation is for part of the anatomy of 'fragments' attached to their abdomen.  The mouth parts are not a pleasant thought but, as consolation, this family of insects includes the poetic cicadas without which childhood memories of summer would be incomplete.  

     Also, these insects give us shellac and the dye cochineal or carmine. 

     In medicine, there are several words that use ptera (the ‘p’ being silent), such as the pterygoid bone of the skull near the sphenoid sinus.  It is a beautiful butterfly shaped bone that is ‘wing shaped.’

     Cicadas were first mentioned over 2,000 years ago in Homer’s Illiad.  (I have just reread The Odyssey and The Illiad but I don’t recall the cicadas playing a big part.)

   

     Here is a word journey: reduviid, hemipterous, lac bug, Southeast Asian word for 100,000, shellac, Flintstone vitamins…

    Reduviid’s also have something to do with children’s vitamins…   I was looking at the label of Flintstone vitamins at work and was surprised that one of the ingredients was shellac.  A varnish in a child's vitamins?  Unknown to me is the fact that shellac is a product of insects: the lac bug which is a reduviid.  These bugs suck the sap from the bark of a tree and excrete a shellac precursor.  The bark is scraped off and heated in canvas tubes over a fire, the liquid shellac dripping out.  It takes about 300,000 bugs to produce 2.2 lbs of shellac.  The Southeastern Asian word for 100,000 is “lac.”  The word shellac derives from French for ‘shell’ and ‘lac,” laque en ecailles (lac in thin pieces).  

     Shellac as been used for over 3,000 years…for example, on valuable pieces of furniture and precious dowry items and as a paint or varnish.  In the 1920’s and 30’s, most records were made of shellac until the invention of vinyl in 1949.  It is used on fine violas and pianos as well.

    Lastly, since shellac is edible, it is used as a glaze on pills (Flintstone Vitamins) and sweets (Jelly Bellys). 

recalcitrant, calcaneus, recherche, redolent

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recalcitrant (Latin calx heel) not responsive to treatment; obstinate, resistant 

    I like this word because of the etymology involving ‘heel’ - to kick back, dig one’s heels in.  The heel bone of the foot is the calcaneus. 

     Yesterday, I was reading Harold Bloom on Macbeth (among his favorite three Shakespeare plays) and he was saying that initially Macbeth is recalcitrant in pursuing the murder of King Duncan of Scotland so that he may assume the throne.  His wife, Lady Macbeth, however is eager for him to do this.  Yet, as the play progresses, there is a transposition as Macbeth more actively pursues his campaign of assassination and violence, just as Lady Macbeth’s recalcitrance increases to the point of being overwhelmed by a sense of guilt and remorse.   

recherche (French) \re sher shay’\  exquisite, exotic, refined; also…pretentious

redolent (Latin oler to smell)  exuding fragrance; evocative or suggestive

     The is the same root as olfaction (the sense of smell).  I had forgotten this word but, ironically, this is a very important concept to me.  Emitting fragrance and being emotionally evocative are one and the same for me.  Every few years I return to my alma mater and walk the rustic campus of Princeton with great anticipation and joy.  I silently reminisce (Shakespeare’s beautiful sonnet 30) on my past experiences there when I younger, so naive and hopeful, so eager to experience life.  

     At each venue, the ancient lecture halls, the entrance of Cuyler Hall, my first dormitory with its leaded windows, golden oaked walls and stone fireplace, I inhale the beautiful, evocative, redolent aroma of these physical objects and am transported almost ecstatically forty-five years into the past to times of new friendship, dating, athletics and sincere intellectual pursuit. 

rapprochement, rasorial, gallinaceous, raspberry, reap, strickle

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rapprochement (French re + approcher  to approach) \ra prosh mah’\  to re-establish cordial relations

   

     It is nice to hear the delicate French etymology; to see how ‘approach’ is tucked away in this gentle and rarely apropos word.  

rasorial (Latin rasus scraper) \rah zor’ ee al\  habitually scraping the ground in search of food; i.e.rasorial birds.  

