ugsome

ug·some: adj, [UG'-sum]
archaic : FRIGHTFUL, LOATHSOME
Etymology: Middle English, from uggen to fear, inspire fear, from Old Norse ugga to fear--The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

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Bloggin' John Comments:
I agree with J. N. Hook that ugsome is "an archaic word worth reviving.
It means horrid, loathsome, filling with dread, uglier than ugly: 'a scowling, ugsome man, with scar from cheek to jaw'" (65).--The Grand Panjandrum. New York: Collier, 1991.

The concinnity of sounds in ugsome--with the low, gutteral vowel of "ugh," repeated with a quick report in the syllable "some," intensifies the presence of (the effect of) the word's presence, trumping (or "out-trumpeting") the sweet "e" sound trailing "ugh" in ugly.

"Ugsome" is also a welcome, long-absent completion of the apt antithetical pair of "ugsome" v. "handsome." "Ugly" does not have a fitting sonic antithesis: there is no such word as "handly." With "handsome" in wide, active play, it is surprising that the desire for order within the mind has not noted the absence of handsome's fitting opposite and embraced, so to speak, the orphan ugsome.

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Cassandra

Cassandra: n.
1. Greek Mythology: A daughter of Priam, the king of Troy, endowed with the gift of prophecy but fated by Apollo never to be believed.
2. One that utters unheeded prophecies.
ETYMOLOGY: Latin, from Greek Kassandra. [ca-SAN’-dra]
--The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2000.

Example of the Cassandra in use:
Even Senator Kent Conrad, the North Dakota Democrat who is chairman of the
Senate Budget Committee and the biggest Cassandra in Congress about the
perils of continued deficits, seemed to acknowledge that he had had trouble
convincing even fellow Democrats of the urgency of the long-term fiscal
problems.--WEISMAN, Steven R.THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET: NEWS ANALYSIS; Democrats Face Limits In Reshaping Bush BudgetThe New York Times, February 6, 2007

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Bloggin' John Comments:
As in the example above, Penelope is almost always used as a noun in a figure of speech called periphrasis, the substitution of a descriptive word or phrase for a proper name or of [Nota bene:] a proper name for a quality associated with the name. [puh-RIF'-ru-sis]

Example of periphrasis:
"She may not have been a Penelope, but she was not as unfaithful as the gossips made her out to be ."
[Penelope is the faithful wife of Odysseus in Homer's The Odyssey. Thus, "a Penelope" = "a faithful wife."] (443).--Corbett Edward P. J. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. New York: Oxford, 1965.

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Penelope sometimes--though not often--shows up in adjectival form. There seem to be only two adjectival forms of Cassandra--Cassandran and Cassandra-like. Although I could not find these adjectival variants in any of my standard dictionaries or online, I was able to find them in two specialty word books, cited below.

• J. N. Hook, in The Grand Panjandrum, gives Cassandran, the more euphonic of the two forms. He notes that "Cassandra, daughter of Priam, king of Troy, was able to foretell unhappy events, but her direful prophecies were never believed. The adjective Cassandran came from her name.
"During the second Nixon administration, Cassandran journalists predicted the end of American democracy" (82).--New York: Macmillan, 1991.

• J. I. Rodale, in The Phrase Finder, offers an inelegant, patched-together
adjective: Cassandra-like. "Cassandra-like refers to Cassandra, the daughter of Priam, who had received from Apollo the gift of prophecy. Later Apollo, angry, ordained that her prophecies, which usually predict dire events, should never be believed. When she predicted the fall of Troy, she was declared crazed. Her name now is applied to any discredited prophet of calamity, and Cassandra-like indicates generally doleful predictions. "a prophet that, Cassandra-like, tells truth without belief" (409).--Emmaus, PA.: Rodale Press, 1954.

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verbicide

verbicide: the killing of a word--coined by C. S. Lewis
--Paul Dickson. Dickson's Word Treasury New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1982.

••• Coming Soon •••

Gantlet: Vulnerable to Verbicide?

I hope not!
Sursum corda!
May gantlet throw down its gauntlet
before the gathering gantlet
of verbicidists and prevail!

18 Feb 2007

Sursum corda: "Lift up your hearts!"

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sui generis

sui generis: adj. Latin, "of its own kind": constituting a class alone : UNIQUE, PECULIAR
• "possesses certain sui generis qualities" -- John Mason Brown
-- usually used predicatively or postpositively:
• "the man is sui generis" -- John McCarten (predicatively--predicate object linked by is to man, the subject).
• "a history book sui generis" -- Max Wolff (postpositively--comes after [post] the word it modies, i.e, book)
--Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.
merriam-webster.com (18 Feb. 2007).

More examples of the word in use:
• Meryl Streep was praised in this Wall Street Journal film review of The Devil Wears Prada: "Ms. Streep's pitch-perfect portrayal of Miranda is sui generis, with a dramatic existence of its own, as unique and memorable as, say, a Bette Davis character." (Hochswender, Woody, "Where Angels Fear to Tread", WSJ July 13, 2006, p. D10)

• In July of 2006, NBC ran commercials praising John Madden as being sui generis and saying he cannot be confused with or compared to anyone else.

• The Saturday, 16th September 2006 edition of the British newspaper The Guardian, contained a Comment article by Martin Kettle in which, speaking about hung parliaments, he said: "Each is sui generis, dependent on the particular parliamentary arithmetic, inter-party momentum and surrounding political circumstances."

• December 23, 2006 Slate Magazine used the term in discussing the unique variations of French Rose Champagne "Grower Champagnes are wines made by small farmers in the Champagne region who, bucking convention, choose to craft their own wines rather than sell their grapes to the major Champagne houses. Typical of farmer fizzes, the grower rosés are utterly sui generis—in a few cases almost freakishly so."

