Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Logophilia
I’m reading The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe, recommended to me by M E-L of Ishbadiddle, and I love it. It’s part SF, part fantasy, all bildungsroman. Click that link if you gagged on bildungsroman . . . cuz guess what, kids, this post is about words.
Provided the rest of the book is good stuff, I don’t mind an onslaught of obscure words. Reginald Hill’s Dialogues of the Dead comes to mind — a book I loved right up until the resolution of the mystery, then hated. But Hill’s book was all about a love of words, and I learned many cool ones by reading it. Words like bheesty (a water-carrier) and dogsbody (a drudge). Yeah, I knew ‘dogsbody’ from watching Black Adder, but Hill’s book forced me to look it up for a change.
With The Shadow of the Torturer, I’m not sure how many of these are real words and how many are neologisms. I haven’t had a chance yet to look up every last one, but I intend to. Meanwhile, I’m scribbling strange words on my bookmark.
Here they are. Recognize any of ’em?
thurible
paphian
anacreontic
epopt
matross
peltast
cataphract
anagnost
psychopomp
uhlan
caique
paterissa
baldric
sabretache
bartizan
flageolet
lansquenet
. . . and several more. Some of these I think I should know (baldric, psychopomp, thurible, cataphract) but many of them are as familiar as the surface of Neptune.
I know obscure words bother some readers, and they bother me, too, when they’re out of place. In this book, they all seem strangely appropriate. (Yes, I’m still tweaked over the opening of Stephen King’s Gunslinger. Apotheosis of deserts, really.)
Here’s one I thought Gene Wolfe had made up: sardonyx. But I was wrong.
How about you guys? Have any favorite obscure words?
D.
zeitgeist
One of my faves, too. Right up there with weltanschaaung!
HEY! I read those books (it’s a series, naturally. All of those must be)long ago. I think I loved them but it was a while ago. I thought he’d made up the word chatelaine, that’s how long ago I read them.
I answered your shrink wrapping window question.
oh
pichiciago
always gets ’em when you’re playing fictionary because the true meaning sounds so fictional.
are…are those really english words?
*hides*
Shaina: zeitgeist and weltanschaaung are German words that have been absorbed into English.
Chatelaine, I presume, is French. (If I get one, does the upscale castle come with her?)
Pichiciago is something Kate made up. I did an image search on google and couldn’t find anything, so it can’t be real.
KIDDING. Look it up.
You may be a word nerd, but I’ll bet you’re a bit of a gynotikolobomassophile, too. Of course, I could be wrong.
My sister got me The Oxford Book of Word Histories a couple Xmases ago. It’s a great book for a word nerd. Or you could check out etymonline.com.
Favourite big word? Apotheosis, as in “the apotheosis of deserts”. (Just kidding. But you really do have to get past that line. Trust me.)
(On the other hand, knowing now how the saga ends, maybe I shouldn’t recommend it to you.)
For real, I’ll go with something like “poesy” or perhaps “ormolu”. Or my triad of Words I Learned from Reading The Poetic Edda in Translation:
dight (decorated with, as in “fingers bedight with rings”)
hight (named or called, as in, “Hight Patrick”)
wight (being or creature, as in “That wight stole my frickin’ beer”)
And I have a soft spot for the word “filigree”.
Of your list, the only one I knew for sure was “psychopomp”, and that’s partly because I wrote a story about a pair of road-trippin’ psychopomps once.
PS, is “Shadow of the Torturer” the first in the Book of the New Sun? I do want to try that series, but I think I’ll wait till after Xmas.
Maureen: who, me? No, I’m just a gynotikovulvomassophile.
Yup, Pat, Shadow of the Torturer is the first, and I’m lovin’ it.
Two old favorites of mine are ennead (a group of nine) and arrhenotoky (parthenogenesis in which only males are produced).
er. it’s Weltanschauung.
*whew* It took a while, but I found all of them online. Paterissa was the hardest to find, but I won’t spoil the fun for you. 🙂
As for obscure words, I do enjoy a good mondegreen.
Obscure words? Does “antediluvian” count as obscure?
There is a word created in The Post’s word contest that I love: arachnoleptic fit — the freak out that people have when they walk through an invisible spider web, that frantic dance that is done as s/he tries to get the thread of the web off his/her face.
And my favorite foreign words: paraguas (umbrella); matrioshka (Russian nesting dolls); and tasharaffna (welcome). I like the sibilance. Or something.
Without looking them up (really):
cataphract – a cavalryman, a horse soldier
uhlan – another cavalryman, from Prussia I think. Boxer Max Schmeling was known as ‘The Black Uhlan’
caique – a style of helmet. I believe it referred to a small iron helmet worn inside a great helm.
baldric – a sash or strap worn crosswise on the body. Often used to support a weapon.
bartizan – I believe this is an alternate spelling of ‘barbican’, a defensive fore-building.
lansquenet – one of a group of Germanic mercenaries in the late Middle Ages/early Renaissance. Often now spelled ‘landesknecht’. They were known for flamboyant clothing.
Darla: you gotta hate all those unnecessary vowels 😉
Matrioshka’s my favorite of your group, jmc.
Dean, what is this? Evidence of a misspent youth? Or perhaps you read OED for kicks 🙂
Glad you’re liking the book!
Well, they’re all military terms. I have a minor interest (ok, at some points in my life it wasn’t minor) in such things.
I read up on dragoons to make sure I was using the term correctly, and I discovered that I was right: the ‘uhlan’ was a feared Polish lancer. The term was adopted by the Prussians after the Poles’ fearsome reputation.
And I was wrong about caique. It’s either a bird, or a wooden fishing boat, which I remembered I knew after reading the definition. The word I was remembering is ‘casque’, after ‘casket’, which is a sort of helmet named for its resemblance to a casket.
Also without looking them up after Dean already covered cataphract and uhlan. 🙂
peltast – slinger or javelin thrower in the Ancient Greek army
anacreontic – rural in an idealised way (shepherd poetry)
bartizan (Partisane) – long shafted mix of spear and axe, used by the lansquenets, but my guess is as good as Dean’s 🙂
flageolet – very high tunes of a violin
sabretache – the bag attached to the scabbard of a cavalry sable, Napoleonic times (that goes with the uhlans)
And I wonder if not matross is the sailor of that caique, it looks suspiciously like German Matrose.
Thought of one more interesting word, with an interesting definition as well: callipygian
Gabe: yes, ‘partisan’ is probably right, ‘barbican’ not.
Man, you guys are way too bright for me. Or maybe I’ve filled my head with too much medical jargon.
Which gives me an idea for this evening’s blog . . .
Fidelio, that’s an actual female name–or it’s something close to that. (Can’t imagine calling your kid beautiful buttocks.)
Gabe: broke down and googled ‘bartizan’: we’re both wrong. It is a hanging defensive turret on walls of medieval castles.
kate r,
That would definitely be a tough name to have to go through life with. Although, I guess it would give someone a little added incentive to do a few more squats at the gym — might as well at least live up to it.