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Rhapsody, Wrap & Scrotal Raphe   Educated North Americans know the word in the title of composer George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” a brilliant effort to translate jazz riffs and motifs into orchestral concert form, a musical rhapsody on the sounds and feelings of New York City living, everything from squawking taxi klaxons to the exultant joy of skyscraper viewing, to spinning in the Scylla and Charybdis of Manhattan’s whirling, oceanic Roaring Twenties. Rhapsody as a free-form single composition or fantasia based on some Romantic inspirational topic belongs to German and English musical criticism of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, for example Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsodies” or Delius’ rhapsody “Brigg Fair” based on an older English folk-tune. But the word harks all the way back to Homer where a rhapsodist was one who stitched songs together and recited or chanted them for an audience, thrumming a lyre as he intoned the tale.   Varieties of plucked-string instruments in ancient Greece   This stitching word fits perfectly with the mode of acquisition of tales that eventually produced the Odyssey. Scholars now think each episode of Odysseus’ wonderful travel tales may have begun as a factual, realistic account of some extraordinary happening passed as oral history around a distant Hellenic campfire. Soon bards seized these adventure stories, transformed and improved them adding wonder, magic and awe, then stitched them together as a rhapsody (Greek rhaptein ’to sew’) into a longer narrative whose theme in the Odyssey was a nostos (Greek ‘a set of daring adventures lived through on a long voyage home.’ These ancient rhapsodists cast the derring-do of the hero into poetic metre and commenced, slowly through generations, to produce what we possess today: one of the great polished epics of humanity, to sit beside our reverence for Homer, who was, as another poet, Tennyson, said of Roman Virgil, “wielder of the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips of man.” Ancient Greek ῥαψῳδία rhapsoidia ‘epic poem recitation at one hearing and sitting’ is literally a weaving together of different songs, from ῥάπτειν rhaptein ‘to sew, stitch together’ + ἀοιδή or ᾠδή aōidē or oide ‘ode, song’ from the verb ἀείδειν aeiden ‘to sing.’ Cognate words include Greek rhepein ‘to bend,’ rhapis ‘rod,’ the Viking word orf ‘handle of a scythe,’ Old High German worf ‘handle of scythe’ and Lithuanian verpti ‘to spin.’ Cognate in a Modern Anatomical Name A related form that appears in Modern English includes the anatomical term raphe ‘seam, suture’ from ancient Greek ῥαϕή cognate with ῥάπτειν rhaptein ‘to sew.’ For example, the seam-like ridge that runs around the scrotum with one testicle on each side of the seam is the scrotal raphe. The scrotal raphe is part of the perineal raphe, visible evidence of humans being bilaterally symmetrical. Wikipedia continues the definition: “In men, this raphe continues through the midline of the scrotum (scrotal raphe) and upwards through the posterior midline aspect of the penis (penile raphe). It is the result of a fetal developmental phenomenon whereby the scrotum (the developmental equivalent of the labia in females) and penis close toward the midline and fuse.” Many a boy — and quite a few girls — have seen the seam-line under the penis. Here’s another informative quotation: “This is called the scrotal raphe and every boy has one which extends from his bum (perineal raphe) up to the tip of his foreskin (penile raphe), though it is more prominent in some boys than others. When you are developing in the womb, you start off with all the cells to make you into a girl. About 7 weeks after conception, the Y chromosome kicks in and this converts your ovaries into testicles. The clitoris and inner labia become your penis and the outer labia fuse together to form your scrotum. The raphe is the seam where these parts fuse together.” That ought to make a few dick-wagging studs quiver! Common English Verb Cognate with Raphe & Rhapsody The Germanic cognate of raphe appears in the common English verb to wrap, seen in Middle English wrappen, in Danish vravle ‘to twist together’ ”), Middle Dutch lappen ‘to wrap up,’ Middle Low German wrempen ‘to wrinkle, scrunch the face,’ and Greek rhaptein ‘to stitch together, to sew,” ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *werp- ‘to turn, wind’ from PIE root *wer-‘to turn, bend.’ So, my wee verbivores, we have journeyed from scrota to epic poetry; and for today, that’s a wrap.               copyright © 2013 William Gordon Casselman     French Canadian Translation Services         Do you know the wordlore of   the C-Word? Eek! Oh, check it out anyway. You'll probaby live. Visit my word blog by clicking the Casselmanual link above.         Click to Read Other Recent Columns   1. Curfew 2. Star Words 3. Digamma: Lost Letter 4. Nomen Est Omen: A Silly Latin Saying 5. Common Once the Opposite of Immune

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Description of Site Contents Bill Casselman's Canadian Word of the Day™ & Words of the World features thousands of entries about Canadian phrases, words, expressions, and folk sayings. Canadian French expressions, idioms and folk sayings are featured and explained in English. The latest, newest French Canadian slang is deciphered. Québécois joual phrases and jokes are explained in English. My newest, latest, unpublished word stories and studies appear here on this website. Canadian English is the focus but English spoken and written all over the world and throughout the history of the language interests me as well. Words of the World spotlights non-Canadian English words and their origins from languages all over the world and permits me to venture on etymological journeys well beyond the pleasant confines of my native Canada.

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