Maverick Philosopher

Word of the Day: Bafflegab

Gobbledygook

Melum ut in pluribus

I am having trouble understanding the above Latin expression. I encountered it in Theodor Haecker, Kierkegaard the Cripple (tr. C. Van O. Bruyn, New York: Philosophical Library, 1950) in the passage:

Not only for Augustine, but also for that Christian whose teaching is most perfectly harmonious, Thomas Aquinas, the evil in the world was always in the majority. Melum ut in pluribus. This must never be forgotten, nor was it in Kierkegaard's judgment. (pp. 29-30)

My first question: why melum and not malum?

Second question: where in Thomas can we find melum ut in pluribus?

Wiktionary informs us:

Borrowed from Ancient Greek μῆλον (mêlon). Doublet of mālum, from dialectal Ancient Greek μᾶλον (mâlon). First attested in Petronius.

Now mēlum n (genitive mēlī) means apple, and malum, mali means evil, adversity, torment, misery, punishment, etc.  This answers my first question but gives rise to a third: Is there some connection here with the Adam and Eve story in the Garden? 

Fourth question: I don't recall ever seeing the word 'apple' in my English versions of Genesis. Is there in the original text of Genesis a word that translates as 'apple'?  

Fifth question:  I don't understand ut in this context.  Wiktionary says it can be used as an adverb or as a conjunction. But it doesn't seem to be used in either way in melum ut in pluribus.

Here are some other Latin phrases most of which my astute readers already know. 

Word of the Day: Triolet

Here:

An eight-line stanza having just two rhymes and repeating the first line as the fourth and seventh lines, and the second line as the eighth. See Sandra McPherson’s “Triolet” or “Triolets in the Argolid” by Rachel Hadas. 

Return

 

The taste is strong as ever,

figs and cheese and wine.

I recall each savor;

the taste is strong as ever,

even if it will never

be quite so fresh again.

The taste is strong as ever,

figs and cheese and wine.

........................

 

I will now try to write a triolet.

 

Hooked

 

The ancient lures entice me still,

Property, pelf, and power.

Even if against my will,

The ancient lures entice me still.

Despite advancing age and wisdom's rise,

Their grip on me is unreleasing.

The ancient lures entice me still,

Property, pelf, and  power.

..............................

 

But I'm no poet, and I know it, so there's no way I could blow it.

Sub-distinguishing the lie?

What does "sub-distinguishing the lie" mean in the following passage from A. J. A. Symons, The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography (NYRB, 2001, p. 73):

He [Frederick Rolfe, a.k.a. 'Baron Corvo'] was wont to condemn the alleged laxity of the Roman Communion in the matter of truthfulness, and its sub-distinguishing the lie. He himself, brought up a strict Anglican, had all the Anglican horror of lying and equivocation of every description. He seemed to be quite serious about it, which surprised us, as he was universally regarded as about the biggest liar that we had ever met.

What I want to know is what it means to sub-distinguish a lie, and I need examples of this alleged laxity of the Roman Communion in the matter of truthfulness.

Paging Dave Lull.  And a tip of the hat to reader Hector C.  for recommending Symons' intriguing book.

.................

Addendum (8/2/24): Dave Lull to the rescue.  Mr. Lull writes, "I wonder whether the author means the distinguishing of the lie from “mental reservation.”  That's it, I think; bang on the link and see if you don't agree. 

The philosophy of lying is especially germane these days inasmuch as the Biden administration is composed from top to bottom of  serial, brazen liars, bullshitters, and prevaricators of every conceivable stripe, not to mention Orwellian language subverters.  (The Orwellian 180, as I like to call it, goes well beyond lying as I will explain later, and is far more pernicious.) A first-rate example of language subversion was provided by Alejandro Mayorkas, head of -- wait for it -- Homeland Security (sic!), when he said that the border is secure "as we define secure."  Alright buddy, but then you are literally a horse's ass as I define horse's ass. What's your game, pal? Are you the head honcho of the Reconquista?

Now who is this Dave Lull fellow? Here is a tribute of mine from 2011, with links to tributes from others:

Who is Dave Lull?

If you are a blogger, then perhaps you too have been the recipient of his terse emails informing one of this or that blogworthy tidbit.  Who is this Dave Lull guy anyway?  Patrick Kurp of Anecdotal Evidence provides an answer:

As Pascal said of God (no blasphemy intended) Dave is the circle whose center is everywhere in the blogosphere and whose circumference is nowhere. He is a blogless unmoved mover. He is the lubricant that greases the machinery of half the online universe worth reading. He is copy editor, auxiliary conscience and friend. He is, in short, the OWL – Omnipresent Wisconsin Librarian.

For other tributes to the ever-helpful Lull see here.  Live long, Dave, and grease on!

If you are a blogger, then perhaps you too have been the recipient of his terse emails informing one of this or that blogworthy tidbit.  Who is this Dave Lull guy anyway?  Patrick Kurp of Anecdotal Evidence provides an answer:

As Pascal said of God (no blasphemy intended) Dave is the circle whose center is everywhere in the blogosphere and whose circumference is nowhere. He is a blogless unmoved mover. He is the lubricant that greases the machinery of half the online universe worth reading. He is copy editor, auxiliary conscience and friend. He is, in short, the OWL – Omnipresent Wisconsin Librarian.

