Antique mental furnishings, Part I

When I visited Oxford, a couple of weeks ago, I made the acquaintance of Ammon Shea, the author of Reading the OED. For his book, Ammon (whose name rhymes with "backgammon," he tells me -- funny how even in print it's hard to get past words and names that one doesn't know how to pronounce) plumbed the dictionary's depths and brought back an assortment of obscure but interesting words.

Ammon would like to see some of these antiques restored and put to use again -- an idea that has a lot of appeal in this recycling-conscious era. Word Fugitives, of course, specializes in shiny new words custom-made to meet current needs; Ammon's is a different approach to the same problems. I challenged Ammon to find old words that would fulfill some recent Word Fugitives requests. Here's one, with more to come in the days ahead:

Sarah Selzer, of Phoenix, writes: "If you hibernate to stay warm during the winter, what do you call it when you stay inside during the summer to stay cool?"

Ammon Shea replies: "Speaking for myself, I call it common sense, never having understood the urge that overtakes so much of humanity and causes them to suffer the afflictions of crowds, beaches, picnics, and the like in the summer.  The OED, however, would likely call it æstivation, which they define as 'The act of remaining dormant or torpid during the dry season, or extreme heat of summer; summer-sleep.  Opposed to hibernation.'"

Comments

Mad props for this! Learning an obscure word that already exists gives a thrill of discovery. For whatever reason (a stern lecture at an impressionable age?), I always find intentional coinages _a la_ Fugitives to be irksomely precious.

Posted by davey | October 27, 2008 11:51 AM

In Iceland the official policy for any new thing that enters their mindspace is to resurrect an old word instead of adopting the foreign word.

So for instance, when computer monitors came along they searched the lexicon and found an ancient word describing an animal bladder stretched over a frame to create a window. The old word was out of use so they decreed that computer monitors would bear that name from now on.

Posted by Hank Horsey | October 27, 2008 11:08 PM

Could an Icelander kindly confirm or deny Hank's account? No offense, Hank, but (assuming anything involving ancient Icelandic and animal bladders can be called "urban," however loosely) that sounds like an urban legend.

Posted by BARBARA WALLRAFF | October 28, 2008 4:20 PM

Quite possible, Barbara. I think I picked up this account from a documentary or newscast in which they interviewed an Icelandic official. He recounted the bladder example with some pride so I'm willing to bet that the anecdote is accurate (or close) if not the policy in general.

Posted by Hank Horsey | October 28, 2008 4:51 PM

At the risk of commandeering this thread in the service of a Hogdmanesque "More Icelandic Information than You Require", I have another installment.

Google to the rescue! It turns out that my account of the policy is accurate (at least, if you consider Wikipedia an upgrade over an urban legend) but that I owe the good people of Iceland an apology: a "skjar" (video monitor) is no quondam animal bladder but the amniotic sac of a calf. Clearly (!) a better window medium than a bladder.

Would it be unkind to speculate whether the Icelandic Language Institute might have better deployed their regulatory talents in, say, the banking sector?

Posted by Hank Horsey | October 28, 2008 5:30 PM