    The intriguing synonym is gallinaceous (Latin gallinus hen, gallus cock)  heavy bodied terrestrial birds (order Galiformes) such as turkeys, grouse, pheasants and fowl.  They are, of course, all rasorial…

raspberry a fun word to spell, at least, as it contains the word ‘rasp,’ perhaps because the small round ‘drupes’ look like a rasp or file.  

     But the main reason I have picked this word is because of the second definition: 'a sound of contempt' made by protruding the tongue between the lips…well, you know…

reap (Old English, a row) to cut with a sickle or scythe, i.e. you reap what you sow, Biblically speaking.  

     I don’t think many of us have reaped anything.  Actually, all of our days are spent reaping what we sow metaphorically and karmically speaking.  However, as to physical reaping, that is another story. I know that I haven’t, at least not intentionally.  

     Actually I take that back.  One of my sons bought a scythe last year to clear overgrown weeds and hay from an acre of rustic land that he had purchased.  I reaped that day…for about half an hour.  It was back breaking work that I soon abandoned, my body completely drenched.    I recall reading an article that correlated the wealth and cultural achievements of a society with the amount of oil and gas that they produced and used.  Now I understand this concept.  

     However, I haven’t whet a scythe before (the word strickle was mentioned previously: strickle: an instrument used to whet a scythe ). 

Rama, Krishna, George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord," rampike, Rankine, Madquorn

Rama (Sanskrit, to stand still, rejoice, be pleased)  Rama is one of the seven avatars (incarnations) of the Hindu God Vishnu.   Krishna is another such avatar.   Rama is one of the central figures in Hinduism and in India’s cultural traditions in general.  

     This word calls back to me the former Beatle George Harrison’s beautiful song “My Sweet Lord.”  

rampike (origin unknown)  an erect dead or broken tree. 

     Another word in that intriguing category, “origin unknown.”  (See introduction for a list in this category.)  To me, these desolate rampikes are as powerful as poetry in their stark, lonely pathos...

Rankine \ran’ kin\  a temperature scale named after a Scottish physicist, using Fahrenheit degrees but in which the freezing point of water is 491 degrees and the boiling point is 671 degrees.

  

    This is a new idea for me; shocking actually.  Different from the minimalist Celsius scale (with it's logical 0 and 100 degrees for freezing and boiling point) and the free-wheeling, American use of Fahrenheit (32 degrees for freezing).  Forget the classic SAT question of how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit.  How about converting to Rankine units?  

 

     William John Madquorn Rankine was a renowned physicist and engineer in Edinburgh specializing in thermodynamics.  More importantly, he was an avid amateur pianist, singer and cello player and played humorous songs. 

raffish, rakish, raga, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Ravi Shankar, rain forest

raffish: rakish 

     (crude, vulgar)

raga: (Sanskrit, a color)  ancient traditional melodic patterns and motifs in Indian music that ‘color’ the mind of the listener.  The musician will improvise on this pattern of notes.  There are hundreds of ragas and probably 30 basic ones. 

     The term raga is mentioned in the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita.  

     I once took out the “best” of Ravi Shankar’s music.  The melodic raga’s were a gentle surprise; so different from our European scales, with many 1/2 tones.   It was a mesmerizing journey of infinite variety, taking the mind on a gentle, subtle voyage.

rain forest: a tropical woodland with an annual rainfall of 100 inches.  

     Astounding…over 8 feet of rain.  

rabbit, raccoon, Algonquin, Teddy Roosevelt, Sagamore Hill, raceme, Xopenex, inflorescence, radio, the wireless

      rabbit (from Middle English) related to ordinary hares but differs from them in producing naked young.

     I never thought of differentiating species by whether their young are covered with hair or fur or not.  Humans distinctively produce very vulnerable babies with a long gestation and a long time of nurturing until independence; I think it is appropriate and symbolic that we are born naked.

raccoon (from Algonquin arahkun)   I include this just because of the Algonquin etymology.  

