magniloquent

I specialise in making businesses’ words easier to read and understand. It’s not about dumbing down – it’s about using the same words we’d say in conversation, and eliminating formal business-speak that people think makes them sound smart, but in fact just makes their words harder to understand. Here’s an example from a well-known supermarket’s* website Ts&Cs:

Before Emma: ‘We may update these Terms from time to time and any changes will be notified to you via the e-mail address provided by you on registration or via a suitable announcement on the Site.’

After Emma: ‘We might update these terms. If we do, we’ll email you to tell you about the changes using the address you gave us when you signed up. Or, we’ll tell you about them on our website.’

This guy looks like he’d use five words when one would do

Same content, but written in a much more straightforward and easy-to-understand way (also, in three short easy-to-digest sentences instead of one incredibly long one).

So what does this blatant plug have to do with ‘magniloquent’? Well, this week’s word is an adjective (a describing word’), used for language that’s intended to sound very impressive and important. So basically the ‘Before Emma’ example above. You can also use it to describe a person who uses that type of language.

The origin of ‘magniloquent’ is Latin – ‘magnus’ means ‘great’ and ‘loqui’ is a verb meaning ‘to speak’ (we also get ‘eloquent’ from ‘loqui’). Smush the two together and you get ‘magniloquus’, which is the Latin predecessor to ‘magniloquent’.

We started using ‘magniloquent’ in English in the 1600s, although its synonym (a magniloquent way of saying ‘word which means the same’) ‘grandiloquent’ had already been kicking around for a hundred years or so. Both these words are still used today, although ‘grandiloquent’ is probably the more common of the two. Unless I’m around of course…

*It’s Tesco’s general terms and conditions. Hey Tesco, I’m available for work if you want your words to be more readable?

parchment

You know what parchment is – ye olde paper, usually made from some poor old animal’s skin. But did you know it’s named for a city? OOH.

The word ‘parchment’ comes from a Latin word, ‘pergamenum’. This is derived from ‘Pergamon’, the name of an ancient city in Asia Minor (now Turkey), which was renowned for producing top-notch parchment back in the day.

Parchment was big business. That’s because it lasted longer and was easier to make than papyrus – the papyrus plant was primarily grown in Egypt and other regions with similar climates, making it difficult to get anywhere else. That meant parchment would take over as the preferred writing material in Europe during the Middle Ages, and remain in use for centuries afterwards.

‘Reconstructed’ (which I assume means ‘made up’) view of the Pergamon Acropolis by Friedrich Thierch, 1882

Pergamon was the capital of the Kingdom of Pergamon, which was founded in the 3rd century BCE by the Attalid dynasty. The Attalid guys loved a bit of art and science, and Pergamon was a cosmopolitan city that attracted scholars, artists and intellectuals from all over the Mediterranean. It was also home to a famous library that rivalled the Library of Alexandria in Egypt (which was mahoosive), being home to at least 200,000 scrolls.

(In the interests of being a little bit historically accurate – although that’s not something the normally stops me – parchment had been used in Asia Minor long before Pergamon became a major city. Not sure what they called it though…?)

Sadly Pergamon didn’t survive, and by medieval times was no longer a major city. The good news is that it’s now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and you can even go and tourist there next time you’re in Turkey.

mundivagant

This is a lovely old word which has now sadly all but disappeared. It’s an adjective (AKA a describing word) which means ‘wandering through the world’. It has Latin roots and comes from ‘mundus’ meaning ‘world’, and ‘vagant’ meaning, you’ve guessed it, ‘wandering’ or ‘roaming’.

While you’re being mundivagant, you can also be a solivagant (this one’s a noun – and former word of the week – not an adjective, so it needs an indefinite article i.e. the ‘a’ before it). That means you like to wander on your own – ‘soli’ being Latin for ‘alone’ or ‘solitary’. And if you only want to do it at night, then you’re ‘noctivagant’ (this one’s an adjective again), ‘nox’ being ‘night’ in Latin. Although being a noctivagant solivagant might make you look a bit creepy…

Diogenes no-longer-of-Sinope-because-he-was-a-big-old-fraud (dunno who the dog was)

The ‘vagant’ bit of these words is also where we get the less-romantic word, ‘vagrant’. Nowadays ‘vagrant’ has quite negative connotations and we usually use it to describe people who’ve ended up on the streets. But it wasn’t always that way. Diogenes of Sinope was an ancient Greek philosopher who lived in the 4th century BCE, and was often referred to as a ‘vagrant philosopher’. He lived in a jar (yes, you did read that right – it was a very big jar, obviously) and survived by begging for food. He used this simple lifestyle and behaviour to criticise the social values and institutions of what he saw as a corrupt, confused society.

