Forgotten English: January 28th - February 2nd
Monday's forgotten word:
Boanthropy (noun) - A form of madness in which a man believes himself to be an ox.
--Sir James Murray's New English Dictionary, 1888
Feast Day of St. Thomas Aquinas,
among the greatest of medieval scholars, who in grade school was nicknamed the "big dumb ox."
Robert Chambers' Book of Days (1864) examined "ruminating men," including one "who actually chews the cud like an ox. He . . . has many extraordinary properties, being eminent for strength and possessing a set of ribs and sternum very worthy the attention of anatomists . . . He can reject meals from his stomach at pleasure, and did absolutely, in the course of two hours, go through the whole operation of eating, masticating, swallowing, and returning by the mouth a large piece of bread and a peach . . . I suppose his ruminating moments are spent in lamenting the peculiarities of his frame."
Paisipae, mythological wife of Crete's King Minos, was said to have contracted a form of boanthropy, fallen in love with a bull, and bore him a highly illegitimate son. Samuel Butler referenced this in his satire, Hudibras (1663-1678):
This made the beauteous queen of Crete
To take a town-bull for her sweet;
And from her greatness stoop so low,
To be the rival of a cow.
Tuesday's:
Strowlers (pl. noun) - Vagabonds, itinerants, men of no settled abode, of a precarious life; wanderers of fortune, such as gypsies, beggars, peddlers, hawkers, mountebanks, fiddlers, country-players, rope-dancers, jugglers, tumblers, showers of tricks, and raree-show-men.
--B.E.'s Dictionary of the Termes . . . of the Canting Crew, 1699
Birthday of Paul Hentzner (1558-1623),
a German lawyer. In 1596, he was hired to tutor a young Silesian noblemen, with whom he set out in 1597 on a three-year tour through Switzerland, Italy, France, and England. After his return home, he published in Latin a description of his travels titled Itinerarium Germaniae, Galliae, Angliae, Italiae, cum Indice Locorum, Rerum atque Verborum (1612).
In 1797, the Earl of Oxford translated this work into English and renamed it Travels in England During the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. Among Hentzner's observations was this profile of inebriated Londoners, jotted about 1605: "The English excel in dancing and music for they are active and lively . . . They are vastly fond of great noises that fill the air, such as the firing of cannon, drums, and the ringing of bells, so that in London it is common for a number of them, when drunk, to go up into some belfry and ring the bells for hours together."
Wednesday's:
Heterarchy (noun) - The government of an alien; from Greek heteros, foreign, and arche, rule.
--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon of the English Language, c.1850
Death of Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864),
English writer and poet. Scornful lectures debunking the Hanoverian "Four Georges," delivered in the mid-1850s in America by William Makepeace Thackeray, inspired Landor to compose these couplets:
I sing the Georges Four,
For Providence could stand no more.
Some say that far the worst
Of all the four was George the First.
And yet by some 'tis reckoned,
That worser still was George the Second.
And what mortal ever heard
Any good of George the Third?
When George the Fourth from earth descended,
Thank God the line of Georges ended.
The "Four Georges" were, of course, followed eighty years later by two more, whom Landor would have undoubtedly been delighted to include in his poem, had he lived that long.
Thursday's:
Milkscore (noun) - (1) Account of milk owed for, scored on a board.
--Richard Coxe's Pronouncing Dictionary, 1813
(2) Zythogala, a word used . . . to signify a mixture of beer and milk.
--Daniel Fenning's Royal English Dictionary, 1775
Feast Eve of St. Brigid,
a fifth-century Irish patroness of springtime and of milkmaids. Her feast was grafted onto an older pagan milking festival and the Celtic Feast of Imbolc, celebrating the arrival of the vernal equinox. Among other things, Brigid is credited with the miracle of having changed her bathwater into beer for a group of thirsty clergymen.
A surprising number of imaginative superstitions involving milk are found in Harry Middleton Hyatt's Folklore from Adams County, Illinois (1935) such as: "Boil the heart of a swallow in milk and carry it on your person, and you can remember anything you hear." A second promised, "Throw a toad into a pond and bloody milk will be given by your cows." A third advised, "It is a sign of bad luck for a cow to enter your house." Another suggested, "Heat cow manure in sweet milk, then place this in a bag and tie it against the ear for earache." Locals also believed, "If you want to miscarry, don't eat anything and take a half glass of sweet milk and two teaspoons of gunpowder. Take four doses four hours apart."
Friday's:
Trumpet marine (noun) - (1) An instrument with a bellows, resembling a lute, having a long neck with a string, which being struck with a hairbow sounds like a trumpet.
--Edward Phillips' New World of English Words, 1696
(2) Tubicinate, to trumpet.
--Elisha Coles' An English Dictionary, 1713
An Early London Concert Series
Jacob Larwood's History of Signboards (1866) reprinted the following advertisement from the February 1, 1674 edition of the London Gazette: "A rare consort of four trumpets marine, never heard of before in England. If any persons desire to come and hear it, they may repair to the Fleet Tavern near St. James's about two o'clock in the afternoon every day in the week except Sundays . . . The best places are one shilling, the others sixpence."
The charms of this curious instrument, also called the "tromba marina," were displayed on at least one other occasion, October 24, 1667. In his diary, Samuel Pepys praised the playing of "one Monsieur Prin play upon the trump-marine, which he do beyond belief; and the truth is it do so far outdo a trumpet as nothing more . . . The instrument is open at the end, I discovered, but he would not let me look into it. But he did take great pains to shew me all he could do on it, which was very much."
Saturday's:
Conbobberation (noun) - (1) Conbobberation, helliferocious, mollagausauger, to puckerstopple, and peedoddles were actually in use, and seem unbelievably outlandish today only because of their unfamiliarity . . . The "tall talk" of the backwoods, moving ever westward with the frontier, left unmistakable traces in the writings of Mark Twain, John Hay, Bret Hart, and a good many smaller fry.
--Thomas Pyles' Words and Ways of American English, (1952)
(2) Conbobberation, a disturbance.
--[My Forgotten English calendar doesn't give a source for this. O_o]
(3) Sockdologer, said to be a corruption of doxology, and to have thence derived the meaning of a final argument or a conclusive evidence which closes a debate as decisively as the singing of a doxology ends religious service.
--M. Schele de Vere's Americanisms, 1872
A Name Change for Samuel Clemens
On February 2, 1863, American novelist Samuel Clemens took up his famous pen name, Mark Twain. According to Twain's biographer, Albert Paine, the author's decision to adopt his pseudonym symbolized the passage from danger to safety. Speaking to a friend in Viginia City, Twain explained the change: "I want to sign my articles . . . Mark Twain. It is an old river term, a leadsman's call, signifying two fathoms - twelve feet. It has a richness about it. It was always a pleasant sound for a pilot to hear on a dark night. It meant safe water." He signed a letter "Mark Twain" on this date, and thereafter it was attached to all of his work.
All text © 2012 Jeffrey Kacirk