          There are many other words from the Algonquin language, since this was the first Native American tribe to encounter English explorers on the East Coast.  (The name of my street in St. Louis, Missouri was Algonquin Wood, so I have a special, emotional attachment to this word.)  

     Other words include Mississippi, Michigan, tomahawk, moccasin, moose, the New England quahog, and also Sagamore which meant ‘chief,’ i.e. Teddy Roosevelt’s rustic home and oasis which I visited with my children was Sagamore Hill, appropriately. 

raceme: (Latin racemus bunch of grapes) /raye' seem/  a type of inflorescence (the pattern that flowers and buds grow on stalks).  See the wonderful table on inflorescence in the dictionary…a very poetic group of words.  

         A raceme is an inflorescence in which flowers, on short stalks of the same size, grow from the stalk in equal distances as they approach the apex. 

        In biochemistry, a racemic mixture is composed of equal parts of dextro- and levo- molecules (mirror images).  I use these chemicals almost daily to treat my ADHD and asthmatic patients (xopenex is the levo- form of albuterol, and therefore has less side effects and a longer duration...all because of the mirror image to 'the left').

radio  the etymology comes from ‘radius’ since these electromagnetic waves radiate outwards.  

          The initial application to communication was in the 1881 (Alexander Graham Bell, Hertz) but the term “wireless” was preferred.  

          The term “radio” was adopted in 1907 and became popular in the 1920’s with broadcasting (the Roaring Twenties).  However, Britain clung to the term ‘wireless’ until the 1950’s.  (Interesting that we have come full circle and 'wireless' is the latest craze, i.e. WiFi.)

         My parents, born in 1927, have fond childhood memories of sitting in the living room and listening to the suspenseful radio shows (The Lone Ranger) in the 1930’s and 40’s.

R, Roentgen, Ra, ragweed, rapacious, ratite, Rubicon

R: this starts a new section, with 64 pages (much less than the s's).

To begin this section of the r’s, here are some ecumenical etymologies: from Latin, Egyptian as well as from German.

 

R: this letter stands for a Roentgen (a unit of x-ray radiation, named for the scientist who discovered x-rays).
 

Ra (Egyptian)  the Egyptian Sun God; their chief deity
 

     Amazingly, Ra originated in the 25th century B.C.  This makes our short span of American history seem so insignificant.   Not surprisingly, beer had a role in Ra’s story...even 4,500 years ago they found a use for alcohol.    When mankind tried to undermine Ra, Ra sent a goddess to punish mankind.  However, she was pacified…with beer mixed with red dye. 

ragweed:  these weeds produce a highly allergenic pollen. 

     Ironically, the name of ragweed's genus is ambrosia
 

rapacious: [L. rapper, to seize]  excessive covetousness, ravenous, voracious
 

ratite: [Latin: rates raft]  /rah tite’/  having a flat breast bone;

     This also refers to specific birds that have a flat breastbone with rudimentary wings, i.e. an ostrich, emu, moa or kiwi
 

Rubicon: [Latin: rubrico red; a river in Northern Italy]  The phrase ‘crossing the Rubincon” connotes an action that commits a person irrevocably.  It is crossing a line that has been symbolically set.

     The actual Rubicon river  in Italy has water that is often colored red by its distinctive mud.  

     Historically, this river separated Cisalpine Gaul (a province of Italy inhabited by the Gauls North of the river ) from Italy proper to the South.   When crossed by Julius Caesar in 49 B.C. it was regarded as an act of war 

syrinx, Syrinx, Pan, syzygy, X-Files, Silver City, New Mexico

This concludes the s's...always a sad moment for me to conclude a letter. But...there are many other words that I keep in another list for each letter to talk about later.  I have only covered 7 of the 26 letters so far, with very large sections yet to come.  (347 pages of the dictionary discussed so far, with 1,008 more to go...)

   

syrinx: the vocal part of a bird's lower trachea and bronchi that it uses to sing.

Syrinx: the maiden who chased the Greek god Pan; she was turned into reeds that he would play as a musical instrument.

