Niagara Falls, Canada, June 30, 1859 — Funambulist Blondin First to Walk Across Niagara Falls on a Tightrope
Today we take a brief vacation from strictly Canadian words. Funis is the Latin word for rope or cord, and several interesting English and Romance Language words descend from it, including some medical terms.
Funis umbilicalis
The formal anatomical name for the umbilical cord is funis umbilicalis. Funic presentation in obstetrics sees the umbilical cord appear before the body of the fetus. Funic souffle (souffle French, a breath) is sometimes heard during fetal stethoscopy as a soft, muffled whooshing sound, the sound of blood flowing through the umbilical vessels in time with the fetal heart beat.
Everybody Sing: Funiculì ! Funiculà !
“Tirato con la fune,” Italian ‘pulled by the rope’
la funicolare Italian ‘funicular railway’ from funiculus Latin, diminutive of funis Latin ‘rope, cord.’ The basic meaning of funiculus is ‘little rope’ from funis + -iculus common Latin diminutive suffix.
Time it is to share a pleasant memory from a trip I made to Italy thirty years ago. In the little harbour at Sorrento, a friend and I embarked on a sleek hydroplane with fifty other passengers on board. Like lacewings we skimmed over the Bay of Naples to the Isle of Capri. Our fellow boat passengers were an entire class of Italian public-school age kids on a holiday excursion from nearby Castellamare di Stabia, singing with gusto a song they had been taught from the cradle, for it was a Neapolitan folk song written and first performed where they lived: “Funiculi, Funicula.”
Funicular car leaves the lower station of Vesuvius circa 1900.
Written in 1880 to celebrate the first funicular railway to ascend the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, the instantly popular song had lyrics by a local journalist Peppino Turco and music by his friend Luigi Denza. Funicular, in its first strict usage, referred to a cable car system in which the weight of an ascending car was counter-balanced by the weight of a descending car. An aerial funicular railway features cars suspended from pulleys that run on an overhead cable.
Here is the original first verse of “Funiculì ! Funiculà !” in the Neapolitan dialect of Italian:
Aieressera, oi' ne', me ne sagliette,
tu saie addo'?
Addo' 'stu core 'ngrato cchiu' dispietto farme nun po'!
Addo' lo fuoco coce, ma si fuie
te lassa sta!
E nun te corre appriesso, nun te struie, 'ncielo a guarda'!...
Jammo 'ncoppa, jammo ja',
funiculi', funicula'!
Do you know where I got on, yesterday evening, babe?
Where your ungrateful heart can't spite me anymore!
Where the fire burns, but if you run away, it lets you go!
And it doesn't run after you, doesn't tire you… look at the sky!
Let’s go on, let’s go, let’s go,
funiculi, funicula!
Funambulist = Tightrope Walker
funis Latin, rope + ambulare Latin ‘to walk’
A rare synonym is funambulator, rope walker. Also from ambulare is the English word pram, a shortened form of perambulator, a vehicle by which babies and infants are perambulated. Per, a Latin preposition and frequent prefix whose basic semantic function is to intensify the meaning of the verbal root, so that, if ambulare means ‘to walk’, then perambulare means ‘to walk thoroughly.’
Spermatic funiculus or spermatic cord
funiculus Latin, diminutive of funis, hence ‘little rope’ funis + -iculus common diminutive suffix
The spermatic funiculus is a cord that suspends the testis within the scrotum, contains the vas deferens and vessels and nerves of the testis, and extends from the internal abdominal ring through the inguinal canal and external abdominal ring downward into the scrotal sac.
Funiculitis is inflammation of the spermatic cord.
Funisitis is an inflammation of the umbilical cord, seen of course in newborns, and associated with congenital herpes virus infection of the mother.
Next at Canadian Word of the Day: Erie is Not That Eerie.
© 2005
More surprising medical-word derivations fill my book.
Order in bookstores or online
Index of The Wording Room
Index of Canadian Word of the Day
Recent Word Entries on this site
HOME
|