This is all well and good until you find out that Diogenes’ dad, Hicesias, was a banker, and it was likely he followed in his father’s footsteps. At some point, Hicesias and Diogenes were involved in a scandal involving adulterating or debasing currency (that’s when you lower the value of coins by reducing the quantity of gold, silver or nickel in them, but continue to say they’re worth the same amount). Because of that Diogenes was exiled from Sinope, and lost his citizenship and all his possessions. Hmmm, that makes the mundivagant lifestyle a little bit less of a philosophical choice and more of a necessity, doesn’t it, Diogenes…?

anodyne

Someone said this to me on the phone the other day, and I realised I didn’t know what it meant (look, I don’t know ALL the words, guys). If you already know what it means, well done you. If not, we mainly use anodyne as an adjective (AKA a describing word) to refer to something that’s unlikely to offend or cause discomfort. So basically something that’s a bit meh. We also use anodyne as a noun (person, place or thing) for a medicine or substance that relieves pain.

Anodyne has been around in English since the 16th century. We nicked it from the Latin word ‘anodynos’ which is itself derived from the Greek word ‘anōdunos’. Both of these mean ‘painless’ or ‘free from pain’. So that’s where the literal meaning for painkiller comes from. And over time ‘anodyne’ has evolved a more figurative meaning for something that’s very middle of the road and doesn’t cause any upset.

A painkiller that certainly isn’t anodyne is general anaesthetic, which knocks you out for operations or if you’re trying to get BA Baracus on a plane*. But did you know that, even though we’ve been using them for hundreds of years, no one actually knows how general anaesthetics work? Scientists have worked out that they put you to sleep by reducing communication between your brain cells, but that’s pretty much all they know. That’s not at all scary. And my apologies if you have any kind of procedure coming up and didn’t know that.

*Dated reference.

monster

You know what a monster is – a large, frightening, usually imaginary (although there are plenty of real-life monsters, sadly) creature that’s generally trying to hurt or kill someone or something. But have you ever wondered where the word ‘monster’ came from?

‘Monster’ is a pretty old word, first appearing in the English language somewhere between 1000 and 1200 AD, when Willy the Conk invaded England and brought the French language with him (from which we borrowed lots of words, especially legal ones). The particular French word we’re interested in here is ‘monstre’. It comes from the Latin word ‘monstrum’, the past participle of ‘monere’, meaning ‘to warn’. So how did that turn into the gruesome noun we know today? Well, in ancient Rome ‘monstrum’ was used to describe anything strange or grotesque that could be seen as a warning from the gods or a bad omen – like a two-headed calf, for example. Over time the term evolved to cover anything a bit scary and/or weird.

One of the most famous monsters in my neck of the woods is probably Black Shuck, a ghostly black dog said to silently prowl the dark country lanes and coastal footpaths of East Anglia (and one of several black dog myths found all over the UK). Black Shuck is sometimes seen as an omen of death, but is also described as being quite friendly. Its size varies from that of a large dog to a horse. Black Shuck was first described in print by one Reverend ES Taylor in an 1850 edition of a journal called ‘Notes and Queries’ as ‘Shuck the Dog-fiend’. He said:

‘This phantom I have heard many persons in East Norfolk, and even Cambridgeshire, describe as having seen as a black shaggy dog, with fiery eyes and of immense size, and who visits churchyards at midnight.’

According to the OED, the name Shuck comes from the Old English word ‘scucca’, meaning 'devil’ or ‘fiend’.

One of the most famous reports of Black Shuck is of its appearance at the churches of Bungay and Blythburgh in Suffolk. On 4 August 1577, Black Shuck is said to have burst through the doors of the Blythburgh Holy Trinity Church accompanied by a clap of thunder. It ran up the nave, killed a man and boy in the congregation and somehow caused the church steeple to collapse through the roof. It left via the north door leaving scorch marks, which you can still see to this day. It also later appeared in St Mary’s Church in Bungay on the same day, which was recorded in ‘A Straunge and Terrible Wunder’ by Abraham Fleming:

Suffolk’s finest rockers The Darkness wrote a pretty awesome song about Black Shuck (which also mentions Blythburgh) on their 2003 album ‘Permission to Land’, which you can listen to below.

rebarbative

‘Rebarbative’ is an adjective (AKA a describing word) you can use for someone (or something) that’s repellent, irritating or unattractive. And as they probably won’t know what it means, they won’t realise you’re insulting them. Winner winner chicken dinner.

‘rebarbative’ is a word of two halves, It comes from the Latin word ‘rebarbare’, which is made up of ‘re-’ meaning ‘against’, and ‘barba’ which means ‘beard’ or ‘hair’. Why is it hairy? Well, rebarbative was originally used to refer to something that was so horrible it caused your hair to stand on end. Like spiders. Or Donald Trump.