For other tributes to the ever-helpful Lull see here.  Live long, Dave, and grease on!

'Arguable': a Near-Contronym

'Arguable' is a word that a careful writer, one who strives for clarity of expression, should probably avoid.  I have always used it to mean: it may be plausibly argued that.  But then I noticed that some use it to mean: open to dispute, questionable.  These two meanings, though not polar opposites, are inconsistent.  

The two meanings of  the verb 'cleave,' however, are polar opposites: to stick together (intransitive) and to split apart (transitive).  Merriam-Webster:

Cleave is part of an exclusive lexical club whose members are known as contronyms: words that have two meanings that contradict one another. In the case of cleave the two meanings belong to two etymologically distinct words. One cleave means “to adhere firmly and closely or loyally and unwaveringly,” as in “a family that cleaves to tradition”; it comes from the Old English verb clifian, meaning “to adhere.” The cleave with meanings relating to splitting and dividing comes from a different Old English word, clēofan, meaning “to split.” So although one might assume the two were once cleaved to one another only to become cloven over time, such is not the case!

One is never done learning the mother tongue. Mine is English. I fancy myself a worthy son who honors his mother, a mother who is also a mistress whom I will never master. 

Just the other day, my assiduous editor, Tony Flood, pointed out that my use of 'enjoin' in a manuscript he is helping me prepare for publication, though a correct use, was ambiguous in the manner of 'cleave.'  Now I have a keen nose for ambiguity, both syntactic  and semantic, but this ambiguity had escaped me all these years. The verb 'enjoin' can mean  either "to direct or impose by authoritative order or with urgent admonition" or "forbid, prohibit." I had been laboring under the misapprehension that it carried only the first meaning.

All hail to the mistress we will never master, our alma mater, the matrix of our musings, the sacred enabler of our thoughts.

This is why, to keep with the maternal metaphor, the subversion of language is the mother of all subversion.

Word of the Day: Anfractuous

Merriam-Webster:

: full of windings and intricate turnings : TORTUOUS

 

The Unbreakable Anfractuous

Plots and paths can be anfractuous. They twist and turn but do not break. Never mind that the English word comes ultimately from the Latin verb frangere, meaning "to break." (Frangere is also the source of fracture, fraction, fragment, and frail.) But one of the steps between frangere and anfractuous is Latin anfractus, meaning "coil, bend." The prefix an- here means "around." At first, anfractuous was all about ears and the auditory canal's anfractuosity, that is, its being curved rather than straight. Anfractuous has been around for centuries, without a break, giving it plenty of time to wind its way into other applications; e.g., there can be an anfractuous thought process or an anfractuous shoreline.

Word of the Day: Perseveration

Leftists want to limit your vocabulary so as to limit your thought and make you easier to control.  They want total control. David Horowitz says it well on his masthead, "Inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out."  (When a transgressive calls herself 'progressive,' you know there's a cesspool of mendacity up ahead.)

perseveration /pər-sĕv″ə-rā′shən/

 

noun

1. Uncontrollable repetition of a particular response, such as a word, phrase, or gesture, despite the absence or cessation of a stimulus, usually caused by brain injury or other organic disorder.
2. The tendency to continue or repeat an act or activity after the cessation of the original stimulus.
3. The act or an instance of persevering; perseverance.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition • More at Wordnik

 

Word of the Day: 'Phatic'

phatic /făt′ĭk/

 

adjective

1. Of or relating to communication used to perform a social function rather than to convey information or ideas.
2. Pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship e.g polite mood, rather than meaning; for example, "How are you?" is often not a literal question but is said only as a greeting. (Similarly, a response such as "Fine" is often not an accurate answer, but merely an acknowledgement of the greeting.).

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition • More at Wordnik

 

Don't confuse 'phatic' with 'vatic.' 

 

vatic /văt′ĭk/

 

adjective

1. Of or characteristic of a prophet; oracular.
2. Pertaining to a prophet; prophetic, oracular.
3. Resembling or characteristic of a prophet or prophecy.
   "a kind of sibylline book with ready and infallible answers to questions"

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition • More at Wordnik

Allyship?

Explained here. Is this a parody?

Word found here:

“I started to see these intelligent, educated people, whose mission is to make our system better for people of color, suddenly posting all this anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian stuff,” Rose said. “I’m not changing my values, but screw the allyship. I will not stop fighting, because I believe in the causes themselves. But as for going out of my way to support, to post, to give money? I’m done.”

Steel Yourselves, Conservatives

This is a good article. Read it. Not just analysis. The author makes some suggestions for action.

And I learned a new word from it, polycule.

When Vocabulary Contracts . . .

. . . thought contracts with it.

'Depredatory'

The phrase 'depredatory Left' popped into my head this morning. I asked myself whether 'depredatory' is a recognized adjective. Then I thought, "If it isn't, it ought to be, and I shall introduce it." Well it's already in recognized dictionaries, as it ought to be. 

Word of the Day: Peritus

Merriam-Webster: "an expert (as in theology or canon law) who advises and assists the hierarchy (as in the drafting of schemata) at a Vatican council."