         So many of our words are derived from Greek mythology.  I will create this category in the introduction.

syzygy  [synm  together, with;  zygon zygote (egg), yoke or conjunction]  \sih' zih jee\:  

alignment of three celestial bodies, i.e. solar eclipse (earth, moon, sun)

     Although I felt like I was the only one to have ever discovered this eclectic word (even joking about it during tennis matches), I have come to discover that it is the title of one of the X-Files episodes (where syzygy causes some teenagers to develop telekinetic powers) and also the name of a tile company from Silver City, New Mexico (of course) with beautiful, muted mosaic appearing tiles.  The company was founded during a lunar eclipse (a syzygy).  

struthious, ratite, emu, kiwi, moa, stygian, suede, Svedberg Unit, swagger, swineherd

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struthious: [Latin: struthio ostrich] \strew' thee ous\ resembling an ostrich. 

    ratite [ratios raft] /ra' tite/ a synonym for ostrich; to be more accurate, this is a bird with a flat breastbone and rudimentary wings, i.e. ostrich, emu, kiwi and a moa.

stygian: [the river Styx]  \stih' jee an\   dark, forbidding.  

In Greek mythology, after death people are borne over the river Styx to Hades.  I recently read Dante’s Inferno and his portrayal of the river Styx was a dark and forbidding scene of course.  

suede: [French]  means "Sweden" (pronounced 'shwed' in French).  Leather with a napped surface.  gants de Suéde, Swedish gloves

Svedberg Unit:  a part of a second.  10 to the minus 13th of a second (a ten trillionth of a second)

     I recall reading a NYT’s article twenty years ago about the new record for recording the shortest measurement of time.  It described, as I recall, documenting a small movement of atomic particles in so many Svedberg Units. The analogy was that one Svedberg unit is to one second just as one day is to several trillion years.    

     In physics, a second is defined as about 9 billion oscillations of a cesium atom.  

     This unit was named after a Swedish chemist, Theodor Svedberg (b. 1884), a winner of the Nobel Prize in 1926 in chemistry and inventor of the ultracentrifuge.

swagger: to walk in a "superciliously pompous" manner.

     This is where an editor is useful; in popular Western paperbacks, I am sure they replaced “He entered the dusty bar with a superciliously pompous gait”…with “He entered the dusty bar with a swagger.”

swanherd:  one who tends swans

     There is a swanherd in England who works at The Abbotsbury Swannery.  He states that he is the only swanherd in the country.  Also, notably, the queen has a swan warden.  His description of his work actually sounds like a very rewarding job if you enjoy conservation and nature. 

stadium, furlough, STD, sternulation, sternutator, stertor, stertorious, strait, strickle, to strickle, whet a scythe

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stadium: [Latin, span]   a span of 606.95 feet; this was the length of the track for foot races in ancient Rome.  It is equivalent to 1/8 of a mile, which is also a furlough. 

    

STD:  abbreviation for "Sacred Theological Doctor"

   

    They say irony is key to humor…

sternutation: to sneeze  

    sternutator: something that causes sneezing

stertor:  snoring 

stertorious, adjective

strait: [narrow; to tighten] i.e. isthmus; also, a strait jacket

   a difficult position, i.e. dire straits

strickle: instrument used to whet a scythe 

    Although I love how eclectic this definition is (when was the last time you whetted your scythe?),  there is more…

    A strickle is also the rod used to level things, such as concrete after pouring, a plaster wall, or the rod to level grain during measuring.  Almost every parent has probably "strickled" the small cup of powdered formula while making bottles.  Thus, strickle is also a verb.  

    Pictures of antique strickles are quite beautiful, such as rich, mahogany colored wood strickles from the 1800’s. 

Spanish, spatter, spoon drift, sprachgefuhl, spume, squaroot, squeeze, squeg

Below are words of Flemish and Icelandic derivation, an "ish" word, as well as the most poetic of words in the s section: spume and spoon drift.