The record for the world’s longest beard is currently held by one Hans Langseth, even though Hans is no longer with us. He was a Norwegian-American who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and his beard was a whopping 17.5 feet (approximately 5.33 meters) long. I realised when I googled Hans that I’d already written about him for former word of the week pognophile, so head to that post if you’d like to know more about him.

Growing your beard super long can be a hazardous business. In 1567, another man called Hans died when he tripped over his own beard. Hans Steininger, or Staininger depending on which page of the internet you look at, was the burgomaster (i.e. head honcho, or mayor) of Branau, a town then in Bavaria but now in Austria. He usually kept his beard, which was 4.5 feet (1.4 metres) long at the time, rolled up and tied with a leather strap to keep it out of the way. But on that fateful day in 1567, he was responding to an emergency (possibly a fire) and forgot to roll it up and out of the way. When rushing down some stairs he fell over it and broke his neck. Poor old Hans.

torpedo

I’m sure you know what a torpedo is – an underwater weapon with an explosive warhead that propels itself towards a target, often accompanied by Harrison Ford and some dramatic music in the background. But do you know why a torpedo is called a torpedo? Well, it comes from a Latin word, ‘torpere’, which means ‘to be stiff’ (behave) or ‘to be numb’.

I’m now going to take you on a mini tour of Europe. Ready?

In the 16th century, the Italians called an electric ray (the fish kind) a ‘torpedine’. This was based on the numbness bit of ‘torpere’ – because if you got electrocuted by the fish, you went numb. This word then moved to Spain (that fish obviously got about a bit), where it was changed to ‘torpedero’.

Robert Fulton – I would

Next we’re going to France, where the word ‘torpille’ appeared in the mid-19th century for a kind of explosive device used in naval warfare. This was probably because of the electric ray’s ability to immobilize underwater prey with electric shocks. This word was later borrowed into English as ‘torpedo’. An American inventor called Robert Fulton (1765–1815) popularised it as a term to describe explosive charges when he added them to the Nautilus, his submarine.

As well as building the world’s first ‘proper’ submarine, which he designed between 1793 and 1797, Fulton had a series of homosexual and polyamorous relationships during his life, including living with a couple in Paris for six years. He died from pneumonia after diving into an icy Hudson River to rescue a friend who’d fallen in. None of this is relevant to torpedoes, but I’ve included it because he sounds like a TOTAL LEGEND.

recalcitrant

Despite sounding like a medical complaint, recalcitrant is an adjective (AKA a describing word) for someone or something that stubbornly refuses to follow rules or instructions, while also being a dick about it. Think stroppy teenagers, Donald Trump or my dog*.

Recalcitrant’s angry roots are Latin, from ‘recalcitrare’, which is a combo of ‘re-’ (meaning ‘back’ or ‘again’, as in ‘return’, ‘recall’ and ‘recover’) and ‘calcitrare’, which means ‘to kick’. Why kicking? Well, in its original sense, ‘recalcitrare’ was used to describe the behaviour of a stubborn or unruly horse that literally kicked back at someone trying to control or train it. Over time, we’ve extended the term’s meaning to describe people who resist authority, are uncooperative, or are unwilling to be controlled or directed.

I asked my friend ChatGPT if he (it’s definitely a he) had any stories about stroppy horses. And he told me about Clever Hans. Now Clever Hans wasn’t actually stroppy (so I don’t think ChatGPT is going to be taking over the world just yet, seeing as he can’t even get that right), but it is quite an interesting story, so I thought I’d include it here anyway.

Clever Hans was a horse born in 1895ish who became famous for doing sums and other clever things. He would answer questions by tapping his hoof, and became a sensation in Germany in shows run by his owner, Willhelm von Osten. Hans could add, subtract, multiply, divide, work with fractions, tell time, keep track of the calendar, differentiate between musical tones, and read, spell, and understand German, which makes him much cleverer than yours truly.

Sadly, it turns out although Hans was a very clever horse, he was perhaps not quite as clever as everyone thought. A psychologist called Oskar Pfungst carried out a series of experiments to understand how Hans was answering questions correctly. And he discovered that the horse was actually responding to subtle (and unconscious) cues from his trainer and human audience. For example, when he was asked a question, he would start tapping his hoof. When he reached the right number of taps, the audience would involuntarily exhibit subtle body language changes like tensing up or relaxing. Hans would stop tapping when he detected these cues, giving the appearance of getting the question right.

One of the ways Pfungst realised he was doing this was that he only got the answer right when the person asking the question knew the answer themselves. This is now called the ‘Clever Hans effect’, and has changed the way scientists all over the world investigate animal intelligence.

Even after he was debunked, von Osten, who refused to believe Pfungst's findings, continued to show Hans around Germany, where he still attracted large and enthusiastic crowds. It’s worth pointing out that Willhelm never charged for any of these shows, either before or after Clever Hans was outed. Nice, right?

Also, I still think Hans was pretty clever.

*I love you really, Gus.