I was sent to the dictionary by this communication from Tony Flood:

Bill, I remember Lonergan and other Vatican II periti refer[ring] disparagingly (in their writings) to the "theology of the manuals," publications approved for student-seminarian use. The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, published the 262-page book in question [Renard's Philosophy of Being] , its second edition (mine is the 7th printing, 1950, of a 1943 book). The title page is stamped "St. Charles Seminary Library, Staten Island, N.Y." and the next page bears an Imprimi potest and Imprimatur. [Edward] Feser refers to Renard's The Philosophy of Being as a "textbook." Structurally sound, no marks on any page, but it wears its 70+ years of handling on its cloth cover (no paper cover). 

Tony's unloading from his library. I never unload; I just buy more. There's always space for more books. You make space. Commit territorial aggression against your wife's book shelves; invade her capacious closets; get rid of furniture. Books before bread. "Man does not live by bread alone."

Rudyard Kipling 

“A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition”

In these trying times, 'lead' is a precious metal.

The Bookman and the Rifleman

You know things are getting bad when a bookman must also be a rifleman if he intends to keep his private library safe from the depredations of leftist thugs who are out to 'de-colonize' it. You cannot reach these evil-doers with arguments, for it is not the plane of reason that they inhabit; there are, however, other ways to each them. The gentle caress of sweet reason must sometimes give way to the hard fist of unreason.

This raises an important moral question. Are there cultural artifacts so precious that violence against humans in their defense is justified?  I should think so. For those out to 'cancel' high culture have no qualms about 'cancelling,' i.e., murdering its creators.  That is one consideration. But also: haven't the barbarians forfeited their (normative) humanity to such an extent that they no longer deserve moral consideration? Do they form a moral community with us at all?

I am just asking. Or is inquiry now verboten?

Words of the Day: 'Claque' and 'Clique'

Definitions and differentiation here.

Word of the Day: Cack-Handed

Substack latest.

Short. Entertaining. Makes important points about language and male-female relations.  Improve your vocabulary. Read it!

Leftists, especially those of the 'woke'-Orwellian stripe, do not want you to have a large vocabulary. They do not want you to be able to think in a nuanced manner. 

Word of the Day: Assuasive

Merriam-Webster: soothing, calming. Example: "Like all good listeners, he has a way of attending that is at once intense and assuasive: the supplicant feels both nakedly revealed and sheltered, somehow, from all possible judgment." (David Foster Wallace)

I am a good listener, but far more intense than assuasive.

You have the verb 'assuage' in your vocabulary; now add the adjective 'assuasive.'

Word of the Day: Prodromal

From 'prodrome,' a premonitory symptom of disease.

Etymology: French, literally, precursor, from Greek prodromos, from pro- before + dromos act of running, racecourse — more at PRO-, DROMEDARY

Example of use found at Diogenes' Middle Finger:

Now we are engaged in a prodromal civil war, and American constitutional democracy is the contest’s prize. The universities and the media, always diseased, have progressed from mischief into depravity. Various states are attempting to mandate that their schools teach critical race theory — that is racism — and elected leaders on the coasts have resigned their cities to thuggery and ruin. - David Mamet - Playwright and Screenwriter

'Constitutional democracy' is right, not 'democracy'! Tucker Carlson take note.

Never use 'democracy' sans phrase! 

Word of the Day: Indiscerptible

Not discerptible : not subject to being separated into parts // simple and indiscerptible entities— James Ward. (Merriam-Webster)

On Looking Up Words

Patrick Kurp of Anecdotal Evidence is a man after my own mold:

When I encounter a new word, lengthy or not, I like to know what it means and where it comes from. I won’t necessarily use it, in writing or speech, but I’ve grown accustomed to plugging holes in my knowledge of the world. Plain speaking is essential but so, on the right occasions, are eloquence and verbal lushness. Part of linguistic effectiveness is sensitivity to context and audience. When it’s not mere showing off, deployment of obscure words adds a pleasurable texture to poetry and prose – one of many reasons we read Shakespeare and Sir Thomas Browne. A gifted writer commands styles and is not limited to one. In addition, what’s obscure or pretentious to you may be familiar and homely to me.

My sentiments exactly.

The blogosphere is vast, and she is deep. If the ordinary modes of human interaction have left you high and dry  in your quest for the like-minded, a little fishing in her vasty deeps should satisfy your needs.

On Acquiring a Large Vocabulary

How does one acquire a large vocabulary? The first rule is to read, read widely, and read worthwhile materials, especially old books and essays.  The second rule is to look up every word the meaning of which you do not know or are not certain of: don't be lazy. The third rule is to compile vocabulary lists. The fourth rule is to review the lists periodically and put the words to use.  Use 'em or lose 'em.

But what good is a large vocabulary in a society of semi-literates? Not only is it of little use, it can harm relations with regular guys social intercourse with whom can be useful.  Among the latter, one needs to pass oneself off as one of them. Use 'big words' and you will strike them as putting on airs, whether or not you are -- not that the semi-literates would understand this old phrase.

While alive to and appreciative of the good in people, one should not overlook the prevalence of the mean, the paltry, the envious, and the resentful. In this joyous season, and in every season.