Spanish:  an "ish" word, i.e. 'Spainish'

spatter: [Flemish derivation] 

spoon drift: mist from waves 

sprachgefuhl: [German. gefuhle feeling, sprache language, to speak]  

     \shprahk ke fuel\  Conforming to the standard language  

Saying "y'all" while living in South Carolina

spume: foam, i.e. spumoni.

squaroot: a broomrape herb.

squeeze: [Iclandic kveisa]

squeg:  to oscillate in a highly irregular fashion 

sitar, Ravi Shankar, George Harrison, smack dab, smegma, sommelier, soprano, spaghetti, spangled

sitar: [Hindu, sih three,  tar strings]

   In 1965, George Harrison of the Beatles released the first record to incorporate the sitar…”Norwegian Wood”.  He also played the sitar on the hauntingly beautiful songs “Within You Without You” and “Across the Universe”  for Sgt. Peppers  Lonely Hearts Club Band.

    Ravi Shankar was a musical role model for me, akin to the spiritually based music of Maurice White and Earth, Wind and Fire.  This was evidenced by the very spiritual approach he took to his music.   Here is an excerpt from his obituary from the NYT’s:

Ravi Shankar, Sitarist Who Introduced Indian Music to the West, Dies at 92

‘I Surrendered Myself’ 

       “He was the first person frank enough to tell me that I had talent but that I was wasting it — that I was going nowhere, doing nothing,” Mr. Shankar said. “Everyone else was full of praise, but he killed my ego and made me humble.”   When Mr. Shankar asked Mr. Khan to teach him, he was told that he could learn to play the sitar only after he decided to give up the worldly life he was leading and devote himself fully to his studies. In 1937 Mr. Shankar gave up dancing, sold his Western clothes and returned to India to become a musician.   “I surrendered myself to the old way,” he said, “and let me tell you, it was difficult for me to go from places like New York and Chicago to a remote village full of mosquitoes, bedbugs, lizards and snakes, with frogs croaking all night. I was just like a Western young man. But I overcame all that.” 

       After studying with Mr. Khan and marrying his daughter, Annapurna, also a sitarist, Mr. Shankar began his performing career in India. In the 1940s he started bringing Eastern and Western currents together in ballet scores and incidental music for films, including Satyajit Ray’s “Apu” trilogy, in the late 1950s. 

       Coltrane named his son Ravi Coltrane, also a saxophonist, after Mr. Shankar. 

       Mr. Shankar was the subject of a documentary, “Raga: A Film Journey Into the Soul of India,” in 1971

smack dab  exactly (origin?)

smegma: [soap]

sommelier: (French, sommier, a person in charge of transportation;)    somme, a burden)  \suhm uh l yey’\  a waiter in a restaurant or club in charge of wines

         In reference to sommelier, see the entries under "zyme"... which I will repeat below:

zymology, zymurgy: the branch of chemistry that deals with fermentation, i.e. the study of wine

    Speaking of wine…other words that come to mind are:

     oenophile: (Greek oinos, wine) \ee’ noh file\  a connoisseur of wine

          oenophilist: same meaning

          oenophilic, adj.

          oenophilia, the love of wines

Of course, there is Homer’s Odyssey, with it’s many references throughout to “the wine dark sea.”   A book of great poetic description.  I recently read the Odyssey again and counted all the references to this phrase scattered throughout the work .

soprano:  [supra]  the highest pitched voice or part

spaghetti: [Italian: diminutive of spago thread, string]  

It is the plural of spaghetto.

spangled:  [diminutive of "spang" = a shiny ornament] glittering

semester, September, sesquipedalian, shakti, shaktism, shandy, shandy gass, Shih Tzu, shillelagh

     These words remind me of how we are so culturally interconnected...globalism at its best.  Here are words next to each other in the dictionary, English words, derived form Rome, Italian, Hindi, China and Ireland.  Perhaps instead of xenophobia we have xenophilia. 

semester: [sex six, mensis moons] equivalent to six moons = six months

September: [L. septem seven] the seventh month of the ancient Roman calendar, March being the first month.  

     A misnomer.  When the Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1582, January and February were added on and September became the ninth month.  