Clever Hans with Willhelm

salary

Ah, salaries. Something we’re all a bit obsessed with as we navigate the cozzie livs*. But did you know that the word itself actually has a fairly surprising etymology?

‘Salary’ comes from the Latin word ‘salarium’, which itself comes from ‘sal’ in Latin, meaning ‘salt’. This is because, back in the ancient Roman day, salt was a really valuable commodity. This wasn’t just about making food taste good either – salt was vital for preserving it in a pre-fridge world. And that was crucial for those Romans centurions off conquering and building roads, installing sanitation, and all the other things mentioned in The Life of Brian.

Because of all this value, salt was actually used as a type of currency. And that meant the word ‘salarium’ was used to describe payments given to soldiers to cover their expenses, including to buy salt (presumably not with salt as currency though – that would be mental). Over time, the meaning of ‘salarium’ expanded to include any regular payment made to someone in exchange for their services, becoming ‘salary’ along the way.

The St Kinga Chapel (by Cezary p, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Salt mines have existed for thousands of years, and one of the most famous ones is the Wieliczka Salt Mine in Poland. It produced salt from the 13th century right up to 1996 (when it was closed due to falling salt prices and flooding). The mine is now a tourist attraction and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and reaches a depth of 1,073 feet (327 metres) while extending for over 178 miles (287 kilometres). It’s particularly famous for the St Kinga Chapel, which is entirely carved out of salt, including the floor, walls and even the chandeliers. The chapel is about 330 feet (101 meters) below the surface of the Earth, and is named after St Kinga, the patron saint of salt miners. Apparently the acoustics are fantastic, so lots of concerts are held there, as well as an annual music festival – you can even get married there.

*Irritating slang for the cost-of-living crisis.

succinct

Last week’s word of the week was about Very. Long. Speeches. So this week, we’re keeping it short. If you’re succinct, it means you express yourself in a clear and brief way without adding unnecessary details – you’re concise and to the point. Which is ironic for a word that definitely has more ‘c’s in it than any word really needs.

Being succinct is a big part of the way I write for businesses – why use 10 words when you can use five? It saves everyone time. Like skipping ‘in order to’ – just say ‘to’. Seriously, try it.

Anyway, pitch over – back to ‘succinct’. This word comes from the Latin ‘succinctus’, which is the past participle of the verb ‘succingere’. And ‘succingere’ is formed from ‘sub’, which means ‘under’ (as in ‘submarine’, ‘subway’, ‘substandard’, and so on), and ‘cingere’, which means ‘to gird’ or ‘encircle’. The original Latin term actually referred to the act of tightening your belt – literally, not metaphorically.

Not Ananta Ram

Over time, ‘succinct’ evolved to describe something expressed concisely and clearly, just like tightening that belt. This change in meaning happened when the word came over into English in the late 15th century.

Someone who definitely isn’t succinct is Ananta Ram, from Kathmandu in Nepal, who holds the Guinness world record for the longest speech. It came in at a massive 90 hours and 2 minutes. The speech started at 6.15am on 27 August 2018, and finished at 12.17am on 31st August. Ram was silent for almost seven days beforehand to prepare.

Our very own Gyles Brandreth holds the record for the longest ever after-dinner speech at 12-and-a-half hours (which he did for charity – I can’t find it on the Guinness world records’ website though, so I’m not sure if it’s still valid). When he first broke the record he celebrated by doing a handstand, which you can see on his Instagram page. You can also book Gyles Brandreth for an after-dinner speech for the tidy sum of £10,000 to £15,000 – I’d be doing handstands too if I could earn that for a speech.

filibuster

In case you’re not an expert on political systems (which I definitely am not), a filibuster is a parliamentary tactic, often used in the United States’ Senate. It involves a member of the legislature speaking for a long time, or engaging in other tactics like raising lots of points of order, to try to delay a vote on a bill. This works because in the United States’ Senate there’s no time limit on individual speeches. So a senator can potentially speak for hours or even days to stop a vote.

There are a few ways to end a filibuster, including a three-fifths majority vote (usually 60 out of 100 senators in the US Senate) to invoke ‘cloture’ (another new-to-me word). This is a formal process that limits further debate and schedules a time for a vote on the bill.

So, why is this type of long speech called a ‘filibuster’? Well, it comes from a Spanish word ‘filibustero’, which originally referred to pirates or buccaneers doing naughty things in the West Indies and Central America during the 19th century. ‘Filibustero’ probably has its origins in the Dutch word ‘vrijbuiter’, which means ‘freebooter’ or ‘pirate’. It wasn’t long before this term that previously described pirates became a word for a parliamentary obstruction tactic.