Word of the Day: Gallimaufry

A gallimaufry is a hodgepodge. 

The word is of course white-supremacist so be careful  of the contexts in which you use it, assuming you dare use it.  After all, if correct grammar is racist, as per the Rutgers English Department, then a large vocabulary must also be.  Don't forget: anything blacks are poor at is ipso facto racist, and that holds in spades for ipso facto.

'Gallimaufry'  is also a useless word and for two reasons. First, 'liberals' have so eroded standards that almost all have impoverished vocabularies; hence nothing will be communicated by the use of this word.

Second, in this Age of Levelling, the  use of the word in question will be perceived as effete, and possibly epicene; you will be thought to be putting on airs.  It is a verbal bow tie.

Words of the Day

Thanks to, or rather, because of 'liberal' dumbing-down, people these days have terribly limited vocabularies. Here are a couple you should know. Both definitions from Merriam-Webster.

Definition of avulsion

: a forcible separation or detachment: such as

a : a tearing away of a body part accidentally or surgically

b : a sudden cutting off of land by flood, currents, or change in course of a body of water especially : one separating land from one person's property and joining it to another's. 

Definition of affine

 (Entry 1 of 2)

: a relative by marriage : in-law

affine

adjective

Definition of affine (Entry 2 of 2)

: of, relating to, or being a transformation (such as a translation, a rotation, or a uniform stretching) that carries straight lines into straight lines and parallel lines into parallel lines but may alter distance between points and angles between lines affine geometry.

 

Here is an interesting use of 'affine' that I found this morning in  Dietrich von Hildebrand, In Defense of Purity (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1962, p. 37):

 

But not only are insensibility and purity in no way identical; insensibility [Unsinnlichkeit] . . . does not even constitute an environment particularly favorable to the virtue of purity. For it is not even the temperament  which is affine to that virtue and which makes it easier. That is to say, it is not the temperamental counterpart of purity.

Latin and Greek for Philosophers

Here, by James Lesher. Sample:

Ex vi terminorum: preposition + the ablative feminine singular of vis/vis(‘force’) + the masculine genitive plural of terminus/termini (‘end’, ‘limit’, ‘term’, ‘expression’): ‘out of the force or sense of the words’ or more loosely: ‘in virtue of the meaning of the words’. ‘We can be certain ex vi terminorum that any bachelors we encounter on our trip will be unmarried.’

Uncle Bill advises,

When it comes to Latin, and not just Latin, don't throw it if you don't know it.

Word of the Day: Recusant

Merriam-Webster:

1: an English Roman Catholic of the time from about 1570 to 1791 who refused to attend services of the Church of England and thereby committed a statutory offense.

2: one who refuses to accept or obey established authority.

Example:

So, like atheists in a theocracy, or recusants in Elizabethan England, we go underground. We are a secret society — brave rebels against the epidemiocracy.

Four Senses of 'Absurd'

Clarity will be served if we distinguish at least the following senses of 'absurd.'  The word is from the Latin surdus, meaning deaf, silent, or stupid.  But etymology can take one only so far and is no substitute for close analysis. And beware the Dictionary Fallacy.

1) Logico-mathematical. The absurd is the logically contradictory or self-contradictory or that which entails a logical contradiction.  Absurdity in this sense attaches to propositions or sets of propositions.  A reductio ad absurdum proof, for example, is a reduction to a contradiction. It is a way of indirectly proving a proposition. One assumes its negation and then derives a logical contradiction thereby proving the proposition.

2) Semantic. The absurd as the linguistically meaningless. Meaningful words can be strung together in meaningless ways, or meaningless words can be strung together. Example of the first: "Quadruplicity drinks procrastination." (Russell)  Example of the second: "The slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe." (Lewis Carroll). There is nothing syntactically or logically wrong with these sentences.

3) Existential.  The absurd as the existentially meaningless, the groundless, the brute-factual, the intrinsically unintelligible.  The absurdity of existence in this sense of 'absurd' is what elicited Sartre's and Roquentin's  nausea.  The sheer, meaningless, disgusting, facticity of the chestnut tree referenced in the eponymous novel, for example, described by Sartre as de trop and as an unintelligible excrescence.

4) Ordinary. The absurd as the manifestly false. To be precise, 'absurd' as it is mostly used in standard English by non-philosophers refers to that which is both factually false and manifestly false. "Pelosi's assertion that there is no border crisis is absurd!" In other words, Pelosi's assertion is factually false, and plainly so.  What is manifestly false as a matter of fact needn't be logically or semantically objectionable.

Item for further rumination: In Christianity construed along Kierkegardian lines, the apparent absurdity of human existence is redeemed by the Higher Absurdity of the God-Man on the cross. 

Cultural note: the hipster depicted below is a parody of the beatniks of the late 'fifties and early 'sixties. It is what Joe Average imagined an 'existentialist' must look like: a goateed cat with a beret, dressed in black, smoking a cigarette, preferably a Gitane or an unfiltered Gaulois.

Autobiographical addendum: Things didn't work out with an early girlfriend. She complained that I was an 'existentialist' who was "down all the time." I did read a lot of Camus and Sartre in those days, but my favorite existentialists were the Dane, Kierkegaard, and the Russian, Nicholas Berdyaev. Lev Shestov came later. Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger are only loosely classifiable as existentialists.

