A Logolept’s Diet of Obscure, Obsolete, Curious and Downright Odd “C” Words

Adult education, Creative Writing, Literary & Linguistics, Popular Culture

“C” change?

Continuing the A–Z series of out-of-the-norm, non-mainstream quirky words…this time exploring lexical items starting with the ostentatiously curvy letter “C“, the third letter and second consonant of the modern English alphabet. “C” comes from the same letter as “G”. The Semites named it gimel. The sign is possibly adapted from an Egyptian hieroglyph for a staff sling, which may have been the meaning of the name gimel. Another possibility, contested by some classical scholars, is that it depicted a camel, the Semitic name for which was gamal. The utility of “C” extends to the Romans’ numeral system where it represents the number for “100”, “C” for century!

Word 

Meaning

Derivation

Cacodoxy

bad doctrine or wrong opinion

Gk caco ("bad") + -doxia ("opinion")

Cacogen

an anti-social person

Gk caco ("bad") + -genēs ("offspring")

Cacophemism

a perjorative expression used  instead of a mild one

Gk caco ("bad") + -logía ("speech")

Cagamosis


an unhappy marriage

origin unknown

Calcographer

one who draws with crayons and pastels✍️

L calco ("thread", "trample on") + graphe ("write")

Callpygous

having beautiful buttocks

Gk kallos ("beautiful") + -pūgē ("buttocks")

Camelot

newspaper vendor ️ 

F origin unknown

Carpophagous

fruit-eating    

Gk karpós ("fruit") + -phágous ("eating")

Catapedamania

an impulse to jump from high places

Gk cata ("downward") + -ped ("ground") ⛰️ 

Catchpole

sheriff's deputy, esp one who makes an arrest for failure to pay a debt

OE cace ("catch") + Med L pullus (a chick")

Celerity

swiftness of movement  

L celer ("speedy"; "swift")

Celsitude

loftiness, esp in rel. to position or standing

L celsus ("high"; "lofty")  

Cenobite

monk; member of religious order

Gk koinos ("common") + -bios ("life")

Cereologist

someone who studies crop circles, esp one who believes they are not man-made or formed by other terrestrial processes ⭕️ 

L Ceres (Roman goddess of agriculture ") + -logy ("study")

Chaetophorous

having bristles

Gk khaítē ("hair") + -phoros ("bearing")

Chasmaphilous

fond of nooks & crannies

Gk chasma ("abyss"; "cleft") + phil 

Chiliad

divide into parts of 1,000; Millennium

Gk khilioi ("thousand")

Chorizent

someone who challenges the authorship of a major work, esp one who believes that the Iliad & the Odyssey were not penned by Homer ✍️ 

origin unknown

Chryosophist

a lover of gold ⚱️

Gk chrys ("gold") + -philos ("phile")

Cicisbeo

male companion of a married woman

origin unknown

Cicerone

a guide for tourism information ℹ️ 

L from Cicero, agnomen of Roman orator, (2th BCE

Clerisy

class of the intelligentsia; group of learned & literary people

Gk klēros ("heritage")

Concision

tenseness & brevity of speech & writing; saying much in a few words

L concīsus ("cut short")

Consign

deserved & appropriate, esp a fair & fitting punishment 

L con ("altogether") + -dignus ("worthy"; "appropriate"

Copacetic

completely satisfactory; in good order

origin unknown

Coruscating

sparkling; glittering

L coruscatus ("to vibrate", "glitter")

Cosmocracy

rulership of the world; global government ️ 

Gk cosmo ("universe") -krátos ("rule"; "power")

Coterminous

having the same boundaries

Eng, (18th.

Crepuscular

resembling or rel to twilight

L crepusculum ("twilight")

Cruciverbalist

one who is skilled at or enjoys solving crosswords  里 

L cruci ("cross" + -verbum ("word"). Neologism, 1977)

Cryptarcy

secret government or rulership 

Gk kryptos ("hidden"; "secret")

Cryptogenic

(disease) of unknown origin

Gk kryptos ("hidden"; "secret") + genēs ("offspring")

Cryptonym

a code or secret name 

Gk kryptos ("hidden"; "secret") + -nym ("name")

Cumbent 

"lying down"; "reclining"

L incumbere ("lie or lean on")

Curiosa

pornographic books

L curiosus ("curious")

Curlicue

calligraphic twist or curl in the design object; decorative

Eng, (18th. "Curly" + "cue" ("pigtail")

Cursoril

limbs adapted to running (zool.)

Med L cursorius ("of running")

Cyesolagnia

attracted to pregnant women

Gk cyeso(?)

