Heterotopia

Meaning: "places and spaces that function in non-hegemonic conditions." Wikipedia helpfully continues: "neither here nor there." It's not in the OED yet, probably because Foucalt is totes post-modern. We all know that's dead, but aren't quite sure what to call this bit yet, so best not take him too seriously*.

Logofascination: 2 (Other-place is not that interesting etymologically, but gets points for not being in the OED.  This word is not merely in books, it's in book titles, and they haven't noticed?)

In the wild: a piece on the romance and pragmatism of the under-appreciated jetbridge. If you're a travel tragic, you'll also want to read Geoff Lemon on airports (and jetbridges) as ritual magic, or maybe even an old piece of mine on airports as liminal spaces. Yes, I wish I'd come up with heterotopia and the idea of flying as sacrament too. 

Usefulness: 2 (Discuss: airports and shopping centres should have enough otherness to make you dissociate from realities like your bank balance, but not enough to induce psychosis.)


*in my spare room, a BA just disintegrated.

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If there are any of you still playing along at home, I've dusted off the cobwebs and am intending to try out some new posting formats.

I consider my Six Degrees theorem well and truly proven, but I still hoard words and would like to share them with you. I also hoard links to long-form pieces, so there'll be a bit of that snuck in along the way. Finally, my secret goal (less secret now, I suppose) of compiling an Urquhartian concordance also still exists; I'd like to try and bring you a word a week. The promise of a blogger is worth its weight in posts, so we shall see how that goes. If any of you aren't robots, (or my mother) I really would like to know what you think. (Although mum's feedback is always good too.)

Live from Cromarty

In the midst of the all the not-blogging I've been doing lately, there's been a bit of travel, and I've had the great joy of spending today in Cromarty.  I'm staying in Ardyne House; from my bedroom window I can see the Sutors (headlands), which feature in Sir Thomas' encomium of Cromarty and its Firth:

I have, or at least had, before I was sequestred, a certain harbour or bay, in goodness equal to the best in the world ... promontaries on each side, vulgarly called Souters ...  ten thousand ships together may within it ride in the greatest tempest that is as in a calm; 

The Souters from Ardyne House

Sir Thomas wasn't exaggerating (well, not as much as usual): Cromarty Firth is very large. Over time it has held various Navy ships, and still holds several oil-rigs in various states of (dis)repair. Cromarty has had several booms (hemp, herring, oil), but never quite reached what Sir Thomas claimed he could do:

By which means, the foresaid town of Cromarty, for so it is called, in a very short space, would have easily become the richest of any within threescore miles thereof; 

Here are a few photos from around the village (a lovely spot in its own right); I'll eventually put together a definitive guide for the Sir Thomas pilgrimage.

Ekskybalauron engraving at the Stables

Sir Thomas in the Cromarty timeline

Sir Thomas in the Urquhart family tree,
displayed in the East Church

Common on graves in Cromarty; experts say they're symbols of death
and nothing to do with pirates, but I have my doubts...

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.

Hoghenhine

Meaning: a house-guest who stays three nights or more; in times past, after the third night the host had the same legal responsibility for them as for any other member of their household.

Usefulness: 1 (I've had house-guests* almost every day this year, and they all stayed at least three nights. I wish I'd known I could have called them hoghenhines.)

Logofascination: 1 (Etymologically, it's a bastardisation of Middle English aȝen hine or oȝen hine - own servant.  There is something appealing in the notion that ancient laws held that three nights was enough to know someone. In a few word books, it has jumped from the legal responsibility for a guest - as for one of your household - to popular definitions like 'one of the family', or 'a member of one's family'.)

In the wild: Mrs Byrne lists it as agenhina, "a guest at an inn who, after having stayed for three nights, was considered one of the family". Karl Hagen does rather a good job of correcting this, although he fails to locate the source of her reference to an inn. Here we turn to historymike who quotes more of the original source than the OED does; The Country Justice says that agenhina "is used in ancient Saxon Laws for him that cometh to an Inne guest-wise".  To give Mrs Byrne her due, she traced her words to original sources wherever possible, and considering she worked on her dictionary during the 1950s and 1960s while touring as a concert pianist, I think she can be forgiven. I do wonder at Eric McKean's "a member of one's family" (Weird and Wonderful Words, 2002), although it is qualified with "chiefly in legal contexts". Even the OED adds "a member of a household; a dependant" to the definition, the semi-colons suggesting additional meanings. There are no citations for these, though, and certainly none for its use to denote a member of one's family. It seems to be one of those words whose usefulness and potential for expanded meanings appeals more to lexicographers than to the populace.

Lacunose

Meaning: having many gaps or hiatuses; used particularly of manuscripts.

Usefulness: 1 (If one were, say, attempting to describe an unexplained gap in blog posts, or a particularly patchy period of posting.)

Logofascination: 1 (Lacuna, meaning a gap in a manuscript - and a number of other things - is from the Latin lacūna, the diminutive of lacus, lake. From lacus we also get lagoon, originally used of pools of water around Venice - Captain Cook was the first to apply it to tropical destinations.)

In the wild: In my apology for being so terribly lacunose? Mind you, I make no rash promises of reformation, but I shall attempt to warn you of any looming lacunae. No lagoons were involved in this one, sadly.

Irredentist

Meaning: with a lower-case i, someone who advocates seizing territory back* from another nation or state. With a capital, a member of a 19th century Italian political party which advocated the annexation of Italian-speaking districts from surrounding nations.

Usefulness: 2 (Slightly abstruse, but you'll get points from the politically inclined. Could be useful if you were interviewing Diego Marani, who likes to discuss the attempts of nation-states to co-opt language as identity and/or delineator of borders, and the way that the EU is - possibly - undoing that. Podcast here, or interview here. He's also attempted a universal language, albeit a Euro-centric one.)

Logofascination: 2 (From the Italian for 'unredeemed', as in 'unredeemed Italy'.)

In the wild: A Washington Post blogpost on the issues with a study that supposedly mapped 'racial tolerance'.

Vocitated

Meaning: named or called.

Usefulness: 2 (It strikes me as a satisfyingly annoying way to ask someone's name "And what are you vocitated, old chap?" or introduce yourself: "I am occasionally vocitated as The Antipodean.")

Logofascination: 1 (The English version was invented by Sir Thomas, who is the sole citation in the OED.)

In the wild: Occasionally; someone's already taken it as a Twitter handle, worse luck.