Word of the Day: Oubliette

Merriam-Webster: A dungeon with an opening only at the top.

 

Used in a sentence:

Since [Kamala] Harris is now on her way to the political oubliette, however, Schweizer’s discussion of her depredations is of less exigent interest than his discussion of other figures, especially Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders, all, remarkably enough, leading contenders for the Democratic nomination for president. 

French, from Middle French, from oublier to forget, from Old French oblier, from Vulgar Latin *oblitare, frequentative of Latin oblivisci to forget — more at oblivion.

 

Addendum (1/27).  This just over the transom:

I think I've been inside an oubliette, thought I didn't know what it was called at the time. It was quite unsettling. My brother, his son, and I were driving in southern Spain when we saw a ruined castle at the top of a hill. There was no sign or anything, but that's not unusual in Spain, so we hiked to the top of the hill and explored the ruins.

 

The only sign of modern habitation was a fairly recent steel ladder going down into a sort of pit, about twenty feet deep and cylindrical with a diameter of about thirty feet, mostly covered, and with a round opening somewhat larger than a manhole. We couldn't figure out what the pit was, so my nephew climbed down the ladder to look around, then my brother followed.

 

I asked one of them to come back up because it didn't seem safe for all of us to be down there (in case the ladder broke or something). My nephew came back up and I climbed down to look around. It was only moderately creepy until my nephew came back down and all three of us were down there together. No way could we have made a cell phone call from that location, and I had a sudden image of being stuck down in that hole with no way out.

 

For just a moment, I imagine I felt what it would be like to be dropped into such a horrifying prison. It was one of those shocking moments when you really grasp viscerally how evil man can be to man.

Regards,

David Gudeman

http://www.unobtainabol.com

You had a glimpse of the horror of this life, a glimpse that cut right through the optimistic palaver of the secular humanists. You saw the truth of homo homini lupus, and its finality in a godless universe in which the horrors go unredeemed.   If atheists and naturalists weren't such superficial people they would be anti-natalists.

 

We are spiritual beings, and for a spiritual being the ultimate horror is the sense of utter abandonment by God and man. If Christ was fully man, that is what he experienced in his worst moment on the cross.

Word of the Day: Zaftig

Said of a woman. Having a full, shapely figure. Voluptuous. Plump and vigorous. Rubenesque. A Yiddish word. Supposedly from the German saftig, juicy. More here. Trigger Warning! Snowflakes of the distaff persuasion will be offended.

Time was when 'female persuasion' and the like were used figuratively as a kind of joke; after all, one cannot be persuaded to be female or male. Or recruited. One does not join the female club. Nor can one be assigned one's sex at birth. Being female is something biological, not political or social like a party affiliation. But the times they have a'changed. Nowadays everything is a social construction and a matter of arbitrary identification. So, being female is like being a Democrat!

Nowadays there is no sex, only gender. How then can anything be sexist? And if, in reality, there are no races -- race being a mere social construct -- how can there be racism? Inquiring minds want to know.

What is the Opposite of 'Desuetude'?

Consuetude. Disuse versus usages and customs.  

Conseuetudines Camaldulenses: Customs of the Camaldolese. Cf. Thomas Merton, Journal, vol. 5, p. 349.

Word of the Day: Praeteritio

Explanation here.

Example from Victor Davis Hanson: "French’s modus operandi has been to deplore incivility and to call for an end to ad hominem attacks—and yet sometimes as praeteritio in order to liberate himself to do the opposite."

Word of the Day: Obvelation

A concealing, concealment, hiding, veiling. Antonym: revelation.

My example: Her selective self-revelation was as much an intended obvelation.

Example from Stewart Umphrey, Complexity and Analysis, Lexington Books, 2002, 140:

Since divine revelation is never without obvelation, those bound back to God in inquiry need a hermeneutics to distinguish what belongs to Him from what belongs to the medium of His self-presentation.

Word of the Day: Psephology

Merriam-Webster: "the scientific study of elections." "Psephology is from the Greek word psēphos, meaning 'pebble.'"

Necro-psephology is a growing field of inquiry in the Chicago area. For in those precincts there is a sizable turnout at elections of the dearly departed.

If you have a large vocabulary you will love my blog; if you don't, you need it.

Word of the Day: 'Perseverate'

Merriam-Webster: "continuation of something (such as repetition of a word) usually to an exceptional degree or beyond a desired point."  

Example:

Now the media and other anti-Trump partisans are going to perseverate on whether or not Trump obstructed justice during the Mueller probe. They should leave this alone. Having bet so heavily on the collusion narrative, and lost, nobody wants to listen to them bang on about collusion for two more years.

Filed under: Vocabulary

Word of the Day: Eloignment

Removal to a distance, withdrawal.

Eloignment has fallen into desuetude, as has 'desuetude.'  Archaic. Quite useless for communication with deplorables, or with anyone except me and Dave Bagwill who hipped me to the word.

