Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Ergastularies

Meaning: workhouses, although I like to think that Sir Thomas uses it more as we would 'factory'; it's related to the Latin for a house for slaves or other workers on an estate (ergastula).

Usefulness: 1 (This is what I'm calling my office from now on, and I quite like my job. Also handy to refer to those vast soul-destroying office 'parks')

Logofascination: 1 (all 0 degree words get 1; here Sir Thomas has Anglicised a Latin term - ergastulary, rather than the ergastulum/a/i. This word is referred to so little that it's not even in the OED, something I will be suggesting they rectify.)

In the wild: No.

Degrees: 0

Connections: n/a

Used inLogopandecteision, Introduction, 19, in which Sir Thomas discusses the many noble things he would do if only  his creditors, the 'barbarous obstructors', would allow it:
"I would ere now have banished all idleness from the commons, maintained several thousands of persons of both sexes, from the infant to the decrepit age, found employments proportionable to their abilities ... erected ergastularies for keeping at work many hundreds of persons in divers kindes of manufactures".

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