     

sesquipedalian: [sesqui  one and one-half, ses semi,  ped a foot, as in 

a foot in poetry] using long words. 

sgraffito: to carve away the surface to reveal the picture you are creating.  

Also, to change color

shakti: a Hindu goddess, signifying cosmic energy, orgiastic rites.  

    Shaktism.

shandy: beer and lemonade 

     shandy gaff: beer and ginger ale

Shih Tzu:  [Chinese: shi lion, tzu son]  These Pekingese (meaning from Peking or Beijing) dogs were bred to be the Emperor's dog in China.

shillelagh:  [Irish, Shillelagh a town in Ireland famed for its oak trees]  \shih lay' lee\  a walking stick.

seersucker, self, selenium, selenology, self, semaphore, Nuclear Disarmament

seersucker: [Hindu, shir milk,  shaker sugar] a light fabric of linen or cotton, usually striped and slightly puckered.

selah:  \see' lah\   a word of uncertain meaning from the Hebrew psalms.  It is untranslatable into English.

    Very intriguing…

selenium:  [selene  \seh lee nee\  moon]  an element

   Yet another beautiful word from Swedish (indirectly) origin...it was discovered by the Swedish chemist Jons Jacob Berzeliua.  He noticed that it was similar to another new element that had been discovered call tellurium (the name meaning 'Earth'). 

   Selenium is vital for human functioning, being found in infant formula.  I use if for various skin conditions.  I used to joke with my residents if they were having a difficult time finding the correct diagnosis to 'check the selenium level' since it seemed so esoteric.

     selenology: the study of the moon.

self: the word 'self' is incorporated into 402 words and other derivatives which containing the word self 

     In contrast, the word 'sex' has 40 such words 

semaphore [Greek sema sign, Greek phoros carrier]  a system using two arms or flags in each hand to visually signal letters; often used in ship to ship communication.

    The letter N is both hands held downwards at 30 degrees from the waist; the letter D is one hand straight up, the other straight down.  The combination  of these two letters makes one of my favorite signs, especially on an ancient VW bus: the peace sign.  It consists of N and D  combined, signifying “Nuclear Disarmament”.  Ahh…the beautiful music and thoughts of peace and community of the ’60’s and 70’s.  The drummer in the band I was in during the ’70’s owned a light blue VW bus that we would jam our equipment (and each other) in and tour central NJ going to various gigs. 

schadenfreude, schlemiel, schuck, schmo, schlepp, schtick, shiksa, satyriasis, satyr, saxophone, sedan

Schadenfreude:  [German  schaden shattered,  freude joy, pleasure]  

\shah' den froid ah\   Shattered joy.  Taking pleasure in other's misfortunes

     Ironic to think that Sigmund Freud’s name means joy or pleasure although not really surprising when you think of all the urges of the Id, all unconscious and suppressed by the superego.  Is there a happy medium or does it all boil down to his essay Civilization and It’s Discontents?  See satyriasis below… 

    There was a recent New Yorker cartoon with a sign on the window of a bar with happy musical notes surrounding the lettering, saying “Schadenfreude Hour: 4-6!”

Yiddish words:

     schlemiel: a bungler, chump

     schmuck, schmo: [Yiddish shmok a fool, a penis]

     schlepp: to move or drag from one place to another

     schnozzle: nose

     schtick:  

     shiksa: a non-Jewish girl, or a Jewish girl who does not follow Jewish precepts

     I miss hearing the humorous, pithy Yiddishisms from my friends and patients in Connecticut.  Once my wife asked a Jewish doctor if she should come back for a follow-up visit in 2 months, as he had mentioned earlier.  He paused, a noncommittal look on his face, lifted his hands and said, “ish.”  Less is more; the humor of the vagaries of life.  

     

satyriasis: being lecherous.  The Satyrs were Greek sylvan deities, half goat, 

who were fond of Dionysian revelry.  

     synonym: nympholeptic

saxophone: invented by Adolphe Sax, from Belgium

sedan [origin unknown]

    To be added to the mysterious  ‘origin unknown’ list under the introduction.