+ -lagnia ("lust")

Cynoid 

dog-like; canine  

Gk kyn ("dog") + oid ("resembling")

Cynosure 

anything that attracts attention; object of interest   

Gk kunosoura (lit. "dog's tail") an association der. from the shape of the constellation Ursa Minor

Cereologist: pondering the enigma of the crop circle ⭕️

Chorizent: Not Homer!

The Cruciverbalist’s playground
Cynosure: all eyes on Ursa Minor, aka “the Little Dipper”

A Logolept’s Diet of Obscure, Obsolete, Curious and Downright Odd “B” Words

Adult education, Creative Writing, Literary & Linguistics, Popular Culture

Now for plan B

The letter “B” has quite a backstory on route to its destination in the English alphabet. Its equivalent second letter in Phoenician, beth, was part of that ancient language’s alphabet more than 3000 years ago. It looked a little different, but it made the same sound as “B”/”b”. The shape of the letter resembled the floor plan of a house, and the word beth meant “house.” In Hebrew, the letter was called beth, bet or bayt which also means “house.” (‘The Letter B Once Had A Much Longer Name’, (2014), www.dictionary.com). Here’s a far from definitive selection of unusual, obscure and archaic words beginning with “B” – useful additions to the vocabulary of any budding lexiphile, logophile or verbivore out there.


Word

Meaning

Derivation

Babeldom


a confused sound of noise

ME babble + OE -dōm ('state')

Bacchanal

drunkard; reveller 

L bacchanalis (from the god Bacchus)

Bahadur

self-important official 

Persian bahādur ('brave', 'valiant')

Balatron


joker; clown 

L balatrō ('jester'; 'buffoon') 嵐

Barmecide

an insincere benefactor (someone who promises but doesn't deliver)

Per Barmeki ('The Arabian Nights', family name)

Barratry

inciting riot or violence

OF Barraterie (der from 'deceive')

Bathykolpian

deep-bosomed

Gk bathys ('deep') + kolpos ('breast')

Bedswerver

an unfaithful spouse  

Eng (17th, Shakespeare

Benedict

benign; a newly-married after being a long-time bachelor

L  bene ('good') + -dicte ('speak')

Bersatrix

babysitter ‍

Fr berseaux ('cradle') + trix  (fem. suffix)

Bibliognost

well-read individual: person with a wide knowledge of books  

Gk biblio ('book') + -gnōstēs ('one who knows'j

Bodacious

remarkable; unmistakable; sexy; voluptuous 

Eng 'bold' + 'audacious'

Boursocrat

Stock exchange official

origin unknown

Brio

enthusiastic vigour

It 'mettle'; 'fire'; 'life'

Bromaphile

lover of food; a "foodie"

Gk brôma ('food') + -phile ('lover')  

Bromopnea

bad breath

Gk brômos ('stink') + nea 

Brumal

wintry; of, like or pertaining to winter 略 

L brūmalīs ('relating to the winter solstice')

Burrole

an eavesdropper  

origin unknown

Bywoner

agricultural labourer 

Afrikaans from Mid Dutch bi + ('dweller')

ADDENDUM

Barbigerous

bearded; bearing a beard 倫‍♂️ 

L barbiger ("beard"; + -gero ('bearing')

Bavian

baboon; insignificant or unskilled poet

baviaan  

Belliferous

bringing war

L bellum ('war') + ferō ('to bear')

Bloviate

talk at length in empty, pompous, inflated fashion 

Eng (19th. 'blow' (as in boasting, orig. to describe politicians)

Brobdingnagian

immense in size; gigantic 

Eng (18th. novel by Jonathan Swift ✍️ 

Balatron

Appendage: from Ulrika M-Luck

Bellatrix: female warrior

Bellator: male warrior

<Latin origin>

Bavian

: even with the best quill in the world!

Brobdingnagian
: Gulliver in Brobdingnag

A Logolept’s Diet of Obscure, Obsolete, Curious and Downright Odd “A” Words

Adult education, Creative Writing, Literary & Linguistics, Media & Communications, Popular Culture, Society & Culture

The Big A! In the beginning was A.

Words, Words, Words”, mused Shakespeare’s brooding and enigmatic eponymous protagonist in Hamlet [Act II, Scene II]. Indeed, for those wordsmiths, verbivores and aficionados in the grips of logolepsy (fascination or obsession with words), words, lexemes, morphemes, lógos, verba, call it whatever you like, are the very stuff of the world. If you are like me and take a delight in being exposed to new words, always looking to add to the building blocks of your vocabulary, then your interest might be piqued enough to browse the following list of words, a select lexicon with entries which include the obscure, the archaic, the unusual, the peculiar and (sometimes) the downright creepily weird. To begin at the beginning, the letter “A”, primus intra pares among the strictly-ordered glyphs. “A” in the Latin alphabet is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter Alpha, from which it derives.