'Peninsulate'

If 'insulate' is a word, from the Latin insula, insulae, island, then why not 'peninsulate,' v. i. meaning to insulate partially?  Example featuring an adjectival cognate:

His is a peninsular life, a balanced life, neither continental not insular. While connected to the mainland of the traditional, the quotidian, and the commonsensical, a part of him stretches out into the oceanic Apeiron.

Does your mother look askance at your new boyfriend? Perhaps the above sentence will take the edge off her disapprobation.

Word of the Day: Dégringolade

Merriam-Webster:  

a rapid decline or deterioration (as in strength, position, or condition) : DOWNFALL

Example from Why I Left by Jim Holt:

I will now confess to the obvious: the foregoing account of my spiritual dégringolade, while true in every detail, is a caricature. My alienation from the Catholic Church was not mainly intellectual. It was moral, even emotional.

Word of the Day: Witzelsucht

Punning mania. 

Word of the Day: Demesne

Merriam-Webster:

1: legal possession of land as one's own

2: manorial land actually possessed by the lord and not held by tenants

3a: the land attached to a mansion

b: landed property : ESTATE

c: REGION sense 2, TERRITORY

4: REALM sense 2, DOMAIN

How does one acquire a large vocabulary? The first rule is to read, read widely, and read worthwhile materials, especially old books and essays.  The second rule is to look up every word the meaning of which you do not know or are not certain of: don't be lazy. The third rule is to compile vocabulary lists. The fourth rule is to review the lists periodically and put the words to use.  Use 'em or lose 'em.

If you think you know the meaning of a word, you are well-advised to check your understanding. Even if you really do know the meaning of a word, you probably don't know all of its shades and variants.

If you work steadily at this, then perhaps someday you will have a vocabulary half as extensive as that of your humble correspondent.

Word of the Day: Costive

Merriam-Webster:

1a: affected with constipation

b: causing constipation

2: slow in action or expression

3: not generous : STINGY

Where did I find it? In a fine analysis of the concept of charm by Joseph Epstein.  Here is a taste that features the word under definition:

Some people I talked with thought charm was synonymous with “cool.” In fact, the two, charm and cool, are all but opposed. Cool aims for detachment, distance; charm is social, bordering on the intimate. Cool is icy; charm warm. Cool is costive; charm often ebullient. Cool doesn’t require approval; charm hopes to win it. Cool began life in jazz under the great saxophonist Lester Young, who first used the term, but it soon descended to the argot of drugs. Cool gave way to hip and hep. In Dave Frishberg’s song “I’m Hip,” the singer proclaims that he watches “arty French flicks with [his] shades on” and is so hip “I call my girlfriend ‘Man.’ ” Miles Davis was cool, Louis Armstrong charming.

How does one acquire a large vocabulary? The first rule is to read, read widely, and read worthwhile materials, especially old books and essays.  The second rule is to look up every word the meaning of which you do not know or are not certain of: don't be lazy. The third rule is to compile vocabulary lists. The fourth rule is to review the lists periodically and put the words to use.  Use 'em or lose 'em.

Word of the Day: 'Ultracrepidarian'

Here:

adjective 

1. 1.

   expressing opinions on matters outside the scope of one's knowledge or expertise.

   "“Dad, how do we know the universe is expanding?” inquires your six-year-old. Try answering that without resorting to an ultracrepidarian trick here or there"

noun 

1. 1.

   a person who expresses opinions on matters outside the scope of their knowledge or expertise.

   "most patients are ultracrepidarians when it comes to medicine"

'Wankerati' and Other Terms of Abuse

I  picked up a new piece of invective from Mark Steyn.

I believe he intends 'wankerati' to be coextensive with 'left-wing commentariat.'  Read his The Turning Point and see if you don't agree. The brilliant polemicist offers up other choice phrases such as "malign carbuncles on the body politic." That's a reference to Di Fi (Dianne Feinstein), et al. And there's "a chamber full of posturing tosspots."

'Tosspot' is a general term of abuse that conjures up drunkard and sot. It puts me in mind of pot-valiant. One is correctly so described if one's courage derives from the consumption of spirits.

There is a use for abuse. It is a mistake to think that verbal abuse ought never to be employed.

Hands are best employed in caressing and blessing. But sometimes they need to be balled into fists and rudely applied to the faces of miscreants. 

If one resorts to verbal abuse and invective one does not always thereby betray a paucity of careful thought informed by fact. Verbal abuse has a legitimate use in application to the self-enstupidated, the willfully ignorant, and those out for power alone regardless of truth and morality. 

It is not reasonable to think that all are amenable to the dulcet tones of sweet reason; some need to be countered with the hard fist of unreason.  

On the other side of the question, one should never resort to invective if one is trying to persuade a reasonable person. One should proceed as calmly as possible.  Any resort to billingsgate will cause the interlocutor to assume that one lacks good reasons.  

...................

If you studied the above properly you will probably have learned three or four new words.

If you have a large vocabulary you will love my blog; if you don't, you need it.

Publishing Slang: Graf

Paragraph. Example:

I know y’all are worn out by all my takes on the Catholic abuse scandal, but if you can stand it, Megan McArdle’s column on it is worth reading. This graf jumped out at me:

Political Jargon: Entryism

From the New Statesman:

The founding example of entryism was provided by Leon Trotsky and the “French turn”. In 1934, the Russian revolutionary persuaded his supporters to dissolve the Communist League into the Socialist Party in order to maximise their influence. The term has since been applied to any group that enters a larger organisation with the intention of subverting its policies and objectives. 

