{"id":3746,"date":"2020-03-28T12:11:50","date_gmt":"2020-03-28T16:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/?p=3746"},"modified":"2020-03-28T12:16:06","modified_gmt":"2020-03-28T16:16:06","slug":"foreign-terms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/?p=3746","title":{"rendered":"Foreign kickshaws"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reconsidering the books on the shelves spawns lots of unexpected thoughts and realizations, and the occasional Grand Scheme surfaces too. Today I’m considering these two, which are perfect “bathroom books” for short-term browsing:<\/p>\n

\nDictionary of foreign terms<\/b><\/a> by Christopher Orlando Sylvester Mawson [originally 1934, mine the 1975 Second Edition]<\/p>\n

\nThe Dictionary of Foreign Terms in the English Language<\/b><\/a> by David Carroll [1973]<\/p>\n

\nMany of the words and phrases in these dictionaries are mots justes<\/i>, perfect\/pithy expressions of a thought: in Carroll:<\/p>\n

The proper word; the exact appropriate word or saying for the situation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and in Mawson:<\/p>\n

The precise (or exact) word.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Their use in text or speech marks the writer or speaker as a sophisticate [OED: Of a person: free of naïvety, experienced, worldly-wise; subtle, discriminating, refined, cultured; aware of, versed in, the complexities of a subject or pursuit], of the cognoscente: [OED Etymology: < Italian cognoscente, Latinized form of conoscente<\/i> knowing man, connoisseur < Latin cognōscent-em , present participle of cognōscěre to know, etc.]. The sort of person who refers to self as “One” …
\nand reading through a page or two at a time is an excellent way to enlarge one’s sense of what languages do<\/i> with their basic building blocks. I mean:<\/p>\n

muscae volitantes<\/b> [L.] Flying flies, i.e., strange floating spots and lines that play across the field of vision due to clusters of cellular material that collects in the vitreous humor of the eyes.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

mortuo leoni et lepores insultant<\/b> [L.] Even the rabbits insult a dead lion.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

interdum vulgus rectum videt<\/b> [L.] Occasionally even the vulgar crowd sees things clearly.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

cave quid dicis, quando, et cui<\/b> Beware what you say, when, and to whom.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Somewhere along the line I picked up the phrase “natty Latinism”, referring to examples of the propensity of the over-educated to add bits of Latin as decorations in speech and writing. Strangely, Google has no<\/i> instances of that delicious phrase. <\/p>\n

\nHere’s part of the Preface to Mawson:

<\/center>
\nand two pages of entries, the first providing an education in the flexibility of faire<\/i>, and the latter offering a run around the block with qui<\/i> and quod<\/i>:
\n

\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/center>
\nOne is somehow a Better Person for the time spent with these dictionaries, but perhaps is more insuffereable to subsequent interlocutors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reconsidering the books on the shelves spawns lots of unexpected thoughts and realizations, and the occasional Grand Scheme surfaces too. Today I’m considering these two, which are perfect “bathroom books” for short-term browsing: Dictionary of foreign terms by Christopher Orlando Sylvester Mawson [originally 1934, mine the 1975 Second Edition] The Dictionary of Foreign Terms in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,9,33,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biblio","category-language","category-lexicon","category-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3746"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3748,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3746\/revisions\/3748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}