Word

Meaning

Derivation

Abactor

cattle thief or rustler

L Late Latin abigō ('drive away')  

Achloropsia

[cf. Acyanopsia colour-blind blue]

colour-blind green 

Gk a + clor ('green') + -podia (rel. to 'sight')

Acephalous

lacking a (clearly defined) head

Gk akephalous ('headless')

Acersecomic

one who has never had his or her hair cut

Gk akersekómēs ('young with unshorn hair')

Acrologic

pertaining to initials; using a sign to represent a word denoting its initial letter or sound, assoc with hieroglyphics & acronyms

Fr acrologique  

Adelphogamy

a form of polyandry;  marriage of 2 or more brothers & 1 or more wives (context: Royal marriages in Ancient Egypt, usually between siblings)

Gk adelphi ('brothers') + -gamus ('marriage')  戮 

Adventitious

occurring as a result of an external factor or by chance, rather than by design or inherent nature; coming from outside, not native

L adventicious (coming to us from abroad")

Agelast 

someone who never laughs; a humourless person

Mid Fr agélastos ('not laughing')

Agersia

not growing old in appearance 

Gk a ('not') + geras ('age')

Agnomen

an epithet; an appellation appended to a name (eg, Rufus the Indolent)

Anc Rome a 4th name occasionally bestowed on a citizen in honour of some achievement 

Agnosy

ignorance esp universal ignorance; unenlightened; bereft of spiritual understanding or insight 

Gk agnōsia ('ignorance')

Aleatory

something dependent on the throw of dice or on chance; random; (esp in indurance)

L alea a kind of dice game 

Amanuensis 

Iiterary or artistic assistant, in particular one who takes dictation or copies manuscripts 

L a manu-ensis ('slave at handwriting') + 'belonging to')

Ambivert

someone who a balance of extrovert & introvert features in their personality

L ambi ('on both sides') + vertere ('to turn')

Aneabil

unmarried; single

origin unknown

Anecdotage

someone with a tendency to be garrulous; anecdotes collectively 

Gk anekdota ('unpublished') + -age

Anemocracy

government by the wind or by whim  

Gk anemo ('wind') + -cracy ('rule')

Anhedonia

inability to feel pleasure in normally pleasurable activities

Fr anhédonia+ ('without pleasure')

Animadvert

criticise or censure; speak out against

L animadvert-ere ('to notice or remark on a subject')

Antanaclasis

a literary trope whereby a single word is repeated, but in 2 different senses (for effect, a common form of punning)

Gk antanáklasis ('reflection'; 'bending back')

Antelucan

pre-dawn

L ante ('before') + luc ('light')

Antemundane

existing before the creation of the world  

L ante ('before') + Fr mondain ('of this world')

Antipudic

covering one's private parts

anti +  L pudendum ('genitals'; shame')

Apodysophilia

feverish desire to undress (a form of exhibitionism)

origin unknown

Appurtenance

accessory associated with particular lifestyle, eg, luxury

OFr from L appertinere ("belong to")

Aptronym§

the name of a person which neatly matches or is amusingly appropriate to their occupation or character (eg, possessor of the highest-ever recorded IQ, Marilyn vos Savant; a Russian hurdler by the name of Marina Stepanova)

neologism, purportedly coined by US columnist Franklin P Adams

Archimage

great magician, wizard or enchanter 慄‍♂️ 

New Latin from Late Gk archimagus

Aristarch

a severe critic

after Aristarchus of Samothrace, a Greek grammarian, (2nd BC)

§ the concept  of aptronym  gives legs to the theory of nominative determinism which hypotheses that people tend to gravitate towards jobs that fit their surname, eg, a BBC weather presenter with the name Sara Blizzard ️ 



ABACTOR (Image: American Fine Art)

ADELPHOGAMY

ARISTARCH: Aristarchus of Samos

Same Year, Same Subject Matter: Cinematic Happenstances

Cinema, Performing arts, Popular Culture

With hundreds and hundreds of feature films being churned out of Hollywood every year, I suppose it shouldn’t surprise too much when two separate and unrelated production companies find themselves working on a version of the same thing. Nonetheless it does seem something of an oddity, or at least a novelty, when it does occur, which isn’t very often in cinema history.