Strom Thurmond – allegedly racist AND sexist (I cut the top of his head off on purpose)

The longest filibuster on record came from the awesomely named Senator Sturm Thurmond, who sounds like a Star Wars character. Despite his excellent moniker, Thurmond was a vehement opponent of the Civil Rights Act 1957, and supported racial segregation (apparently he also had a reputation for fondling women in elevators – he sounds like a massive dick). His filibuster to stop Black Americans getting the vote started at 8.54pm on 28 August and lasted until 9.12pm THE FOLLOWING DAY – that’s a massive 24 hours and 18 minutes. Thankfully it didn’t work, and the bill passed two hours after his filibuster ended. It was signed into law by President Eisenhower within two weeks. Up yours, Sturm.

pia

My mum put this down in Words With Friends the other day, which prompted me to look it up as I’d only ever seen it as a woman’s name before and obviously proper nouns are NOT ALLOWED. Well, it turns out we all have a pia – it’s an anatomical term, the full version of which is ‘pia mater’. And it has quite an interesting backstory. (Disclaimer: I’m no biologist, so apologies if you are and I’ve got any of this wrong.)

The pia mater plays a vital role in keeping our central nervous systems healthy and functioning properly. It’s one of three meninges (sets of membranes that provide a protective covering) that surround and protect our brains and spinal cords. The other two are the dura mater and the arachnoid mater. The pia mater is the innermost layer that directly covers the surface of the brain and spinal cord. It’s a thin, transparent membrane that sticks closely to our brains’ contours, following the folds and grooves. It also surrounds the spinal cord.

The pia mater’s primary function is to support, protect and nourish the underlying neural tissues by carrying blood vessels that supply nutrients and oxygen to the brain and spinal cord. If you fall down a lot like I do, then you should be grateful to your pia mater, as it protects that brain and spinal cord from impacts.

We are of course here for the words, so why is it called a pia mater? If you did any Latin in school then you might be ahead of me here – it translates to ‘tender’ or ‘gentle’ ‘mother’ (the word ‘pia’ is the feminine form of the Latin adjective ‘pius’). The name ‘pia mater’ was introduced during the Renaissance period (14th to 17th centuries) when anatomical knowledge was expanding, and Latin was the universal language of science and academia, and has stuck around ever since. It was probably called that because of the way it encloses the surface of the brain and spinal cord, cradling them like a mother. Nice, right?

Oh, and you’ve probably guessed that ‘arachnoid mater’ translates as ‘spider-like mother’, because of its web-like appearance. And ‘dura mater’ means ‘tough mother’ due to this outermost meninge’s durable and robust nature. It’s one tough mother f*cker.

ambigram

An ambigram is a word, phrase or symbol that you can read from different orientations or perspectives, usually in at least two different ways. So the word or symbol is still legible when you rotate it or look at its reflection, and might reveal a different word or phrase.

If you’ve lost interest after this convoluted explanation, let’s look at a couple of examples:

SWIMS

This is a rotational ambigram, which means it reads the same when rotated 180 degrees (i.e. upside down).

NOON

This can be designed as a mirror-image ambigram – so if you look at it in a mirror, it reads MOON.

Image from https://www.johnlangdon.net/works/angels-demons, © John Langdon

To make them work, ambigrams are often done in fancy-dancy calligraphy, which means they’re popular as logos and tattoos. Dan Brown used this in his rubbish book ‘Angels and Demons’ where the Illuminati’s symbol is an ambigram (that was designed by John Langdon, who has loads of cool ambigrams on his website).

Ambigrams aren’t the same as palindromes, which are defined as words, verses or sentences that read the same backwards as they do forwards. So ‘deified’ is a palindrome. But ‘noon’ is both a palindrome and an ambigram (head explodes).

Ambigram is a portmanteau (a word made up of two other words), in this case a combination of ‘ambi-’ from the Latin word ‘ambidexter’ meaning ‘both’ or ‘on both sides’, and ‘-gram’ from the Greek word ‘gramma’, meaning ‘grandma’. Not really, it means ‘letter’ or ‘written character’.

The term ‘ambigram’ was coined by Douglas R. Hofstadter, an American scholar of cognitive science, physics and comparative literature, in the early 1970s. He’s known for his interest in puzzles and visual art, and exploring patterns in language. He introduced the concept of ambigrams in his book ‘Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid’, which was published in 1979. Such was his influence that he even gets a mention in ‘2010: Odyssey Two’ by Arthur C. Clarke (the sequel to ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’), when scary (especially now) AI HAL 9000 is described by the character Dr Chandra as being caught in a ‘Hofstadter–Möbius loop’ (I tried to find out what this actually means, but it was far too complicated for little ole me).

Hofstadter also created his own law (I want a law!), which is ‘It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law’. This basically means that any task or project will probably take longer than you thought, even if you take into account Hofstadter’s law that it’s likely to take longer than you thought (second head explosion).