Labour’s most notable experience of entryism came with the Trotskyist Militant, which won control of the party’s youth wing (Labour Party Young Socialists) and a number of constituency parties. After its proscription by the National Executive Committee in 1982, hundreds of the group’s members were expelled during Neil Kinnock’s leadership, including two MPs (Terry Fields and Dave Nellist). Len McCluskey, the Unite general secretary, was a Militant supporter though never formally joined. 

“Operation Ice Pick” was the name given to Labour’s efforts to prevent entryists from voting in the 2015 leadership election, after the means of assassination used against Trotsky. Those barred included members of the Socialist Party, the successor group to Militant. The pro-Corbyn organisation Momentum has similarly banned outsiders from joining after MPs warned that it could become a vehicle for entryism. 

Usage

Responding to charges of infiltration, Jeremy Corbyn said: "The entryism I see is lots of young people who were hitherto not very excited by politics, coming in for the first time."

Ice pick? How many times do I have to explain that it was an ICE AXE, a much nastier implement, that Ramon Mercader drove into the skull of Leon Trotsky on 20 August 1940.  Wikipedia: "On 20 August 1940, Trotsky was attacked in his study by Mercader, who used an ice axe as a weapon.^[137] "

Phrase of the Day: 'London to a Brick'

I just now encountered this strange expression in Graham Oppy's review of Owen Anderson's, The Clarity of God's Existence: The Ethics of Belief after the Enlightenment. The phrase occurs in this passage:

On the one hand, given that Anderson insists that he cannot be satisfied with ‘a sound proof that is extremely difficult to understand and that is knowable by only a few’ (123), it seems clear that his ‘program’ is bound to fail: for surely it is London to a brick that, if his ‘program’ could be successfully carried out, it would yield a proof that is ‘extremely difficult to understand and knowable only by a few’.

The phrase, apparently not in use in the U. K., is Australian and New Zealand slang for 'it is certain.' Explanation here.

Propaganda

Despite the term's largely pejorative connotation, propaganda is not by definition false or misleading or harmful. Propaganda is anything of a verbal or pictorial nature that is propagated to influence behavior.  Propaganda can consist of truths or falsehoods, good advice or bad, exhortation to good behavior or subornation of bad. Anti-smoking and anti-drug messaging are propaganda but the messages are salutary.  Leftist propaganda is destructive while conservative propaganda inspires ameliorative action.

Here is a very good collection of visual propaganda from yesteryear.

Phrase of the Day: 'Infra Dig'

I just came across the following sentence in Charles R. Kesler's Claremont Review of Books article, Thinking about Trump:

It is not entirely clear whether his liberal and conservative critics disapprove of Trump because he violates moral law or because he is infra dig.

The 'infra dig' threw me for a moment until I realized it was a popularization of infra dignitatem, 'beneath (one's) dignity.' According to this source, Sir Water Scott in 1825 was the first to use the abbreviation.

I was taught to italicize foreign expressions, which is precisely what the good professor did not do in the sentence quoted. Where's my red pen?

As for the content of the sentence quoted, it is tolerably clear to me that the Never Trumpers (who are of course conservatives of a sort by definition) despise Trump mainly because the man has no class and is therefore infra dignitatem. He is not one of them. He does not have the manners and breeding of a Bill Kristol or a George Will and the rest of the effete, yap-and-scribble, but do nothing, bow-tie brigade.  He is an outsider and an interloper who threatens their privileges and perquisites.  Better Hillary and the status quo than a shake-up and take-on of the Deep State and its enablers.

On the other hand, leftists, most of them anyway, don't give a damn about the moral law as it pertains to marital fidelity and sexual behavior with the possible exception of rape. These types don't object to Trump because of locker-room talk and affairs. After all, they tolerate it in themselves and their heroes such as the Kennedy's, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bill Clinton. What they are doing is right out of Saul Alinksy's Rules for Radicals, in particular, #4: "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules."  

Nor do Leftists much care that Trimp is infra dig. What leftists object to are his policies and programs, but instead of addressing them, they attack the man for failing to honor values that they themselves do not accept so as to discredit him among his supporters. 

Word of the Day: Nychthemeron

You may have noticed that 'day' is ambiguous: it can refer to a 24-hour period or to the non-nocturnal portion of a 24-hour period. The ambiguity spreads to the Latin injunction, Carpe diem! Does it include Carpe noctem! or exclude it? Does one seize the night when one seizes the day?

Or perhaps neither: to seize the day is to make good use of the present, whatever its duration, whether it be an hour, a day, a week.  A nychthemeron, from the Greek nyktos (night) and hemera (day) is a  period of 24 hours, a night and a day. Sleep researchers distinguish the nychthemeral from the circadian. According to Michael Quinion, "Circadian refers to daily cycles that are driven by an internal body clock, while nychthemeral rhythms are imposed by the external environment."