Source: pastposters.com

At least three instances of identical subjects being simultaneously made into features spring to mind. Who doesn’t know that the mythical or semi-mythical (depending on your point of view) English hero of Medieval fable and legend, Robin Hood, has been the subject of American and British feature films almost too many times to count? Ever since the early days of silent movies the silver screen (and later the TV screen) has been awash with iterations of Robin and his Lincoln green-daubed coterie of “Merry Men” locking horns with the Sheriff of Nottingham, Sir Guy of Gisborne and other assorted knaves and villains. But in the year 1991 moviegoers got two Robin Hood sagas🄰 to choose from, a big budget Hollywood number, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner in the eponymous role. In a film stolen by Alan Rickman’s outrageously over-the-top, campy Sheriff of Nottingham🄱, apple pie American Costner’s non-attempt as an appropriate English accent was a talking point of the film. The behind-the-scenes scuttlebutt was that his initial plan to try to pull off a passable English accent was vetoed by the director (‘Actors who gave up on accents halfway through a movie’, Ben Falk, Yahoo, 13-Nov-2020, www.uk.movies.yahoo.com).

𝕐𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕔𝕙𝕠𝕚𝕔𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕒𝕔𝕖 𝕓𝕠𝕨𝕞𝕒𝕟: 𝔹𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕤𝕙 𝕠𝕣 ℂ𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕗𝕠𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕒𝕟 ℝ𝕠𝕓𝕚𝕟?

𓃰𓃰𓃰

Flashy ‘Prince of Thieves’ vs gritty, shadowy ‘Robin Hood’
The other 1991 RH vehicle, simply entitled Robin Hood, a UK production, was a smaller scale, more modest affair than ‘Prince of Thieves’. The two filmic versions—Hollywood vs Britain, Kevin Costner vs Patrick Bergin—were expected to go head-to-head in a battle at the box-office, but this was averted when the producers of the UK Robin Hood decided to send their version straight to cable (Fox) TV.

A surprising lack of rivalry existed between the two concurrently-working production teams. Because a number of the shoot locations were reasonably close to each other (Buckinghamshire, Cheshire, West Yorkshire, North Wales) there was a good bit of collaboration, eg, crew swaps between each movie’s SFX and stunt teams (‘The Surprise Cooperation between 1991’s two Robin Hood films’, Dan Cooper, Film Stories, 09-Apr-2021, www.filmstories.co.uk).

🏹 🏹 🏹

𝔻𝕦𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕘 ℍ𝕒𝕣𝕝𝕠𝕨𝕤: ℂ𝕒𝕣𝕠𝕝 𝕧 ℂ𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕠𝕝𝕝

𓃯𓃯𓃯

Two films about Hollywood’s original “Platinum Blonde”
1965 saw the release of two biopics about Jean Harlow, star Hollywood actress and screen sex symbol of the 1930s, both were titled simply Harlow. The first, a Magna Distribution Corp TV biopic starred Carol Lynley in the titular role and the second, from Paramount released five weeks later with a budget more than double. Carroll Baker played the Thirties sex siren. Magna and Paramount subsequently countersued each other alleging unfair competition. Both movies were critical and box office failures with nary a good word to say by anyone about either of them…DVD Talk summed them up as “two smutty movies” with little resemblance to the real Jean Harlow (‘Harlow (1965) v Harlow (1965)’, www.realtoldmovies.blogspot.com).

𓃭𓃭𓃭

Dual Doomsday message
The third concurrent double act on the screen has the most interesting relationship. In 1964 Hollywood made two Cold War-inspired films with a storyline about the US military launching a Doomsday bomb aimed at the Soviet Union. The tones of the respective movies are diametrically opposite however, Dr Strangelove is a farce and satire, comically lampooning the absurdity of the global nuclear standoff, whereas Fail Safe is a grimly serious dramatic thriller which plays it very straight. Dr Strangelove director Stanley Kubrick was alarmed to discover that Sidney Lumet was making a near identical movie…so concerned was Kubrick that Fail Safe with its similar content might undermine his pet project he got the production company Columbia Pictures to buy the distribution rights to Lumet’s film in order to delay its release for nine months. The wash-up from this head-start was that Dr Strangelove did far better business at the box office than the similarly themed Fail Safe and is the much better-known of the two movies today.

Images: Columbia Pictures

______________________________
🄰 there were actually three Robin Hoods in the works simultaneously at that time. The third RH intended to have Liam Neeson in the role ended up being canned prior to production starting

🄱 as one critic summed it up, “While Costner had been robbing from the rich, Rickman had been stealing the movie“, ‘Behind-the-scenes trouble during ”Robin Hood”’, Garth Pearce, Entertainment Weekly, 21-Jun-1991, www.ew.com