• The December 25, 2006 CNN Marquee Blog referred to James Brown stating "I can't even begin to talk about his importance. He was sui generis."
--Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Pagehttp://en.wikipedia.org

More on etymological & philosophical origins:
sui generis / SU'-we JAYN-er- is / is a (post) Latin expression, literally meaning "of its own kind/genus or unique in its characteristics."

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The expression was effectively created by scholastic philosophy to indicate an idea, an entity or a reality that cannot be included in a wider concept. In the structure "genus → species" a species that heads its own genus is sui generis.
-Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Pagehttp://en.wikipedia.org

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laconic

laconic: /luh-kon'-ic/ adj.
1 usually capitalized, archaic : of or relating to Laconia or the Laconians : Spartan
2 a : speaking or writing with Spartan brevity : curt, terse, undemonstrative
• "laconic, these Indians -- Weston La Barre"
• "an antiseptic romance between Jones and a laconic young widow -- Martin Levin"
2 b : spoken, written, or expressed briefly or sententiously : pithy
• "the tone of the commentary laconic and masculine -- Times Literary Supplement"
• "a laconic derby-hatted interlude that stops the show -- Henry Hewes"
Etymology: Latin Laconicus, from Greek Lakomacrnikos, from Lakomacrn Laconian + -ikos -ic]

LACONIC indicates shortness to the point of seeming brusque, unconcerned, or mysterious
• "again he paused longer, and raised his eyebrows still more. "It is sold, sir," was again his laconic reply -- Bram Stoker"
"the laconic announcement was made ... that the sentences of death had been carried out -- Manchester Guardian Weekly"
--"laconic." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (16 Feb. 2007).

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Willard R. Espy, Amiable Logophile, Comments:
Laconic. Sparta was also known as Laconia, and Spartans as Laconians. Because the Laconians were sparing in speech and emotion, laconic means "terse; pithy; sententious."
A foreign conqueror sent a message: "If I come to Laconia, not one brick will stand on another." The laconic reply was "IF."
--O Thou Improper, Thou Uncommon Noun: An Etymology of Words That Once Were Names. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1978.

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Bloggin' John Comments:
Laconic 's O.K.

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Fletcherize

Fletcherize v. : to reduce (food) to tiny particles especially by prolonged chewing

Usage: Often Capitalized

Etymology: Horace Fletcher + English -ize--Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (13 Feb. 2007).

Bloggin' John Asks:

Q: How many times did Horace Fletcher prescribe that we chew . . . I mean Fletcherize each piece of food for good digestion?
A: According to Wikipedia: 32 times.

Q: Who was Horace Fletcher, and what else did he recommend for healthful eating?
A: Once again, we turn to Wikipedia:

Horace Fletcher (1849-1919) was an American health-food faddist of the Victorian era who earned the nickname "The Great Masticator," by arguing that food should be chewed thirty two times — or, about 100 times per minute — before being swallowed: "Nature will castigate those who don't masticate." He invented elaborate justifications for his claim.

Fletcher and his followers recited and followed his instructions religiously, even claiming that liquids, too, had to be chewed in order to be properly mixed with saliva. Fletcher promised that "Fletcherizing," as it became known, would turn "a pitiable glutton into an intelligent epicurean."

Fletcher also advised against eating before being "Good and Hungry", or while angry or sad. He promoted his theories for decades on lecture circuits, and became a millionaire. Upton Sinclair, Henry James and John D.Rockefeller were among those who gave the fad a try. Henry James and Mark Twain were visitors to his palazio in Venice.

Along with "Fletcherizing", Fletcher and his supporters advocated a low-protein diet as a means to health and well-being.

But by 1919, when Fletcher, 68, died of a heart attack, his diet plan was already being replaced by the next approach to dieting championed by Irving Fisher and Eugene Lyman Fisk: counting calories.--Wikipedia (13 Feb 2007)

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Don't forget, now: 32 times. Enjoy your next meal!--B'n'J'n

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channelfido

channelfido: n. an official, necessarily ineffective, who at all times scrupulously follows proper channels . . . a word that first appeared in Personal Administration in 1950 (194).
--Dickson, Paul. Dickson's Word Treasury. New York: Wiley and Sons, 1982.

Embedded within the term channelfido is the concept of a loyal but effete and narrow-minded executive working within a corporate setting. The word channel (which derives from the French word for pipe, thus narrowing our understanding of channel just a bit more) brings to mind the term "back channels," channels that are unseen by the public and that consist of a closed system of tightly fitted routes of authority set in a preordained corporate alignment. Inside the system of channels walks a dog, a creature loyal to its masters--corporate executives--but too small and ill-equipped to do anything except be there. Transformed into dog, our imagined human worker is symbolically reduced in size. capability, and power. This diminished cross-breed works or, rather simply walks--vacuously back and forth--inside a closed system of channels, seemingly content with his narrow loop in life.

But instead of writing "channeldog," our word-wit inserted a canine-delimited name--Fido--which brings along with it entailments of low worth that support his purpose of ridiculing the job title he is inventing. Fido comes from the Latin fidus which means faithful. The word also has a high profile in Virgil's Aeneid. Aneas' faithful companion's name is Achates, but he is addressed and known by the sobriquet "Faithful Achares,"which in Latin, becomes fidus Acharesm.The Virgilian connection lends our faithful channel-haunted employee some dignity, but he is also still only a follower.

One final comment on Fido. We vaguely think of Fido as a common name for dogs, but rarely have many of us seen a common dog named Fido. That makes Fido a kind of phantom name--a name pervaded with vacuity of sorts that gets subtly transferred into the appellation channelfido, which we see, is a mock title effectively constructed of metaphorical concepts that delineate consistently enjoined motifs of derision.

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