(Oh, and in case you were wondering, Leonard Hofstadter in The Big Bang Theory wasn’t named after our Doug, but after Robert Hofstadter, an American physicist who won the 1961 Nobel Prize in physics. He was Douglas’s dad though (that’s one talented family).)

evanescence

Today’s word of the week is brought to you by ‘I Capture the Castle’, a coming-of-age novel by Dodie Smith (who’s probably most famous for having written ‘The Hundred and One Dalmatians’). I’d never read it before, and if you haven’t either I thoroughly recommend it. It tells the story of Cassandra Mortmain, who lives with her bohemian but impoverished family in a crumbling castle in rural Suffolk in the 1930s. The family is made up of her beautiful but bored sister, Rose, her glamorous stepmother, Topaz (who enjoys dancing naked in the rain every now and again), her little brother Thomas, her eccentric novelist father who’s been suffering from crippling writer's block after publishing one successful book and Stephen, a sort of servant/adopted child who has an almighty crush on Cassandra. Honestly, it’s wonderful. And it’s also where I saw this word used in the following quote:

Perhaps he [Simon, Rose’s fiancé and Cassandra’s crush – yep, there’s a love triangle*] finds beauty saddening—I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked Father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty’s evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die. Then he said I was probably too young to understand him; but I understood perfectly.

Now if you, like me, were a teenager in the 90s, you’re probably thinking of American goth rockers Evanescence who released bangers like ‘Bring me to life’ and… actually, that’s the only one I can think of. And really, it’s a perfect name for an angsty alternative band. The word ‘evanescence’ is an adjective (a describing word) for something that’s temporary, ephemeral (another good word), or likely to be forgotten over time. Like fleeting moments, fading memories or the passage of time itself…

Sorry, I got a bit carried away there. Let’s come straight back down to earth with some etymology. ‘Evanescence’ comes from the Latin verb ‘evanescere’. That’s a combo of the prefix ‘e-’, meaning ‘out’ or ‘away’ (see also ‘eject’, ‘evict’ and ‘emit’, among others) and the verb ‘vanescere’ which means ‘to vanish or disappear’. That’s formed from ‘vanus’, meaning ‘empty’ or ‘vain’, and the suffix ‘-escere’ which indicates the beginning of a process or state. This suffix also turns up in words like ‘convalesce’ (to start getting better), ‘effervesce’ (to start bubbling or frothing) and ‘adolesce’ (to start being a stroppy teenager). Sorry, I think I sucked all the beauty out of it, didn’t I?

*If you factor in Stephen as well, then maybe it’s a love square? There’s also Neil, Simon’s brother, who I suspect may also be involved, but I haven’t finished it yet so I can’t be sure. Also, that would make it a love pentagon which is ridiculous.

trivia

You know what trivia is – information that’s usually quite interesting and perhaps not that widely known, but probably not that important. Also a thing that you have to have ready when you’re female and you tell a man you’re interested in something, and he immediately asks you to prove it (actual conversations with male friends: ‘I’m a big Star Wars fan.’ ‘Really? How many forms of communication is C-3PO fluent in*?’ And: ‘I love watching tennis.’ ‘Yes? How many French Opens has Nadal won**?’)

The word ‘trivia’ comes from Latin and is the plural form of ‘trivium’ (but don’t ever use the singular version because you’ll sound like a dick), which means ‘place where three roads meet’. In ancient Rome, ‘trivium’ was used to refer to the three subjects of the beginners’ liberal arts course at university, which were: grammar (my fave), rhetoric (the study and practice of persuasive public speaking) and logic (a branch of philosophy focusing on valid and sound reasoning). While these might not seem that trivial to us, the fact that ‘trivium’ was the name for the beginners’ class is probably why it’s since evolved to refer to less important information.

I asked my robot overlord, ChatGPT, to tell me some trivia, and here’s what it said:

• Honey never spoils. Archaeologists have found pots of honey in ancient Egyptian tombs that are over 3,000 years old and still perfectly edible.

• The shortest war in history occurred between Britain and Zanzibar in 1896. It lasted only 38 minutes.

• The world’s oldest known recipe is for beer. It dates back to ancient Sumeria around 1800 BCE.

• The Eiffel Tower in Paris was originally intended to be a temporary structure, built for the 1889 World’s Fair. It was almost dismantled afterward but was saved because of its value as a radio transmission tower.

• The average person spends around six months of their lifetime waiting at red traffic lights.

• The national animal of Scotland is the unicorn.

• The world’s largest flower is the Rafflesia arnoldii, which can grow up to three feet in diameter and weigh up to 24 pounds. It’s also known for its distinctive smell, often likened to that of rotting flesh.

• Astronauts’ height can change in space. Without the force of gravity compressing their spines, they can grow up to 2 inches taller while spending extended periods in space.

*It’s six million. Which I did know.

