Hircocervus

Meaning: as the OED says "A fabulous creature, half goat, half stag." They are of course using fabulous meaning 'out of fable' but I like the ambiguity.

Usefulness: 2 (Perhaps as an insult? Unless you happen to be haunting the halls of Winchester College, of course.)

Logofascination: 2 (The name is from the Latin for billy-goat and stag; another name is the tragelaph, from the Greek for the same creatures.  The genus to which Kudu belong are called Tragelaphus for this reason.)

In the wild: Michael Quinion found it in Umberto Eco, and has written it up here, and as mentioned in both that and the Wikipedia article, the hircocervus comes to us via philosophy. Plato introduced it as an example* and Aristotle takes it further; if you have the brain-power you can read up on the goat-stag in philosophy here.  It also makes a brief appearance in my favourite passage of The Horologicon; the hircocervus is one of the midnight creatures who gather around.

Visuriency

Meaning: the state of having the desire to see

Usefulness: 1 (Could apply to people visiting opthalmologists, or to the relative appeal of the latest blockbuster: "George Lucas does not inspire visuriency in the public in the way he used to." Or, of course, various aspects of voyeurism.)

Logofascination: 1 (Due to being invented by Sir Thomas; related to video, of course.)

In the wild: Not really, but another of Sir Thomas' words which turns up in The Horologicon.

Tacturiency

Meaning: the state of having the desire to touch

Usefulness: 1 ("Textured fabrics induce a terrible tacturiency in me; I find it hard to resist touching velvet." Or a sign in a shop: "Whatever your tacturiency, please resist.")

Logofascination: 1 (Besides being invented by Sir Thomas for one of his more well-known original passages, this lead to an interesting consideration of the difference between a word ending in ence - tacturience - or ency. I think it's that tacturience is the desire to touch, while tacturiency is being in the state of having that desire. As ever, clarification welcome.)

In the wild: Besides appearing in The Horologicon, it turns up in the usual logofascinated corners of the internet, and also as the name of a rather alternative art project. At least, I think it was art.

Philogrobolized

Meaning: Cotgrave, definining Philogrobolizé du cerveau, or philogrobolized in the brain:

intoxicated, astonied, bedunced, at his wits end.

Usefulness: 1 (Besides that use, there's also the one suggested in The Horologicon: "It conveys a hangover, without ever having to admit that you've been drinking.")

Logofascination: 1 (Sir Thomas brought it into English, and has the only citation in the OED, but Rabelais might've formed this. It's related to metagrobolize - tomorrow's word - and the OED suggests that the philo- is the traditional compound, meaning love, but I suspect that it is meant to suggest philosophy or philosophising; their brains are overcome by too much thinking. I must admit to also being rather fond of the phrase philogrobolized in their brains.)

In the wild: no; the only other uses I've found are in other translations of Rabelais, or, as mentioned, The Horologicon.

Celivagous

Meaning:

Cotgrave: Heaven-faire*; heaven-affecting; wending, or bending, towards heaven. 

The Inky Fool: heavenward-wandering. 

Usefulness: 1 (Either in the spiritual sense, as Rabelais, Cotgrave and Sir Thomas use it, or in the sense used in The Horologicon** of a skyward glance to assess the weather. It's not that useful in Melbourne, where the state of the sky has no correlation to the state of the weather five minutes later.)

Logofascination: 1 (One of the lovely -vagous family of wandering words, as previously mentioned in circumbilivagination.)

Faciendas

Meaning: Sir Thomas helpfully defines this for us:

Faciendas, are the things which are to be done; faciendum is the gerund of facio.

Faciendum and agendum have similar (if not identical*) meanings, but agendum's busy plural moved with the times and assumed a new meaning.

Usefulness: 1 (If you want a short meeting, ask if anyone has any faciendas. Alternatively, The Horologicon suggests facienda as a more interesting name for a to-do list.)

Logofascination: 1 (Etymologically facienda and hacienda are the same word. Note that Sir Thomas adds the English plural s to the already plural Latin word, although he then uses the singular faciendum a few paragraphs later. He's done this before, so I've added a label for his Latin plurals.)

Exergastic

Meaning: etymologically, it's from Greek meaning "tending to work out", but in its original context, Sir Thomas was probably extending a rhetorical term - exergasia - which involves repeating the same idea in different ways.

Usefulness: 1 (If you go with the etymological meaning - the only one provided by the OED - it can be applied to gyms and their frequenters, as suggested in The Horologicon, or used of formulae or budgets: "I never worry too much about my finances, they're basically exergastic." The rhetorical sense is also useful: "Great speech boss; most exergastic.")

Logofascination: 1 (Under exergasia, the OED has a quote suggesting it is imagery from 'polishers of marble', and several definitions over at LEME mention polishing or trimming; repeated images in a speech seem to be likened to a worker in marble, patiently bringing out the patterns within.)

Sir Thomas on the BBC

I'm at a music festival this weekend, so for various technical reasons* there will be no posts this weekend.

I will point out that Sir Thomas got a mention on BBC Radio 4 this week, thanks to The Horologicon being book of the week - quomodocunquize and a quote from Sir Thomas' own works turned up in Wednesday's episode, complete with accent by Hugh Dennis.  Exergastic**, another of Sir Thomas' inventions got a mention in yesterday's, and the passage in which we find hirquitalliency may well turn up in the finale - the rather long first sentence is quoted in the evening hours of the book.


*my not being organised enough to have written any in advance.
**Coming Soon to this blog. 

Quomodocunquizing

Meaning: the OED defines it as "that makes money in any possible way", and points out that it is an expansion of quōmodocumque, Latin for 'in whatever way'. It is italicised in Ekskybalauron, so Sir Thomas - or his typesetter - may have thought of this as a Latin word.

Usefulness: 1 (I'm sure you can manage your own examples for this one.)

Logofascination: 1 (Quomodocunquizing made it into Mark Forsyth's The Horologicon*, a book so logofascinating that it may induce fainting if taken in too large a dose.)