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Collection #3 1. Suppedaneum A suppedaneum was a foot support for someone being crucified. Made of wood it projected out from the vertical board of the crucifix.
This detail of a crucifixion by Giotto depicts a suppedaneum.
Etymology of Suppedaneum Suppedaneum is a Late Latin compound word from sub Latin ‘under’ + pes, pedis Latin ‘foot’ + noun and adjectival suffix ‘-aneus, -anea, -aneum.’ What is a Glottal Stop? What is Assimilation? Why is the form suppedaneum with two p's instead of a more logical form like *subpedaneum ? Because of a speaking process that linguists call assimilation. When the prefix sub was put in front of a Latin word root that began with m, r, c, f, g and p, the /b/ in sub usually changed into the first letter of the root word. This assimilation appears in Latin-derived English words like succeed, suffer, suggest, summon, suppose and surrogate. In quick Latin speech, the /b/ in sub was influenced by the /p/ in front of it. Both sounds are plosives. This is exceedingly common in Latin compound words. It is far easier to turn the /b/ into a /p/ than to try to pronounce both the /b/ and the /p/. In order to do this, the speaker actually has to introduce a new consonant into the word, namely a glottal spot. When one says aloud the words, “sub park,” one must open and close the glottis in order to produce two puffs of air to sound both the /b/ and the /p/. That is a glottal stop or voiceless glottal plosive. In some dialects, a glottal spot actually replaces the letter. Think of the British Cockney pronunciation of bottle. One seldom hears a /t/ sound. Instead Cockney bottle sounds like buh-ul. In some languages the glottal stop is actually a letter of the alphabet, for example, in Arabic. The International Phonetic Alphabet or IPA has a symbol to represent a glottal stop. Based on a letter in the Arabic alphabet representing one of the Arabic stops, the IPA glottal stop symbol looks like a question mark without its bottom dot.
2. Mentum Mentum is the Latin and current international medical term for the human chin. Mentum ‘chin’ has a rare adjective mental, which is sometimes confused with the adjective mental ‘pertaining to the mind’ from Latin mens, mentis ‘mind.’ This mentum is actually related to the Indo-European root that gives also the common English word mouth. The mentum that signifies chin is not related to mens, mentis ‘mind.’ Adjectivally speaking, there are 2 separate words spelled m-e-n-t-a-l. One refers to the mind, the other to the chin.
Mentoplasty is any cosmetic surgical procedure designed to change the shape of the chin to better match the rest of the patient’s facial proportion. Genioplasty, a rarer term for the same procedure, uses the Greek word for chin instead of the Latin one. Γéνειον (geneion) is the ancient Greek word for chin. The Indo-European base whose Latin reflex was mentum ‘chin’ also gives cognates like modern German Mund ‘mouth’ and Danish mund and Icelandic munnur ‘mouth.’ The Proto-Indo-European root has a prime meaning of ‘jut out, project over or threaten.’
3. Orthoepist An orthoepist is a linguist who specializes in the correct pronunciation of the sounds of a particular language. She or he is one who practices orthoepy – strict pronunciation. Etymology of Orthoepist Orthoepist = orthos ‘straight, correct, upright’ + epos ‘word’ + -istes common Greek agent noun suffix that means ‘one who [verb]’ In ancient Greek, epos also had a collective meaning of ‘narrative’ or ‘chanted song.’ Epikos, its adjective, gives us both the adjective epic and the noun epic. The two great epics of Greek literature are the Iliad and the Odyssey.
4. Knisper?
The sound made by Rice Crispies, the breakfast cereal, is, in English “Snap! Crackle! Pop!” In German and Dutch, it is “Knisper! Knasper! Knusper! ®” From Kellogg’s publicity copy: “The words, Snap! Crackle! Pop!®, first appeared on boxes of Kellogg’s Rice Krispies® cereal in 1932 and the characters appeared in 1933 to personify the sounds of the food.
5. Human Anatomy: The Membranous Labyrinth In human anatomy, the membranous labyrinth is a network of three little ducts filled with fluid which hang down inside the semicircular canals of the inner ear. These ducts sway gently and touch one another as the human body and head move. Part of our sense of balance is created and fine-tuned as the membranous labyrinth sways.
inner ear with normal membranous labyrinth shown in blue
λαβύρινθος
Roman mosaic from Rhaetia in Switzerland shows Theseus and the minotaur inside a maze
membrana — tissue that covers a body part labyrinthos — Greek, a maze, but the word was first applied to a maze under a royal palace on the island of Crete.
So old is the word labyrinth that it is pre-Greek. It existed, perhaps in a pre-Greek “Pelasgian” language, before the Dorians invaded Greece bringing an early Hellenic horse culture with them. Root # 1: Labrys A labrys was a kind of axe in ancient Greece and Egypt with two blades, so Root # 2: -Inthos The second element in labyrinth is –inthos, a pre-Greek Pelasgian locative meaning ‘place of___’ seen in pre-Greek place names like Corinth. Currant = Corinth Incidentally, our currant, a dried fruit prepared from a seedless grape grown in the Levant, owes its name to Corinth. The chewy cookery ingredient was once, in Old French, raisin de Corauntz, ‘raisin of Corinth,’ corrupted to currant by the English, who could never speak French. The Labyrinth in Myth & Reality Ruins of a palace bearing emblems of the double-axe have been found at Knossos on Crete. Part of the legend of the minotaur and its maze built by mythical Daedalus arose as folktales about this great palace. Herewith a few Wikipedia words about that ancient maze: "In Greek mythology, the labyrinth was an elaborate structure constructed for King Minos of Crete under his palace at Knossos (the beautiful dolphin room is shown below) and designed by the legendary The term labyrinth is often used interchangeably with maze, but modern scholars of the subject use a stricter definition. For them, a maze is a tour puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage with choices of path and direction; while a single-path or (unicursal labyrinth has only a single Eulerian path to the center. A labyrinth has an unambiguous through-route to the center and back and is not designed to be difficult to navigate.
Bullriders, from a design at the palace of Knossos on the island of Crete This unicursal design was wide-spread in artistic depictions of the Minotaur's labyrinth,even though both logic and literary descriptions of it make it clear that the Minotaur was trapped in a multicursal maze."
6. Pogonotrophy = πωγωνοτροφíα Pogonotrophy is the growing of a beard. It's a word borrowed directly from the writings of the Hellenistic Greek historian Plutarch, where πωγωνοτροφíα is made up of two Greek components πωγων pogon ‘beard’ + τροφíα trophia ‘nourishment, growing, feeding.’ The literal meaning of muscular dystrophy means the muscles are not fed properly. If a body part suffers atrophy, it withers because its cells are not fed (common Greek negative prefix a+ root).
Other words with pogon include the name of a genus of beautiful flowering perennials, Ophiopogon or snakesbeard. Ophis is one of the ancient Greek words for snake.
Copyright © 2008 William Gordon Casselman
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is the IPA Symbol of a Glottal Stop 
that the word labyrinthos means literally ‘the place of the double-axe.’ A Cretan double-ax is shown at the right. 
artificer Daedalus to hold the Minotaur, a creature that was half man and half bull and which was eventually killed by the Athenian hero Theseus. Daedalus had made the labyrinth so cunningly that he himself could barely escape it after he built it. 