** It’s 14. Which I didn’t know. But I do now, and I’m ready for you, men.

condolence

You’ve probably offered someone your condolences at some point in your life. It’s a common enough word that we use when someone’s suffered a bereavement. But have you ever wondered what your condolences actually are, and why you’re offering them? (I’ll try to keep it light.)

‘Condolences’ comes from the Latin word ‘condolere’, which means ‘to suffer with’. It’s made up of the prefix ‘con-’ which means ‘with’ or ‘together’ (as in ‘connect’ and ‘congregate’) and ‘dolere’, meaning ‘to grieve’ or ‘to feel pain’. So when you offer someone your condolences you’re actually saying that you share their grief or pain. Nice, right?

We’ve been offering our condolences in English since the late 16th century. And you can also use it as a verb. So you can ‘condole’ with someone – but they might think you’re a bit weird if you say you’re going to do that.

Time to put the fun in to funeral (sorry), with some facts. Alexander the Great’s funeral, which was held in Babylon in 323 BCE, is up there as one of the most elaborate ever held. According to historical accounts, the funeral procession included over 20,000 soldiers and a 100-foot-high funeral pyre, covered in gold and surrounded by treasures and offerings.

The prize for the most bizarre (and also, most awesome) funeral goes to the American author and journalist Hunter S Thompson, who died in 2005. Called (by himself) his ‘blast-off ceremony’, it featured a 153-foot-tall cannon shaped like a double-thumbed fist, a symbol that Thompson often used in his writing, clutching a peyote button (a small cactus containing psychoactive alkaloids, including mescaline). The cannon was emblazoned with the words ‘Faster, Higher’ and blasted Thompson’s ashes into the air during the funeral, accompanied by a 10-minute fireworks display. It was watched by celebs including Johnny Depp, Sean Penn, Bill Murray and Jack Nicholson. That’s one helluva way to go.

botuliform

Shaped like a sausage. That’s what it means. Because the Latin word for ‘sausage’ is ‘botulus’. I can’t believe it’s not more popular. Now, you might be thinking that’s because it sounds like ‘botulism’, a rare but serious illness that attacks the body's nerves and causes difficulty breathing and muscle paralysis until your heart stops and you die. And you would be right.

SAUSAGE

Botulism was first identified in 1822 by someone called Justinus Kerner, a German poet and doctor. His doctoring was apparently better than his poetrying (the only one I can find is about a saw – yes, the things you chop wood with), and when lots of his patients started dying of a horrible illness that paralysed every part of their bodies, he realised they’d all been chowing down on cheap sausages. So he decided to call this new illness botulism, or ‘sausage disease’. He also rightly worked out that these sausages must contain a toxin which he called ‘botulinum’.

Fast forward to 1895 and a funeral in Belgium. Three of the guests at the wake drop dead from food poisioning (which cut out the middleman funeral-wise), and the culprit was found to be some ham they’d all eaten. The ham was sent to the University of Ghent where someone put it under a microscope and identified the bacteria whodunnit. And in a strange case of medical serendipity, it turns out the little bastards were sausage-shaped.

Turn that frown upside down with some biological warfare

Now called ‘clostridium botulinum’, this bacteria is so bloody lethal that it’s up there with anthrax as one hell of a biological weapon, causing almost instant death by paralysis. So surely it must be banned, right? Wrong. Because a little bit of instant paralysis can actually be a very good thing, at least if you’re a woman (or man – but mainly woman) of a certain age or a Kardashian. Because sausage poison has since been rebranded as, you’ve guessed it, botox. The world is a funny place, isn’t it?

PS: If you’ve ever wondered why sausages are sometimes called hotdogs, it’s because in 19th-century America many people believed sausages were made of, you’ve guessed it, dog meat. So they called them hotdogs. Simple, but gross. And hopefully not true today.

quiddity

The most popular sport in the wizarding world, it’s played on broomsticks, and involves each team… I jest, of course. Quiddity is a philosophical concept that describes the thing that makes something what it is – its essence. So you could write: ‘Emma’s weekly posts capture the quiddity of complicated words in straightfoward prose.’ Oh really? How kind of you to say, thank you so much.

It’s nothing to do with HP. But there are no good pictures for ‘essence’.

Now, my two major word-of-the-week sources (which are Wikipedia and Merriam-Webster), disagree on the meaning of quiddity. The one above is Merriam-Webster’s definition, which is the one I’m going with because it’s easiest to understand. But according to Wikipedia, quiddity is a bit more complicated, and describes the properties that a particular thing shares with others of its kind. This makes it the opposite of something called ‘haecceity’ or ‘thisness’ (which apparently is an actual word) i.e. a positive characteristic of an individual that causes it to be this individual, and no other. See why I’m going with the first one?

Quiddity comes from a Latin word, ‘quidditas’. That’s a translation of a Greek phrase ‘to ti en einai’ , meaning ‘the what it was to be’, which sounds like something a drunk person would say.