The use of the word is illustrated in this magnificent sentence from  The Neglected Argument for the Reality of God by the great American philosopher, C. S. Peirce: "The dawn and the gloaming most invite one to Musement; but I have found no watch of the nychthemeron that has not its own advantages for the pursuit."

'Gloaming' is another one of those beautiful old poetic words that we conservatives must not allow to fall into desuetude. Use it or lose   it. It means twilight.

Word of the Day: 'Inennarable'

I stumbled upon this word on p. 140 of John Williams' 1965 novel, Stoner.  (Don't let the title of this underappreciated masterpiece put you off: it is not about a stoner but about a professor of English, surname 'Stoner.')

Williams puts the following words in the mouth of Charles Walker, "Confronted as we are by the mystery of literature, and by its inenarrable power, we are behooved to discover the source of the power and mystery."

As you might have  guessed, 'inenarrable'  means: incapable of being narrated, untellable, indescribable, ineffable, unutterable, unspeakable, incommunicable.  One would apply this high-falutin' word to something of a lofty nature, the hypostatic union, say, and not to some miserable sensory quale such as the smell of sewer gas.

Serendipitously, given recent Christological inquiries, I just now came across the word in this passage from Cyril of Alexandria:

We affirm that different are the natures united in real unity, but from both comes only one Christ and Son, not that because of the unity the difference of the natures is eliminated, but rather because divinity and humanity, united in unspeakable and inennarrable unity, produced for us One Lord and Christ and Son.

Word of the Day: Conurbation

"An extended urban area, typically consisting of several towns merging with the suburbs of one or more cities." See here.

You weren't taught Latin in high school? Then you were cheated by 'progressive' idiots. But if you were taught, then you know that the Latin  for 'city' is urbs, urbis. Knowing this, you are in a position reasonably to guess the meaning of our word of the day. And knowing a little Latin, you will be helped in your understanding of 'suburban' and 'urbane' and 'urbicide.' 

Example:

By the mid-1960s, the character of the region was changing rapidly. A carpet of housing subdivisions, shopping malls, parking lots, freeways, and gas stations was being rolled out from LA. Soon the orange groves and bean fields disappeared, and Orange County became one vast undifferentiated conurbation. It was difficult to tell when you left one town and entered another. 

By the way, the author, the philosopher Lee Hardy, is a good writer as witness his "mid-1960s," with no apostrophe. But an apostrophe is needed in the following: 'mid-'60s.' I also invite you to notice that when I am quoting someone I use double quotation marks, but when I am mentioning an expression, or using an expression in an extended sense, I use single quotation marks. I warmly recommend my conventions inasmuch as they are eminently rational. But you are free to disagree without fear of being shot.

Long before I became a Phoenician, I was a Los Angeleno. So I know something about conurbation. Luckily, I live at the far Eastern edge of the Phoenix metropolitan region, right up against the Superstition Wilderness where conubation hereabouts stops, Gott sei dank.

As that great American Henry David Thoreau once said, in the pages of The Atlantic (June 1862) when that magazine was worth reading, in his essay "Walking," 

The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild; and what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World.

Again and again, people who cannot read what is on the page substitute 'wilderness' for 'wildness.' People see what they want to see, or expect to see. Here is an example of double butchery I found recently:

In wilderness is the preservation of Mankind.

(Warren Macdonald, A Test of Will, Greystone Books, 2004, p. 145.) 

Word of the Day: Cack-Handed

British. 1. Left-handed; 2. clumsy, awkward. See here.

Example:

“Rape is a crime, but trying to seduce someone, even persistently or cack-handedly, is not – nor is men being gentlemanly a macho attack,” said the letter published in the newspaper Le Monde.

I'm with Catherine Deneuve and Christina Hoff Sommers on this one.  Real women know how to handle obnoxious men: with a stern warning or a slap across the face.  They don't go crying to their feminist mommies. And real men accept the rebuke.

The Left has lost its collective mind (hive mind?) on this as on so many other issues.  You are one stupid and/or vile leftist if you cannot or will not distinguish among: a bit of old-fashioned gallantry, a risqué  joke, the use of an offensive term such as 'broad,' a pat on the derriere, a Frankenian ass grab, a Weinsteinian manipulation, a full-on Clintonian sexual assault, and rape.

To conflate all of these behaviors under the umbrella 'sexually inappriopriate' shows the typical liberal/left incapacity to draw necessary distinctions as well as an inappropriate use of 'inappropriate.'  

More on Deneuve & Co. at NYT.

Of 'Whither' and 'Whence'

I had a teacher in the fifth grade who, when one of us inappropriately wandered off, would query, "Whither goest thou?" alluding, as I did not realize at the time, to the Gospel of John (13:36):

Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards.

'Whither' means to where just as 'whence' mean from where. (Please avoid the pleonasm of 'from whence.') The distinction is obliterated by the promiscuous use of 'where' for both. That cannot be good from a logical point of view. It is therefore right and fitting and conducive unto clarity that my favorite antediluvian curmudgeon, the Laudator Temporis Acti, should complain:

The use of whither is withering away in English, alas, just like whence, although both words usefully distinguish notions that we now force where alone to bear, e.g. in the New International Version of John 13.36:

Simon Peter asked him, "Lord, where are you going?" Jesus replied, "Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later."