Quiddity can also refer to a small and usually trivial criticism or complaint, or to a quirk or eccentricity in someone's behaviour or personality. Hamlet uses it in this way in, well, ‘Hamlet’ in his graveside speech, referring to a lawyer: ‘Where be his quiddities now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures.’

That’s not a very fun note to end on, so here’s a quidditch joke:

Why should you never have sex with a wizard?

Because you might catch Hogwarts, and they never stop quidditching.

(I didn’t say it was a good joke.)

proprioception

If I asked you how many senses we have, you’d probably say ‘five’, right? Taste, smell, sight, hearing and touch. But there’s actually another sixth sense, which has nothing to do with ghosts or Bruce Willis. It’s called proprioception.

(Before I get into this, I’m no scientist. So if I’ve got any details wrong in this article, please forgive me. And don’t shout at me.)

Proprioception, also known as kinaesthesia, is the sense that lets your brain know where your body is in space. Which basically means it’s how you know where and what your legs, arms and other extremities (stop it) are doing. You don’t need to look down at your feet to know where they are. That’s proprioception, right there.

So how does it work? Well, we all have cells called proprioceptors in our muscles and joints that process sensory information when our bodies move. And when we stretch our muscles and change the position of our joints, these cells send feedback to our brains, telling them where our arms, legs and body are at any given moment.

Without this sense, we wouldn’t be able to do anything much really. For example, if I have a gin and tonic, I don’t have to look at the glass as I move it to my mouth. That’s because my proprioceptors are sending information to my brain about where my hand is. I also don’t smash the glass into my own face (unless it’s the fourth or fifth gin and tonic), which is again thanks to my proprioceptive sense making sure my hand moves smoothly and at the right speed to get to my mouth.

Another good example is walking. You don’t need to look at your feet to lift them up, move them forward and put them back down again. That’s because proprioceptors send constant sensory information to your brain about where your hips, knees, ankles and toes are, and make sure you don’t fall over (most of the time). Proprioceptors are also constantly working in the background to make sure we use the right amount of force when we’re pulling or pushing something, and the right speed when we move our limbs. So we don’t end up breaking all the gin and tonics when we do a cheers, or punching people when we try to shake hands (unless we really don’t like them).

As a concept, proprioception has been around since 1557, where it was described by one Julius Caesar Scaliger (an Italian scholar and physician) as a ‘sense of locomotion’. In 1827, Charles Bell, a Scottish surgeon, anatomist, physiologist, neurologist, artist and philosophical theologian (and show-off, presumably), called it ‘muscle sense’. This was obviously deemed too easy to understand by the scientific community, and in 1906 the term ‘proprio-ception’ was coined by Charles Scott Sherrington, an English neurologist. This comes from the Latin word ‘proprius’, which means ‘one’s own’ or ‘individual’, and ‘capio’/‘capere’ meaning ‘to take’ or ‘grasp’. So it’s basically about grasping oneself in space. Which sounds like a sci-fi porn film, but you get the idea.

solivagant

If you’re a solivagant, it means you like wandering alone (with or without a cloud). It’s also an adjective (AKA a describing word) – so you can be a solivagant while taking a solivagant walk. The etymology is fairly straightforward: it’s from the Latin words sōlus for ‘alone’, and vagō which means ‘to wander’. And it has the suffix ‘ant’ at the end, which we use to form nouns of agency (a fancy way of saying people or things that do an action) and adjectives that describe a state or quality.

Tod Sloan (on the right), before it all went tits up – at least he has a pal in this picture (photo from Wikipedia)

If you like wandering at night (which obviously you can only really do if you’re a man, sadly), you’re a noctivagant.

Perhaps because writers are generally quite solitary creatures (and always cold, if you’re me), English has lots of words and phrases for being on your tod. In fact, there’s one right there – ‘on your tod’ is a shortening of the (weirdly posh) Cockney rhyming slang phrase ‘on one’s Tod Sloan’. Tod Sloan was a world-famous American horse jockey who lost all his money and died penniless and alone (sad face).

Other lonely words you might not have come across before include:

• solitudinarian: this one’s pretty obvious – someone who leads a solitary or secluded life

• anchorite: a man who keeps himself to himself for religious reasons (like a hermit). If you’re a lonely religious lady, you’re an anchoress. This comes from the Late Latin word (I’m not sure why it wasn’t on time) anachoreta, which can be traced to the Greek anachōrein, meaning ‘to withdraw’

• eremite: another type of religious hermit (turns out religion is a lonely biz). This word comes from the Greek erēmitēs which means ‘living in the desert’.

In case my solitary words have left you feeling a bit depressed, here’s (a very un-PC/sweary) puppet version of Kim Jong-il singing about feeling alone in the world because no one’s as great as he is.